Author and Topics Courses

Author and Topics Classes

The following list displays a selection of course topics that have been authorized as academically viable by the department over the years. Offerings depend on financial and faculty resources. There is no guarantee that these courses will be offered, though students interested in taking a course on one of these authors or topics should contact the department.  ENGL 469: Selected Topics – Major English Writers  ENGL 479: Selected Topics – Major American Writers  ENGL 488: Selected Topics in Rhetoric and Writing Studies  ENGL 489: Selected Topics in Literatures Written in English ENGL 498: Selected Topics in English ENGL 583: Special Topics in Literature ENGL 681: Selected Topics – Seminar in Major Authors ENGL 683: Selected Topics – Seminar in English Studies

ENGL 469: Selected Topics – Major English Writers

  • A. Jane Austen
  • B. Samuel Beckett
  • C. Aphra Behn
  • D. The Brontës
  • E. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
  • F. Charles Dickens
  • G. John Donne
  • H. Durrell and Fowels
  • I. George Eliot
  • J. Thomas Stearns Eliot
  • K. Edward Morgan Forster
  • M. Thomas Hardy
  • N. James Joyce
  • O. David Herbert Lawrence
  • P. John Milton
  • Q. George Bernard Shaw
  • R. Edmund Spenser
  • S. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
  • T. Rebecca West
  • U. Oscar Wilde
  • V. Virginia Woolf
  • W. William Wordsworth
  • X. William Butler Yeats
  • Y. Boswell and Johnson
  • Z. Marlowe, Marvell, and Milton

ENGL 479: Selected Topics – Major American Writers

  • A. Emily Dickinson
  • B. Louise Erdrich
  • C. John Fante
  • D. William Faulkner
  • E. Nathaniel Hawthorne
  • F. Henry James
  • G. Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville
  • H. Bobbie Ann Mason
  • I. Herman Melville
  • J. Toni Morrison
  • K. Edgar Allan Poe
  • L . Henry David Thoreau
  • M. Edith Wharton
  • N. Walt Whitman
  • O. William Carlos Williams
  • P. Richard Wright
  • Q. Charles Brockden Brown and Thomas Jefferson
  • R. Robinson Jeffers
  • S. Frederick Douglass

ENGL 488: Selected Topics in Rhetoric and Writing Studies

  • Advanced Argumentation
  • Multimedia Composition
  • (Post) Modern Persuasion
  • Real World Writing
  • Dimensions of Writing Assessment

ENGL 489: Selected Topics in Literatures Written in English

  • A. Art and Literature of the Romantic Period
  • B. The Beats
  • C. Early Modern Women
  • D. Literary Bloomsbury
  • E. Radical Protest Literatures of the United States
  • F. Literature of Los Angeles
  • G. Metafiction
  • J. Chicana/o and Latina/o Cultural Production

ENGL 498: Selected Topics in English

  • Detective Fiction
  • Teaching ESL Academic Writing
  • Poetry and the Self

ENGL 583: Special Topics in Literature

  • African-American Fiction
  • Modes of Fantasy
  • Satire
  • Theory of Fiction
  • Tragedy
  • Women Writers

ENGL 681: Selected Topics – Seminar in Major Authors

  • A. Geoffrey Chaucer
  • C. William Faulkner
  • D. John Fowles
  • G. Samuel Johnson
  • I. Thomas Malory
  • L. William Shakespeare
  • N. Oscar Wilde
  • Q. J.R.R. Tolkien
  • R. Jane Austen

ENGL 683: Selected Topics – Seminar in English Studies

  • A. American Autobiography
  • B. American Indian Literature
  • D. American Women Writers, 1850-1900
  • F. Beowulf
  • H. Current Issues in Rhetoric and Composition
  • I. Ethnic American Fiction
  • J. Feminism/Modernism
  • K. History of Composition Instruction
  • L. Medieval Drama
  • M. The Novel and Postmodernism
  • N. The Places and Spaces of Early English Drama
  • O. Revision and Editing Processes
  • Q. Teaching Basic Writing
  • R. Teaching Literacy
  • T. West Coast Writing after World War II
  • U. Victorian Imperial Romance