2019-2020 Academic Catalog 
    
    Apr 24, 2024  
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2019-2020 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

Courses

 
  

  • ENG 325 - American Print Culture, 1700-1900

    The years from 1700 to 1900 witnessed a transformation of print culture from the handpress period to an age of mechanical reproduction. The rapidly increasing availability of inexpensive print technologies had a tremendous impact on habits of publishing, of writing, and of reading itself. In this course, students will examine how the material contexts of print culture in early America affected and were affected by notions of authorship, readership, gender, genre, and popular and elite taste. Some sessions will be conducted at the American Antiquarian Society where students will be able to examine archival material in hands-on workshops. For the final research paper, students will be encouraged to use resources from the AAS, from Goddard Library Special Collections, and/or from the many new digital humanities archives now available online.
     



     

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
  

  • ENG 327 - The Book in the Early Modern World

    The rise of the printed book in early modern Europe is associated with corresponding renewal and innovation in science, letters, and theology. As with so many widely accepted narratives, however, the story turns out to be messier, more complicated, and ultimately more interesting than broadly understood. In this seminar, hands-on laboratory assignments with rare material from the Jonas Clark collection at Goddard Library’s Archives and Special Collections supplement readings as students explore major topics in early modern book history-the emergence of the codex; moveable type and the persistence of manuscript; the technology of the early hand press; design issues from typography to bindings; communications circuits; histories of reading; bibliographic identity. Toward the end of the semester, the class holds a Rare Book Open House with exhibits and demonstrations of material from Archives and Special Collections. No previous knowledge is required or expected, but an interest in books as material and technological objects is strongly recommended. The course may be of particular interest to students in English; History; Cultural Studies and Communication; Media, Culture and the Arts; Comparative Literature; Ancient Civilization; Studio Art; and Art History. 
     

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
  

  • ENG 330 - Reading Voraciously: Food and Literature in the 20th Century

    To claim that “cooking can produce something that approaches an aesthetic emotion,” was daring in 1954, when Alice Toklas situated herself among the modernists with the bold claim that cooking was a form of art. Yet she was also situating herself within a long literary and philosophical tradition of thinking aesthetic taste alongside gustatory taste. Taking up the idea of food as an aesthetic phenomenon, this course traces a transnational history of literary thinking about food within the long twentieth century, with special attention to the relationship between food and such identity categories as gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-annually
  

  • ENG 332 - Modernist Literature

    Virginia Woolf famously wrote that, “on or about December 1910 human character changed.” In this class, we will test that claim, thinking about what it means to “be modern,” what it means to “be modernist,” and what the two have to do with each other. We will also consider the many meanings of “modernism,” understood variously as a literary movement that flourished within coteries like Bloomsbury, the salons of 1920’s Paris, and the Harlem Renaissance; a literary style governed by the imperative to “make it new” and an embrace of aesthetic difficulty; and the literature of the period between the two World Wars. Taking a transnational approach to the field, we will juxtapose texts from the margins of modernism with more canonical work in order to investigate modernism’s relationship with mass culture, politics, and everyday life.

     

     

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Every year
  

  • ENG 338 - Contemporary Latino/a Literature

    This course examines the contributions to American literature made by Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Dominicans and other Latino/Latina writers in the United States over the last thirty years.  Through a variety of Latino/Latina writing, we will explore the ways in which these writers represent community, class, race, gender, culture, nation, and ethnicity in their works.  We will also examine the ways in which Latinas(os) have manufactured identities within mainstream society, as well as the development of cultural hybrids and other forms of cultural registers.  Representative works of various genres will be read and analyzed within a cultural context;  the testimonio, the auto ethnographic essay, the narrative (novel and short story), drama, poetry and film.  Authors include Gloria Anzaldua, Sandra Cisneros, Luis Valdez, Cristina Garcia, Julia Alvarez, Junot Diaz, Achy Obejas and Piri Thomas

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Every year
  

  • ENG 340 - Introduction to Graduate Study in English

    Since many forms of literary theories proliferate, Prof. Levin strongly recommends that M.A. candidates take a course in literary theory to complement this course. Introduction to Graduate Studies will examine theories and methodologies pertinent to the study of literature by way of a focus on a special topic. For fall 2019, the special topic will be `Literary Studies in a Global Context’. What is the role of the humanities in the present moment? How does literature respond to pressing issues such as global inequality and climate change? How has literature imagined modes of globalization from the early modern to contemporary periods? M.A. candidates not specifically exempted are required to take this course.

    Prerequisites: Seniors by permission only

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Every fall semester
  

  • ENG 342 - Graduate Seminar: Special Topics

    Each year the English Department offers a graduate seminar on a topic related to the research interests of one of our faculty. Ideally, participants will find ways to use the methods and scholarship modeled in the class to enrich their own thesis work. The seminar is open to students in the English masters program and to graduate students in other departments as well.

     

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
  

  • ENG 343 - Literary Theory & Global Culture

    This seminar examines the myriad aesthetic choices available to fiction writers in the era commonly referred to as “globalization.” How do we imagine the relationship between literature and contemporary politics? In what ways do the increasingly permeable borders of the modern world reshape our understanding of literature? How does literature help us to understand the new idioms of selfhood that emerge in a global age? Is there a particular literary form that is best suited to represent - and critique - the era in which we live? This course will survey the vocabularies that humanities scholars have invoked to address the rapidly shifting institutions and cultural frameworks of global capitalism, including, for example, questions pertaining to literary aesthetics and form and debates regarding realism, modernism, and postmodernism. We will touch upon questions of relativism and discourses of human rights; ways of conceptualizing global belonging and global citizenship; and the aesthetics of realism and postmodernism as responses to world-historical events of the late twentieth century and beyond. Students can expect to encounter philosophically rich texts from key thinkers in postcolonial and cross-cultural studies.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
  

  • ENG 345 - Mythopoetics

    This course examines modes and qualities of literary expression where we will find that narratives and poetry convey different expectations, which are also embedded in a variety of worldviews. Frequently, however, authors will attempt to craft these expectations and worldviews to accommodate nontraditional visions. Toward this end, we will read works by authors who strive to come to grips with their own experiences of the world. Texts will include Eliot’s Four Quartets, Joyce’s Ulysses, Plath’s Ariel, and representative poems by Wallace Stevens.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Every year
  

  • ENG 348 - Contemporary Literary Theory

    Investigates and develops several theoretical approaches to literature in the late-20th and 21st century, attempting to provide glimpses into the range of theoretical issues and concerns. We look particularly at identity formation in contemporary literary, political, economic, cultural and social arenas. May also look at a literary text in relation to theory. General areas of study are selected from among the following: textual criticism, new criticism, psychoanalysis/reader response, structuralism, poststructuralism, feminism, postcolonialism, postmodernism, gay and lesbian theory and Cultural Studies.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Every year
  

  • ENG 350 - Medieval Literature

    Explores medieval literary culture of Western Europe by means of literary theoretical and classical texts. Themes vary each year, and the seminar can be taken more than once for credit, as long as each time a different theme is chosen.

    SPRING 2020 - Medieval Women’s Voices

    This course examines a range of medieval texts featuring women writers, narrators, and protagonists, ranging in date from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries. Over the course of this semester we will read romances, fables, love poetry, medical texts, mystical and visionary literature, theology, autobiography, utopian literature, political theory, and correspondence between nuns, aristocratic women, and aristocratic nuns! Through these readings we will confront a variety of questions: Are there recurring ways in which women’s voices and modes of expression are portrayed? Do female-authored texts share any essential characteristics? Can we locate a female literary ethos in particular genres, or are we encountering a fortuitous selection of “typical” medieval literature? Much of our time will be spent on how women viewed themselves, their bodies, and their place in the world. Medieval women were often constrained by a complicated network of social, economic, and political forces, which  intersected with activities that we think of as historical (e.g., the nature of women’s work), literary (e.g., the function and style of women’s poetry), and religious (the tradition of female mysticism). Texts may include works by Hildegard of Bingen, Heloïse, Marie de France, Cristina Mirabilis, Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, the Pastons, Christine de Pizan, and Joan of Arc, along with male authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer and John Gower.

     

    FALL 2019 - The Arthurian Tradition
     
    Centuries of combined myth, legend, and history resulted in the most popular and enduring stories in medieval literature. Arthur and Guinevere, the sorcerer Merlin, the lustful Uther Pendragon, Sir Gawain, Sir Lancelot, Sir Perceval, and the Knights of the Round Table have outlived most popular literary characters from the Middle Ages, and continue to fascinate readers and audiences. This class will examine the tales’ Celtic and British roots, the golden age of French romance, take a detour to medieval Iceland, and examine the Arthurian tradition’s transformative influence on mainstream English literature. All texts but those in Middle English will be read in modern English translation; no previous Middle English knowledge is required.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
  

  • ENG 353 - Advanced Studies in Shakespeare

    “The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good.”
     - Robert Graves, quoted in The Observer, 1964
     
    In this seminar we will explore a variety of Shakespeare’s plays within the contexts of family relationships and the popular analogical framing of the home as “a little commonwealth,” representing the state in miniature. Through our readings and classroom discussions, we will examine early modern ideas (and attendant anxieties) about gender roles, domestic violence, obedience, treason, and a putatively natural order in which the husband and father functioned as the sovereign of his household realm, with wife, children, and servants as subjects. In doing so, we will employ various critical perspectives (historical, feminist, post-colonial) to put these centuries old texts in conversation with the concerns and issues of our own historical moment.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
  

  • ENG 355 - Studies in the Renaissance

    This course will draw on established and emerging theoretical insights to trace a specific thematic concern-such as, “New World” colonization or Renaissance anti-intellectualism-through a representative sampling of Renaissance texts from about 1500-1700.   

    SPRIN 2020 Special Topic:  Staging Race in the Early Modern Playhouse

    The playhouses of Elizabethan and Jacobean England were vibrant spaces of entertainment, education, catharsis, and controversy, where the onstage action often reflected concerns and issues of the day. This seminar will explore depictions of racialized “otherness” in a variety of plays from this period, using close reading of the texts along with scholarship addressing early modern theatrical conventions, social conditions, the political landscape, and prevailing (frequently polemical) attitudes towards race. By examining dramatic portrayals of Africans, Muslims, Jews, and other groups constructed as “other” for 16th and 17th century English audiences, we will confront and explore questions of race and representation that remain vexed in our own historical moment. 

    Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
  

  • ENG 356 - Ecologies in Crisis: Views from the Humanities

    New Earth Conversation Collaborative

    This collaborative asks participants to explore the idea of `ecology’ in cross-cultural perspective, with particular consideration to literary responses to climate change in different cultural and political contexts.  We will think comparatively about the representation of ecological crises, and about likenesses and differences in literary portrayals of environmental thought-including relationships between human and non-human species and objects. The course will explore the cultural and philosophical frameworks that govern dominant modes of extraction and commodification, regimes of energy and power, understandings of waste and disposability, and models for food production and consumption.  `Ecologies in Crisis’ will be offered as a pilot `collaborative’ for Clark’s program in New Earth Conversations.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
  

  • ENG 360 - Making Gender through the Eighteenth-Century Novel

     

    With an understanding that gender roles became more clearly defined in the eighteenth century, this course traces the formation of masculinity and femininity through the discourses of sexuality, sensibility, and sociability in eighteenth-century British literature. Through contemporary theory on the construction of subjectivity, gender, and sexuality, we will explore popular eighteenth-century literary forms-the romance, domestic, memoir and pornographic-to uncover the ways in which these texts helped to shape perceptions of men and women socially and culturally. 

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
  

  • ENG 361 - Gender and Genre in the Nineteenth-Century British Novel

     

    Using the nineteenth-century British novel–the predominant literary form in the mid-to-late nineteenth century–as a springboard, this course explores the intersection between gender and literary genres. Cultural expectations for male and female authors and the literary forms in which they wrote helped to define the literary history of nineteenth-century novels. This course will examine diverse generic models, from the domestic novel and the Bildungsroman to the Gothic and sensation novel, through authors such as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë and Wilkie Collins. Through a focus on nineteenth-century print culture, we will review the critical positioning and reception of these authors as well as their work.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
  

  • ENG 362 - Special Topics in 19th-Century British Literature

    Special Topics in 19th-Century British Literature. This course can be repeated with a different topic.

    SPECIAL TOPIC SPRING 2020: GREATER ROMANTIC LYRIC

    This course examines the transformation of the lyric poem – particularly the ode – from simple observation or insight into an integration of the human consciousness with the natural world – one of the quintessential developments of the Romantic period. We closely read poems by Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats, from “Frost at Midnight” and “Tintern Abbey” to the “Ode to the West Wind” and “To Autumn”. For undergraduate English majors, this course satisfies the Poetry (C-1), or the Period (D-2) or the Theory (E) requirement does not double-count. For English minors, this course counts as a 200-level English course.

    Special Topic For FALL 2019: The Romantic Lyric

     

     

     

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
  

  • ENG 363 - Traumatic Tales: British Romantic Literature and Nationhood

    This course examines the formation of British national identity through its troubling origins in women’s subordination, class hierarchy, slavery, colonial rule and imperialism. Focusing on the slave narrative, confessional poetry and the political and domestic novel, this seminar will explore the ways in which Romantic writers attempted (and often failed) to articulate an alternative national narrative against the national hegemony, which erased state acts of exploitation and terror. To better understand the concept of national trauma, we will also read extensively in psychoanalytic and critical social theory related to genocide, accidents and torture.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
  

  • ENG 372 - Radicalism and the Black Arts Movement

    1966 to 1967

    The Black Arts Movement remains the most radical realization of a literary culture in the history of the United States. Resulting from centuries of racial oppression, this movement is to be understood as black Americans’ revolutionary use of art to express deep-seated existential rage and political critique in order to generate social change and psychological reconstruction. Accordingly, this course will examine the historical factors responsible for the emergence of the Black Arts Movement and will pay special attention to the thinkers and writers responsible for the articulation of its aesthetic manifestos and the production of its literary canon. For undergraduate English majors, this course satisfies the Period (D-3) requirement.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
  

  • ENG 375 - Fictions of Empire: Studies in Global English Literature

    This seminar provides an introduction to contemporary global literature in English. The writers we will discuss come from very different backgrounds-from South Asia to Africa to the Caribbean-but they are all engaged with making sense of the legacy of colonialism and the emergence of something we might call global culture. These texts are exciting stylistically because of their inventive uses of language and narrative structure: their experiments with form capture the sense of new nations coming into being, new approaches to cultural tradition, and the new status of English as a global language. The stories they tell entertain while also providing original perspectives on histories of empire marked by political struggle, violent conflict, and global inequalities. Topics we will consider include: the idea of the “postcolonial”; the relationship between literature and political resistance; the transformation of metropolitan English writing and language; “subalternity” and problems of representation; writing from a position of displacement, exile, and diasporization; and the persistence of colonial narratives in contemporary forms of imperialism. The specific focus of this course will change from year to year, but authors to be discussed may include Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Amitav Ghosh, Chinua Achebe, Buchi Emecheta, J.M. Coetzee, Jamaica Kincaid, V.S. Naipaul, Anita Desai, Derek Walcott, and Zadie Smith.

    SPRING 2020 TOPIC: LITERATURE AND THE CLIMATE CRIIS IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIUVE

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
  

  • ENG 376 - Ethnic America: Literature, Theory, Politics

    This course examines the ways in which strategies of translation have shaped Asian American, African American, Native American, and Latinx literatures from the mid-twentieth century to the present day. Surveying a broad spectrum of literature, film, memoir, poetry, and theory, students will familiarize themselves with signal debates in translation studies and gain a foundation in contemporary Ethnic American literature. Drawing on one of the four “modes” of translation we study in this course-interlingual, intermedial, cultural, and historical-students will produce a translation work of their own as a final project.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
  

  • ENG 379 - Fictions of Asian America

    With particular emphasis on the multiple meanings of “fiction,” this seminar examines the ways in which the Asian American identity is constructed, imagined and contested in American literature and popular culture. Analyses will focus primarily on how texts and films produced within the last decade maintain or challenge established boundaries of the Asian American identity. Specific issues to be investigated include the model minority discourse and the demands of assimilation and citizenship; ethnic authenticity and hybridity; gender roles and sexual anxieties; cultural memory and nostalgia; and the commodification of Asian cultures and identities.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
  

  • ENG 380 - Studies in Contemporary Fiction: Transpacific Speculations

    This course considers how an abiding interest in the potential of the Asia Pacific region has informed speculative fiction of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Drawing on transpacific discourses that frame the martial, ideological, and cultural encounters between North America and Asia(s), we begin by considering how Asia-and Asianness-was imagined and construed in early American fiction and popular culture. We then move to consider works of Asian diasporic literature and film that subvert these depictions and speculate on the environmental and geopolitical viability of an “Asian future.” We will explore a range of issues within this speculative landscape, including (but not limited to) race and racialization, gender and reproductive futurity, contact and contagion, empire and displacement, economic precarity, and environmental catastrophe.

     

     

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
  

  • ENG 381 - Special Topics in 19th-C American Literature

    Special topics in 19th-century literature through the Civil War invite in-depth consideration of how extraordinary cultural, political, and technological changes made this one of the most vibrant and studied periods of the American literature.

    SPECIAL TOPIC FALL 2019: AMERICAN LITERARY RENAISSANCE

     

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
  

  • ENG 384 - Special Topics in 17th- and 18th-Century American Literature

    Special topics in the earliest periods of American letters provide a broad historical foundation for literary study in all fields as well as the opportunity for in-depth investigation of critical issues of colonial and early Republic culture such as gender, race, religious discourse, scientific progress, and political contest. If taken at the undergraduate level, prerequisite: Major American Writers I or permission of the instructor. A student may take this seminar more than once, as long as the topics differ each time.

     

     

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
  

  • ENG 385 - Topics in Seventeenth-Century Literature

    Explores topics in the literary history of the seventeenth century with emphasis in changing ideas in science, history, politics, culture, and science. Depending on the special topic, course may include canonical as well as non-canonical, English as well as New England writing, and texts in a diversity of genres and disciplines. 

    May be repeatable for credit, depending on topic.

     

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
  

  • ENG 390 - Departmental Colloquium

    Provides graduate students with guidance, expertise and resolution for the writing of the master’s thesis. The chief requirement is an oral presentation, ordinarily given in the student’s final semester of course work. Participation and registration are required; however, the colloquium does not carry course credit and is not included as one of the eight courses needed to fulfill M.A. requirements.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every semester
  

  • ENG 392 - Toni Morrison

    Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison forever reconfigured how the world studies literature and race. Reading her novels, poetry, and non-fiction, we will examine how Morrison’s writing enhances African American literary theory by critiquing the role race plays within the literary canon and society as a whole. Implementing Morrison’s strategies such as removing the white gaze and discovering the Africanist presence, we will explore the historical and psychological themes of race, colorism, the ancestor, motherhood, multigenerational trauma, and love. The course is discussion and inquiry-based, so students must read, participate, moderate, and challenge themselves to think critically.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually or Bi-annually
  

  • ENG 393 - Special Topics in African American Literature

    Special Topics in African American Literature. May be repeatable for credit.

    SPECIAL TOPIC SPRING 2020: AFROFUTURISM: THEN AND NOW

    This course traces the speculative strain in 20thand 21stcentury African American literature, music, film, and visual art. The course is designed to help students refine their theoretical approaches to the study of second wave Afrofuturism and the Black Speculative tradition, and to help sharpen and broaden their critical thinking and analytical faculties through a study of selected works. During the course, students will evaluate the work of W.E.B. Du Bois, Samuel Delany, Octavia Butler, Colson Whitehead, Janelle Monae, Sun Ra, Outkast, Kara Walker, and Marvel’s Black Panther.

    SPECIAL TOPIC FALL 2019: THE AFRICAN AMERICAN GOTHIC

    What is the African American Gothic? Scholars agree that African Americans have utilized the Gothic to highlight the horrors of the African American experience beginning with slave narratives up to the present day with films like Jordan Peele’s Get Out. In this course, we will examine and discuss the evolution of the use of the Gothic within African American literature starting with the era of chattel slavery. We will begin with the connection of the white fear of slave rebellion and how it connects to the concept of black monstrosity. It is through the basis of race creation, and the fear of the other, that we will follow the evolution of African American Gothic, focusing on historical atrocities such as Jim Crow segregation and police brutality. This course will investigate the African American Gothic utilizing philosophical, psychoanalytic, sociological, and historical approaches. It is a discussion-based course with minimal lecturing, so students are expected to read, participate, moderate, and be an active citizen in this class.

     

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
  

  • ENG 397 - Master’s Thesis

    The M.A. Thesis is written in consultation with the student’s first and second readers, on a topic in the field of the student’s special interest.  At a point during the writing process, the first reader and M.A. candidate seek out a third reader.  The first reader must be a member of the English Department.

    Prerequisites: Permission of thesis adviser.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every semester
  

  • ENG 399 - Graduate Directed Study

    Directed Study Courses (399) are an effective way to deepen knowledge in a particular topic or field.  If interested in a directed study, the M.A. candidate should have a well thought-out proposal with a sense of what the goal for the course would be before talking with the professor who has expertise in the topic or field.  The student and faculty member will work together on determining a reading list and /or what the special project will entail.  In order to have an appropriate title recorded on your transcript, please consult with the professor.  Offered normally for 1 unit.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered for variable credit every semester
  

  • ENG 1000 - Introduction to Composition

    Focuses on the writing process: prewriting, writing and rewriting. Discussion and writing activities will include all steps of the writing process beginning with developing ideas and carried through organizing, writing and editing. Students will experiment with different techniques and learn to adapt to different college writing situations.
  

  • ENG 1130 - Writing to Heal

    An exploration of writing as a tool in maintaining health and well being. We will look at the medical and psychological research that supports the belief that writing boosts in the immune system, reduces emotional distress, and lessens physical pain for some people. Through hands-on practice and group sharing we will become familiar with the ways in which the literary arts are tools for personal growth.
  

  • ENG 1150 - Intermediate Composition

    Competent expository writing skills are mandatory for college and professional success. Clarity, focus, development, organization, grammar and style are emphasized in this workshop-style course. Students write various types of essays to expand their methods of expression, increase their basic writing skills and experiment with individual writing styles. The course also covers the full process of researching, organizing, writing and documenting research papers.

    Prerequisites: ENG 1000 - Introduction to Composition 

    Anticipated Terms Offered: various
  

  • ENG 1160 - Artful Thunder: Introduction to Poetry and Song

    Through the analysis and discussion of roughly two dozen British and American poems and songs, this course introduces students to the reading of lyric, from the English Renaissance to the contemporary period. This course meets the English major C-1 requirement)

    Course Designation/Attribute: VE

    Anticipated Terms Offered: 201905
  

  • ENG 1220 - Critical Thinking

    Regardless of university major, Critical Thinking is the integral element in education. Critical Thinking deals with language, particularly the process by and through which evaluation of ideas, and their subsequent validity, is established in academic discourse. Therefore, it is both reflexive and reflective. In this course, students engage in the process of Critical Thinking and its practical application. The evaluation of ideas from multiple disciplines will be primary, as well as a focus on rhetorical argument, with an eye to habits that hinder thinking, errors affecting validity, deductive and inductive reasoning, and moral dilemmas.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varied
  

  • ENG 1230 - Writings of Place and Nature

    “It is not down in any map; true places never are,” Herman Melville wrote in “Moby Dick.” We are increasingly disconnected from the spirit of the natural world and our sense of place in this burgeoning technological age. The goal of this course is to reawaken our inherent connection to the earth, and place, in order to helps us see the world more clearly and understand it more deeply. We will study “nature writing” by those who have a special connection to the earth anchored a certain place, from Emerson and Thoreau to contemporary authors. As time permits we will conduct field studies, a film study, and be visited by an author. This course will explore what place can teach us, how it shapes our vision and sense of self along with our world view. Through reading and discussing essays, poems, and works of nonfiction, we will learn how we can be more aware of the world that sustains and surrounds us. Writing for this class will include creative pieces as well as analytical essays, and there will be a final project addressing a place of your choosing.

    Prerequisites: VE Placement

    Course Designation/Attribute: VE (summer only)

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
  

  • ENG 1320 - Green Fire: Modern Fantasy

    This course examines the rise and development of the fantasy novel in the 20th Century by looking into its beginnings in Britain, and its adoption and expansion by American authors. While the readings for the course are necessarily limited to major figures in both countries, mention will be made to other practitioners of the genre, such as Lewis and Rowling, as well as landmark associations between the authors such as the Inklings.

    Course Designation/Attribute: VE

    Anticipated Terms Offered: 201905
  

  • ENG 1360 - News Writing and Editing

    This course is geared for people interested in improving their ability to communicate information through the written word. Students learn by doing–with an emphasis on developing professional writing and copy editing skills.
  

  • ENG 1480 - Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath

    We will embark on an examination of the poetic works of two remarkable American poets: Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath. Our focus will be on close readings of specific poems as well as  reviewing supporting background materials.

    Prerequisites: IDND 018 or VE placement

    Course Designation/Attribute: VE (summer only)

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
  

  • ENG 1490 - F. Scott Fitzgerald

    This course will provide an in-depth study of F.Scott Fitzgerals’s works. Along with Fitzgerald’s masterpiece The Great Gatsby, we will read a selection of short stories. Discussion will center on Fitsgeralds’s texts in the historical context in which they were written and our contemporary society. We will also watch and analyze film adaptaions of his works. This course welcomes students who are just discovering Fitzgerald and his work and those who are ardent students of Fitzgerald.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Varies
  

  • ENG 1570 - Literary Satire

    This course will wxplore the literary genre known as satire. Questions we will discuss include: What is satire? Why do authors choose to use it? How does it differ from parody? Over the course of the semster we will read Johnathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” George Orwell’s Animal Farm, Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World to enhance our understanding of satire.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Varies
  

  • ENG 1650 - Introduction to Digital Humanities

    An introductory humanities course that focuses on the ways digital technologies have influenced traditional approaches to reading and interpretive analysis. Generally, the course aims (1) to encourage/reinforce an appreciation for classical humanistic methods (e.g., close reading), (2) to advance basic technical competencies in Natural Language Processing (NLP) with Python using relevant modules for application in new Digital Humanities projects, (3) to inspire critical habits of mind rooted in relevant scholarship about the intersections between humanistic studies and computer programming. These aims are to be assessed according to in-class exercises, writing assignments, quizzes, and a final project.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varied
  

  • ENG 1670 - Children’s Literature

    No doubt everyone has a children’s book they remember loving or having a particular impact. When books appeal to a child’s interests in natural, interesting ways, they develop a realtionship with literature that will last a lifetime. Students will learn how to recognize best literature for children, compile a children’s literature book summary, participate in discussions of the genre, and create an original example of literature for children.
  

  • ENG 1680 - Eastern Thought/Western Literature

    Examines the influence of Eastern philosophic and religious traditions on Western literature of the twentieth century. We look at the basic ideas and tenets of Vedanta, Buddhism, Taoism and Zen, as well as the poetics of haiku, and then look to how those premises affected both the poetry and fiction of modern literature in Europe, England, and America. Authors discussed may include Huxley, Hesse, Pound, Eliot, Stevens, Pirsig, and Ginsberg.
  

  • ENG 1700 - Afrofuturism

    This course traces the speculative strain in 20th and 21st century African American literature, music, film, and visual art. The course is designed to help students refine their theoretical approaches to the study of the second wave of Afrofuturism and the Black Speculative tradtion, and to help sharpen and broaden their critical thinking and analytical faculties through a study of selected works. During the course, students will evaluate the work of W.E.B.Du Bois, Samuel Delany, Octavia Butler, Colson Whitehead, Janelle Monae, Sun ra, Outksat, Kara Walkeer, and Marvel’s Black Panther.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: 201905
  

  • ENG 1750 - Post-Colonial Literature

    This course will provide an introduction to post-colonial literature and theory. We will explore how authors confronted colonialism in their respective countries and their representations of the repercussions in a post-colonial world. Over the course of the semester we will read literature from Africa and India, including (but not limited to) Chinua Achebe, Tayeb Salih, Arundhati Roy, and Salman Rushdie.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varied
  

  • ENG 1870 - Philosophy Of Horror

    We read horror literature from the 18th century to the present, focusing on the popularity of the genre in relation to the desire to be frightened.  Students look at historical differences in what constitutes “dreadful pleasure,” as well as the various psychological reasons for its persistence and popularity in Western culture.
     
  

  • ENG 1910 - Dystopian Literature

    This course will explore the dystopian genre in literature. We will discuss how the authors portray their fears in the text and whether or not they still resonant today or have, in fact, come true to certain extents. We will read Huxley’s Brave New World. Orwell’s 1984, Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep (as well as watch sections of the movie it inspiried, Blade Runner)) and Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Varies
  

  • ENG 1920 - Survey of Enviromental Writings

    As concerns about climate change have become dire and widely acknowledged, environmentalism has entered the mainstream. Environmental disasters are consistently reported in the press, while questionable gadgets and products are marketed to us as as ‘eco-friendly.’ Thi cultural concern and ambivalence about nature echoes strongly in our litereatures. Nature writers both carve out new environmental philosophies, and they can reflect existing perspectives about nature and our place within it. In Environmental Writings, we will read a series of texts written between the 19th and 21st centuries that address various environmental isms, and more broadly nature as a whole. These texts will include nonfiction and fiction prose, as well as poetry.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
  

  • ENG 1930 - Rumplestiltskin to Ravenclaw: Children’s Literature From Golden Age to Silver Screen

    This course will survey the history of children’s literature from the 1800’s to the early 2000’s. Addressing works by such authors as Lewis Carroll, Roald Dahl, and J. K. Rowling, we will examine how society’s conception of childhood has changed over the past two hundred years. Supplementing our primary texts with contemporary work in the relatively new field of childhood studies, this course will also explore what children’s fiction has to tell us about cultural values and institutions. Among other things, we’ll consider the role children’s literature has played (and continues to play) in the culture of imperialism and the construction of gender and sexuality, and its increasing commercialization via film series and franchises.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Varies
  

  • ENG 2010 - Secrets of the Sisterhoods: Inside the Red Tent

    Throughout history, have women been observers in a man’s world, or simply participants and leaders in different ways? How do women of varying time periods and cultures view the world and their roles in it? These questions and more will be explored via modern and historical fiction novels, essays, films, discussion and oral history documentation, focusing on “global sisterhood.”
  

  • ENG 2030 - The Witch in Literature

    This course examines the figure of the witch as she appears in English and American literature from the Medieval period to the 20th century. Focus will not only be on the appearance of the character in fiction, poetry, and drama; but also on the psychological, historical, and mythological connections to those appearances.

    Course Designation/Attribute: VE (Summer Only)

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Varies
  

  • ENG 2050 - Mythologies

    The purpose of this course is to expose students to various systems of myth from a number of global cultures. We will examine both the similarities and differences of the myths and consider why this is so. In addition, we also will examine the idea of mythic thinking, or consciousness, and why such forms of thought and image are deemed necessary for the psychological and moral health of  the cultures in which they form an inherent, and crucial part.

    Course Designation/Attribute: GP (summer only)

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varied
  

  • ENG 2140 - Fiction on the Fringe: Crimes, Addictions and Psychoses

    An examination of selected 20th century works of fiction that deal with the social or psychological outcast(s). We will focus on each author’s construction of narrative, point of view, characterization, language and imagery. Questions regarding alternative versus traditional morality, the differentiation between marginal versus mainstream ethos will also be central to our investigations. Works studied include: “Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas”, “Girl Interrupted”, “American Psycho”, “One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest” and “Lolita.”
  

  • ENG 2300 - Memoir Writing: Writing from Inside Out

     

    The craft of personal writing turns the messy and elusive facts of our life experience to compelling account.  Our memories can be not merely “reduced” to writing but enlarged by it-we don’t just write what we know; we write to find out what we know.  We try to elicit and shape the vivid details of our life stories and see what coherence, resonance, and even self-discovery emerge.  Through writing assignments and selected readings, we seek in this workshop to discern what makes certain writing fresh, intimate, provocative, graceful, funny, poignant or otherwise effective.  Work is read aloud, in a congenial setting, with a focus on voice, pace, compression, metaphor, dialogue, point of entry, word choice, and other elements.  We explore what it is we like about certain work, how the work might be improved, and what challenges the author may have faced in the process of composition. Pre-requisite: A composition course.  

     

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Varied
  

  • ENG 2310 - Topics in Journalism

    Offers students an expanded look at various kinds of stories that appear in newspapers, including hard news, features, columns, analysis and reviews. Focus this semester will be on coverage of foreign policy.
  

  • ENG 2420 - Modern Monsters: The Serial Killer in Literature and Film

    The genre of serial killer fiction is a direct descendent of Gothic fiction, with the serial killers as updated models of Gothic villains. Like their Gothic predecessors, fictional serial killers are mythologized, folklorized and, in some cases, supernaturalized. Beginning with Psycho, students will critically analyze serial killer fiction novels and films of the mid-20th century to the present while investigating the following themes: American notions and expressions of individuality; the sociopolitical climate in which the serial killer is defined and the ways in which the narratives criticize this climate; changing notions of gender roles and anxieties therein; sexual anxieties; the expressions of cultural desires; and how myth informs the serial killer narratives.

    Prerequisites: VE Placement or IDND 018

    Course Designation/Attribute: VE (Summer only)

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Varied
  

  • ENG 2510 - Beat Generation Literature

    The beat Generation’s influence on American culture is still evident today, over 50 years after a group of young men- Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and others-first met in New York City. These radical writers shook up the literary world with their disregard for traditional literary styles and themes and their blatant rejection of the cultural values of postwar America. We will focus on the following : notions of defiant individuality; alternative conceptions of religion , sexuality, and politics; the glorification of the drug culture and of criminality, and how pop culture factors into texts. Among the work studied in this class are Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and William S. Burrough’s Naked Lunch.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
  

  • ENG 2520 - Modern Irish Literature

    An introduction to the major authors of Irish Literature during the early 20th century (known in part as the Irish Literary Revival.) In addition to analyzing texts  in a general context. we will focus on how texts and authors represent Ireland’s past, present, and future in relation to Ireland’s status in the period. Discussion topics will include Ireland’s relationship with England, historical events, gender, Irish mythology and folklore, and Irish nationalism. Authors to be discussed include, not not limited to: George Bernard Shaw, W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, J.M. Synge, James Joyce, and Sean O’Casey.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
  

  • ENG 2590 - Voices of Protest

    “We the People” have lived up to our responsibilities per the U.S. Constitution’s Preamble to “establish Justice,…promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”  When we feel these goals are being threatened, we protest.  This course will focus on people who have protested and have helped start grassroots movements.  This study will help us understand how pertinent legal, social, and economic policies have been shaped and influenced by common people, and how current perceived injustices might be approached.
  

  • ENG 2680 - The American Dream

    What is the “American Dream”? Has it changed through the years? Whose dream is it? Is it dead or alive in 2014? How does it function in American society? Does it help individuals succeed? How is it connected with immigration? We’ll study the American Dream in literature, film, and other arts (photography, painting, music).

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
  

  • ENG 2770 - 21st Century Ethnic American Literature

    Our focus in this course is a study of ethnic American literature from the 21st century. Each week is broken down into a theme: Home, Heritage, Language, Crossing, and Americans. Through these lenses, students will investigate readings by Asian American, African American, Native American, and Hispanic American authors. With the weekly writing assignments, students will develop their ideas about the literature, forming critical analyses of the works. By the end of this course, students will not only be more well read in the ethnic American literature canon, but they will also be well-versed in the important political, social, and historical contexts of those works. As this is a course that will emphasize the intersections between race, gender, sexuality, and class, students will also be able to recognize and articulate trends in contemporary literature, politics, media, and society that exist in American literature.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
  

  • ENG 2800 - Virginia Woolf

    Fueled by creative genius and mental instability, the writing of Virginia Woolf was cutting edge in the 1920s and ‘30s and remains stimulating to this day. Woolf’s profound influence on modernism and on literary and social criticism make her a significant force in Western literature. Woolf’s writing was devoted to the examination of women’s place in modern society and the nature of women’s desire. Focusing on individual women’s lives, her writing investigates the complexities of personal identity, the fluidity of gender and sexuality and women’s need for artistic and intellectual expression as well as psychological and financial independence. Deeply introspective, Woolf kept extensive personal diaries, which we will study in addition to her fiction and nonfiction.

    Prerequisites: Intermediate Composition.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
  

  • ENT 105 - Creating a Culture of Innovation and Entrepreneurship

    This course explores the basic phases of innovation - identification, ideation and implementation.  Students will identify a problem, ideate solutions to the problem, and implement the solution, which will bring about change. Students will gain a greater understanding of, and appreciation for, innovation and entrepreneurship by the act of doing. Innovation concepts presented in this course are supportive of intrinsically motivated issues, the understanding of ones own constraints and resources, and the importance of self-awareness.  This course is typically taught as a first-year intensive for incoming students in the fall semester.  It is also approved for a Values Perspective (VP) in support of the program of liberal studies requirements.

    Course Designation/Attribute: VP

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall Semester only
  

  • ENT 115 - Entrepreneurship: Art of the New

    Successful entrepreneurship begins with a vision. Like an artist, the entrepreneur must be able to translate creative vision into something tangible and real. This course focuses on the foundations of entrepreneurship and is appropriate for students from any major. It is designed to introduce students to the entrepreneurial process so that they may begin to shape their own entrepreneurial vision. Course objectives include a realistic preview of the challenges of entrepreneurship, an understanding of the legal and ethical environment within which entrepreneurs operate, the skills to think critically and work toward the ability to evaluate opportunities in the business or nonprofit sectors. This is a course includes experiential entrepreneurship-related activities where students work individually to test ideas and practice entrepreneurship.  The course will also include self-assessment activities designed to help students assess their own entrepreneurial potential. This course is the prerequisite for many ENT elective courses.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Every semester
  

  • ENT 202 - Entrepreneurial Marketing and Communications

    The goal of this course is to explore the application of marketing and communication techniques in student-owned, or managed, entrepreneurial ventures, as well as collaborating with community entrepreneurs, to develop effective marketing and communication campaigns. This course practices and develops application based skills using current marketing and communication methods and platforms. Student will create and communicate a compelling vision of their entrepreneurial venture through the use of digital and traditional marketing platforms. Entrepreneurs must be able to effectively communicate their venture to a wide variety of audiences through a wide array of platforms. Through intensive classroom work, role playing, and real-world applications, students will explore and participate in sales, marketing and promotional activities as they relate to communicating entrepreneurial goals.

    Prerequisites: ENT115

    Course Designation/Attribute: POP

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered in the spring
  

  • ENT 203 - Art of the Pitch

    Successful entrepreneurship is successful pitching.  Whether you are soliciting support of a social cause, selling yourself in a job interview, or actively searching for backing of your business venture, you are pitching. This course is designed to introduce students, from all majors and minors, to the art of effective communication and public speaking to convey passions and interests, with emphasis on elevator pitches, presentations with props, video and recording, and TedTalks.

    Course Designation/Attribute: VE, POP

    Anticipated Terms Offered: every semester
  

  • ENT 205 - Innovating in Organizations

    Organizational innovation is the implementation of a new idea, object, or practice that is created within the realm of employment for the good of self and the organization. Organizations must innovate to maintain a competitive edge in a fast-paced, technology-driven, global economy.  Innovating thinking skills are in high demand by today’s employers. This course is designed to help students expand their divergent thinking skills to apply within an organization.  

    This is a .5 unit course and is also repeatable (up to three times).

      

    Prerequisites: MGMT 100 or ENT 115. 

    Course Designation/Attribute: POP

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically, Spring preferred
  

  • ENT 212 - Marketing to You

    This course will familiarize students with strategies and practices in the ever-changing field of marketing to young consumers from middle school to graduate school.  Some of the best known brands are laser focused on resonating and relating to this young generation. This generation influences around a quarter of all purchases in the US.  This course will utilize lectures and spirited discussions, guest lectures, group and individual presentations to the class.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Module A in spring
  

  • ENT 216 - Financial Intelligence

    This course is an introduction to financial matters that affect the individual and the entrepreneur. Students will learn the importance of making informed financial decisions when planning for the future.  Using this foundation, students will leave the course with the ability to make financially intelligent and informed decisions about personal and organizational finances through the continued development of a student identified business venture. Additional topics and skills covered - financial statements, Excel, QuickBooks, and other financial and budgeting software.

    Course Designation/Attribute: FA

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall
  

  • ENT 217 - Funding Ventures

    This course is designed for students with an entrepreneurial venture interested in learning how to fund that venture. Topics include: business valuation, financing options - bootstrapping, crowd-funding, friends and family lending, bank loans, venture capital funding, angel investing, grants, and other sources of capital investment. A review and application of financial statements as part of funding a new venture will also be included.

    This is a .50 unit (half unit) course.

    Prerequisites: ENT 115

    Course Designation/Attribute: POP

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Spring
  

  • ENT 222 - Entrepreneurial Design Thinking

    Design thinking is innovating solutions to problems with empathy toward the needs of the end-user. Design thinking promotes cross-disciplinary collaborating through brainstorming sessions, prototyping and testing.  This course will actively engage students in developing tangible, innovative products and concepts through a combination of lectures, hands-on lab work, field trips and guest lectures, to meet the needs of the identified end-user.

    This course is .5 units.

    May be repeatable for credit.

    Prerequisites: ENT115

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered spring
  

  • ENT 245 - Social Entrepreneurship

    ‘Social Entrepreneurship’ explores the relationship between the social issues confronting our global community and the use of business creation to stimulate ( “creatively disrupt”) local and world change. This course challenges the student to look beyond well-established business objectives - the creation of wealth - and investigate how wealth creation can impact public good. A review of global social entrepreneurial initiatives is an important focus of the course. Students consider such diverse social issues as environmental degradation, poverty, homelessness, lack of potable water, world health and education concerns, microcredit and more.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every semester
  

  • ENT 250 - Entrepreneurial Mentoring

    This course is designed as a self-directed course for undergraduate students who are interested in volunteering to serve as mentors for high school students working on business plans. As a college mentor, your “classroom” will be at the designated high school. Travel to New York City and high schools in the Worcester area is necessary depending on who the partner schools are in a given semester.  This is a repeatable, quarter-unit course for a maximum of 1 unit and graded as Pass/Fail.

    Prerequisites: MGMT 100 and ENT 115.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually

    Placement Guidelines
    Students must receive permission from the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Manager to take this course.
  

  • ENT 260 - Student Run Ventures

    This course is designed for any undergraduate student interested in continuing to work on their identified student run venture under the umbrella of the Clark Innovation and Entrepreneurship program.  The student must have a current venture in progress. The course is designed to engage students in actively practicing the development and management of their student run business with the guidance of on campus resource centers. Topics covered in this course include: product development, market and customer research, e-commerce, marketing strategies, sales and customer service, customer engagement, basic accounting, and basic data analytics. 

    This is a .50 (half unit) course.  This course is also repeatable (up to three times).

    Prerequisites: ENT115

    Course Designation/Attribute: POP

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Every Semester or Once a Year
  

  • ENT 262 - Global International ELab

    This course will take place during Module 2 of the fall semester, with travel to Sierra Leone & Ghana in early January. This course is designed for students with an entrepreneurial spirit and interest in understanding and examining social entrepreneurship outside of the United States. This course will prepare students to apply, compare, contrast and examine business models from a global and international perspective. This course will require students to use problem solving, creative thinking and critical inquiry to examine international entrepreneurial opportunities around topics such as markets, competition, power and political considerations, social and cultural dynamics, ethical dilemmas, resources, sustainability and feasibility.  Students will travel to another country and have direct interaction with entrepreneurs and small business owners in that country. 

    This course is offered during Module 2 of fall semester, and will continue into January with travel to Sierra Leone & Ghana. Anticipated travel dates are: January 2-11th, 2020.

    Additional fees for travel apply to this course!

    Prerequisites: ENT 115 and ENT245

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall Semester
  

  • ENT 264 - Community Based Entrepreneurship

    This course provides an opportunity for students to expand their creativity and business acumen while helping a local not-for-profit, social purpose organization or start-up organization to launch a real business venture.  Student teams will be partnered with staff or volunteers from a local organization to develop a business model that has potential to support its ongoing operations.  Students will collaborate over the course of the semester with their partner organization and receive ongoing instruction and mentoring from the course instructor about the business model.  This course is an excellent opportunity to build a stronger community by linking students with emerging local organizations and successful business leaders in a collaborative process to help solve social problems.  This course is offered periodically and students can receive entrepreneurship minor capstone credit upon successful completion.  

    Prerequisites: MGMT 100 (The Art and Science of Management) and ENT 115 (The Art of the New - Entrepreneurship)

    Course Designation/Attribute: POP

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Spring 2016/ Periodically
  

  • ENT 265 - Entrepreneurial Experience

    Every student who elects the minor is expected to complete a culminating experience as part of their coursework. This course is designed to be an incubator or collective workspace to continue to grow and develop your business venture that you have worked on throughout your minor. This element of the program allows students to demonstrate synthesis and mastery of learning outcomes from the ENT minor program such as idea generation, collaboration, implementation, market testing, marketing, primary and secondary customer and product research, market analysis, and customer engagement. 

    Prerequisites: MGMT100, ENT115 and progress in required Exploring/electives courses.

    Course Designation/Attribute: POP

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall Semester or Every Semester depending enrollment projections
  

  • ENT 299 - Directed Study

    Undergraduates, typically juniors and seniors, construct an independent study course on a topic approved and directed by a faculty member. Students should contact faculty member directly to discuss title.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall and Spring
  

  • ES 1210 - Journey to Sustainability

    “Journey to Sustainability” is designed for people interested in learning about the concept of sustainability and why sustainability is important for human survival. Simply put, is sustainability still possible, given that seven billion people are living on the planet? While this question may seem scary, the main goal of this course is to leave you with a feeling of hope for our environmental future. We will begin with a basic background in ecology and Earth’s systems. This background will provide the tools needed in order to develop one’s own conclusions when learning about current issues in environmental science. The second part of this course will focus on current environmental issues, which are mostly a result of humans using natural resources unsustainably. Issues studied will include climate change, overfishing, pollution, and energy. The last part of this course will focus on creating individual sustainability goals and assessing the current state of the planet.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: various
  

  • ES 1240 - Our World, Our Future: THe Philosophy and Politics of Sustainabliltiy

    We live in a world that is slowly coming to terms with its own limitations. Whether in scientific journals, or in the daily news, the future looks pretty bleak.  We constantly hear about the environmental crisis, the climate crisis, the ecological apocalypse and the energy crisis. While we are plagued by crises, questions about our common future have once again gained immense political currency and popular traction. In such a time, it becomes important to ask ourselves questions about sustainability so that we can act in ways that remediate our current crises, and offer alternatives to prevent them in the future. In this course, we start to do so by first exploring the concept of sustainability as it is understood in various philosophical traditions. We then explore the politics of sustainability in the context of various environmental issues to understand why sustainability is such a pressing issue by looking at the consequences of various unsustainable practices and actions. These issues range from global climate change, mining, pollution and waste, to energy and food systems. In the final part of the course, students will develop their own toolkit for sustainable living, connecting their individual lives with larger systemic conditions.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
  

  • ES 1970 - Sustainability and the Sacred

    Indigenous cultures relied on three basic concepts to live sustainably: community, exchange and relationship. In this course we will experience and explore these three concepts. The interconnectedness of all life - the sacred - is the “technology” which lay at the heart of all indigenous cultures. It is all available to each of us still. Connecting to the plants, the animal kingdom, and one another as equals bring the tools we need to embrace earth changes and all that the future holds. Through this course you will be empowered to engage with Sustainability on your own terms. Please be advised that some class meetings will take place outdoors.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: various
  

  • ES 2000 - Exploring Nature of Central Massachusetts

    In this practical, hands-on course, you will learn how to identify common animals that live in a variety of ecosystems, discover edible wild plants are more widespread than you think, and experience exciting outdoor activities such as map & compass navigation, canoeing, and fishing. Explore the natural beauty of Central Massachusetts hidden within suburbs just minutes outside of Worcester and become familiar with the plants and wildlife that call this region home.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
  

  • ES 2750 - Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

    An introduction to the display, manipulation and management of geographic information. Topics include geographical data input, storage, maintenance, analysis and retrieval. Current programs for GIS are introduced and students are encouraged to pursue independent work.
  

  • FILM 1150 - Exploring Hispanic Culture

    The Hispanic culture is rich and vibrant and we will come to a greater appreciation and understanding of it through an examination of its literature, poetry and films. The films we will view will be both popular and famous in Latin America and Spain and our readings will be from writers, contemporary and historic, that are well known not only in their own country but around the world (Isabel Allende, Vargas llosa, Gracia Lorca, Cervantes, etc.). Through our assignments there will be an opportunity for us to participate in a more in depth study of various aspects of Hispanic culture and traditions. By the end of the semester you will have acquired a greater understanding, interpretation and response to the Hispanic culture.
  

  • FILM 1640 - Chinese Film Studies

    This class aims to familiarize students with not only the overall history of Chinese cinema but also recent significant filmmakers and their works in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The class will begin with a brief and general survey of Chinese films since the 1920s to the present. As the semester continues our main focus will include films directed by the fifth generation and other important filmmakers in Mainland China as well as award-winning filmmakers in Hong Kong and Taiwan.



  

  • FILM 2320 - Literature on Page and Screen

    The nature of literary creation and communication will be studied through our reading five novels and viewing the films made of them. Comparison of the book and film presentations will add dimension not only to our literary analysis of each novel, but also to our understanding of how we perceive meaning. Integral to our study is the nature of each medium–how, why and how well each works in our culture.

    Prerequisites: Intermediate Composition.
  

  • FILM 2680 - The American Dream

    What is the “American Dream”? Has it changed through the years? Whose dream is it? Is it dead or alive in 2014? How does it function in American society? Does it help individuals succeed? How is it connected with immigration? We’ll study the American Dream in literature, film, and other arts (photography, painting, music).
     

    Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
  

  • FIN 4200 - Financial Management

    This course is an introduction to the basic concepts, principles, and analytical techniques of financial management with a goal to help the student understand financial markets and financial decisions. Topics covered in this course include the time-value of money, valuation of corporate securities, valuation of corporate investments, market efficiency, risk and return, capital structure and corporate governance. The student will also learn how to make simple financial decisions and recognize international differences in corporate governance using case studies and group presentations.

    Prerequisites: ECON 4004  ; ACCT 4100  or ACCT 4101 ; Pre or Corequisite STAT 4300 .

    For MSA students, ACCT 4101   may be taken at the same time as this course.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered Annually
  

  • FIN 5201 - Case Studies in Corporate Finance

    This course will expose students to corporate finance theories and the application of these theories through case studies. The course builds on the main principles of corporate finance which include financial analysis, capital budgeting, cost of capital, and capital structure. We will learn how these financial concepts are interpreted and applied by corporations. Students will gain insights on how corporations make long-term investment decisions and how different classes of investors, debt and equity, evaluate companies.

     

    Prerequisites: FIN 4200  OR FIN 5401  Non MSF student registration is available by permission only.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Varies
  

  • FIN 5203 - Investment Strategies

    This course teaches students how to build and effective investment strategy. Taught in the final semester of the MSF program, this course draws on prior coursework in Investments, Fixed Income Securities, and Cases in Derivatives. Students will learn how to design a comprehensive strategy that uses multiple asset classes and tactics. Students will also study a variety of alternative investment strategies such as hedge funds, private equity, and real estate. The emphasis will be on the type of investment strategies employed by institutional investors such as pension funds and university endowment funds.

     

    Prerequisites: FIN 5401  

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered Annually
  

  • FIN 5208 - Fixed-Income Securities

    Fixed income securities are the most traded asset class in the world. A significant portion of the institutional investors’ trading portfolio consists of fixed income securities and its derivatives. Markets for these securities have skyrocketed in the past few years, and their complexity has increased considerably (a factor contributing to the subprime crisis). Hence, it is important to understand the sources of risk for these complex securities and master the latest models and techniques to price and hedge these risks. The topics covered in the course include: the basic concepts of fixed income instruments such as yield, term structure, duration and convexity, pricing of basic instruments, interest rate risk management, recent modeling techniques to value both traditional and recent derivative instruments, Mortgage Backed Securities and Credit Derivatives, Inflation, Monetary Policy. Students will also learn how to use Bloomberg Fixed Income Analytics, the most common tool used by finance professionals.

     

    Prerequisites: FIN 5401  

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered Annually
  

  • FIN 5216 - Computational Finance

    Modern-day finance is rife with computationally intensive problems and solutions from pricing derivative instruments to complex portfolio building using optimization techniques. This course supplies students with the intuitions for the underlying mathematical concepts behind common financial applications. Furthermore, students learn the skills to develop their own solutions to variant of these applications with emphasis put on the generalizability of the results reviewed. Starting with binomial models as a stepping-stone, this course discusses the main tools applied to derivative valuation and their extension to continuous time pricing. It also considers common numerical methods utilized in financial engineering such as Monte Carlo simulation. The course ends with a review of common optimization tools and their application to portfolio building under constraints.

     

    Prerequisites: FIN 5309  

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered Annually
  

  • FIN 5309 - Financial Econometrics

    This course imparts students with the necessary knowledge and skills for understanding and running the common statistical analyses encountered in modern day market finance. The course starts with a review of probability theory and statistics before progressing to common econometric concepts employed in financial market research. This course is intended for students with at least a semester of introductory statistics under their belt. Topics include linear regression, time-series models (ARMA, VAR, ARCH and GARCH), unit root and cointegration models.

     

    Prerequisites: No prerequisites for MSF Students. Other students by permission only.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall semester
  

  • FIN 5310 - Case Studies in Derivatives

    The goal of this course is to learn how corporations use derivatives to manage risk. This involves identifying and quantifying the risks, selecting the appropriate tool for managing the risk, and implementing the decision. Risk management is only partly a quantitative field. Strategy, negotiation, marketing, and basic financial management are important as well. The course uses the case method. Each week students work in small groups to analyze a real-world problem and identify possible solutions.

     

    Prerequisites: FIN 5401  

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered Annually
  

  • FIN 5401 - Investments

    This course provides an introduction to investment theory and security valuation. In addition, students will gain a strong understanding of financial markets and the major categories of financial assets/ investments. The topics covered in the course include: risk and return, portfolio theory, asset pricing models, behavioral finance, limits to arbitrage, valuation of equities and bonds, option pricing models, and forward and futures markets. The lectures and examinations will focus both on quantitative and conceptual foundations.

     

     

    Prerequisites: No prerequisites for MSF students. Prerequisite for other students is FIN 4200  and is by permission only.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered Annually
  

  • FIN 5404 - Investment Fund

    The Investment Fund course offers an opportunity for students to team manage an equity portfolio on behalf of the Clark University Endowment. Students will be exposed to the institutional portfolio management process and stock selection under uncertain investment environment. Students are responsible researching investment ideas, formulate investment strategies, make investment decisions, evaluate portfolio performance, and ongoing monitoring of the Fund. Students are expected to conduct independent research in research teams and present their investment thesis to the class. Students must complete an application and be approved to take the course by the instructor prior to enrolling.

     

    Prerequisites: FIN 4200  for MBA students. 

      for MSF students. By permission only.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Varies
  

  • FIN 5405 - Mergers and Acquisitions

    Mergers & Acquisitions is a case-based examination of the factors that contribute to a successful transaction. After establishing why a corporation would entertain a merger or acquisition in the first place, emphasis will be given to candidate selection, valuation, negotiation, post-transaction integration, and satisfying the needs of the many stakeholders involved in a deal. Every class meeting will feature discussion of an assigned case, and students will also engage in team projects in which they research a recent transaction and will participate in mock negotiations. Students will have met the prerequisites prior to enrolling in the course to ensure that they are comfortable with the common tools of finance, especially discounted cash flow analysis.

    Prerequisites: ACCT 4100  OR ACCT 4101  and FIN 4200 , OR  .

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Varies
  

  • FIN 5408 - Risk Management

    This course will provide an understanding and application of quantitative (Financial) and qualitative (Enterprise) methods of analyzing and managing risk within organizations.  Learn to apply multiple risk management tools to make high quality decisions for balancing corporate risk and reward tradeoffs.  Financial risk topics will include the examination of derivative application uses for hedging risk, measuring Value at Risk and exploring external impacts such as market, credit and systemic risks.  Enterprise risk topics will include constructing frameworks for managing strategic, operational and other business risks. Students will examine ways to assess and measure risk along with organizing corporate governance policies. 

    Prerequisites:  OR   

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Varies
 

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