Graduate Courses Spring 2027
ENGL 730: Topics in Early Modern Literature: History of the Book
Instructor: Jonathan Lamb
64671 | MW 3:30-4:45 PM | Spencer Research Library 350
What is, and was, the book? This course explores the history of the book in the West from the invention of the alphabet to the advent of the electronic book, with a particular emphasis on the printed book. We will investigate how changing material, technological, and social forces have shaped the production, circulation, and consumption of books. The class will meet at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, where students will gain hands-on experience with books, ranging from medieval manuscripts to early printed books to nineteenth-century triple-decker novels to twentieth-century fine press titles. We may even smell the books. At a time when the concept of the book is changing, we will explore issues that producers and consumers of books have long confronted, such as the interplay of text and image, access and censorship, innovation and form, and aesthetics and economics. Course readings will include articles and essays on the history of authorship, book production, publication, distribution, and readership. Course requirements will include readings, various hands-on projects, three short, formal papers, and a final project.
ENGL 753: Writers Workshop
Instructor: Darren Canady
64672 | Tu 7:00-9:30 PM | Wescoe 3001A
ENGL 780: Composition Studies: Contested Spaces in Rhetoric and Composition Studies
Instructor: Pritha Prasad
64673 | MW 2:00-3:15 PM | Wescoe 3001A
In A Counter-history of Composition (2007), Byron Hawk argues “the desire to map the field of rhetoric and composition comes from its inception as a discipline” (11). Following Hawk, this course will in some ways attempt to continue this legacy. Where we will diverge from this tradition, however, is by thinking critically about the contested spaces of the field—geographic, intellectual, and even material—that may not always be easily mapped. How, for example, do canonical histories of our field make some spaces visible and others invisible? How has our discipline disciplined certain bodies, perspectives, and spaces? Although this course will provide a historical overview of some of the most formative scholarly and pedagogical discussions in rhetoric and composition, we will read these texts in ways that are not always amenable to the traditional logics of a map or timeline. Instead, we will read conversations horizontally across a number of contested spaces, many of which overlap and converge in messy ways. Specifically, we will focus on interdisciplinary debates in rhetoric and composition around genealogies, rhetorics, pedagogies, identities, and methodologies. By the end of the course, you will have gained sufficient experience in: 1) facilitating cross-contextual and cross-historical analyses of major scholarly conversations in rhetoric and composition; 2) identifying underrepresented and/or emergent perspectives, histories, and theoretical approaches and their implications for past, current, and future scholarship in rhetoric and composition; 3) discussing major conversations in the field as they relate to your research interests; and 4) designing research, teaching, and professional projects in rhetoric and composition.
ENGL 790: Studies in: Fan Fiction
Instructor: Kathryn Conrad
62491 | TuTh 11:00-12:15 PM | Fraser 113
In her edited Fanfiction Reader (2017), Francesca Coppa writes that “fanfiction is made for free, but not ‘for nothing.’” If fanfiction is not “for nothing,” what is it for? What does it do? How might it help us to think about identity, storytelling, publishing, originality? We will examine some of the definitions and characteristics of the genre, the history and controversies that have surrounded it, and the critical work that it does and that it has in turn inspired. Students will be encouraged to think and write critically about fanfic in general and about published fanfic in the fandoms in which they are most interested, although there will be selected examples of fanfiction provided.
ENGL 800: Methods, Theory, & Professionalism
Instructor: Sarah Van der Laan
52925 | Th 2:00-4:30 PM (Jan 19-Mar 12) | Wescoe 3001A
English 800 prepares students for graduate coursework and exams, the writing of a scholarly thesis or dissertation, and the submission of work to the larger scholarly community. Assignments facilitate the acquisition of skills and tools essential to these activities. Across the Fall and Spring semesters, students will acquire strategies for reading scholarly writing; produce a range of professional genres, including conference proposals; learn more about their selected areas of study and the best venues for sharing work in those areas; and develop a comprehensive plan for their graduate studies. In the Spring semester, in addition to continuing our exploration of methods, we will learn about research resources in English Studies, practice writing conference abstracts, conduct more research on areas of scholarly focus, and further develop individual academic plans.
ENGL 801: Study and Teaching of Writing
Instructor: Sonya Lancaster
58411 | TuTh 10:00-10:50 AM | Fraser 113
English 801 Study and Teaching of writing supports you in your first year of teaching 101/102 at KU by providing structured opportunities to reflect on your teaching practices in dialogue with other writing teachers. While the fall semester focused on examining perspectives on writing pedagogy that inform curricular approaches (from responding to student writing, to facilitating peer review, to teaching rhetorical analysis, etc.), as we move from 2 credit hours to 1 credit hour in the spring, we will move to focus more on developing activities and reflecting on your teaching. In class, we will focus on how to teach the weekly activities in 102, what you can learn from observing your students' learning, troubleshooting and learning pedagogical approaches to the class that will help you help students to learn, and further developing a community of colleagues with whom to share teaching materials and support. Course Assignments: An observation of a peer in your cohort’s teaching and a written reflection about what you learned through the experience of peer review, an update of your fall 801 teaching portfolio to include reflections on what you have learned and created in your 102 course, course activities you will create or adapt to in your class, and short reflections on student learning.
ENGL 908: Seminar in Literary Criticism: Theories of Reading: History and Theory of Reading
Instructor: Ann Wierda Rowland
63034 | TuTh 12:30-1:45 PM | Fraser 224
A seminar on recent theories of reading. Reading has emerged as an important site of inquiry in a variety of fields and methodologies across literary studies. We will explore a wide range of theoretical approaches to reading to give students the opportunity to discover the concepts and analytical tools that will be most useful to them in their own area of study. These will include the cultural and material history of reading and reading repertoires, theories of reception and remediation, cognitive literary theory and the reading brain, embodied reading and affect, gender and queer theories of reading, literary fandom and the sociology of reading. Students will do short written assignments, class presentations, a final paper that applies selected theories of reading to their own field of specialization.
