English Department Literature Courses

Return


Top of Page

23H World Literature: Antiquity to the Early Modern World 3 units
Prerequisites: Admission to the Honors Program and eligibility for English 1A.
Acceptable for credit: UC, CSU 54 hours lecture
This is a comparative study of works that have made important contributions to world literature. Students learn to recognize and explain developmental stages of world cultures from antiquity to early modem world, and to analyze literary expressions of the multicultural issues, values and ideas typical of particular eras and cultures. An important goal of the course is to examine significant aspects of culture, contributions, and social experiences of non-western cultures. Class is conducted as a seminar; students give oral presentations, write research papers and take a midterm and final exam. Students write at least 6,000 words during the semester.

Top of Page

24H World Literature: 3 units
The Modern World/Seventeenth Century - Present
Prerequisites: Admission to the Honors- Program and eligibility for English 1A.
Acceptable for credit: UC, CSU 54 hours lecture
This is a comparative study of works that have made important contributions to world literature. Students learn to recognize and explain developmental stages and important themes in representative works written from seventeenth century to the present and to analyze multicultural issues. Students analyze literary expressions of the multicultural issues, values and ideas typical of major world cultures. An important focus of the course is to examine significant aspects of culture, contributions, social experiences of non-western cultures. The class is conducted as a seminar in which students give oral presentations, write research papers, and take a midterm and final. Students write at least 6,000 words.

Top of Page

25 Studies in Literature 3-3 units
Prerequisites: Eligibility for English 1A.
Acceptable for credit: UC, CSU 54 hours lecture
This course is scheduled as needed under a title describing specific content. Students study of the works of a significant writer or group of writers, or of works on one theme, region, vocation, or human experience. Possible titles: Death in Literature, The Literature of the Occult, Film and Literature, The Hero in Fiction, The Love Story, The Literature of War. Not recommended as substitute for genre or survey courses. May be taken twice for credit.

Top of Page

26 Mythologies of the World 3 units
Prerequisites: Eligibility for English 1A.
Acceptable for credit: UC, CSU 54 hours lecture
This course offers a thematic approach to myth and legend from a variety of cultures, stressing the following types of stories: beginnings of the world, creation of living creatures, explanation of natural phenomena, relationships between god, and mortals, and deeds of superhumans, destruction, death and afterlife.

Top of Page

27 Women in Literature 3 units
Prerequisites: Eligibility for English 1A.
Acceptable for credit: UC, CSU 54 hours lecture
This course studies writings by and/or about women. It emphases American and British writers and the multicultural nature of the women’s canon. Reading may include literature from any nation, culture, or historical period.

Top of Page

29 Women in Film and Literature 3 units
Prerequisite: Eligibility for English 1A. 54 hours lecture
From its earliest days, Hollywood has played an important role in shaping and reflection cultural assumptions, myths, and fears. This course examines the assumptions and values that underlie the portrayal of women and the messages that medium conveys about the nature and role of femininity. In addition to viewing a variety of film genres, the reading assignments include works of fiction and essays from sociology, psychology, linguistics, and critical theory.

Top of Page

30 American Literature 3 units
Prerequisites: Eligibility for English 1A.
Acceptable for credit: UC, CSU 54 hours lecture
This course surveys representative works in American literature from approximately 1493 to 1865. The literary canon will be presented as a reflection of the multicultural nature of American literature and society.

Top of Page

31 American Literature 3 units
Prerequisites: Eligibility for English 1A.
Acceptable for credit: UC, CSU. 54 hours lecture
This course surveys representative works in American literature from the American Civil War to the present. The literature canon will be presented as a reflection of the multicultural nature of American literature an society.

Top of Page

32 American Novels of Social Criticism 3 units
Prerequisites: Eligibility for English 1A.
Acceptable for credit: UC, CSU. 54 hours lecture
Students read and discuss a study of selected American novels, poems, and plays dealing explicitly with social problems and attitudes. Emphasis will be on novels of literary or historical importance, particularly novels. Topics may include, but will not necessarily be limited to, such problems as industrialization, urbanization, poverty, race relations, ,sexual equality, and war. Students will gain greater insight into and understanding of the American mosaic through this course in which the will read at least four full-length novels.

Top of Page

35 English Literature 3 units
Prerequisites: Eligibility for English 1A -
Acceptable for credit: UC, CSU. 54 hours lecture
This course surveys significant works in the English language from Beowulf through Sam Johnson. Other works and writers include "Gawain and the Green Knight," "Debate of the Body and Soul," Morte d'Arthur, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Bacon, Donne, Dryden, Swift and Pope.

Top of Page

36 English Literature 3 units
Perquisites: Eligibility for English 1A.
Acceptable for credit: UC, CSU. 54 hours lecture
This course surveys significant works in the English language from the beginning of Romanticism in the 18th Century to the poetry of Dylan Thomas in the 20th Century. Other writers include Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, Shelley, Carlyle, Arnold, the Brownings, the Rossettis, Housman, Yeats, Joyce, Thomas Lawrence, and Pinter.

Top of Page

37B Studies in the Literature of Diverse Cultures: Asian American Autobiography and Fiction. 3 units
Prerequisites: Eligibility for English 1A.
Acceptable for credit: UC, CSU. 54 hours lecture
This course surveys autobiographies and fiction written by Asian Americans within the last 60 years. The course focuses Primarily on works written by Filipino-, Chinese-, Japanese-, And Korean- Americans, but also includes the work of other Pan-Asian American writers. Students explore the ways these writer shape their experiences of being Asian American in America and examines the differences and similarities of these experiences across cultures , generations, and genders.

Top of Page

38 Science Fiction and Fantasy 3 units
Prerequisites: Eligibility for English 1A.
Acceptable for credit: UC, CSU. 54 hours lecture
The course consists of a survey of the major types of science fiction and fantasy novels and other related works as well as critical reading of such representative works. Such works include the following: Harrison Bergeron, Vonnegut; Time Machine, Verne; Brave New World, Huxley; Space Merchants, Pohl.

Top of Page

39 Children and Literature 3 units
Prerequisites: Eligibility for English 1A.
Acceptable for Credit: CSU. 54 hours lecture
This course is designed for parents, prospective teachers, nursery school workers, those who are or will be, in frequent contact with children, and students interested in literature written for children. Wide reading of historical and contemporary children's literature, discussion of criteria for selection, and practice in story telling and oral reading is included.

Top of Page

40A African- American Literature 3 units
Prerequisites: Eligibility for English 1A.
54 hours lecture
English 40A is a study of major African-America authors and their literature from 1730 to 1930. This course includes critical reading of slave narratives, autobiographies, essays, novels, plays, short stories, poetry, and folklore. Some of the writers studies include Lucy Terry, Jupiter Hammon, Frederick Douglass, Phillis Wheatley, William Wells Brown, Francs Harper, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, Charles Chestnutt, Alain Locke, Zora Neale Huston and may others.

Top of Page

40B African- American Literature 3 units
Prerequisite: Eligibility for English 1A.
54 hours lecture
English 40B is a study of major African-American authors and their literature from 1930 to the present. This course includes critical ready of essays, novels, plays, short stories, poetry, and folklore. Some of the writers studies include Richard Wright, Ann Petry, Gwendolyn Brooks, Amiri Baraka, Owen Dodson, August Wilson, Rita Dove, J. California Cooper, Bebe Moore Campbell, Mari Evans, Ralph Ellison, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker and many others.

Top of Page

42 Introduction to the Short Story 3 units
Prerequisites: Eligibility for English 1A.
Acceptable for credit: UC, CSU. 54 hours lecture
This course is designed to introduce students to the art of the short story. It will provide a history to the short story. It will provide a history of the short story and distinguishing characteristics of the genre. The emphasis will be on the connections between literature and the human experience. The purpose will be to help students develop an appreciation, understanding and knowledge of literature. (CAN ENGL 18)

Top of Page

43 Introduction to Poetry 3 units
Prerequisites: English 1A.
Acceptable for credit: UC, CSU. 54 hours lecture
Designed to introduce students to the art of poetry, English 43 includes analysis and appreciation of poems by a wide variety traditional and contemporary poets. This course focuses on how to respond as a reader and how to help give poetry meaning in the light of one's accumulated feelings, interests, and ideas.

Top of Page

47 Introduction to Shakespeare 3 units
Prerequisites: Eligibility for English 1A.
Acceptable for credit: UC, CSU. 54 hours lecture
The course will guide the student through a close reading of a selection of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets. It attempts to demonstrate the essential modernity of Shakespeare’s themes and the vitality of the aesthetic values in inherent in his work. It will facilitate access to his work by clearing away the fog of misconception as to the archaic nature of his language and the obsolete character of his world view. It should heighten the student’s awareness of general literary concepts and of the fundamental unity of the culture of Western civilization.

Top of Page

49 Special Studies in English (see college catalog) 1-3 units