Critical Methods
This course is required of all majors and minors to prepare students for upper-level study in English and Comparative Literature, and may not be exempted. This course will train students in the concepts, vocabulary and research methods required for advanced textual analysis and writing in the discipline.

Environmental Literature
What is nature? What is ecology? The “environment”? What do we mean when we talk about “environmental literature” in the era of climate change and widespread ecological crisis? The course will address these questions by putting literary texts in conversation with some of the following concepts: “nature,” energy, biodiversity, sustainability, global interconnectivity, and environmental justice. We will examine texts that deconstruct the idea of nature and open up new ethical and aesthetic possibilities—for imagining and living in the era of the Anthropocene. Topics to be discussed include: ecology without nature; wilderness and nature writing; writing the environment in realist versus speculative fiction (weird fiction); the poetics of trash; the secret life of rust and dust; nuclear currents; multispecies ecologies and posthumanism.

Feminist Literary Criticism
This course is designed to introduce students to feminist literary theories and critical practices that are considered to be of crucial importance in the field of feminist literary theory today. It focuses on such issues as female sexualization, representations of violence and madness, and subjectivity. During the course of the term we will read and discuss a large variety of texts and methodologies written by some of the most influential feminist theorists today. Students will also become familiarized with the context in which these texts were written and learn how these various methodologies can be applied to the study of literary works. The course is an excellent opportunity to broaden your horizons and learn about new ideas. It is also an opportunity to acquire advanced critical thinking skills through an encounter with very complex and dense texts. As a result of this course, students should be able to have a better understanding of contemporary feminist and post-feminist culture by placing contemporary cultural practices in the context of feminist intellectual tradition.