Our student advisory council will be making visits to classes in the coming weeks to talk about the English major and minor at Villanova. Here are some of the flyers they'll be showing:
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SPRING 2025
UPPER-LEVEL ENGLISH COURSES
2003 Intro to Creative Writing TR 8:30-9:45, Cathy Staples
In this introductory course, students will develop as creative writers and readers. We’ll begin with creative non-fiction, drawing upon memory and sense of place, then move on to poetry, engaging imagination and the lyric voice, then conclude with short fiction, honing our storytelling skills.
2004 Writing Creative Non-Fiction TR 2:30-3:45, Adrienne Perry
Creative nonfiction has been described as "true stories well told." Students will write, close read, and workshop "true stories," including travel writing, food writing, and the lyric essay.
2009 Writing the Novella TR 11:30-12:45, Alan Drew
A creative writing workshop course designed for students eager to leap into the complex process of writing a novella or short novel. Students will close-read short novels to analyze elements of craft and workshop sections of their own novel in-progress.
2020 Digital Journalism MW 3:20-4:35, Lara Rutherford-Morrison
Introduces students to the fundamentals of journalism, with an emphasis on digital media. Class will focus on the ins and outs of digital journalism as a practice, with students gaining hands-on experience within a variety of media platforms.
2022 Writing Through Conflict TR 10:00-11:15, Alan Drew
In this creative writing workshop you will study contemporary Irish/Northern Irish writers while working on your own creative pieces. Over semester break, you will travel to Belfast for a week of seminars and creative writing workshops at the Seamus Heaney Centre.
2024 Scriptwriting MW 1:55-3:10, Michelle Filling-Brown
In this creative writing course, students will study drama and techniques that lead to developing characters, crafting stories, and writing scenes. In the collaborative scriptwriting workshop, students will work as authors, editors, and critics, ultimately each crafting a one-act play.
2025 Making Comics MWF 10:40-11:30, Robert Berry
We will make, understand, and appreciate the storytelling medium of comics. For artists, writers and enthusiasts of all levels; no drawing experience necessary. Through exercises, readings and collaborative assignments, students learn the language of comics and create their own stories.
2070 Legal Writing & Analysis MWF 9:35-10:25, Karen Graziano
Fundamentals of legal writing and analysis.
2250, Ways of Reading TR 10:00-11:15, Michael Dowdy
An exploration of how we engage, understand, explicate, and enjoy texts of all sorts.
2400 Classical Hero in Ancient Lit MW 1:55-3:10, Evan Radcliffe
In this course we delve into some of the most famous and influential works of classical Western literature, including Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, and Virgil. We will discuss the complexities and depth of their explorations of issues such as war, glory, political power, the place of the gods, and tragic loss.
2801 Editing Law M 4:45-6:00 for first 10 weeks of the semester, Karen Graziano
Law is consistently criticized for lacking the ABCs of effective legal writing: accuracy, brevity, and clarity. Using current laws, students will learn how to edit legal writing to improve its readability and advocate more effectively for clients. Communicating and applying skills of English Majors in the workplace.
2994 Reading and Community M 6:15-7:30 for first 10 weeks of the semester, Mary Mullen
Studying the kind of reading that takes place outside of the classroom in book groups and community reads, this course practices reading in community while studying hot new books selected by students in the course.
3160 Fabulous Middle Ages MW 3:20-4:35, Brooke Hunter
The Middle Ages mixed history (historia) and fable (fabula) freely. This course traces the intersections between the fabulous (the fictional and fantastic) and the "real" in medieval narratives about the history, global travel, and the natural world.
3507 Strange Cases: Imagining Health & Illness TR 1:00-2:15, Joseph Drury
Explore literary responses to pivotal developments in medical science and practice from the eighteenth century to the present. Study works that engage with the new ideas about illness, treatment, and disability that arose alongside changing understandings of the human body.
3530 Victorian Doubles MW 4:45-6:00, Mary Mullen
Investigate how Victorian literature represents doubles - self and other, women and men, past and present, public and private - and study changing constructions of gender, industrialization, and imperial expansion in nineteenth-century Britain.
3615 Ulysses TR 2:30-3:45, Megan Quigley
A study of the novels and short stories of James Joyce, with concentration on Ulysses.
4520 American Novels to 1945 TR 2:30-3:45, Jean Lutes
Want to track some of the most influential American stories ever told? In this course you’ll study19ᵗʰ century books inspired by the institution of slavery before turning to extraordinary contemporary novels that build directly upon their literary provocations.
4632 African American Drama TR 11:30-12:45, Crystal Lucky
"The play's the thing" to capture the conscience of not only a king but a nation. Students will read plays written by African Americans including Lorraine Hansberry, Amiri Baraka, August Wilson, Anna Deavere Smith, and Suzan Lori Parks.
4647 Gender & Sexuality in U.S. Lit TR 4:00-5:15, Yumi Lee
This course examines a fascinating range of contemporary US literary texts to explore the ways that gender and sexuality intersect with race, class and other categories of identity to form our experiences of selfhood, community, national belonging, and power.
4654 25 Poems TR 10:00-11:15, Kamran Javadizadeh
To be alive today is to feel distracted. This course offers us the chance to slow down. We read just one short poem per class meeting and learn how to give it our full attention, in writing and in conversation.
4655 Contemporary Lit & Film in Translation TR 4:00-5:15, Adrienne Perry
This course taught in English introduces students to contemporary world literature and cinema in translation. The study of these texts as translations equips students with an understanding of how translation allows movement among diverse languages and cultures, including our own.
4702 Authors On & Off the Page TR 4:00-5:15, Lisa Sewell & Tsering Wangmo
Do you love to write? Dream of visiting with authors to discuss their work and the publishing world? This course combines creative writing workshops with literary analysis and the chance to hob-nob with prestigious authors during the Villanova Literary Festival.
4703 21ˢᵗ Century American Apocalypse TR 1:00-2:15, Heather Hicks
This course surveys major contemporary novels depicting American disasters and their aftermath. We'll consider the varieties of apocalypse that are imagined -- including economic collapse, pandemic, "zombie apocalypse," and climate disruption -- in relation to gender, race, and literary form.
5000 George Eliot’s Middlemarch MW 3:20-4:35, Mary Mullen
In this senior seminar we will study George Eliot’s Middlemarch and consider what it teaches us about the form of the novel, literary history, and the canon. We will think about gender, genre, race, and colonialism.
GWS 5000 Feminist Fictions TR 11:30-12:45, Megan Quigley
An interdisciplinary course that focuses on a topic through methodology that requires students to provide input from the research areas of their majors. Open to GWS majors, minors and ENG majors,
minors.
HON 5440-100 At Stoneleigh Garden: Reading & Writing Children’s Stories, April 11-13, 2025, Cathy Staples
From Goodnight Moon and The Woman Who Flummoxed the Fairies to Wind in the Willows, Sukey
and the Mermaid, and Alice in Wonderland—we will read and write our way through Stoneleigh’s
gardens, meadows, and woods in this one-weekend workshop.
HON 5440-101 At the Barnes: One Credit Poetry Workshop February 7-9, 2025, Cathy Staples
Dr. Barnes’ collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and early Modern paintings will be the centerpiece for this one-weekend poetry writing workshop. From Cezanne’s cardplayers and Picasso’s acrobats to Matisse’s storytelling interiors—we’ll write our way through the galleries.
You can find our English Alumni Careers Booklet here.
