Spring 2012 Course Offerings
Smith College reserves the right to make changes to all announcements and course listings online, including changes in its course offerings, instructors, requirements for the majors and minors, and degree requirements.
Level I
Courses numbered 100–170: introductory courses, open to all students. In ENG 118 and 120, incoming students have priority in the fall semester, and other students are welcome as space permits.
First-level Courses in Writing
ENG 112 Reading Contemporary Poetry
Floyd Cheung, T 7:30 PM-9:00 PM
ENG 118 Total Noise
Joel Anderson, MW 1:10 PM-2:30 PM
ENG 118 Politics of Language
Holly Davis, T Th 9:00 AM-10:20 AM
ENG 118 No, Seriously...What's so Funny?: Writing About Humor
Peter Sapira, T Th 10:30 AM-11:50 AM
ENG 118 Language and Power
Caryl Casson, T Th 10:30 AM-11:50 AM
ENG 118 Fakes, Forgeries and Imposters
Christopher Deweese, T Th 1:10 PM-2:30 PM
ENG 119 Writing Roundtable: Poverty
Julio Alves, MW 2:40 PM-4:00 PM
First-level Courses in Literature and Cross-listed First-year Seminars
ENG 120 Uses of Storytelling
Nancy Bradbury, MWF 10:00 AM-10:50 AM
ENG 120 The Fictions of Women's Lives
Sharon Seelig, MW 2:40 PM-4:00 PM
ENG 120 Literature of the American West
Sara Eddy, T Th 9:00 AM-10:20 AM
ENG 120 Reading and Writing Short Stories
Gillian Kendall, T Th 10:30 AM-11:50 AM
ENG 120 Ghost Stories
Cornelia Pearsall, T Th 1:00 PM-2:20 PM
ENG 120 Damaged Gods: Myths and Legends
Craig Davis, T Th 10:30 AM-11:50 AM
ENG 135 Writing About Sports
Pamela Petro, MW 9:00 AM-10:20 AM
ENG 135 Writing About the Environment
Nancy Cohen, MW 7:30 PM-8:50 PM
ENG 170 The English Language
Douglas Patey, MWF 11:00 AM-12:10 PM
Level II
Courses numbered 199–249. Open to all sophomores, juniors and seniors, and to qualified first-year students.
Gateway Courses
These courses serve as entry points to the major, introductions to the critical, historical and methodological issues and questions that underlie the study of literatures in English. English majors must select at least two courses from this menu. Fall gateway courses are open to first-year students with the English Literature and Composition AP score of 4 or 5, or a score of 710 on the Critical Reading portion of the SAT.
ENG 199 Methods of Literary Study
Michael Thurston, MWF 10:00 AM-10:50 AM
Naomi Miller, T Th 1:00 PM-2:20 PM
Ambreen Hai, WF 1:10 PM-2:30 PM (Topic: Love and Its Limits)
ENG 201 The English Literary Tradition II
Michael Gorra, T Th 9:00 AM-10:20 AM
Nora Crow, T Th 10:30 AM-11:50 AM
Electives
These courses in particular are designed to interest non-majors as well as majors.
ENG 203 Western Classics: De Troyes to Tolstoy
Elizabeth Harries, MW 1:10 PM-2:30 PM
Maria Banerjee, T Th 10:30 AM-11:50 AM
ENG 207 Technology of Reading and Writing
Eric Reeves, MW 9:00 AM-10:20 AM
ENG 212 Telling and Retelling
Patricia Skarda, T Th 10:30 AM-11:50 AM
ENG 216 Intermediate Poetry Writing
Ellen Watson, M 1:10 PM-4:00 PM
ENG 233 American Literature from 1865-1914
Floyd Cheung, MWF 11:00 AM-12:10 PM
FLS 234 The Art of Film
Jefferson Hunter, WF 9:00-10:20 a.m.
ENG 238 What Jane Austen Read: The 18th Century Novel
Douglas Patey, MWF 9:00 AM-9:50 AM
FLS 240 Film and Music
Jefferson Hunter, WF 11:00-12:10 p.m.
ENG 244 The Novel Now
Michael Gorra, MW 1:10 PM-2:30 PM
Level III
Courses numbered 250–299. Open to sophomores, juniors and seniors; first-year students admitted only with the permission of the instructor. Recommended background: at least one English course above the 100 level or as specified in the course description.
ENG 257 Shakespeare
Sharon Seelig, MWF 11:00 AM-12:10 PM
Gillian Kendall, T Th 9:00 AM-10:20 AM
ENG 260 Milton
Eric Reeves, MW 2:40 PM-4:00 PM
ENG 270 The King James Bible
Patricia Skarda, T Th 1:00 PM-2:50 PM
ENG 277 Postcolonial Women Writers
Ambreen Hai, T Th 1:00 PM-2:20 PM
ENG 282 The Harlem Renaissance
Daphne Lamothe, WF 2:40 PM-4:00 PM
ENG 283 Victorian Medievalism
Nancy Bradbury; Cornelia Pearsall, T Th 10:30 AM-11:50 AM
ENG 287 Representing Women in the Renaissance
Naomi Miller, T Th 9:00 AM-10:20 AM
ENG 293 The Art and History of the Book
Martin Antonetti, MW 1:10 PM-2:30 PM
Advanced Courses in Writing
Only one course in writing may be taken in any one semester, except by permission of the chair. Courses in writing above the 100-level may be repeated for credit only with the permission of the instructor and the chair. For all writing courses above the 100-level, no student will be admitted to a section until she has submitted appropriate examples of her work and received permission of the instructor. Kindly review the course descriptions below for specific instructions and deadlines.
For more information about creating writing courses at Smith and in the Valley, click here.
ENG 290 Essays: New Yorker Style!
Nora F. Crow, Th 1:00 PM-2:50 PM
ENG 295 Advanced Poetry Writing
Ann Boutelle, T 1:00 PM-2:50 PM
ENG 296 Writing Short Stories
Elinor Lipman, T 1:00-2:50 PM
Level IV
300-level courses, but not seminars. These courses are intended primarily for juniors and seniors who have taken at least two literature courses above the 100-level. Other interested students need the permission of the instructor.
ENG 384 Writing About American Society
Russell Rymer, Th 1:00 PM-2:50 PM
Level V
Seminars are open only to juniors and seniors, and admission is by permission of the instructor.
Seminars in the English department stand as the capstone experience in the major. They bring students into the public aspects of intellectual life, and the papers they require are not only longer but also different in kind from those in 200-level classes. These papers require a research component in which students engage the published arguments of others, or at least demonstrate an awareness of the ongoing critical conversation their work is entering. But such work proves most useful when most available, and so we also require that students present their thinking in some way to the semi-public sphere of the seminar itself.
All students who wish to take a seminar must apply at the English department office by the last day of the preregistration period. The instructor will select the students admitted from these applicants.
ENG 312 Seminar: Print Culture of the African Diaspora
Andrea Stone, Th 3:00 PM-4:50 PM
ENG 314 Seminar: Material Modernism
Michael Thurston, MW 2:40 PM-4:00 PM
ENG 333 Seminar: Hawthorne and Stowe, and the American Novel
Richard Millington, W 7:30 PM-9:30 PM
PRS 322 Goths: Origins, Histories, Legacies
Craig Davis, T 3:00 PM-4:50 PM
