Spring 2027 Graduate Courses
SYNCHRONOUS M 6-8:40 - INSTRUCTOR: DR. BONNIE ROOS
Using Emily Wilson’s 2017 translation as its backbone, this course will engage in some of the background and stories of The Odyssey. Students will compare the classic text to excerpts of later iterations including those from Dante’s Inferno, Tennyson’s “Ulysses,” and later movies and excerpts from Clash of the Titans, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, O Brother, Where Art Thou? to Christopher Nolan’s 2026 film, The Odyssey.
ENGL 6330 Seminar in Literary Genres: Graphic Narrative
SYNCHRONOUS W 6-8:40 - INSTRUCTOR: DR. BRENDAN STEPHENS
This graduate seminar explores graphic narratives as a vital field of contemporary literary and visual culture. Students will interrogate the medium's distinct legacy and the complex interplay of text, image, spatial layout, gutter, and sequencing. Throughout the semester, we will trace the evolution of the graphic narrative from humble origins in comics into a distinct and celebrated literary form.
ENGL 6331 Major Author Seminar: The Pearl-Poet and the Desire for an Author
SYNCHRONOUS TH 6-8:40 - INSTRUCTOR: DR. SARAH SPROUSE
Since the beginning of medievalist study, scholars have desired and desperately sought to identify authors of major literary works. In this course, we will analyze all of the works by the so-called Pearl-Poet. Four narrative poems of differing metrical forms and styles, all of which are contained in a single manuscript, are currently attributed to this fourteenth-century author. However, we will also read the apocryphal poems attributed to this author and examine the scholarly debates about authorship that persist to this day. We will consider the evidence for and against attribution as well as trace the history, methods, and rationale for these debates. Our goal isn’t to find the truth (we can’t know it), but, instead, to learn about the problems and methods involved in authorship attribution.