Spring 2027 Undergraduate Course Descriptions

  Group 1  
(2)4225 Medieval Lit 1066-1350 Sargan
  The High Middle Ages—the period between roughly 1066 and 1347—was once thought of as a “Dark Age” in European history: a violent age in which technological development stagnated and reading and learning was scarce. We now know this to be false. These centuries saw the birth of the university (Bologna, Italy, 1088); the mechanization of the clock; the first eyeglasses; windmills; the adoption of ‘Arabic numerals’; and the planning and executing of the Gothic Cathedrals, still some of the largest and most striking buildings in Europe (Notre-Dame de Paris, fin. 1177, ext. 1260s; Lincoln Cathedral, fin. 1225; Chartres, fin. 1221; Albi, beg. 1282; Wells, fin. c.1350). In England, texts circulated in three languages—Latin, English, and French. The written word formed the basis of religious practice, administration, and legislation, as well as providing entertainment and edification, so even those who could not read themselves encountered the written word regularly as they navigated their lives. But what was it like to consume literature at this time? What might the “reading” experience be like for those to whom the written word was available? In this course we will read through and around a couple of manuscript collections from the late thirteenth century that brought vernacular literature into middle class households and consider the influences of materials, language, and form on for the textual experiences of their makers and users.
(2) 4230 Medieval Lit 1350-1500 Howard
  This course will cover four key texts that sample English literature from 1350 to 1500: 
Pearl 
The Book of Margery Kempe 
Le Morte Darthur by Sir Thomas Malory 
Everyman 
These four texts cover poetry, prose, and performance, and we will explore each in depth. We will also read outward from these texts, treating them as umbrellas from which we can think about related texts and trends (e.g., using Pearl to engage with the Alliterative Revival as well as the productive messiness of allegory; using Margery Kempe to explore a late medieval tradition of contemplative women attempting to author their own theologies). I picked these texts because I find something thorny or knotty about each of them that we can explore through reading, writing, and discussion. The overall goal of focusing on these four texts is to maintain sustained engagement with longer texts, which should give you the tools and contextual knowledge to appreciate these and other texts from and after our period. 		  
(2) 4270 Medieval Romance Camp
  Medieval Romance: Criseyde
Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde is one of the most complex, magisterial romances written in Middle English. Chaucer took Boccaccio’s urbane story about two minor characters in the Homeric story of Troy – the Trojan prince Troilus and the Trojan widow Crisseda – and adapted it into a rich, multilayered story of love, betrayal, friendship, political pressure, narrative necessity, and human agency. Most interestingly for us, he created Criseyde as such a complex character that later Middle English and Middle Scots writers – even Shakespeare – felt the need to rewrite her, with the effect of undermining or completely subverting Chaucer’s version. 

We’ll spend the semester steeped in the story of Criseyde, as told by Chaucer, his sources, and his later adapters. Along the way, we’ll also practice the basic skills of the English major: close reading, word study, poetry explication, and detailed attention to the nuances of these skilled poets’ craft.

Expect to read all the Middle English and Scots in the original language; language instruction will begin on Day One. You must purchase hard copies of the below required texts unless otherwise specified; used copies are fine. A rigorous but not draconian attendance policy will be in place, as will be policies regarding AI (you can’t use it). 

Required texts:
• Geoffrey Chaucer. Troilus and Criseyde, ed. Stephen Barney. Norton Critical. 2006. ISBN-13: 978-0-393-92755-9
• John Lydgate. Troy Book: Selections, ed. Robert R. Edwards. TEAMS Middle English Texts, 1998. ISBN-13: 978-1879288997
• Robert Henryson, The Testament of Cresseid, ed. Robert L. Kindrick. TEAMS Middle English Texts, 1997. ISBN-13: 978-1879288942
• Daniel Sawyer, How to Read Middle English Poetry (2024). Available as an ebook as well as a print book, and for this one the ebook is fine.		  
(3) 4310 Tudor Lit Mattison
  Tudor Literature looks at the way that literature, in its material forms in manuscript and print, was composed, circulated, copied, collected, and read in early modern England. During this period, the production and status of books changed as printed books flooded the market, while the English Reformation brought the written word under new scrutiny. In this evolving cultural and social context, the relationship between material books and the literature they transmitted was dynamic. What are the affordances of print? How did readers imagine the status of their books? How did writers achieve a reading public? How did the printing press change and continue earlier elements of book making? Drawing on the literature of the period, including the works of William Caxton, Thomas Wyatt, Elizabeth I, Isabella Whitney, and Amelia Lanyer, as well as contextualizing historical sources, this course examines books and their texts as literary, social, and cultural objects. Throughout the course, we will spend extensive time in Special Collections working with early printed books and in the Book Lab making and experimenting with the forms of early modern books. This course will use book history as a method for understanding early modern literature. 
(3) 4390 Topics in Ren/Lit & Arts Jacobson
  A special topic not otherwise offered in the English curriculum. Topics and instructors vary from semester to semester.
(3) 4391S Early Modern Env. Lit Iyengar
  Immerse yourself in the natural world through walks around campus; readings about the natural world from pre-industrial times to the present; reflective journaling about your experiences with natural or wild spaces; and a final celebration of our service projects with community and campus partners such as the Brooklyn Cemetery, Hilsman Middle School, the UGA Trial Gardens, and the Office of Sustainability.
 
Reading from twenty-first-century texts such as Camille Dungy’s poetry anthology Black Nature, Robin Kimmerer’s nonfiction text Braiding Sweetgrass, and Ron Balthazor's A Book of Seasons as well as from classic poems and essays about nature, from Milton's Paradise Lost, Shakespeare's The Tempest, and Margaret Cavendish's "Hunting of the Hare" to Whitman's "This Compost" and Thoreau's Walden, we will journal about our readings and experiences; observe and cherish our green spaces on campus; and discuss how and whether present-day humans can learn from pre-industrial societies’ very different relationship with the natural world.
 
This course can be used to fulfil either the English major's requirement in literature before pre-1800 (Group 1) or the requirement in language, criticism, and culture (Group 4). It also fulfils the university's experiential learning requirement. 

Please note that the service-learning component adds significantly to the time and commitment required by this class. Be prepared to spend an additional 20-30 hrs over the whole semester (averaging an additional 1-3 hrs/week) on this class.		  
  Group 2
4505 Jane Austen
  In this class we will read all six of Austen’s novels, as well as her fascinating juvenilia. We will also put Austen in context, reading her alongside 18th- and 19th-century essays on manners, marriage, and gender, as well as at least two novels by other authors: Frances Burney's Evelina and the anonymous The Woman of Colour. In addition to thinking about the place of Austen's work in the history of the novel, we will also consider the way that studies of Austen and her novels intersect with gender history, social history, and the history of slavery. We will think about conditions for women in the time period, about how ideas of class operate in the novels, and about the importance of the fact that during Austen's lifetime, Britain’s economy was powerfully dependent on the income generated by the labor of enslaved people in the colonies of the British Caribbean. Although we will focus on Austen’s own historical context, we will not neglect our own. We will conclude the class with a consideration of the many revisions and adaptations of Austen in contemporary popular culture.
4520 Brit 19th c Fiction
  The nineteenth century firmly cemented the predominance of the novel.   That said, the authorship, purpose, publication method, and subject matter of novels were certainly less set in stone.  Perhaps its tendency to shape-shift aided in the popularity of the literary genre: authors wrote novels that were bound in three volumes or published in serial magazines and aimed to make readers cry, gasp, learn, and/or laugh.  
While we certainly will only scratch the surface, in this class we will focus on subgenres of the novel: adventure novels, coming-of-age novels, sensation novels, detective novels, governess novels, gothic novels, fantasy novels, and science fiction.  Our readings will include Frankenstein (Mary Shelley), Lady Audley's Secret (Mary Elizabeth Braddon), She (H Rider Haggard), The Moonstone (Wilkie Collins), Great Expectations (Charles Dickens), Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë), and Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll). 
4670 20th C British and Irish Novel
  This course will provide an overview of fiction written in and about Britain in the modern era by considering works from across the twentieth century.  Beginning with modernist texts by Conrad, Lawrence, and Woolf, and concluding with more recent works by Ballard and Lessing, we will consider some of the key questions about literary style, narrative form, representation, time and history that preoccupied twentieth-century British fiction.   Combining detailed textual analysis with discussion of relevant historical contexts, we will pay special attention to the question of what it meant to write fiction – especially fiction about history – at different junctures in modern British history. 
Some of the material we read will be challenging in certain ways; be prepared to discuss anything that arises during lecture and discussion in the intellectually curious and mutually respectful spirit of the historical institution of the university. 
Texts
Please obtain print copies of the following paperback editions and bring to class the book or books you will need for any given day:
Conrad, Joseph. The Secret Agent (Penguin, 2000.  978-0141922430)
Lawrence, D.H. The Rainbow, ed. Mark Kinkead-Weekes (Penguin, 2007.  978-0141441382)
Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989.  9780156907392).
Waugh, Evelyn.  The Loved One (Back Bay Books, 2012.  978-0316216470)
Naipaul, V.S.  Miguel Street (Vintage, 2002.  978-0375713873).
Rhys, Jean.  Wide Sargasso Sea (W.W. Norton, 2016.  978-0393352566)
Ballard, J.G.  High-Rise (Liveright, 2012.  ISBN: 978-0871404022)
Lessing, Doris.  The Fifth Child (Vintage, 1989.  978-0679721826)
                     
Also recommended: Abrams and Harpham, A Glossary of Literary Terms; James Wood, How Fiction Works.
  Group 3  
4712 Poe Marrs
  In this course, we will study the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. Though he is popularly remembered as one of the founders of modern horror, Poe was a remarkably productive and flexible author who experimented with a variety of genres (e.g., mystery, science fiction, adventure). Over the course of his life, he produced over forty short stories, a novel, an imaginative prose-poem about the universe, and some of the best poetry of the nineteenth century. Together, we will examine the most interesting and enduring works of literature that Poe created between 1827 and 1849, focusing on the development of his style and perspective. 

Required Text:
Patrick Quinn, ed., Edgar Allan Poe: Poetry and Tales (Library of America)		  
4742 Georgia Lit McCaskill
  A survey of the state's literature, including fiction, essays, poetry, drama, and speeches.  
4770 20th c Amer Poetry Ford
  This course will examine some of the most significant developments in American poetry during the 20th century. We will read poetry written in each decade of the twentieth century, paying attention to the changing forms of poetry as well as poetry’s changing role in American culture.  
We will consider some of the questions that 20th-century poets themselves struggled to answer, both in verse and in their critical statements about poetry. Among other issues, we will attend to the sound of American poetry; its appearance on the page; its relationship to the life, mind, and voice of the poet; and its relationship to history and literary tradition. In addition, we will ask, as poets and readers in the period did, whether a poem can be considered truly American, and what an American poem might sound like, look like, or say. This class will include trips to the Georgia Museum of Art, the UGA Special Collections Libraries, and the Main Library. At the GMOA, we will view works in the University Study Gallery, where works chosen specifically for this class will be on display for the entire spring semester. At the libraries, we will view and conduct research in physical books, magazines, and anthologies of poetry and discuss how changes in print culture and technology throughout the century affected the printing and distribution of poetry and at times the forms of poetry itself. 
We are likely to read works by Paul Laurence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, Gertrude Stein, H. D., Robert Frost, T. S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Edna St Vincent Millay, Muriel Rukeyser, Lorine Niedecker, Gwendolyn Brooks, Allen Ginsberg, Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, Frank O’Hara, Jack Spicer, Larry Eigner, Elizabeth Bishop, Anne Sexton, Joy Harjo, W. S. Merwin, Simon Ortiz, Nikki Giovanni, James Merrill, Alice Notley, Arthur Sze, Lyn Hejinian, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Louise Glück. Most (if not all) of these poets will be represented on the final syllabus, along with a few stragglers I have forgotten to add. 
4750 American Modernism Rosenbaum
  The Spring 2027 version of this class will center on American modernism as a transatlantic movement, and will introduce you to the importance of archives, art museums, and literary research methods in approaches to modernism. The class will work closely with the GMOA collection of American art, as well as the digital version of an exhibition that came to the GMOA in 2025 from the National Portrait Gallery, Brilliant Exiles: American Women in Paris, 1900-1939 (https://npg.si.edu/exhibition/brilliant-exiles).  Authors we will study include Gertrude Stein, H.D. Ernest Hemingway, Gwendolyn Bennett, Langston Hughes, Mina Loy, Sylvia Beach, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Josephine Baker. To further our study of American literature in relation to modernist visual art and transatlantic modernism, the class will work with primary sources (little magazines, first editions, manuscripts) housed at the GMOA, UGA Libraries, and the Special Collections Library. Writing assignments and discussion posts will be keyed to these sources, and students will complete a final research project that will expand on one of these shorter assignments.
4790 Topics in American Lit Perdieu
  Topic: Literature and the American West
Larry McMurtry called the American West the “phantom limb of the American psyche.”  This course will look to uncover that phantom limb by examining the West as a distinctive space that shaped and was shaped by American literature, history, art, film, music, identity, and mythology. We will contextualize the Western expansion of Euro-America through the perspectives of Indigenous, Black, and Latinx-American writers, acknowledging the American West as a space where many cultures and ideologies came into conflict with one another. Our reading list may include Lonesome Dove (1985) by Larry McMurtry, Paradise (1997) by Toni Morrison, Tracks (1988) by Louise Erdrich, Ledfeather (2008) by Stephen Graham Jones, My Ántonia (1918) by Willa Cather, La Maravilla (1993) by Alfredo Véa, Jr., The Good Lord Bird (2013) by James McBride, The Legacy of Conquest (1987) by Patricia Nelson Limerick (excerpts), Borderlands/La Frontera (1987) by Gloria Anzaldúa, So Far from God (1993) by Ana Castillo, Main Street (1920) by Sinclair Lewis (excerpts), “Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit” (1993) by Leslie Marmon Silko, The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969) by N. Scott Momaday, Postcards(1992) by Annie Proulx, Housekeeping (1980) by Marilynne Robinson, and No Country for Old Men (2005) by Cormac McCarthy. We will also discuss film, art, and music about the American West. 		  
4790 Topics in American Lit McKnight
  A special topic not otherwise offered in the English curriculum. Topics and instructors vary from semester to semester.
4860 Topics in M-C Amer Lit Romero
  4860 Topics in Multicultural Literature:  Native Women Writers
This course will examine fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and films written by North American Indigenous women. We will analyze literary aesthetics and forms, and learn to think critically about the relationships between literature and cultures. Throughout the course we’ll discuss how Native women writers experiment with language, narrative voice, structure, temporality, and genre to better represent their experiences.   Possible authors include Louise Erdrich, LeAnne Howe, Joy Harjo, Susan Mona Power, and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers.		  
4880 Topics Af Am Lit McKnight
  Selected topics in African American literature such as African American autobiography, Harlem Renaissance, Gwendolyn Brooks and Richard Wright, and Black American literature and aesthetics.
  Group 4  
4802W CW Adv Fiction Obioma
  In this course, students already experienced in writing original fiction will not only create and revise individual stories or novel chapters but also learn strategies for developing and revising a longer fiction manuscript. Student assignments include sharing and critiquing one another’s drafts, completing short writing exercises, reading the work of established fiction writers, attending campus literary events, and completing a short story or novel chapter.
4803W CW Adv Poetry Zurawski
  In this course, students already experienced in writing original poetry will not only create and revise individual poems but also learn strategies for developing and revising a poetry manuscript. Student assignments include sharing and critiquing one another’s drafts, completing short writing exercises, reading the work of established poets, attending campus poetry events, and completing a collection of original poetry.
4804W CW Topics Kashyap
  The Hook : A Workshop on Increasing Suspense in Your Fiction   
This course will teach you not only the basic elements of fiction writing, such as how to use suspense, how to create believable characters, what are the different ways you can deepen the setting, how to write realistic dialogue and hold the attention of your reader, but will also focus on creating narrative suspense for your reader through a twostep workshop.   For this purpose, you will write a short story for this class and workshop it. This will be the first, general workshop where you will get feedback on the basic elements on storytelling : plot, character, setting, etc. Once the first round of workshop is over, we will read a set of texts that will teach you how to increase suspense in your fiction. These will be mostly excerpts from suspense-driven fiction. This will lead us to the second round of workshop where you will bring the revised story after incorporating two sets of revision : workshop feedback and techniques of increasing suspense.  Why suspense? Narrative suspense, sometimes called dramatic tension, is everything in a story that keeps the reader hooked. A good storyteller can keep us turning the pages, even when they don’t write a murder mystery. This workshop will teach you how you can elevate your stories to that page-turning quality by using some simple tools that will keep the reader interested. 		  
4805 Editing & Publishing Davies/Holly
  Students will learn about the publishing industry--including its structure and economics--and will practice some of the varied tasks performed by editors, from copy-editing and critique to thinking about larger issues such as audiences, markets, formats, and media.
4825 Topics in Literary Criticism Martini Paula
 
Eviron*mental
This course will introduce students to the field of environmental thinking and offer a more in-depth look at the most recent theories shaping ecocriticism. To help us navigate the lush landscape of environmental theory, we will discuss some of the following terms:
Animal/Animality
Anthropocene
Dark Ecology
Environmental Justice
Nature
Queer Ecologies
We will begin with excerpts from some eco-thought classics, such as Rachel Carson, Rob Nixon, Lorraine Daston, Tim Morton, Stacy Alaimo, and Robert Bullard, which will serve as fertile ground for more recent explorations in environmental thinking.
This is an advanced theory course, but don’t be intimidated. I will offer some refreshers of theory as we go. If you don’t have a background in theory (nor have you taken ENGL 4820), you may also consider reading Jonathan Culler’s Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford UP, ISBN: 978-0199691340). This book is very short, very cheap ($9-ish), and very effective.
  
4832W Writing for the WWW Davis
  Theory and practice of the process of writing for the World Wide Web.  
4836W Writing about Health Hallman Martini
  This writing-intensive English course introduces students to the narrative arts and trains them to identify, construct, and use narrative in fictional and non-fictional writing about health, wellness, medicine, and able-bodiedness.
4866 Novel after 1900 Zawacki
  Study of a topic related to the history, form, development, or theory of the novel since 1900. Depending on the instructor and the topic, the course may concentrate on a particular historical setting or theoretical orientation, or it may range broadly across time, place, or theoretical approach.
4890 Topics in Crit & Culture Woodhouse
  Topics in Criticism and Culture: War Games
Though war and play seem opposed, their connections go deep. Some of our best-selling video game franchises are tied deeply to war (think Call of Duty), and modern video games got their start in computer labs funded by the U.S. military. Drone pilots use Xbox controllers to operate killing machines from a distance. Even the history bears the connection out: games simulating war go as far back 7th century India. Even if it’s uncomfortable, it is the case that war and play are deeply intertwined.

This course confronts the uncomfortable idea that war is bound up with play. We will analyze how war is depicted in games, trace the historical connections between the military and games, and discuss the implications of consuming war through playful media. Through readings from game studies and cultural theory, we will challenge the insistence that play ends where war begins.		  
4892 Lit in the Archives Camp
  This will not be your typical literature class. We will spend limited time reading and analyzing literary texts. Rather, this course will be both seminar and practicum on how medieval books were made and used. Medieval manuscripts predate the printing press: all are handmade (often intricately), unique, and highly valuable items. Not only are they gorgeous objects in their own right, but they presume a different relationship between text and reader than do contemporary printed books. We'll get you the tools to understand and appreciate these compelling physical artifacts, focusing on the most popular genre of manuscript in late medieval Europe: the beautifully decorated prayerbooks known as Books of Hours. The course will culminate in a practical, hands-on research project on the Book of Hours owned by UGA’s Special Collections Library, the Hargrett Hours. 

This semester's Hargrett Hours project will build upon the discoveries made by the students in earlier iterations of this course (since Fall 2016). This semester – Hargrett Hours 5.0 – we will be working to finish (!!), if we can, our study of this prayerbook. This will entail two major tasks: (1) sorting out and reconstructing the fragmentary set of prayers (technically an Office) that appears early in the book, and (2) continuing our study of the prayers to specific saints at the end. We will also be adding to the digital output for this series of courses (the Hargrett Hours Edition: https://hargretthours.ugamedieval.com/). The end goal is to firm up everything we can reasonably know about this book, its contents, and its probable first owner. 

Expect to participate daily and energetically, to do much group work, to write regularly, to be frustrated and sometimes awed by the course material, to be amazed often by medieval scribes and artists -- and to study intimately books much older than this august institution.

Required Texts:
• Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham, Introduction to Manuscript Studies. Cornell University Press. ISBN: 9780801487088 		  
4895 Topics in Lit & Arts Zawacki
  Study of literature in English and other arts, including music, film, and visual arts. Depending on the instructor, the course may concentrate on a particular historical setting, or it may range broadly across time and place.
 		  
4895 Topics in Ren/Lit & Arts Jacobson
  Study of literature in English and other arts, including music, film, and visual arts. Depending on the instructor, the course may concentrate on a particular historical setting, or it may range broadly across time and place.  
4896 Comics & Graphic Narratives Cohen
  In this course, we will explore the historical development, generic diversity, and serialized nature of comics as a medium. We will read and discuss comics spanning a wide range of genres, including romance, neo-noir, sci-fi, horror, fantasy, wrestling, and superheroes, from the 1930s to the present. We will track the difference between corporate and creator-owned comics and enhance our reading with visits to the Special Collections Library to examine archival materials. 
4960R Undergrad Research Végső
  This course will give students the opportunity to work on a longer research paper. Each student will pursue their own separate research project, of their choosing, but you do *not* need to have a research project already lined up in order to enroll in the course. The class will help students with all the stages of a bigger research project, from devising a topic to building a bibliography through drafting and revising. At the end of the semester, students will participate in a mini-conference, sharing their research with their peers.

If you’ve been curious about research in English, or you’d like to work to on a longer, individual project (maybe you need a writing sample for graduate school?), this new class is a great opportunity! The course is open to all English majors, but to register, we’ll need to give you Permission of Department. So if you’re interested, please reach out to Dr. LeGette (legette@uga.edu) or Dr. Kallerman (jkallerm@uga.edu), and we’ll grant you that permission.

For questions about the class itself, feel free to email Dr. Végső (Roland.Vegso@uga.edu), but for questions about registration and to get Permission of Department, contact Dr. Kallerman or Dr. LeGette		  
  Group 5  
3100 Intro to British & Irish Studies Wasley
  This course considers the British Isles from a variety of perspectives: artistic, historical, political, environmental, and social, equipping students to pursue more sophisticated studies in British and Irish history, literature, and culture.
3240 Asian American Lit & Culture Wei
  A survey of Asian American literature and culture in English, and key topics in Asian American and Pacific Islander studies. Students will explore how Asians in America have imaginatively dramatized issues such as migration, labor, citizenship, war, imperialism, and assimilation.
3330H Literature and Human Rights (Honors) Santesso
  We will be looking at a variety of genres (novels, essays, newspaper articles, and manifestos) in order to discuss how literary authors allude to human rights and address human rights violations as a form of witnessing with the intend to amend official accounts of history. In our reading of these texts, we will focus on the ways in which they both support and problematize international efforts—describing the United Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as “urgent and necessary” as well as “incomplete and inadequate.” Ultimately, our analysis of the texts will consider questions about aesthetics and ethics simultaneously: what responsibilities do these authors have towards their subject-matter/audience as they engage with storytelling? How do these stories relate to cultural and aesthetic forms? In what way do they resolve the tensions between the local and global structures?
3360 Literature and Animals Martini Paula
 
Animals are a central aspect of how humans interact with our environment. This course introduces students to the growing field of “animal studies” in literary criticism through readings and discussions of animal representations in literature. Students will explore how our interactions with other animals have shaped how we think of ourselves, how we frame the racial, sexual, and ethnic “Other,” and how we make sense of our environment.
We will approach animals in literature by reading primarily modern texts, from the late-nineteenth century to the present.
3410 Literature and Media Woodhouse
  Literature and Media: Fan Fiction and Cultural Legitimacy
Fan fiction is more present than ever in our publishing world. Ali Hazelwood’s Star Wars-based romance novels top bestseller lists. Harry Potter sneaks onto our bookshelves under the guise of SenLinYu’s Alchemised. Though some read this trend as the death of creativity and good taste, fan studies sees things differently. Fan fiction, from the fan studies view, can be a site of dynamic expression and incisive cultural critique.

In this course, we will approach fan fiction seriously. Where did fan fiction, as we know it now, come from? Why is it an insult to say something reads like fan fiction? What creative possibilities draw authors of all kinds to write, and even sell, fic? Through reading, critiquing, and writing fan fiction, we will try to understand the appeal and cultural potential of this oft-denigrated form of writing.		  
3420 Literature and the Mind Comeaux
  Cognitive approaches to literature and a broad introduction to cognitive poetics. Designed to familiarize students with key concepts in cognitive science and to demonstrate how knowledge of those topics can help to inform readings of literary texts.
3540 Intro to Publishing Bonnaffons
  Examination of the major processes that typically take place when publishing a book or periodical in the U.S. and some of the contexts that drive decision-making by editors, publishers, marketers, designers, and other professionals. We will explore the past, present, and future of the U.S. publishing industry.
3580W Writing, Rhetoric, and AI Harding
  Introduction to the theory, function, and ethical implications of computer-assisted writing tools, including Generative AI and software for producing and editing writing. Students will study the history of assistive writing technologies, think critically about the attendant rhetorical and practical issues of composing with such tools, and write with and about different AI writing platforms.
3590W Tech Prof Comm Marshall
  ENGL 3590W will ask you to identify a target job, develop job application materials, practice writing professional email cases with a focus on audience awareness (purpose, context, tone, formatting), complete research logs that reorient your research skills toward the workplace, create a PowerPoint presentation to explore a current problem in your career field, and write a memo report that identifies key information literacy resources in your field. Drawing on discourse community theory, you will also learn how to write and format a professional report that addresses a key communication challenge in your intended field.
3610 Intro to Fiction Obioma
  Short fiction in English, with some attention to historical development of the genre, narrative techniques, and the development of critical strategies for reading and writing.
3650 Into to Drama Howe
  Drama in English. Focus may be historical development of the genre, representative themes, the relation between theory and practice, or the relation between text and performance. The course will include critical writing.
3800W Introduction to Creative Writing Howe
  Elements of writing poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction through selected readings and discussion of student writing.
3800W Introduction to Creative Writing GRAD
  Elements of writing poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction through selected readings and discussion of student writing.
3800W Introduction to Creative Writing GRAD
  Elements of writing poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction through selected readings and discussion of student writing.
3835 Literature and the Natural World McKee
 
How can reading and writing about literature focused on the natural world expand our understanding and appreciation for nature while providing an opportunity to more closely examine our relationships with our larger world, local ecologies, communities, and ourselves? In this course, students will explore these questions through careful reading and analysis of literary texts about nature (poems, fiction, essays) and critical-reflective writing including journaling, literary and rhetorical analysis, book reviews, and multi-media projects driven by individual student interests (e.g. podcast, commonplace book, newsletter/blog). This class is a great fit for anyone interested in stories about the natural world; topics in sustainability; or in writing more skillfully and persuasively about nature in academic, creative, and/or professional contexts.
 
Readings will include work by writers such as Margaret Renkl, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Jamaica Kincaid, Robin Wall Kimmer, Sean Hill, J. Drew Lanham, Barbara Kingsolver, Richard Powers, Stephanie Soileau, Ross Gay, Elizabeth Bradfield, Lacy M. Johnson, Elizabeth Bishop, Henry David Thoreau, and others.
  
3851S Writing for Social Justice Young
  ENGL 3851S Writing for Social Justice: The Prison Writing Project   Spring 2027
From Archive to Action: Curriculum Development for Justice Using the Lillian Smith Collections
In this project, three UGA Special Collections Fellows alumnae we will perform a deep study of the libraries’ materials relevant to author, activist, and educator Lillian Eugenia Smith (1897-1966) to locate interdisciplinary, justice-oriented connections across the fields of Art Education, English, and Social Work. Each instructor will lead students through archives-based projects that take inspiration from Smith’s activism as a writer, educator, and civil rights advocate in the South. Students in all three courses will have the opportunity to participate in a two-part Risograph workshop (February and April), led by guest art education scholar and UGA alumna Courtnie Wolfgang of the Rhode Island School of Design, and create a printed product such as a zine, chapbook, or poster series as a visual expression of their archival studies. We aim to distribute the prints as a form of activism in relevant social and educational contexts and develop a collaborative publication for an open-access journal such as Ground Works. With permission, we also aim to create a pop-up exhibition with a combination of our prints and archival materials at the Special Collections Library in connection with Lillian Smith’s 130th birthday in Fall 2027.
Students in 3851S will specifically be introduced to archival research processes through a broad investigation of the Lillian Smith materials, including her work with the Laurel Falls Camp, her fiction-writing career, her social criticism, and work as a social activist.  In teams of three, students will select one facet of her life and organize the archival materials into a kit to be used in a higher education prison program in Hartwell, Georgia at Whitworth Women’s Facility.  Specifically, the five archival kits will form the foundation of a syllabus for a fall Critical Thinking and Writing course at the prison.   The incarcerated students at Whitworth will write and respond to Smith’s stories with critical and creative responses, putting her struggles and effort into conversation with their own stories.  Students at both UGA and Whitworth will create zines that highlight Smith’s ideas and efforts in conversation with their own voices.		  
     
4001 Careers for English Majors Lasek-White
  This course will explore potential careers for English majors and prepare students to apply for jobs using rhetorically targeted application materials.