HSSA: English (H) (ENGL)

Emphasizes rhetorical analysis of texts and images, research methods, and the conventions of academic writing, including argumentation. This course is ordinarily awarded as transfer credit for incoming students who have completed college-level writing courses accepted as substitutes for HUM H190 First-Year Writing Seminar. If a student receives credit for both ENGL H100 and HUM H190, ENGL H100 counts as a free elective rather than counting toward the HSSA requirements. ENGL H100 credit can either count as a substitute for HUM H190 or as a free elective.

Guides students in reading, appreciating, and analyzing a range of short fiction. Gives special attention to how reading such fiction can help us better understand ourselves and our relationships to the societies in which we live.

Provides students with the means for understanding and appreciating poetry. Focuses on tone, speaker, figurative language, verse forms, and structure in poems from a variety of historical periods.

Examines the thought processes necessary to organize speech content. Analyzes components of effective delivery and language. Provides practice in a variety of speech types, such as special occasion speeches, informative presentations, and persuasive speeches, as well as impromptu speaking.

Surveys the history of African-American music, from slavery to the present, and considers the ways in which writers have adapted different musical styles into their work. Includes--but is not limited to--readings on spirituals, blues, jazz, funk, and hip-hop; written works will include nonfiction, novels, poetry, short stories, and drama.

Examines literary texts and their historical contexts across boundaries of language, culture, and ethnicity.

Analyzes literary techniques used for displacing historical reality into a cross-cultural perspective to create science fiction. Emphasizes science fiction's humanistic usefulness in examining human values from an "extra-species, extra-terrestrial" perspective and in assessing the effects of technology on varieties of belief structures and social institutions.

Surveys African-American literature, history, and culture from the Colonial era to the present day.

Studies Shakespeare's histories, comedies, tragedies, and romances. Focuses on close textual reading of selected plays within the intellectual framework of his era.

Introduces a range of approaches for analyzing film critically, addressing both the formal elements and social significance.

Studies a broad range of American literature since the Civil War. Examines a variety of authors and genres (fiction, poetry, prose, nonfiction).

Focuses on a variety of authors and texts that respond to the world-changing events occurring at the height of imperialism, world wars, and national independence movements across the globe.

Provides students with instruction and practice in analyzing contexts, audiences, and genres; crafting documents to meet the demands and constraints of professional situations; integrating all stages of the writing process; and collaborating effectively within and across teams. Students may not receive credit towards graduation for ENGL H290 if they have completed any of ENGD 240, ENGD 241, ENGD 250, or ENGD 251. PreReq: Y1 students with sophomore standing by credit hours may not register for ENGL H290. HUM H190 or ENGL H100 and Y2 status or higher is required. Completion of ESL if required.

Examines films outside of the Hollywood tradition with a consideration of the cultural, political, and economic influences that shape film.

Surveys Irish drama from about 1900 to the present.

Explores texts published in the first half of the twentieth century, what is commonly called the "Modernist" era. Focuses primarily on written works in different genres, but also covers music, film, visual arts, and other media.

Introduces students to writing in genres such as poetry, short fiction, literary nonfiction, and drama. Employs a variety of writing and revision techniques to assist students in producing a portfolio of their work.

Students reflect on their own travel experiences and consider geopolitical contexts while analyzing a variety of travel narratives.

Examines the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament as literary texts. Emphasizes the variety of genres employed in biblical literature and introduces students to different approaches appropriate to literary interpretation.

Examines the development, contexts, generic conventions, and social functions of modern horror and detective fiction from their roots in European Gothic traditions to the present.

Covers major authors and themes in European Romantic literature from 1770-1830, as well as its repercussions and transformations.

Explores frequently challenged or banned works of American literature. Introduces students to the history of literary censorship and obscenity laws in the United States.

Examines American literary and historical texts that use rebellion against different kinds of authority--governmental, social, cultural, artistic, personal--as their central subject, motif, and / or theme. Includes readings from the Colonial era to the present day.

Surveys American drama from the colonial period to the present.

Surveys African-American drama from the early 19th century to the present.

Surveys modern European drama from about 1870 to the present.

Explores novels, written in or translated into English, by non-American authors. Provides students with multiple perspectives on different global cultures.

Analyzes the evolution of the American novel since 1945, with an emphasis on the historical context of late 20th-century American culture.

Examines the major writers of the American South (both the modern and contemporary periods). Emphasizes recurrent social themes and fictional methods.

Considers the relationship between art and the natural world. Readings may include myths and poems, travel and adventure narratives, activist projects and manifestoes, and scientific and philosophical essays, drawn from a variety of cultural traditions.

Examines the development, contexts, generic conventions, and social functions of documentary film.

Examines the American novel with representatives of the major 20th century literary periods: realism, modernism, postmodernism. Examines the themes and issues addressed in different decades and from different perspectives.

Examines representations of race in Hollywood films, paying particular attention to ideology. Features the films of contemporary BIPOC filmmakers, both working independently and within Hollywood, and puts them into dialogue with historical representations.

Examines information circulation & virality in digital and mediated environments. Emphasizes strategies for producing multimedia texts, such as podcasts, infographics, and videos.

Examines the role of scientists and engineers as public intellectuals who can influence policy and public understanding. Emphasizes strategies for communicating technical knowledge to public audiences through popular media.

Analyzes alienation and otherness through the lens of science fiction. Examines the historical specificity of humanity’s situation on Earth in terms of social formations and how humans relate to the world(s) around them, including to other forms of life, new technologies, and alien environments.

Explores the tension between utopia and dystopia within subgenres of contemporary speculative fiction through close reading. The course examines anxiety and fear, public mood, and the persistence of hope in entertainment grounded in despair. Texts include novels, short stories, and film.

Examines a selected topic in one of the HSSA disciplines in depth. A particular offering may require a prerequisite.

Explores the whole mechanism of the modern theater and how it works, including principles and theories of theatrical art: production, direction, acting, scenic design, costume design, lighting design, makeup, sound and multimedia, and theater architecture.

Considers literary depictions of London, a highly symbolic and frequently used setting in 19th, 20th, and 21st century British literature. Covers a broad range of literary texts set in the city, including works by major authors of this genre and a number of recent works by ethnic minority writers.

Examines decisions made by screenwriters and filmmakers when adapting works of fiction or autobiography for the screen. Considers how the original texts (primarily classics of American and British literature) are transformed into a medium relying on images and sound as well as language.

Examines pieces of literature which rework the themes, characters and/or plots of other works to show how different authors from different times and cultures reinterpret earlier works in their own way.

Focuses on artistic works produced from 1945 to the present by British authors and filmmakers. Covers literary and cinematic responses to university life, youth culture, homelessness, and gender, race, and class issues, among other topics.

Prepares students to be fellows in the Rose-Hulman CommLab. Provides introductions to writing center pedagogy, genre theory, and writing style and mechanics. Requires permission of the instructor.

Prepares students to effectively analyze and produce data communication & visualization. Topics may include mis- and disinformation, visual distortion of data, ethical data presentation, data vis tools and processes, and narrative theory.

Provides introductions to queer theory, history, art, activism, and rhetoric. Topics may include queer rights legislation and court cases, the AIDS epidemic, drag, gender, medicalization, health care, media and pop culture, and more.

Allows for individual study of an HSSA topic selected by the instructor and the student(s). A plan of study, regular meetings with the instructor, and a major term project are required.