Instructor: Meagan Malone

Have you ever asked questions like: How does music impact, influence, and define Birmingham? What is the connection between the people in Birmingham and the kinds of music they produce? How do Birmingham natives use music to express their feelings—good, bad, mixed—about the city, and what effect does that music have on the city itself?

If these questions have been on your mind, register for EH203! In the course, we will dive into Birmingham's music scene, past and present, researching through readings, archives, interviews, and observations (that's code for GO SEE LIVE MUSIC, REPORT BACK). We'll consider the role of public writing in the life of a city, and we'll learn some techniques for how to write about music. Finally, you'll each get to focus on an area of interest and compose your own answers to one of these questions.

Get ready to explore Birmingham’s diverse music scene—from jazz to indie rock to rap—and find your voice in the rhythm of the city.

Instructor: Lauren Slaughter

This course is an introduction to the practice of creative writing, with a focus on flash fiction and flash creative nonfiction. "Flash" refers to writing in short forms, usually between 250 and 2,000 words.

*Note: This class will not cover poetry.

Instructor: Kerry Madden-Lunsford

This course is an introduction to the practice and craft of creative writing. Since it is an introductory course, you will have the opportunity to focus on different genres of creative writing. From the nuts & bolts of fiction to mining your life for material in creative nonfiction to looking at the language of poetry, we will be discussing, writing, and workshopping all genres of creative writing.

We will use writing prompts to spark the plot, character, setting, and story. We will have mini-intensive online workshops, including creative nonfiction, poetry, screenwriting, playwriting, and picture book writing. You will get to explore your voices as writers and discover the stories you want to tell. Guest speakers will also drop in from time to time to talk about their work as professional writers.

Instructor: Anamaria Santiago

We’ve come a long way from the moral panic induced by comics in the 1930s, when literary gatekeepers denigrated comics as a lesser form, dangerous for literacy and intellectual development. Now, of course, we know that the graphic narrative medium—less pretentiously, comics—is sophisticated storytelling that is not only worthy of study but also especially adept at tackling the ‘big questions’ we so value in the humanities.

. In this discussion and analysis-heavy course we’ll examine how a variety of graphic narratives use visual language (signs) and the comics form (sequencing) to generate textual meaning (sense). We’ll review the history, evolution, and cultural significance of the form and read celebrated classics as well as contemporary texts spanning from fantasy and sci-fi to historical fiction and autobiography. We’ll see how diverse authors have used the form to explore a multitude of topics, from war and violence to identity and relationships.

p>Students should bring to this course the expectations they have of any other 200-level literature course, as we will rely on close reading, analysis, and theory to better understand and appreciate the basics of the genre.

Instructor: Dan Butcher

Though often portrayed as a single, unified group, the LGBTQ+ community is filled with diverse—and sometimes competing—voices. We will examine fiction, creative nonfiction, graphic literature, poetry, and social media as we explore queer identities and queer experiences in writings by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, nonbinary, and asexual authors. Along the way we will learn some queer history and consider the impact of social and institutional forces on queer lives—as well as the ways that queer lives can impact society and institutions.

Whether you are gay, straight, ally, or simply curious, this course is designed as an introduction to LGBTQ+ literature and issues. Students need bring only a willingness to read carefully, discuss openly, and think carefully about the topics and texts at hand.

Instructor: Anamaria Santiago

In “Minding Make Believe—Approaches to Children’s, Middle Grade, and YA Literature” we’ll examine what constitutes children’s literature and how the genre has evolved over time. What topics are or have been considered appropriate subject matter for work written for or about children, and who are the gatekeepers who decide? Should children’s literature consist of pretend worlds of fantastical, low-stakes fun, or should it impart no-nonsense wisdom and guide children into adulthood?

In this class, we will explore, through close reading, discussion, and writing, a broad range of works written primarily for children and adolescents (with a possible detour into young adult territory). We will encounter multiple genres of classic and contemporary texts—from picture books to novels—while examining their historical and social contexts as well as the beliefs about childhood and children that inform them.

Instructor: Dan Butcher

Since 2020, book challenges have increased exponentially across the United States, with more than 4200 different books challenged in 2023. In this course we will read a mix of older and recent works that have been banned in public schools and public libraries. Our texts will range from children’s and young adult books to graphic novels as well as music lyrics and videos. We will also look at the history of book bans in the US and the groups and ideologies behind recent bans. The texts for this course touch on a variety of topics including gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, Black Lives Matter, poverty, politics, #MeToo, and cultural appropriation.

Instructor: Danny Siegel

In this course students will learn the essential elements of literary scholarship, including research methods, interpretive strategies, major theoretical concepts, and the conventions of literary essays. We’ll focus in particular on the aspects of writing that aspiring English majors find difficult: posing an interesting question, writing a provocative thesis statement, framing an essay with an academic introduction and conclusion, using multiple kinds of evidence, expanding an essay to the proper length, and taking a versatile approach to research. The course aims to give students tools that they’ll be able to apply to their future coursework in English and to broaden their understanding of English as an academic discipline.

The requirements for the course will include reading, regular short writing assignments, two essays, and an annotated bibliography.

Instructor: Lauren Slaughter

How does poetry differ from prose? How does one closely and carefully read a poem? What are the possibilities of language arranged within the constraints of a particular poetic form AND/OR without the constraints of prescribed “rules"? In this beginning poetry writing workshop we’ll keep these questions in mind as we write, share, and discuss our poetry. The aims of this class are

1. to equip students with the vocabulary and terms necessary to discuss, read, and write poetry;
2. through writing exercises and prompts to explore various, and sometimes seemingly contradictory, techniques for the writing of poetry;
3. to begin to demystify the poetry writing process by working towards the understanding that a “finished” poem comes as the result of a lot of hard work. To this end, expect to devote considerable attention to reading and revision.

I am going to ask you to take risks in this class, to write in ways well beyond your “comfort zone.” Come to each class period with an open and curious mind. Come ready to write!

Instructor: James Braziel

The Art of Storytelling. This fiction workshop will focus on the different ways to connect your writing with readers from dramatic monologues to the fly-on-the-wall perspective. We’ll look at contemporary short stories as models for the fiction we write and we will be joined by guest authors and publishers.

Instructor: Chris Minnix

This course asks us to remember what we sometimes forget about courses in the humanities: the skills we develop as critical readers, researchers, and writers can all be put to work for the public good. And it has been, again and again, by people like Eric Reeves, an English Literature Professor who became one of the world’s leading experts on genocide and human rights in Sudan. Public writing is about taking the skills that you have developed as a reader, writer, and researcher and leveling them up so that you can meaningfully contribute to others.

This section of Public Writing focuses specifically on how public writing and rhetoric are used to advocate for the rights of immigrants and refugees. Our course will be enriched through a collaboration with Alabama Interfaith Refugee Partnership, an important refugee rights organization in Birmingham. Working with this group, students will see how public writing works in action, develop an advanced knowledge of public writing and rhetoric, and develop a real-world public writing project that engages refugee rights, immigration, and human rights. Students from any concentration in English or Writing and Media are welcome, as are students from any major. No prior knowledge of the topic or public writing or rhetoric are required.

Instructor: Jill Clements

Vengeance-seeking mothers, weeping kings, and sword-wielding virgins: medieval literature is brimming with representations and subversions of gender. This semester, we’ll examine medieval heroic literature—including epic poetry, Norse sagas, and French romances—to consider how these texts deploy nuanced views of gender as both a spectrum and a series of fluid categories. While heroic tales focus on (and are often named for) their heroes, these texts also feature women with tremendous agency, ranging from verbal goading and battle-cries to waging war and killing for revenge. We will also see the range of roles occupied by men in the heroic world, where dragon-fighting champions become ritual mourners and caregivers in old age.

Students will experience a variety of medieval textual traditions, get to know recent trends in scholarship on medieval gender and sexuality, and explore the ways these topics continuously challenge modern perceptions of “the damsel in distress.”

Instructor: Rebecca Bach

In the class, we will read two of Pratchett's Witch novels, three City Watch novels, and one of the Tiffany Aching young adult novels. We'll take a deep dive into the Discworld and two of its most important locations: Ankh-Morpork, the big city, and the Ramtops, a very magical countryside. Along with some amazing witches and some bumbling, good-hearted watchman, we'll meet dragons, vampires, and other assorted creatures.

The class will place Pratchett's novels within traditions of fantasy, SF, and literary fiction. We'll also talk about Pratchett's life and career. This class is suitable for Pratchett novices and super-fans. Together, we will read, laugh, and learn to write seriously about this great author.

Instructor: Adam Vines

In this course, we will explore the sonnet throughout history, starting with the Petrarchan, English, and Spenserian sonnet forms; and moving through to curtal sonnets, tailed sonnets, and sonnet crowns; to contemporary double exposure, minimalist, and shadow sonnets. Furthermore, you will write three critical responses to the sonnets we read, and you will draft poems in the various sonnet forms. Finally, you will critique your peers' poem drafts in a workshop setting.

Instructor: Kerry Madden-Lunsford

"What would you write if you weren't afraid?" asks Mary Karr in her book, On Memoir. This is a memoir class. You will be mining your life's stories to create a memoir. We will be reading personal essays, memoir excerpts, podcasts, and watching films, some based on memoirs, so you will also get to see the possibilities of shaping your life into different narratives.

Your memoir may be about a single period in your life or a series of connected stories. Through weekly writing sparks and readings of essays and micro-memoirs, you will discover the stories you want to tell. This is an advanced course in writing memoirs with explorations into film and spoken word artists.

Each week a new module will be published on Sunday with a piece of music or song, film, excerpt of a memoir or personal essay, and a discussion board. We’ll explore different voices in creative nonfiction through our textbook, The Writer's Portable Mentor, by Priscilla Long, and watch clips from filmmakers and how they tell a story on film or focus on a specific memoir. Our objective will be to grasp the techniques and issues of craft in memoir and to practice them in our writing.

We’ll be doing “free writes” in the modules to spark ideas, focusing specifically on a memoir, a sense of place, writing in a scene, ethics in researching, reporting, publishing, writing about things and processes, voice, and the writing life. Guest speakers will also drop in from time to time to talk about their work as professional writers.

Instructor: Danny Siegel

In this course we will dive into the work of five major filmmakers: John Ford, who built up and tore down a whole mythology of American identity; Robert Altman, whose genre mash-ups break every Hollywood rule; Barry Jenkyns, who charts the perilous paths of love and intimacy; Alice Rohrwacher, who mixes fact and fantasy in her eccentric tales of village life; and Hirokazu Kore-eda, who explores the deep emotional currents of modernity. We’ll discuss the different elements that enter into a director’s works—personal history, identity, cultural background, political beliefs, thematic obsessions, visual style, philosophy—and the alchemy that combines them into what we might call the director’s “vision.”

You are welcome and encouraged to take the course even if you’ve never studied film before! Every week students will view films outside of class and write informal responses. You’ll also learn how to use video editing tools to create your own voice-over analysis, and for your formal work you’ll produce written and video essays.

Instructor: Rebecca Bach

In this class, we will read some of the greatest hits of literary theory and some very recent significant theory. Theoretical movements covered include Animal Studies, Cultural Studies, Critical Race Theory, Ecocriticism, Feminist Theory, Marxism, Queer Theory, Postcolonial Theory, Science Studies, and Psychoanalytic Theory. Students will learn how to understand difficult theoretical texts and use their insights to read in new ways.

Texts for the course

• The Making of a Sonnet, eds Boland and Hirsch
• A Most Marvelous Piece of Luck, Greg Williamson

Instructor: Gale Temple

The years between 1820 and 1870 gave rise to some of the most significant economic and cultural transformations in the history of the United States. Phenomena like the opening of the Erie Canal, the construction of the transcontinental railroad, the invention of the telegraph, unprecedented Westward expansion, and the entrenchment of capitalism, inspired Americans with a tremendous sense of hope and promise about the nation’s future.

That optimism was tempered, however, by anxiety over just exactly what kind of society those changes would ultimately create. Institutions and practices such as slavery, American Indian “relocation” and genocide, and the continued disenfranchisement of women, represented what many felt was a profoundly unethical corollary to the much-ballyhooed progress of the day. Would the United States fulfill the promise of its founding democratic idealism? Or would new developments instead create a land of shallow, opportunistic, self-serving individualists who eschew true democracy in favor of wealth, exclusivity, and power?

In English 462/562 we will investigate how writers from this period in American history addressed these important questions, and we will further attempt to mine their significance to our lives in the present day. Writers will include James Fenimore Cooper, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edgar Allan Poe, Fanny Fern, Frederick Douglass, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville.

Instructor: Jill Clements

Have you ever wondered where English came from? How English is related to languages like Latin or German? Why American pronunciations (and spelling!) are different from British English? Or why the donkey in Winnie the Pooh was called “Eeyore”?

This course traces the history of English from its ancient past to the present, including the Viking Age, the Shakespearean stage, and the invention of Twitter. We’ll explore not only the changes in the sound, spelling, and use of English over time, but how the language responds to social, political, and technological changes.

This course will introduce you to the nature of English in earlier periods and help you gain familiarity with original texts, including works in Old and Middle English. By the end of this course, you’ll be able to recognize characteristics of English in the different stages of its history, pronounce lines of Beowulf like a pro, and weigh in on the ideological stakes of “grammar” and standardization in English today.

Instructor: Gale Temple

In his Second Treatise of Government (1690), John Locke famously wrote that “in the beginning, all the world was America.” For Locke, America symbolized ideologically neutral ground, a kind of geographic blank slate upon which our natural rights would flourish unencumbered by corrupt political laws or restrictive theological mandates. In principle, Locke’s metaphor has hovered over the laws and sociopolitical initiatives of the United States since its founding, and it remains the core ideal behind the “American Dream,” or the powerful myth that anyone can achieve wealth, status, and “happiness” here regardless of their initial circumstances.

In practice, however, the American Dream -- and its central premise of ideological neutrality -- has proved far more complicated and contentious. In this class, we will read literary and cultural materials that both promote and problematize the American Dream, exploring how it has informed specific policies and (often conflicting) beliefs associated with such issues as nationalism, race, class, assimilation, and immigration. Writers will include Benedict Anderson, David Roediger, Horatio Alger, Anzia Yezierska, Frank Webb, Herman Melville, and Jamaica Kincaid.