English

Courses Taught

• ENG 101 Introduction to College Writing
  Course develops students' ability to express themselves in clear, accurate, and thoughtful English prose. Offered regularly. Fulfills first-year writing requirement. Open to first-year students only.
• ENG 235 Survey of African American Literature
  Overview of African American literature from early slave narratives to realist novels and twenty-first century poetry. This course asks how foundational nineteenth-century African American writers invented and adapted literary forms to redefine the United States and construct new images of blackness. Further, we explore how their work speaks to our own moment by discussing recent literature, political discourse, and popular culture. Authors considered will include Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, Frances Harper, Charles Chesnutt, Claudia Rankine, and Ta-Nehesi Coates.
• ENG 350 Topics in 20th & 21st Century Literature
  Advanced study of a variety of authors, themes, genres, and movements during the 20th and/or early 21st centuries. Courses may cover American, British, transnational, and/or post-colonial literatures. Fulfills Humanities requirement
• ENG 386 Rethinking Race & Nation
  This course examines the complex relationship between writers of color and America, emphasizing concepts such as patriotism, racial and ethnic marginalization, social critique, nationalism, and diasporan identity. Centering literature—to include fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and lyric—in debates over slavery, immigration, imperialism, civil rights, and citizenship across the arc of American history, this course maintains a particular emphasis on social justice movements as inspiration and context for literary production, but also as key moments for critical exploration of American identity.
• FYS-W 110 Social Death, Social Justice, and Social Media: Global Black Literature and Experiences
  How do Black writers and activists respond to dehumanization and fight for justice? This course explores three interconnected concepts—social death, social justice, and social media—through global Black literature and contemporary digital activism. We examine how Black people across the diaspora have used various forms of expression to resist marginalization, assert their humanity, and advocate for social change. The concept of “social death” describes the condition of being stripped of social bonds and human recognition, a condition historically imposed through slavery and colonialism. We will read literary works that depict experiences of social death alongside texts that imagine liberation and justice. In the second half of the course, we explore how contemporary Black activists use social media platforms to continue these struggles, from #BlackLivesMatter to global movements for racial justice. Readings may include works by authors such as Frederick Douglass, James Baldwin, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and contemporary digital activists. Students will develop critical reading, analytical writing, and research skills while engaging with urgent questions about race, justice, and resistance across different geographical, historical, and media contexts