Department of English and Modern Languages
The English and Modern Languages Department invites all students to enter the dialogue about human life through the distinctive integration of writing, reading, creative expression, communication and critical thinking. In every class, the student is continually challenged to write clearly and effectively, to read carefully and critically, and to care deeply, reflecting the Christ-centered focus of the University. The English and Modern Languages Department serves the goals of the entire institution and all students, regardless of major.
Students with interests in language, literature, artistic expression and critical thinking should consider majoring in English. Students may choose a major in English-literature or English-writing leading to a bachelor of arts degree for general preparation and as a foundation for graduate study, or they may choose a bachelor of science degree in English education to prepare for teacher licensing.
Students who choose to become English majors should expect to commit themselves to substantial reading, to ongoing dialogue with other thinkers and to excellence in writing. All English majors prepare not just for specific careers but for all of life by listening to, learning from and sometimes arguing with the thinkers and writers who continue to shape our world.
Many students in English prepare for a career teaching English at the secondary level. Others primarily look toward graduate school in hopes of becoming professors. Others are preparing to be creative writers, journalists, editors, publishers, technical writers or public relations specialists. Others find English to be an excellent foundation for law school, library science, seminary and ministry, overseas missions, theatre, business, and any vocation that requires people to think deeply and to communicate clearly. Business leaders have shown that English majors are successful employees in the world marketplace.
English majors are expected to do substantial study of American, British and world literature and significant writing in a variety of genres. Students work closely with faculty on writing projects, including publication of Ictus, the department-sponsored literary magazine, and the campus newspaper, The Huntingtonian. English majors are also encouraged to participate in campus dramatic productions, poetry readings, writing workshops and professional conferences.
Students who choose English-literature as a major in the bachelor of arts degree will complete EN 221, 224, 236, 273, 311, 321, 374, 375, 386, 387, 395 (one hour), 452, 453 and 454. Students pursuing the bachelor of arts degree must complete 12 hours in the same language or at least six hours in the same language coupled with six hours of cultural enrichment courses to fulfill the language requirement.
Students who choose English-literature as a major with an emphasis in pre-law for the bachelor of arts degree will complete EN 221, 224, 236, 273, 311, 321, 374, 375, 386, 387, 395 (one hour), 452, 453 and 454. Students pursuing pre-law may opt to substitute EN 455 for one of the 400-level courses. Students pursuing pre-law should plan to enroll in PS 105, 111, and PL 260. PS 111 may be counted as one of the social science requirements in the core curriculum, and PL 260 may be counted as the philosophy requirement in the core curriculum. Students who intend to take the LSAT (Law School Admission Test) as part of an application to law school should take PL 240 Logic. Pre-law students are encouraged to select their general electives from PS 321, 344, 434, 477; BA 351; CO 370, 381; and SO 292, 333, and 345 and are strongly encouraged to complete 12 hours of foreign language study in a modern language. Students may also consider adding the legal studies minor.
Students who choose English-writing as a major in the bachelor of arts degree will complete EN 221, 362, 363, 391, 395 (one hour), 455, 465; CO 241 and 342. An additional twelve hours will be selected from EN 224 (or 236 or 273), 311, 321, 374, 375, 386, 387, 452, 453, 454 or DM 330. Students pursuing the bachelor of arts degree must complete 12 hours in the same language or at least six hours in the same language coupled with six hours of cultural enrichment courses to fulfill the language requirement.
Students who choose English education as a major for language arts teacher licensing will complete EN 221, 224 or 236, 273, 311, 321, 362 or 363, 374, 375, 386, 387, 391 and 455. An additional three hours will be selected from EN 452, 453, or 454. Refer to the Department of Education for education courses required for teacher licensing.
The University minor in literature requires EN 221, 395 (one hour), 431, and 15 hours from EN 224 (or 236 or 273), 311, 321, 374, 375, 386, 387, 452, 453, or 454.
The University minor in writing requires EN 362, 363, 391, 395 (one hour), 455, and 465; CO 241 and 342.
Courses in English
Instruction in the fundamentals of good writing, the development of ideas and the mastery of research paper skills.
Students must enroll in EN 121 every semester until credit has been earned for the course.
This course supports the instruction for EN 121. Students will develop fundamentals of proficient writing skills and prepare for the demands of academic and professional writing. This class will assist students in learning and practicing strategies that successful writers use. Throughout the course, students will engage in essay composition, study sentence structure, develop grammar skills, and learn to recognize and avoid plagiarism.
Prerequisite: Required for students enrolled in SS 101 and EN 121 or consent
A study of selected writing of the major authors of world literature. This course will include information on form, genre and literary history as reflected in national, regional and minority group literature. Emphasis will be placed on the development of interpretive skills as demonstrated through class discussion and writing.
Prerequisite: EN 121
It may seem counterintuitive to require a course on "how to read literature" for English majors who have probably been reading since they were young. However, while enjoying a good book is a great starting point, critical reading understanding a text on a level beyond plot, character, and point of view. Complementing more intuitive approaches, the goal of this course is to provide new tools for interpreting a text. To this end, it will draw on such interpretive strategies as psychoanalysis, feminism, Marxism, and postcolonialism, among others, as means of approaching texts which will enhance the critical reading skills of literature majors and provide insights for writing majors.
Prerequisite: EN 151
The power of science fiction (and those genres associated with it, such as fantasy and dystopian novels) is that it pushes beyond the boundaries of what is, anticipating what might be -- often proving eerily prophetic. Beginning with Thomas More's Utopia, arguably the first work of speculative fiction, this course will trace the progression of speculative fiction through the gothic novels of the Romantic period to the present day with special attention given to twentieth century authors like Ursula LeGuin, Octavia Butler, and Margaret Atwood, among others. The course will pay special attention to what we can learn about power dynamics, the human condition, and social constructs.
Prerequisite: EN 151
Repentance and Conversion. The Sacraments. Grace. Martyrdom. Theodicy. The Life of Christ. The Christian Life. The Church Universal and Local. The Nature of Evil. The Holy Spirit. For 2000 years, Christians in many cultures have considered their lives, human life, and this world in relation to God. Christians believe the whole range of human experience is accounted for in Christianity. This course examines this range with reading from John Milton, John Bunyan, and works by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and additional readings from international and non-Western writers, and English and American literature up to our times.
Prerequisite: EN 151
This course acquaints students with various types of literature for adolescents, theories of supporting reading in secondary classrooms and using reading as a communication device. The course addresses literacy issues, required vs. open reading, pleasure reading and methods for integrating reading into the secondary curriculum.
Identical with ED 273.
Prerequisite: ED 236
Practicum in some aspect of English designed to give student practical, directed experience.
Prerequisite: Consent
The wilderness has loomed large in the American imagination since the discovery of the New World. But while many saw the taming of the wild as a sign of progress, more recent views recognize the need to preserve our dwindling wilderness. This course will begin with early accounts of cultivating the wilderness, tracing this through works of Manifest Destiny and the pioneer spirit, to the more Romanticized views of nature evident in Emerson and Thoreau, and to the more cynical Naturalists. The emphasis will be on American writers who engage with nature in one way or another but it will also consider the wilderness of the human heart and mind in the face of Nature. Willa Cather, Ernest Hemingway, Stephen Crane, and others will be emphasized.
Prerequisite: EN 151
What is the American dream, and what are its shortcomings? The common versions of the dream focus on definitions of personal fulfillment, narratives of personal effort, and the achievement of financial security. The common version of the nightmare show that race, ethnicity, poverty, limited opportunities, and misplaced priorities stand in the way of the dream. This course examines both the assertions of the dream and the skepticism of its potential, drawing heavily on multicultural writers. Texts for this course will include readings from such authors as Frederick Douglass, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ralph Ellison, Walt Whitman, Lorraine Hansberry, and August Wilson.
Prerequisite: EN 151
Thematic literature or topical studies, including genre history and major authors, will be offered as needed and based on student interest.
May be repeated for credit in different topics.
"Those who tell stories rule the world." Creative writers often play second fiddle to STEM, yet those who write are the ones telling us what it means to be human when science and technology threaten to dominate us. This course dives into the craft of writing literary stories with an underlying belief that storytelling is the most powerful tool humans have to change minds, build bridges, and create empathy - in short, to be fully human. What mirrors do Margaret Atwood and F. Scott Fitzgerald hold up for us and how can we use our talents in similar ways? The exploratory workshop nature of the course encourages students to find their voice and unearth the stories they have inside them.
Prerequisite: EN 121
The poem is often considered the purist form of writing because it compresses language, squeezing the diamond from the roughness of coal. In this course, students will enter into the art of writing poetry with the centering questions: What is a poem and why is a poem? Reading modern free verse poetry from writers like Rita Dove and Ocean Vuong, and looking historically to Shakespeare and Roethke, students will engage with a variety of poetic voices who both push against and sail alongside the culture of poetry that came before them. Drawing on these traditional and upstart voices, the workshop format of the class will help students find subjects and forms that will help them explore the particular nature of poetry and why it persists.
Prerequisite: EN 121
Some monsters just want to eat you. Others have their malevolence internalized. And others yet are misunderstood souls. What causes people and creatures to become monstrous, and what causes people to mistreat others as if they were monstrous? This course will examine characters represented at the margins, from the truly monstrous to those who reveal how and when we are monstrous. The readings will range from the ancients with The Odyssey and Beowulf to early writers of horror and the gothic, like Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and Edgar Allen Poe, and modern writers.
Prerequisite: EN 151
Describing the heart of another as a "dark forest," Willa Cather captured the essence of why affairs of the heart are always complex. Our understanding of another person is never clear and often only viewed from the shadows of our own selves. However, while this course will explore traditional relationships in works by Gustav Flaubert, Jane Austen, and Emily Bronte, it approaches love from a much broader perspective than simply romantic love. Drawing on a wide range of world, British, and American literature, this course may also explore filial and agape love as well as self-love in the works of authors like Oscar Wilde, E. M. Forster, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Julia Alvarez, Khaled Hosseini among others.
Prerequisite: EN 151
In England's Medieval Era, classes were defined by social status - the nobility, the ecclesiastics, and the commoners. By the eighteenth century, class distinctions were more often made economically, geographically, and behaviorally. Class is a changing feature of English society, so that even manners may be high or low class. Focusing on British authors, this course will examine class from Chaucer through the literature of the nobility, Renaissance drama, literature of the eighteenth-century middle class, Charles Dickens, and into the twentieth century with Virginia Woolf and other modern British writers.
Prerequisite: EN 151
While the psychological and moral growth stemming from a transition from youth into adulthood transcends cultures, this course will focus on "coming of age" texts by British authors. The bildungsroman, represented by such works as Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, emphasizes the formative years of it protagonist, while the kunstlerroman, like James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist, explores the artistic development of the protagonist. While personal growth and change is an important emphasis for individual protagonists, this course will also consider defining works of literature that demonstrate key cultural shifts, including works by such authors as William Wordsworth and T. S. Eliot.
Prerequisite: EN 151
Nonfiction is a wide genre that includes literary journalism, the lyric essay, and memoir. What all of these subgenres of the form have in common is the question: What kind of stories can we tell when we give up fiction? This course explores how to shape compelling narratives from real life events and stems from the belief that a writer's job is to create meaning. Reading writers like Joan Didion, John McPhee, and David Sedaris, students will begin to explore writerly moves they can model in their own writing. The workshop format of the class includes rigorous reading and writing and a deep dive into the craft of literary nonfiction writing.
Prerequisite: EN 121
Students may gain practical experience through a variety of hands-on experiences. The practicum could be on campus, working for the campus newspaper, The Huntingtonian, or for a student-produced magazine, or it could be off campus as determined by availability through the Friesen Center for Service and Experiential Learning and with the oversight of a faculty member.
Prerequisites: Junior standing and consent
Students will practice professional editing and interpersonal skills by working with on-campus clients to revise content. The practicum will pay particular attention to the role of comprehensive editing in improving the reader experience and will focus on ways editors can help writers revise their work in meaningful ways. May be repeated for zero credit.
Prerequisite: EN 121
Students will gain practical experience with content creation and management across professional writing genres. Each week, students will meet to work on writing and editing projects that they may add to their professional portfolio, culminating in the successful publication of Ictus, Huntington University's literary magazine. May be repeated for zero credit.
Prerequisites: EN 121 and 151
The southern drawl is paradoxically as distinct and diverse as the South itself. While each region has its unique accent, each was shaped by rich agrarian roots as well as the dark past of slavery. Against this backdrop, one of the United States' most prominent regionalism developed, with many of America's most distinguished writers hailing from the South. Rich with literary heritage, writers from the South focus on personal and national identity, race, religion, and the burdens of heritage and history. This course focuses on writers across the South, including William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston, and Flannery O'Connor, and others.
Prerequisite: EN 151
While conquest has always been a driving force in history, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw Britain become the "empire on which the sun never set." However, with the decline of the British empire, the populaces it occupied began to respond to the effects of colonization: especially the loss of cultural identity and the resulting sense of liminality (of belonging nowhere). Emphasizing the work of Jean Rhys, Derek Walcott, and Ngugi Wa Thiongo among others, this course will explore the voices of the subaltern responding to the metaphysical, ethical, and political implications of losing one's culture, language, and identity.
Prerequisite: EN 151
The search for identity - trying to determine where one fits into the wider world - transcends time and place. Question of identity include issues of gender, race, ethnicity, and encompasses not only personal but also cultural and religious belonging. With an emphasis on world literature, this course will focus especially (but not solely) on peoples who have typically been disenfranchised and forced to maneuver questions of identity outside of the status quo. Authors discussed in this course will include Jhumpa Lahiri, Louise Erdrich, and Toni Morrison as well as a broad range of other authors.
Prerequisite: EN 151
The English language is a hungry beast devouring and pilfering wholesale from every source it encounters. Our words and sentence structures reflect the history of a resilient and flexible people who, regardless of insurmountable odds, persevere and grow in influence. This course traces the roots of the English language and follows its movement into all corners of the world. The course also reviews modern grammar usage.
Prerequisite: EN 121
The act of writing is an act of creativity and faith, but it is also a professional craft shaped by the needs of the publishing industry. In this course, writing students will create longer works in a genre of their choice that will culminate in a document worthy of submission for publication. Students will examine avenues for real world writing and how they might apply their talents in productive ways. A critical workshop format and a rigorous exploration of the professional creative writing world will ensure students cap off their creative studies with both the craft and skills necessary for whatever step they next choose.
Prerequisite: EN 362 or 363 or 391
The study of a problem, a research paper or a project related to the English major.
Prerequisite: Consent
A field experience in English which provides an opportunity for the student to apply theoretical knowledge in a practical setting. Student maintains close cooperation with the supervisory personnel in the field.
Prerequisite: Consent
Modern Languages
The study of a modern language is strongly recommended for all students, not only to acquire linguistic skills, but for the purpose of gaining insight into the cultural diversity of the people of the world. Students who have studied two or more years of a language in high school and wish to continue should take the CLEP examination in that language no later than July, so that they can be properly placed. Advanced Placement can also be used for language placement and credit may also be allowed for students who achieve a score of three or higher on some AP language tests.
The University minor in Spanish requires a minimum of 22 hours, including SN 211, 221, and 16 additional hours in Spanish through the Semester in Spain program or in approved transfer courses in Spanish. Prior to the Semester in Spain, students must receive credit for SN 221 Intermediate Spanish II (or equivalent credit through CLEP or AP examinations). Students will normally complete 16 hours in the Semester in Spain program. These hours will be counted as 16 hours of the minor. Students are placed in courses on the basis of testing at the beginning of the experience. Additional information about the Semester in Spain program is included in the section on off-campus programs. SN 111 and 121 do not count toward the minor in Spanish.
The bachelor of arts degree in Spanish and the bachelor of science degree in Spanish education are suspended until the University resumes offering 300 and 400 level courses in Spanish.
Courses in Spanish and French numbered 300 or higher will not be offered until further notice.
Courses in French
An audio-lingual approach, with practice in pronunciation and conversation and stress on grammar and reading.
A continuation of elementary French, with practice in pronunciation and conversation and stress on elements of grammar and reading.
Prerequisite: FR 111
Reading of significant authors, with grammar review, composition and oral practice.
Prerequisite: FR 121
A continuation of intermediate French, with readings of significant authors, grammar, composition and oral practice.
Prerequisite: FR 211
Courses in German
A conversational approach, which integrates elements of grammar with skill development in listening, speaking, reading and writing. German cultural aspects are an integral part of the course.
A continuation of elementary German, with practice in pronunciation, conversation, reading and writing.
Prerequisite: GM 111
Grammar review, composition, conversation and selected readings.
Prerequisite: GM 121
A continuation of intermediate German, with grammar review, composition, conversation and selected readings.
Prerequisite: GM 211
Courses in Spanish
An audio-lingual approach with practice in pronunciation and conversation, with stress on elements of grammar and reading.
A continuation of elementary Spanish, with practice in pronunciation and conversation and stress on elements of grammar and reading.
Prerequisite: SN 111
Grammar review, composition, conversation and selected readings.
Prerequisite: SN 121
A continuation of intermediate Spanish, with grammar review, composition, conversation and selected readings.
Prerequisite: SN 211