English Current Courses

Every English major at Grinnell receives a thorough grounding in the tools of literary analysis, studies the literary traditions of a variety of ages and places, and completes ambitious research projects. The department offers students a range of choices as they pursue those ends; the flexible curriculum allows students to read American, British, Irish, and postcolonial literatures from a variety of critical and theoretical perspectives. We represent the relationships among our courses, requirements, and departmental goals on our English curricular map.

Within this curriculum, every English major develops his or her own questions and interests. The major begins with a 100-level course in which students develop their analytical skills by paying close attention to texts and developing an awareness of contemporary approaches to literary study. The 200 level includes courses that introduce students to the practices of creative and argumentative writing; the traditions of American, African-American, ethnic American, British, Irish, and postcolonial literatures; and the theoretical tools of historical linguistics and gender studies. Those courses provide the necessary background for the three 300-level seminars that every English major completes. Courses at the 300 level require more advanced work in literary study and creative writing; these courses train students in advanced skills of self-directed research and writing. To complement this intensive study of English as a discipline, English majors also complete at least an introductory study of a foreign language and one course that involves an interdisciplinary approach to humanistic inquiry.

The English Major and Requirements offers more information about all these courses and details of the department’s major requirements.

Spring 2026

ENG-120-01 Literary Analysis – E. Simpson
ENG-120-02 Literary Analysis – M. Lavan
ENG-120-03 Literary Analysis – M. Lavan
ENG-120-04 Literary Analysis – H. Phan
ENG-121-01 Introduction to Shakespeare – T. Arner
ENG-205-01 The Craft of Fiction – B. Dantas Lobato
ENG-207-01 Craft of Creative Nonfiction - Staff
ENG-207-02 Craft of Creative Nonfiction - Staff
ENG-224-01 Tradition of English Literature II – C. Jacobson
ENG-227-01 American Literature Traditions I – S. Andrews
ENG-273-01 Transnational and Postcolonial Feminism – S. Kapila
ENG-295-01 Special Topic: Shakespeare and Succession – T. Arner & K. Herold
ENG-295-02 Special Topic: Introduction Art Literature Translation – B. Dantas Lobato
ENG-295-03 Special Topic: Literature and Environment – H. Eklund
ENG-310-01 Studies in Shakespeare – H. Eklund
- Shakespearean Natures
  What is “nature”? How did people in Shakespeare’s era understand themselves with respect to the various “environments” they inhabited—geographic, climatic, social, and cultural? How did their categories of humanity and nonhumanity—from animal to monster—map onto their observations and imaginings of a changing globe? This seminar will read four plays (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Othello, King Lear, and The Tempest), meditating on Shakespeare’s ever-changing configurations of and experiments on the concept of “nature.” We will consider how Shakespearean natures are informed by and rework classical, Medieval, and contemporaneous sources, and how scholars read Shakespeare in the midst of unfolding environmental crises today.
ENG-346-01 Studies in Modern Prose – E. Simpson
- James Joyce’s Ulysses. This seminar will undertake an intensive examination of James Joyce's Ulysses. In addition to Joyce's text, we will read a wide range of critical responses, with an emphasis on those addressing gender, sexuality, and race. We will close the semester by reading literary responses to Ulysses such as Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home.
ENG-349-01 Medieval Literature – T. Arner
ENG-360-01 Seminar in Postcolonial Literature – S. Kapila
- The Sea is History: Postcolonial Seascapes and Ocean Worlds. In the poem of the same name, "The Sea is History,' the Caribbean poet Derek Walcott concludes, "in the salt chuckle of rocks/with their sea pools, there was the sound/like a rumour without any echo/of History, really beginning," announcing a new artistic, aesthetic, and political credo. In this course we will study postcolonial ocean worlds, seascapes, novels by the sea and of the sea, and explore how oceans connect continents differently than land. The histories of the Atlantic and the Indian oceans, for instance, reveal an alternative map of trade, migration, indenture, slavery, and continental connections. We will study theoretical essays and secondary material along with fiction by Joseph Conrad, Nuruddin Farah, Amitav Ghosh, Yvonne Owour, Monique Roffey, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Romesh Gunesekera and Lindsey Collen.
ENG-388-01 Writing Seminar: Screen TV - Staff
- This course examines creative writing with a focus on digital, emerging, and hybrid genres-namely writing for television and film. In some semesters, the course may focus on other emerging genres depending on the research interests of the instructor. Students will spend much of the semester discussing the craft and construction of existing texts and applying knowledge gained to the completion of significant creative project of their own.

Fall 2025

ENG-120-01 Literary Analysis – E. Simpson
ENG-120-02 Literary Analysis – E. Simpson
ENG-120-03 Literary Analysis – S. Kapila
ENG-120-04 Literary Analysis – T. Arner
ENG-121-01 Introduction to Shakespeare – H. Eklund
ENG-121-02 Introduction to Shakespeare - H Eklund
ENG-205-01 The Craft of Fiction – B. Dantas Lobato
ENG-205-02 The Craft of Fiction – B. Dantas Lobato
ENG-206-01 The Craft of Poetry - Staff
ENG-210-01 Studies in Genre – M. Lavan
ENG-223-01 Tradition of English Literature I – H. Eklund
ENG-225-01 Introduction to Postcolonial Literature – S. Kapila
ENG-229-01 Tradition African American Literature – M. Lavan
ENG-290-01 Introduction to Literary Theory – S. Andrews
ENG-325-01 Studies in Ethnic American Literature – H. Phan
ENG-329-01 Studies African American Literature – M. Lavan
- "Miscegenation Nation." Miscegenation is defined as "interbreeding among the races." Anti-miscegenation laws have played an immeasurable role in policing race relations throughout most of our country's history. And yet, over the last thirty years and particularly in the wake of Barack Obama's presidency, there has been an increase in the depiction of interracial relationships in novels, film and television. However, despite the outward appearance of a happily multicultural America, we are living through a very contentious uprising of racial terror and historical knowledge suppression such as critical race theory and book bans, as well as ongoing voting disenfranchisement. By reading and discussing literary, scholarly, legal and visual texts we will explore the ways in which depictions of interracial dating and marriage between Black and white people have evolved from the turn of the 19th century to contemporary times.
ENG-332-01 The Victorians - C. Jacobson
- Going to Town: Urbanization and Victorian Literature: Massive and rapid migration to still-developing urban centers during the Victorian period led to decaying rural areas and catastrophically congested cities. Industrialization affected all facets of nineteenth-century life, and we'll explore a number of the ways Victorians reacted, focusing on class and gender dynamics in writing from this period. Charles Dickens's sprawling Bleak House and Elizabeth Gaskell's roving North and South will serve as key texts for our exploration, along with other works of fiction, poetry, and journalism from the period.
ENG-337-01 The British Novel I – E. Simpson
- Reading Jane Austen. In this seminar, we will read Jane Austen’s novels and consider many ways of responding to them, from the historical circumstances of their original publication to contemporary scholarly debates. We will also consider the popular reception of Austen’s works, including film adaptations and the fan communities of contemporary Janeites.
ENG-385-01 Writing Seminar: Fiction – B. Dantas Lobato
ENG-386-01 Writing Seminar: Poetry - Staff

Spring 2025

ENG-120-01 Literary Analysis — B. Dantas Lobato
ENG-120-02 Literary Analysis — S. Kapila
ENG-120-03 Literary Analysis — M. Lavan
ENG-120-04 Literary Analysis — P. Smith
ENG-121-01 Introduction to Shakespeare — H. Eklund
ENG-121-02 Introduction to Shakespeare — S. Abdelkarim
ENG-205-01 The Craft of Fiction — P. Smith
ENG-205-02 The Craft of Fiction — B. Dantas Lobato
ENG-210-01 Studies in Genre — P. Smith
ENG-223-01 Tradition of English Literature I — S. Abdelkarim
ENG-224-01 Tradition of English Literature II — C. Jacobson
ENG-227-01 American Literature Traditions I — S. Andrews
ENG-229-01 Tradition African American Literature — M. Lavan
ENG 240-01 Lighting the Page: Digital Methods Literature Studies — E. Simpson
ENG 316-01 Studies in English Renaissance Literature — H. Eklund
ENG-329-01 Studies in African American Literature — M. Lavan
ENG-360-01 Seminar in Postcolonial Literature — S. Kapila
ENG-386-01 Writing Seminar: Poetry — H. Phan
ENG-395-01 Special Topic: History & Future of the Book – E. Simpson

Fall 2024

ENG-120-01 Literary Analysis - S. Andrews
ENG-120-02 Literary Analysis — E. Simpson
ENG-120-03 Literary Analysis — E. Simpson
ENG-120-04 Literary Analysis — P. Smith
ENG-121-01 Introduction to Shakespeare — H. Eklund
ENG-121-02 Introduction to Shakespeare — S. Abdelkarim
ENG-205-01 The Craft of Fiction — B. Dantas Lobato
ENG-206-01 The Craft of Poetry — H. Phan
ENG-210-01 Studies in Genre — M. Lavan
ENG-215-01 Reading & Writing Youth Cult — TBD
ENG-223-01 Tradition of English Literature I — H. Eklund
ENG-225-01 Intro to Postcolonial Literature — S. Kapila
ENG-230-01 English Historical Linguistics — S. Abdelkarim
ENG-231-01 American Literature Traditions III — H. Phan
ENG-303-01 Chaucer — S. Abdelkarim
ENG-326-01 Studies American Poetry I — S. Andrews
ENG-327-01 The Romantics — E. Simpson
ENG-385-01 Writing Seminar: Fiction — B. Dantas Lobato