This course will take in ancient myth and mythological figures, archeological backgrounds and historical contexts, art in various media, philosophical and intellectual traditions, and, in general, Large Questions (Love, Death, War, Sex, Law, Gender, and more). Above all, however, this is a course in literary study and appreciation: we will read the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Aeneid, some dialogues by Plato, a selection from the Greek drama, and a large selection of Hebrew and Christian scriptures as challenging imaginative attempts to confront the possibilities of life. We will aim to understand and enjoy these texts in their own distinctive terms, but we will be concerned as well to see why readers over several thousand years have continuously returned to them, and how we are to make sense of them in the twenty-first century. The readings are astonishingly rich and rewarding, and we will try to do justice to them within the limits of a semester's work. Students will write two shorter papers and one longer paper. Applicable English Clusters: Medieval Studies [H1ENG007]; Great Books, Great Authors [H1ENG010]

This course immerses students in the most challenging, influential, and engaging writings from the earlier periods of English literature. Our aim will be to enjoy and understand these writings in themselves, and then to see their relation to each other and to their larger historical context. Students should leave the course with some real affection for particular writings, and some assured sense of the contours and highlights of cultural history. Our emphasis will be on the careful appreciation of language and texture in representative texts and authors (including Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, Jonson, Milton, Dryden, Swift, Pope, and their contemporaries). Class will proceed by lecture and discussion. Applicable English Clusters: Medieval Studies [H1ENG007]; Great Books, Great Authors [H1ENG010]

In this course we will read a variety of works from the entire expanse of American literature. We will consider issues of aesthetic power and formal innovation, community and reform, gender and power, ethnicity, and national identity that have been of central concern in the development of American literary culture and in the construction of American identities. These identities have historically involved crucial disjunctions and conflicts as well as significant meldings. We will attempt to trace both in the works we read. Authors will include Poe, Emerson, Douglass, Dickinson, Whitman, James, Wharton, Faulkner, Ellison, Pynchon, and Morrison. Applicable English Cluster: American and African American Studies [H1ENG006]

This course surveys African-American literature of a variety of genres—poetry, drama, autobiography, fiction, and nonfiction essays—from the eighteenth century to the twentieth. The course interprets this tradition not only as the production of American writers of African descent, but also as a set works that display formal characteristics associated with black cultural traditions. Discussion topics include the meanings of race, the construction of black identity, and intra-racial differences of class, gender, and sexuality. Special attention will be paid to approaching literary texts from a variety of critical perspectives. Applicable English Cluster: American and African American Studies [H1ENG006]

As an introduction to the art of film, this course will present the concepts of film form, film aesthetics, and film style, while remaining attentive to the various ways in which cinema also involves an interaction with audiences and larger social structures. Applicable English Clusters: Modern and Contemporary Literature [H1ENG008]; Language, Media, and Communication [H1ENG016]

Short story workshop. Applicable English Clusters: Novels [H1ENG009]; Creative Writing [H1ENG015]

Students in this course will explore the craft of poetry both through writing their own poems and studying the poems of others. The course will examine the essential elements of poetic craft through a series of weekly reading and writing assignments. The workshop format of the course will emphasize student writing, revision, and group participation. Permission of instructor required. Please submit 3-5 poems to the instructor, preferably before the first class. Applicable English Clusters: Poems, Poetry, and Poetics [H1ENG012]; Creative Writing [H1ENG015]

Credit: 2 hours. A course devoted to the understanding and execution of dramatic writing that is unique to the theater. Applicable English Clusters: Plays, Playwrights, and Theater [H1ENG011]; Creative Writing [H1ENG015]; Theater Production and Performance [H1ENG018]

Reporting and Writing the News introduces the student to journalistic writing and reporting. Through a variety of classroom exercises and through out-of-class reporting, students learn to prepare accurate and balanced news stories. Assignments progress from single-source interviewing to news profiles, speech-and-meeting coverage, and feature stories. Additional experience is gained through rewriting assignments, as directed by editing comment. Attention is also paid to First Amendment issues such as libel, as well as to the challenges and opportunities presented by new media. Applicable English Cluster: Language, Media, and Communication [H1ENG016]

Reporting and Writing the News introduces the student to journalistic writing and reporting. Through a variety of classroom exercises and through out-of-class reporting, students learn to prepare accurate and balanced news stories. Assignments progress from single-source interviewing to news profiles, speech-and-meeting coverage, and feature stories. Additional experience is gained through rewriting assignments, as directed by editing comment. Attention is also paid to First Amendment issues such as libel, as well as to the challenges and opportunities presented by new media. Applicable English Cluster: Language, Media, and Communication [H1ENG016]

Basic public speaking is the focus of this course. Emphasis is placed on researching speeches, using appropriate language and delivery, and listening critically to oral presentations. ENG 134 contains two quizzes, a final exam, and four speeches to be given by the student. The speeches include a tribute, persuasive, explanatory, and problem-solving address. The course utilitizes instructor Curt Smith's experience as a former White House presidential speechwriter. Applicable English Cluster: Language, Media, and Communication [H1ENG016]

The purpose of this course is to give students an appreciation for and knowledge of critical thinking and reasoned decision-making through argumentation. Students will research both sides of a topic, write argument briefs, and participate in formal and informal debates. Students will also be exposed to the major paradigms used in judging debates. Applicable English Cluster: Language, Media, and Communication [H1ENG016]

The purpose of this course is to give students an appreciation for and knowledge of critical thinking and reasoned decision-making through argumentation. Students will research both sides of a topic, write argument briefs, and participate in formal and informal debates. Students will also be exposed to the major paradigms used in judging debates. Applicable English Cluster: Language, Media, and Communication [H1ENG016]

An introductory course to the theories, methods, and practice of set construction, power tools, rigging, stage lighting, drafting, sound, and scene painting. Lab participation in theater program productions required. Applicable English Cluster: Theater Production and Performance [H1ENG018]

The course undertakes to introduce students to the various elements of theater design. Lighting techniques, sound design, and set design are all covered from time to time. Applicable English Cluster: Theater Production and Performance [H1ENG018]

One of the foremost acting (and voice) teachers in South Africa comes to the UR for a semester-long residency at the UR International Theatre Program. Acting Techniques focuses on the student’s ability to analyze texts from a performer’s viewpoint; on heightening the actor’s sensitivity to language; on developing the actor’s physical and vocal technique; on building awareness of character and characterization; and on engaging and actively developing creativity and imagination. This is done by constant investigation, rehearsal, and presentation of assorted texts ranging from poetry to contemporary and classical scenes and monologues. No prior acting experience or classwork is required. STUDENTS MUST REGISTER FOR A LAB WHEN REGISTERING FOR THE MAIN SECTION. Applicable English Cluster: Theater Production and Performance [H1ENG018]

Students must register for the lab when registering for the course Acting Techniques.

Introductory directing techniques for aspiring directors. Exploring the nature of the theatrical events, investigate the nature of conceptualization, visualization, text analysis, action, and design as they pertain to the director's craft. In conjunction with a weekly scheduled lab. Applicable English Cluster: Theater Production and Performance [H1ENG018]

Students taking Directing are also required to register for Directing Lab.

"To men I shall speak wisdom where none speak a word on earth; though sons of land-dwellers now eagerly seek after my tracks, I sometimes hide my path from everyone." Riddle 94 of the Exeter Book. In following the dark tracks of the Old English writers who left their almost unrecognizable English words on tenth-century vellum, we will have to acquire skills and tools. This course will ask you to learn the Old English language, but translations will also be provided for most of the texts as a guide only. With these in hand, we will explore the dark world of Anglo-Saxon writing for its illuminations, but our emphasis will be on loss, love, hardship, riddle, wisdom, and the spiritual and magical powers of writing in a culture that stood on the cusp of orality and literacy. Texts: King Alfred, The Chronicles, Aelfric's "Preface to Genesis," "The Wanderer," The Seafarer," "The Wife's Lament," "Wulf and Eadwacer," "Gnomes," "Enigmas," "The Battle of Maldon." Applicable English Cluster: Medieval Studies [H1ENG007]

A media-rich course that examines medieval monstrosities: depictions in art, language and literature of demons, giants, dwarfs, elves, fools, shape-shifters, witches, birth-defects, hybrids, foreigners, manuscript illuminations, gargoyles, spells, gibberish, and other (perceived) deformities of the body and mind in mostly British Isles texts. The term “monster” derives from the Latin monstrare, to “show”: a “portent” that points not only to the vulnerabilities of the body, but the moral mishaps of soul and society. Monsters occupy the margins (of the city, the manuscript page) and yet are central to any social definition or understanding of medieval theology, medicine, imagination. To what extent are they opposed or akin to visions of angels, martyrs, the torments of Christ? Selections from Old and Middle English, Celtic, and some continental texts. Applicable English Cluster: Medieval Studies [H1ENG007]

This course will focus on plays representing each of Shakespeare's major dramatic forms—comedy, history, tragedy, and romance. We learn about the literary and theatrical conventions that would have been second nature to Shakespeare and his audience 400 years ago; consider how Shakespeare's writing responded to his audience's cultural, literary, political, and religious concerns; and ask how Renaissance stage practices might help us to better understand his plays and better appreciate why Renaissance audiences found them so compelling. Classes will center around careful study of individual plays. We also will become familiar with sixteenth- and seventeenth-century theatrical spaces—their geographical location and physical properties, the composition of their audiences, the training and performance practices of their actors, and the aesthetic effects of their productions. Fulfills the pre-1800 requirement for the English major. Applicable English Clusters: Great Books, Great Authors [H1ENG010]; Plays, Playwrights, and Theater [H1ENG011]

This course introduces students to some of the major British novelists during the nineteenth century such as Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy. The course will situate these novelists within the aesthetic and historical concerns of the period and cover an array of topics (e.g. the rise of the novel, the marriage plot as a narrative device, capitalism, gender, sexuality, race, and empire). Applicable English Cluster: Novels [H1ENG009]

The nineteenth-century novel is usually associated with Victorian values: happy marriage; wholesome homes; moral propriety; properly channeled emotions and ambitions. Many of the most popular novels, however, paint a very different picture: with madwomen locked in attics and asylums; monsters, real and imagined, lurking behind the facade of propriety; genteel homes harboring opium addicts; fallen women walking the streets; and sexual transgression and degeneracy popping up everywhere. Indeed, for novels centrally structured around marriage and society, madness and monstrosity appear with alarming regularity. The intertwining of these tropes suggests some of the cultural anxieties unleashed by the new body of women writers and women readers. We will begin with Frankenstein and end with Dracula, two novels from opposite ends of the century. We will also consider such classic marriage plot novels as Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre and some popular sensation fiction of the 1860s. Applicable English Clusters: Gender and Writing [H1ENG002]; Novels [H1ENG009]

The course covers the period roughly between World War I and World War II, dealing with the rich creativity we associate with Modernism. We will read and discuss such writers as Eliot, Faulkner, Hemingway, Dos Passos, Steinbeck, etc., studying not only the works but some of the major trends in art, culture, and knowledge that make the modern period so important and exciting. The method will be a combination of close reading, lecture, and discussion with (probably) one short paper and one longish paper. Not open to freshmen. Applicable English Clusters: American and African American Studies [H1ENG006]; Modern and Contemporary Literature [H1ENG008]; Creative Writing [H1ENG015]

The history and theory of the novel form in the U.S. from the Revolution to the Civil War. We will read a broad range of the novel's different modes (the epistolary novel, the novel of seduction, the gothic, the historical romance, the sentimental-domestic novel). Along the way we'll trace the development of the form from its emergence after the Revolution, through its dominance at mid-century, up to the emergence of the African-American novel in the years leading up to the Civil War. Readings will likely include: Rowson, Foster, C.B. Brown, Cooper, Sedgwick, Stowe, Hawthorne, Melville, Webb. Applicable English Cluster: American and African American Studies [H1ENG006]

The first half of the twentieth century witnessed a rejuvenation of poetic language so startling and so lasting that we still, a hundred years later, refer to those poets as the Moderns. This course will concentrate on the most provocative of those poets (Eliot, Frost, H.D., Moore, Pound, Stevens, Williams), reading their often wildly experimental work within the context of the literary and cultural history of the period. Applicable English Clusters: Modern and Contemporary Literature [H1ENG008]; Poems, Poetry, and Poetics [H1ENG012]; Creative Writing [H1ENG015]

How does literature portray, thematize, and direct the act of reading? From cautionary tales about the dangers of reading the "wrong way" to anti-censorship tracts, literature has long been concerned with what it means to read and what reading “ought” to be or do. A book might warn us about becoming too invested in an author’s personal life; another might warn us about applying fictional narratives too directly to our own lives. Certain works might address a changing literary marketplace; but others might be less interested in reading’s history and more concerned with reading as an immediate experience, or with its more universal possibilities. Of course, as we make our way through these texts “about” reading, we will also explore how each text asks us to read it—and how each text might be said to "read itself." Authors will include (but not be limited to) Cervantes, Milton, Goethe, Flaubert, James, Nabokov, Borges, and Calvino; texts will draw from over five centuries and more than seven national literatures.

Toni Morrison has emerged as one of the most influential writers and critics in contemporary American culture. This course will approach her work from a broad range of critical perspectives including black feminist thought, trauma theory, biblical exegesis, and critical race theory. Although this class will emphasize rigorous study of her literary works, we will also pay close attention to her contributions to literary criticism, her role in public life, as well as her forays into political and national debates. In our study of her novels, we will explore such issues as the importance of history and myth in the creation of personal identity, constructions of race and gender, the dynamic nature of love, the role of the community in social life, and the pressures related to the development of adolescent girls. We will also examine the changing nature of Morrison’s reception by critics and academics, and consider how and why she has achieved such widespread acclaim and influence. Applicable English Clusters: American and African American Studies [H1ENG006]; Great Books, Great Authors [H1ENG010]

What is steampunk? Steam-powered trains and nineteenth-century dirigibles; the ornately constricting fashions and equally constraining values of the Victorian era; revolutionary movements and class politics such as Communism and Anarchism; the lawless frontier of the American West. All of these come together in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century culture of steampunk, a culture that has its origins in a literary tradition that extends back to the nineteenth century. The purpose of this class is to grapple with the relationship of that still-living tradition to the thriving culture of steampunk today, exploring how obsolescence and anachronism become aesthetic "technologies" for imagining alternative modernities in novels and films such as William Gibson and Bruce Sterling's The Difference Engine, Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age, Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle, Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes, Katsuhiro Otomo's Steamboy, Barry Sonnenfeld's The Wild Wild West, China Miéville's Iron Council, and Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day. In reading and viewing these novels and films, we will consider a variety of issues: just what the "punk" in steampunk means; how this genre relates to its nineteenth-century genealogy (the Victorian novel, the Western, Marxist aesthetics, science fiction), not to mention more contemporary modes such as cyberpunk, postmodernism, and neo-Victorianism; historical fantasy and commodity fetishism; the politics of race, gender, sexuality, and class; the poetics of narration and figuration as they relate to the political aesthetics of steampunk; the status of technology and media; how the past comes to take the place of the future in steampunk; and finally how that temporal dislocation is intrinsically linked to the much larger problem of living within the vortex of modernity that defines our present.

This course focuses on the role of literature in representing—and sometimes participating in—processes of inclusion and exclusion. How communities are constructed, around what signs and sets of practices, and the role that exclusion plays in defining a community are topics that we will explore. The course asks, “What does it mean to belong, to be excluded, and just how stable are these categories?” Literature from a variety of traditions, historical periods, and genres will provide examples, case histories, and a critical vocabulary with which such social phenomena can be discussed. Texts include Beowulf, John Gardner’s Grendel, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Seamus Heaney’s The Cure at Troy, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Peter Shaffer’s Equus, Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, Richard Wright’s Black Boy, and more. Applicable English Clusters: Literature and Cultural Identity [H1ENG001]; Novels [H1ENG009]

This course provides a basic introduction to some of the major works and themes in American literature, focusing primarily on the development of the novel and short story, with limited attention to poetry and drama. We will begin in the nineteenth century and work our way through such contemporary writers as Toni Morrison and Tony Kushner. Our focus will be on the creation of a national identity and how issues of race, gender, class, and sexuality intersect in the formation of an American literary tradition. Students will trace a number of important themes such as the relationship between politics and art, the impact of slavery and the Civil War, immigration, the American dream and the development of a national mythology and ideology. In our study of various movements in the American literary tradition, we will also pay close attention to the intellectual debates concerning audience, language, and the purpose of art that have shaped key texts and historical time periods. Applicable English Clusters: Literature and Cultural Identity [H1ENG001]; American and African American Studies [H1ENG006]

This 4-credit intersession course will be conducted in London and Stratford-upon-Avon, UK, from December 29, 2011, through January 14, 2012. We will have a full range of theater experiences in venues as diverse as theater-in-the-round at the Orange Tree to the multiple stages of the National Theatre, from intimate fringe productions and experimental theater to the extravaganzas of West End. See the Theater in England website for descriptions of the program and syllabuses from the past 20 years. This year we will see the best of what is available (twenty or so plays). We will have seminar discussions of the productions which you will then write about in your journals. The fee for the course is $2,700, which includes tuition, tickets to all plays you see, 17 nights housing at the Harlingford Hotel, and transportation to Stratford-upon-Avon and return. The fee does not include transportation to London and back from the U.S. Applicable English Clusters: Plays, Playwrights, and Theater [H1ENG011]; Theater Production and Performance [H1ENG018]

More than any other legends, apart from those of the Bible, the stories of King Arthur have provided Western Europe and North America with a vehicle for cultural propaganda, reassessment, and pleasure. From the twelfth to the twenty-first centuries, artists in all genres and modes have recast Arthurian narratives and images to explore and redefine the moral and social concerns of their day. After a brief introduction to Arthurian backgrounds, the course focuses on Geoffrey of Monmouth and Arthurian literature of the High Middle Ages (Chretien de Troyes and Marie de France) and England in the fourteenth century, then examines the culmination and decline of that ideology toward the end of the fifteenth century (Malory), the reinvigoration of the myth in new directions in the Renaissance (Spenser), and concludes with readings and art of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Tennyson, the PreRaphaelites, Twain, T.S. Eliot, E.A. Robinson, T.H. White). We will also study six movies. Applicable English Clusters: Literature and Cultural Identity [H1ENG001]; Medieval Studies [H1ENG007]

An introduction to the history, technology, and cultural significance of motion pictures of the "pre-sound" era, with screenings of 35mm prints accompanied by live music in the Dryden Theatre. Special attention will be paid to the major pioneers, Dickson, Porter, Lumière, Méliès, and Griffith, but the course will include a variety of internationally produced films selected from the world-famous archival film collection of George Eastman House. Discussion sessions will cover the origins and development of the motion picture industry and its leading genres up to the general introduction of movies with pre-recorded music, sound, and dialog beginning in 1927. Broad issues relating to the transformation of American and world popular entertainment forms and traditions, in relation to the established performing arts of the period, will also be covered. Relevant connections to preserving the world's film heritage will be highlighted, and the film restoration facilities of the Motion Picture Department will be visited in the course of the semester. Students will be expected to take a midterm exam and write one paper. Enrollment limited to 20. Applicable English Clusters: Modern and Contemporary Literature [H1ENG008]; Language, Media, and Communication [H1ENG016]

The course will consider that large, unusual, and varied group of motion pictures known, for reasons of style and content, as film noir—dark films—which includes horror, gangster, detective, and crime movies. We will examine some of the history of the term and the kinds of movies it refers to, study some relevant primary and secondary sources, and of course, screen, analyze, and discuss a dozen or more motion pictures. Possible titles to study include Murder, My Sweet, Touch of Evil, Gilda, The Third Man, Double Indemnity, Night and the City. Aside from the films and the reading assignments, the course will require approximately three papers and a final examination. Although no particular expertise in film is necessary, students should be capable of writing clear, forceful, coherent analyses of narrative. Not open to freshmen. Applicable English Clusters: Modern and Contemporary Literature [H1ENG008]; Language, Media, and Communication [H1ENG016]

This course introduces students to the poetics of television. We will explore the ways that television tells stories and how it constructs worlds; the significance of genre, style, and form to those stories and worlds; the relationship between television as a medium and the horizons of social and aesthetic experience that television opens up; and how those experiences are inflected by the history of television from the time before its invention to the post-network era in the digital age. Much of our class will be devoted to watching TV and discussing what we watch, from the sitcom, news, reality TV, domestic melodrama, soap operas, and crime procedurals to advertising, animation, mini-series, sci-fi and fantasy, the Western, "art television," and live drama. Students will also come to understand poetics as an approach useful to the study of any medium, especially when combined with the more speculative and conceptual projects of media theory. Readings will draw on Aristotle, Todorov, Lukács, Mittell, and Bordwell in addition to Uricchio, Jenkins, Adorno, Williams, Feuer, Spigel, and McCarthy.

This course investigates technical theater beyond the realms of Eng 170/171 (Technical Theater). It focuses on work related to the scenic design and technical production of the semester's Theater Program productions. Working in small seminars and one-on-one tutorials, the instructor will assist students in learning more in the chosen technical areas and about problem-solving scenic and technical questions raised by the set/s being built. Course work will consist of supervisory responsibilities, one major, and several smaller research projects. Applicable English Cluster: Theater Production and Performance [H1ENG018]

One of the foremost acting and voice teachers in South Africa comes to the UR for a semester-long residency at the UR International Theatre Program. Voice Masterclass will take both the beginning and the advanced acting student through a range of exercises and techniques to develop the actor’s understanding and mastery of vocal techniques in order to develop the speaking voice and to explore dramatic characterization through vocal expression. Applicable English Cluster: Theater Production and Performance [H1ENG018]

Poetic Forms is a creative writing workshop dedicated to the practice and exploration of writing in form. Previous experience in writing in form and meter is not required, but previous coursework in creative writing is suggested. Open by instructor permission only and limited to fifteen students. Email instructor with a poetry sample of 3-5 pages. Applicable English Cluster: Creative Writing [H1ENG015]

From The New Yorker to the blogosphere, successful feature writers bridge the gap between news and commentary, shedding light on people, places, and perplexing issues. We’ll study their methods and put them into practice as we write our own articles. Among the feature forms we’ll explore: profiles, trend pieces, investigations, science and travel stories, and color pieces. Among our topics: finding and developing ideas; researching; interviewing and quoting effectively and ethically; achieving the right structure and tone; fact checking; revising and pruning; and getting published. Applicable English Cluster: Language, Media, and Communication [H1ENG016]

Presidential Rhetoric, taught by former presidential speechwriter Curt Smith, helps students critically examine the public rhetoric and themes of the modern American presidency. Particular attention will be given to the symbolic nature of the office, focusing on the ability of twentieth-century presidents to communicate via a variety of forums, including the press conference, inaugural and acceptance speeches, political speech, and prime-time television address. Smith will draw on many of these experiences in Washington and with ESPN/ABC Television to link the most powerful office in the world and today's dominant medium. Applicable English Cluster: Language, Media, and Communication [H1ENG016]

This course will introduce students to the theoretical backgrounds, practical challenges, and creative activity of literary translation. We will survey appropriate theories of language and communication including semiotics, post-structuralism, pragmatics, discourse analysis, and cognitive linguistics. We will consider varied and conflicting descriptions by translators of what it is they believe they are doing and what they hope to accomplish by doing it; and we will study specific translations into English from a variety of sources in order to investigate the strategies and choices translators make and the implication of those choices for our developing sense of what kinds of texts translations actually are. Finally, students will, in consultation with the instructor or with another qualified faculty member, undertake exercises in translation of their own. By the end of this class each student should have a working knowledge of both the critical backgrounds and the artistic potentials of translation. Applicable English Cluster: Language, Media, and Communication [H1ENG016]

Each student in Plays in Production participates fully in the exciting behind-the-scenes world of theatrical production. Students build sets, create and make props and costumes, hang and rig lighting and sound equipment, and create and distribute publicity materials for the plays currently in production in Todd Theater. The class comprises a once-weekly lecture and a series of practical labs. This 4-credit course meets for the entire semester. Applicable English Clusters: Plays, Playwrights, and Theater [H1ENG011]; Theater Production and Performance [H1ENG018]

Plays in Performance is a class made up of actors, assistant directors, and stage managers working on the current production in Todd Theater. Actors are cast after auditioning at the beginning of each semester. Students wishing to stage manage should approach the director of the production either at the time of auditions or before the beginning of the play's rehearsal process. Although there is no written component for this course (the performance of the play constitutes a final "exam"), a significant time commitment is required of actors and stage managers, both on weekday nights and over weekends. This class meets during the first half of the semester. Permission of instructor required. Applicable English Clusters: Plays, Playwrights, and Theater [H1ENG011]; Theater Production and Performance [H1ENG018]

Plays in Performance is a class made up of actors, assistant directors, and stage managers working on the current production in Todd Theater. Actors are cast after auditioning at the beginning of each semester. Students wishing to stage manage should approach the director of the production either at the time of auditions or before the beginning of the play's rehearsal process. Although there is no written component for this course (the performance of the play constitutes a final "exam"), a significant time commitment is required of actors and stage managers, both on weekday nights and over weekends. This class meets during the first half of the semester. Permission of instructor required. Applicable English Clusters: Plays, Playwrights, and Theater [H1ENG011]; Theater Production and Performance [H1ENG018]

Students in Stage Management I and/or II (fall/spring) will get an in-depth introduction to and immersion in stage managing a theatrical production. In addition to class work covering all areas of management skills, safety procedures, technical knowledge, and paperwork, students will be expected to serve as an assistant stage manager or production stage manager on one (or both) Theater Program productions in their registered semester. Applicable English Cluster: Theater Production and Performance [H1ENG018]

Credit: 2 hours. Mandatory acting lab for students in ENG 292.

Credit: 2 hours. Mandatory acting lab for students in ENG 294.

This is an independently designed course, focusing on specific theater or theater-related projects, and demanding significant skill application or acquisition, independent and self-motivated research, including advanced written work, if appropriate. Topics may include elements of theater related to production, management, and/or design. Applicable English Cluster: Theater Production and Performance [H1ENG018]

This is a workshop for students who have completed ENG 117 or have some experience writing fiction on their own and are ready to concentrate on more ambitious projects. We'll read short stories by contemporary writers along with fiction by the students in the workshop, and we'll discuss ways writers can sharpen the conversation between text and reader. We'll also consider editing and reviewing techniques. Students will be expected to write and revise at least three original stories or three sections of a longer work of fiction. Permission of instructor required. Applicable English Cluster: Creative Writing [H1ENG015]

This course examines major critical issues surrounding the horror genre, through close study of Classical Hollywood, post-Classical, and international horror films, and readings in critical theory. Issues to be explored include boundary transgression and bodily abjection in the construction of the horror monster; gender, pregnancy, and the "monstrous feminine"; social Otherness (race, class, sexuality) as monstrosity; the figure of the serial killer and the shift from classic to modern horror; the grotesque and the blending of comedy and horror in the zombie film; international horror (especially Japan) and cross-cultural influences with Hollywood. As a research seminar, the course will involve the development of a substantial research project.

What can prominent English and American writers of the twentieth century tell us about a subject that, by definition, resists our understanding? What can we learn from literature about confusion and the intricacies of contradictory thought? How do we make sense of senselessness? These are the main questions we will address as we examine important modern and contemporary works of fiction, poetry, and drama that represent encounters with confusion and enact the struggle to communicate meaning. We'll look at important precedents in the stories of Gogol, Poe, and Melville. We'll read novels by Conrad, Woolf, Mann, and Sebald, short fiction by a variety of modern and contemporary writers (including Stein, Baldwin, and Barthelme), the poetry of T.S. Eliot, and plays by O'Neill and Beckett. This class is limited to senior English majors who have been accepted into the Honors Program.

A number of internships are available through the UR International Theatre Program. One of the most popular is our semester-long PR Internship. Theater PR Interns help create all publicity materials for events in Todd Theater or events sponsored by the Theater Program, including drafting press releases, planning marketing campaigns, etc. They distribute publicity materials both on and off campus. Finally, PR Interns staff the box office during productions, interacting with the public and the theater personnel. The PR Internship is an excellent way to get a hands-on introduction to all the basic elements of public relations and marketing. You'll also interact with artists, directors, journalists, and public relations professionals as part of the internship. Interns should have good writing skills and be willing to work creatively. Skills in graphic design are a plus.

Special application required and/or instructor's permission required.