This course explores how young adult graphic novels and comics depict the immigrant experience, examining themes of identity, belonging, displacement, and allyship. Through close readings of graphic narratives, students will analyze how visual storytelling conveys the complexities of migrations, assimilation, cultural heritage, and social justice. We will consider how comics provide unique perspectives on issues such as racial and ethnic identity, language barriers, intergenerational conflict, and activism. Discussions will also address the roles of allies in immigration narratives, exploring how solidarity and advocacy shape immigrant experiences. By engaging with critical texts from immigration studies and comics scholarship, students will develop a deeper understanding of how young adult comics serve as both personal and political narratives of migration.

This course examines young adult literature through the lenses of disability studies, trauma theory, and critical youth studies. We will consider how labels such as at risk, disabled, and vulnerable are constructed, who benefits from them, and how young people resist or reclaim these narratives. We will be especially mindful of narrative voice, genre, visual storytelling, and the institutional powers contained in such constructions as schools, hospitals, family, and even the government.

Varied approaches to authors, themes, and literary genres.

A further reinforcement of the strategies of rhetoric and style introduced in freshman writing courses. Students learn writing by investigating theories of writing, particularly argumentation.

This course will cover various topics and count as an honors program elective.

A further reinforcement of the strategies of rhetoric and style introduced in freshman honors writing courses. Students learn writing by investigating theories of writing, particularly argumentation.

An exposition of good literature and good films made from this literature as a means of learning to appreciate the value of both methods of presenting great stories and ideas. Students form a critical apparatus that allows perceptive judgments of both genres.

An introduction to literary theory and analysis. This course explores the development of literary theory, the variety of approaches that open up literary works, and the influence of cultural diversity on the varied theories. Students explore, evaluate, and discover their own preferences as literary critics.

A study of representative works of ancient and medieval world literature (in translation) with a concentration on myth, epic, and drama.

The many modern and contemporary versions of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights testify to the endurance and significance of the novels. Students will examine some of the adaptations, such as Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (a prequel to Jane Eyre), Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, Jane Slayre by Charlotte Brontë and Sheri Browning Erwin (a mash-up of Jane Eyre), Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye, and Re Jane by Patricia Park —all of which reimagine Jane Eyre—and Heathcliff: Vampire of Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë and Amanda Paris (a mash-up of Wuthering Heights), Here on Earth by Alice Hoffman, Solsbury Hill by Susan M. Wyler, and Abide with Me by Sabin Willett—all of which reinvent Wuthering Heights. Students will consider, not just how and why the authors recreate the Brontë novels, but also the ways in which the adaptations shed light on the original works.