Honors Courses

ENGL 105: Honors Introduction to English - Murder, They Wrote

Instructor: Megan Dennis
45925 | TuTh 9:30-10:45 AM | Fraser 222

How do we understand representations of crime and victimhood in literature and culture? Representations of crime, victims, and suspects have broader implications for the ways we understand embodiment, social mores, and justice. Crime and detective stories have retained a foothold in the Western imagination since the days of Edgar Allen Poe’s Dupin and Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. These texts hold us in suspense, while also revealing anxieties among society’s members, particularly regarding containment of behavior and identities society deems improper or dangerous. Through critical engagement with literature across a variety of genres and time periods, this course will delve into the realm of crime literature as a means to interrogate the dominant frameworks in which we live. Students can expect to engage with such works as Doyle’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, Louise Erdrich’s The Round House, as well as true crime cases presented in popular podcasts such as My Favorite Murder (and others.) Our writing assignments will include some shorter reading responses/ in-class writing activities, as well as three major writing projects and a final reflection.

Visit Megan Dennis's Profile

ENGL 205: The Plot Thickens- Investigating Crime Literature

Instructor: Megan Dennis
49390 | TuTh 2:00-3:15 PM | Fraser 224

The proliferation of crime media (from literature to film and podcasts) demonstrates U.S. audiences hold a longstanding fascination with the spectacle of crime and with the investigators who solve them. How do we understand representations of crime and victimhood in our media? Representations of crime, victims, detectives, and suspects have broader implications for the ways we understand embodiment, social mores, and justice.

Students will explore these representations as we engage with subgenres including detective fiction and true crime. Students can expect to analyze the roles of eccentric detectives and modes of deduction in works such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, Louise Erdrich’s The Round House, and others. The latter part of the course will shift to true crime, including Michelle McNamara’s I’ll Be Gone In The Dark and a true crime documentary. Our writing assignments will include some shorter reading responses/ in-class writing activities, as well as three major writing projects and a final exam.

Visit Megan Dennis' Profile

ENGL 205: Myth & Adaptation

Instructor: Sarah Van der Laan
27605 | TuTh 9:30-10:45 AM | Wescoe 4021

A victorious hero, cast adrift on uncharted seas on his return from a cataclysmic war, struggles through unimaginable dangers and powerful temptations to return to the wife and home he left twenty years ago. The Odyssey—one of the oldest surviving works of European literature—continues to inspire films, plays, novels, graphic novels, poetry, and art: war stories and love stories, postcolonial and feminist revisions, parodies and tragedies. We will study the Odyssey and three contemporary adaptations—Caribbean poet Derek Walcott's stage adaptation, the Coen brothers' film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and Madeline Miller's recent novel Circe—and examine the nature of adaptation itself through critical and theoretical readings. We will ask why Homer’s tales of Troy, with their questioning of ideals of honor and glory, their awareness of the human cost of warfare, and their struggle to find heroism in human experience, remain necessary today. We will discover how contemporary authors and directors reinvent myths for new audiences, and how they insist on the social and cultural power of storytelling. Students will engage in class discussion, write critical papers, and have the opportunity to create their own adaptation.

Visit Sarah Van der Laan's Profile

ENGL 492: The London Review

Instructors: Doug Crawford-Parker & Sarah Crawford
42329 | M 4:30-5:50 PM | Wescoe 4023 & ABROAD Mar 14-22 (Spring Break)

Students participating in the London Review enroll in ENGL 492 or HNRS 492. The London Review is a Spring Break study abroad program through which students explore their individual interests in London with faculty support and guidance. Before Spring Break, students research museums, monuments, neighborhoods, sports venues, and other sites in preparation for the visit. As well, they read examples of travel writing as inspiration for the writing they will do upon return. After Spring Break, students collaborate to create a book documenting and analyzing their experiences.

ENGL 590: Studies in: Travel Writing & Costa Rica Experience

Instructor: Marta Caminero-Santangelo
52149 | ABROAD Jan 4-Jan 16 (Winter Break)

On this program, students will investigate a variety of current issues in Costa Rican politics, culture, ecology, and tourism through lectures, excursions, and individual writing projects. During the second half of the Fall semester, the group will meet regularly to prepare for their time in Costa Rica.

Deadline to apply is October 1!