ENG 1101 - Representations of Pacific Life
This course introduces students to the history, values and cultures of Hawai'i and the various Pacific Island nations, as they are represented through the genres of poetry, prose fiction, non-fiction essays, plays, films (feature and documentary), journalism and media. Specific attention will be paid to the ways in which Pacific Island cultures have been affected by Western contact and colonization, the development of postcolonial perspectives in Pacific Islanders telling their own stories, and the challenges of sustaining indigenous cultural identities in the 21st century.
Credit: 3
ENG 1700 - English for Specific Purposes
Repeatable for up to 4 credits if topics differ.
Course Restriction: Department Chair Approval Required.
This course for visiting international students strengthens English language skills in relation to their specific academic, career or cultural interests. Sample topics could include “English For Nurses,” or “English and E-Sports” or “Exploring Hawaii.” Classes feature active engagement with English language, especially in relation to the chosen field or topic. The program also includes custom-designed co-curricular activities which promote experiential and place-based learning. A final reflection paper written and sent by students upon their return home is designed to capture important culminating impressions and applications of learning to future educational and professional goals.
Credit: 1-2
ENG 2000 - The Art of Literature
Prerequisite: Any WC&IL I course.
This course will introduce students to multiple ways of interpreting literature, selected from a variety of literary genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Texts to be explored will be drawn from multiple cultures and time periods. In addition to studying and applying interpretative strategies, students will have opportunities to apply literary techniques by writing a creative piece in at least one of the genres studied.
Credit: 3
ENG 2100 - Reading Literature, Film, and Culture
Prerequisite: Any WC&IL I course, or any introductory literature course, or instructor permission.
English 2100 introduces critical interpretation, analysis, and composition of a variety of texts – literary, dramatic, and cinematic. Emphasizing the multiple perspectives that writers and readers use in composing and interpreting texts, the course introduces students to a range of literary terms, concepts, and interpretive theories and to the study of English and cultural studies. The course also explores potential career opportunities for those trained in skills of critical analysis (including but not limited to Writing minors, English majors and minors, and Film Studies minors).
Credit: 3
ENG 2500 - World Literature
Prerequisite: Any WC&IL I course.
This course will introduce students to influential literary texts from different cultures and historical periods. Texts studied may include works originally written in English and works translated into English from both Western and non-Western traditions. Students will study a variety of literary forms (poetry, plays, novels, etc.) and genres and explore how these different literary productions influence our understanding of the world and our place in it.
Credit: 3
ENG 3100 - British Literature to 1800
Prerequisite: Any WC&IL II course (may be taken concurrently); or any ENG 2000-level course; or WRI 1150; or department approval.
The study of Medieval, Elizabethan, Restoration, and 18th Century British literature, beginning with Beowulf and ending with 18th-century writers.
Credit: 3
ENG 3101 - Shakespeare on Screen
Prerequisite: Any WC&IL II course (may be taken concurrently); or any ENG 2000-level course; or WRI 1150; or department approval.
Examines the history and impact of film and television adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays. Special emphasis is placed on how culture, events, and narrative and cinematic traditions shape the production and reception of Shakespeare’s works.
Credit: 3
ENG 3102 - British Literature after 1800
Prerequisite: Any WC&IL II course (may be taken concurrently); or any ENG 2000-level course; or WRI 1150; or department approval.
This course examines works in various genres—novels, plays, poetry, and essays—by British authors after 1800. The course will primarily include texts from the 19th century.
Credit: 3
ENG 3122 - American Literature
Prerequisite: Any WC&IL II course (may be taken concurrently); or any ENG 2000-level course; or WRI 1150; or department approval.
Students will study selected American literature in several genres, with a primary emphasis on texts from the 19th century.
Credit: 3
ENG 3130 - Topics in World Literature
Prerequisite: Any WC&IL II course (may be taken concurrently); or any ENG 2000-level course; or WRI 1150; or department approval.
Repeatable for a total of six credits when the focus has changed.
Students will study and explore issues raised by a variety of texts. The particular emphasis varies. Selections may include literature from both Western and non-Western traditions and will address works translated into English as well as works originally written in English.
Credit: 3
ENG 3135 - Japanese Literature
Prerequisite: Any WC&IL II course (may be taken concurrently); or any ENG 2000-level course; or WRI 1150; or department approval.
The course provides a solid grounding in the historical development of Japanese literature from the Yamato era up through the 21st century. Narrative forms examined may include classical forms such as the tale, diary, monogatari, and zuihitsu, and the modern form of short stories, I-novels, graphic novels, and serial phone novels. Special focus will be on the social and intellectual milieu that shaped Japanese writers and their literary works as Japan faced political and economic pressures to open itself to Western values and notions of modernity.
Credit: 3
ENG 3140 - Biography
Prerequisite: Any WC&IL II course (may be taken concurrently); or any ENG 2000-level course; or WRI 1150; or department approval.
An introduction to the literary genre known as biography: its nature, purpose, uses, relationship to history and to fiction, and varieties of format.
Credit: 3
ENG 3145 - Nonfiction Film
Prerequisite: Any WC&IL II course (may be taken concurrently); or any ENG 2000-level course; or WRI 1150; or department approval.
Students are introduced to the genres of nonfiction film—documentary, docudrama, and historical features—and to the theory, history, and ideology of fact-based film. The focus is not a given film’s historical accuracy so much as the writers’ and directors’ strategies of representation, which profoundly affect the audience’s perceptions.
Credit: 3
ENG 3150 - Television Studies
Prerequisite: Any WC&IL II course (may be taken concurrently); or any ENG 2000-level course; or WRI 1150; or department approval.
Television is often casually dismissed as mindless entertainment, but it is also a powerful cultural form that shapes how people see the world. This course will focus on critical “readings” of television’s past and present forms as well as its influence on literature, film, music, and digital media. Students will watch influential TV shows, examine different TV genres (sitcoms, talk shows, news programming, and “reality” TV), read representative scripts and teleplays, and study the evolution of the medium of television from its early beginnings up to its current integration with other forms of digital communication.
Credit: 3
ENG 3202 - Literature of Slavery
Prerequisite: Any WC&IL II course (may be taken concurrently); or any ENG 2000-level course; or WRI 1150; or department approval.
Though slavery was abolished after the Civil War, its legacy persists and continues to provide a compelling subject for American literary artists. This course will focus on representations of slavery and its aftermath in American literature, from antebellum slave narratives to twentieth- century novels, dramas, and films.
Credit: 3
ENG 3206 - British Comic Literature
Prerequisite: Any WC&IL II course (may be taken concurrently); or any ENG 2000-level course; or WRI 1150; or department approval.
Students will study comic British texts across literary periods, from medieval through contemporary, within theoretical frameworks of culture, class, and gender. Students will study comic theory, consider how sociocultural factors shape responses to humor, and gain a deeper understanding of British literature, culture, and the multiple dimensions of humor.
Credit: 3
ENG 3223 - Special Topics in Asian Literature
Prerequisite: Any WC&IL II course (may be taken concurrently); or any ENG 2000-level course; or WRI 1150; or department approval.
This course explores themes in selected literary texts from various regions of Asia. The particular emphasis varies. Repeatable for a total of six credits when the focus has changed.
Credit: 3
ENG 3224 - Ethnic Literature
Prerequisite: Any WC&IL II course (may be taken concurrently); or any ENG 2000-level course; or WRI 1150; or department approval.
The experience of ethnic groups in America’s pluralistic society, as expressed in novels, short stories, poetry, drama, autobiography, and film. Groups studied may include Asian Americans, Black and Native Americans, Hawaiians, Hispanics, and White Ethnics.
Credit: 3
ENG 3226 - Special Topics in Hawai‘i-Pacific Literature
Prerequisite: Any WC&IL II (may be taken concurrently); or any ENG 2000-level course; or WRI 1150; or department approval.
This course thematically explores the poetry, fiction, drama, film, and other literary texts of Hawai‘i and the Pacific. The particular emphasis varies. Repeatable for a total of six credits when the focus has changed.
Credit: 3
ENG 3227 - Hawai‘i and the Pacific in Film
Prerequisite: Any WC&IL II course (may be taken concurrently); or any ENG 2000-level course; or WRI 1150; or department approval.
This class offers a general introduction to popular, art, indigenous, and nonfiction films focused on Hawai‘i and the Pacific. Particular emphasis is given to the shifting cultural and rhetorical contexts of films and to their social impact on the Pacific region and beyond.
Credit: 3
ENG 3228 - Fantasy Literature
Prerequisite: Any WC&IL II course (may be taken concurrently); or any ENG 2000-level course; or WRI 1150; or department approval.
This course explores how literature uses the fantastic to reflect on the human condition, question dominant cultural ideologies, and imagine the real world otherwise.
Credit: 3
ENG 3250 - Texts and Gender
Prerequisite: Any WC&IL II course (may be taken concurrently); or any ENG 2000-level course; or WRI 1150; or department approval.
This course examines the concept of gender in relation to texts. The particular emphasis varies. Students may analyze texts by writers of a particular gender or sexual orientation, representations of femininity and masculinity, or social constructions of gender in and by texts. Repeatable for a total of six credits when the focus has changed.
Credit: 3
ENG 3251 - Sex, Power, and Narrative
Prerequisite: Any WC&IL II course (may be taken concurrently); or any ENG 2000-level course; or WRI 1150; or department approval.
The course examines stories by and about women, and yet it is not a course about women. We will look at the windows through which various women have looked at life; but that life, and even those windows, are not exclusively theirs. We will find in women’s stories the conventions that have become integral parts of what all of us think of as story. We will move sometimes chronologically, sometimes by theme, to see how women’s story conventions have evolved, and we will be inclusive in our definition of “story.” We will look at works from Japan, from Europe, from America, and from American women of several cultures. We will look at novels, short stories, and also movies and television.
Credit: 3
ENG 3252 - 20th-Century American Women Writers of Color
Prerequisite: Any WC&IL II course (may be taken concurrently); or any ENG 2000-level course; or WRI 1150; or department approval.
This upper-division literature course explores identity politics shaped by class, race, gender, and sexuality within the poetry, prose fiction, drama, and biographical and critical essays by Native-American, African-American, Asian-American, Latina/Chicana, and Pacific-Islander writers. Discussion themes include power and status, erasure and marginality, and the establishment of narrative voice as counter-narrative within dominant forms of literary discourse.
Credit: 3
ENG 3300 - Theoretical Perspectives
Prerequisite: Any WC&IL II course (may be taken concurrently); or any ENG 2000-level course; or WRI 1150; or department approval.
Courses in the 3300 series explore ways theories shape interpretations in both academe and everyday life. Contemporary theories are usually emphasized, but a study of earlier, alternative, minority, indigenous, and non-Western approaches may also be included. Selected themes and foci will be reflected in each course title. Repeatable for a total of six credits when the focus has changed.
Credit: 3
ENG 3330 - Film Theory and Criticism
Prerequisite: Any WC&IL II course (may be taken concurrently); or any ENG 2000-level course; or WRI 1150; or department approval.
An introduction to the critical analysis of film. Examines narrative form in movies from a variety of theoretical perspectives. The course also explores how cinematic narratives are affected by changes in aesthetics, culture, economics, politics, and technology.
Credit: 3
ENG 3350 - Literature Adapted to Screen
Prerequisite: Any WC&IL II course (may be taken concurrently); or any ENG 2000-level course; or WRI 1150; or department approval.
A comparative study of the poetics and rhetorics of narratives captured on page and on screen. By examining written texts (prose, plays, myths, biographies, and histories) and their adaptations to the screen (or vice versa), students will learn how texts change as they are translated from one medium to another.
Credit: 3
ENG 4100 - Shakespeare Seminar
Prerequisite: HUM 3900 and two upper-division ENG or WRI courses; or department approval.
A critical study of Shakespeare, taking into account the cultural, historical, and literary context in which he wrote. Several plays are studies, along with selected critical approaches.
Capstone Course.
Credit: 3
ENG 4120 - Seminar in Modernism
Prerequisite: HUM 3900 and two upper-division ENG or WRI courses; or department approval.
The forms and themes particular to the modernist movements through the works of selected representative writers. Innovations in narrative technique, the movement away from traditional plot, and social criticism are emphasized.
Capstone Course.
Credit: 3
ENG 4300 - Seminar in Textual Criticism
Prerequisite: HUM 3900 and two upper-division ENG or WRI courses; or department approval.
An exploration of diverse approaches to the analysis of texts. Students will study and apply key concepts regarding significant movements in the development of literary theory.
Capstone course.
Credit: 3
ENG 4320 - Seminar on Postcolonial Literature
Prerequisite: HUM 3900 and two upper-division ENG or WRI courses; or department approval.
The study of literature written in English by authors from countries or territories that have experienced colonization and the application of various postcolonial theories to the analysis of selected postcolonial texts. This literature often addresses situations encountered by indigenous people and their relationship to colonizing forces, how they adapt to encroaching cultures, how they will pursue their own rule after independence, and how postmodern global society affects the development of culture.
Capstone Course.
Credit: 3
ENG 4901 - Senior Thesis I
Prerequisite: HUM 3900 and two upper-division ENG or WRI courses; or department approval.
Part one of a two-part capstone experience that requires an extensive research paper (approximately 50 pages) on a special topic in English or a substantial creative project. The student is required to spend two semesters on the project. The first semester is devoted to designing the project, conducting research, constructing a reading list or working bibliography, and making notes on the readings in consultation with the instructor. Completion of an outline and a draft of one chapter is a typical goal by the end of the first semester. A thesis committee with be selected by the semester’s end.
Capstone course.
Credit: 3
ENG 4902 - Senior Thesis II
Prerequisite: HUM 3900 and two upper-division ENG or WRI courses; or department approval.
A continuation of ENG 4901. The student undertakes writing and defense of the thesis.
Capstone course.
Credit: 3
ENG 4910 - English Major Portfolio Capstone
Prerequisite: HUM 3900 and two upper-division ENG or WRI courses; or department approval.
In this Directed Study capstone to the English major, students compile their best work into a portfolio and reflect on their progress in the major. Students will meet individually with the Portfolio Advisor to determine the final contents of the Major Portfolio, select what they consider the best six artifacts (or more if desired), and write a reflective essay that makes connections among courses, evaluates their progress as majors, and describes their major work as a whole. This required course is graded on a pass/fail basis.
Capstone course.
Credit: 1