Lower-Division
LIT 201 (3) MASTERPIECES OF WORLD LITERATURE I–GE
A survey of literary classics of the ancient and medieval periods including various genres and nations. Includes works by authors such as Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, Sappho, Plato, Aristotle, Virgil, Murasaki, Lao-Tzu, and Dante.
Prerequisite: College Composition (5 units).
LIT 202 (3) MASTERPIECES OF WORLD LITERATURE II–GE
A survey of literary classics from the Renaissance, Neoclassical, and Romantic periods. Includes work by authors such as Erasmus, Machiavelli, de Navarre, Montaigne, Cervantes, Vega, Shakespeare, Milton, Xueqin, Moliere, Racine, Swift, de la Cruz, Basho, Goethe, Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Pushkin, Douglass, Whitman, and Dickinson.
Prerequisite: College Composition (5 units).
LIT 203 (3) MASTERPIECES OF WORLD LITERATURE III–GE
A survey of literary classics from Realism and Naturalism through the Postmodern period. Includes work by authors such as Flaubert, Dostoevsky, Yeats, Ibsen, Joyce, Pirandello, Eliot, Woolf, Camus, Lessing, Gide, Akhmatove, Kafka, Bachman, Beckett, Achebe, Walcott, El Saadawi, and Desai.
Prerequisite: College Composition (5 units).
LIT 205 (2) GREAT WORKS IN A LITERARY GENRE: THE NOVEL–GE
An analysis and study of major representative examples of the novel; may include shorter works of fiction. Offered on a Quad basis.
Prerequisite: Successful completion of the College Composition requirement (5 units).
LIT 206 (2) GREAT WORKS IN A LITERARY GENRE: DRAMA–GE
An analysis and study of major representative examples of drama. Offered on a Quad basis.
Prerequisite: Successful completion of the College Composition requirement (5 units).
LIT 207 (2) GREAT WORKS IN A LITERARY GENRE: POETRY–GE
An analysis and study of major representative examples of poetry. Offered on a Quad basis.
Prerequisite: Successful completion of the College Composition requirement (5 units).
LIT 208 (2) GREAT WORKS IN A LITERARY GENRE: SHORT STORY–GE
An analysis and study of major representative examples of the short story; may include longer works of fiction. Offered on a Quad basis.
Prerequisite: Successful completion of the College Composition requirement (5 units).
LIT 250 (3) INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF LITERATURE
This course introduces the student to the technical study of literature with a threefold emphasis. One, it instructs students in the practice of close reading and literary analysis of all the major genres of literature: poetry, prose (fiction and nonfiction), and drama, giving special attention to close reading and literary analysis of poetry. Two, it requires the study and mastery of literary terms, their definitions and applications. Three, it introduces students to historical literary periods and major schools of literary criticism and their approaches. A more extensive study of literary criticism is completed in Literature 495. Students should use and master more fully Literature 250 course content in subsequent literature courses.
Prerequisite: College Composition (5 units).
LIT 254 (3) BRITISH WRITERS I
Discussion and analysis of major movements, genres, authors, and works within their cultural contexts from 700 to 1798. Includes Beowulf and work by authors such as Chaucer, Julian of Norwich, Malory, Spenser, Lanyer, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Webster, Milton, Behn, Cavendish, Swift, and Pope.
Prerequisite: College Composition (5 units).
LIT 255 (3) BRITISH WRITERS II
Discussion and analysis of major movements, genres, authors, and works from the 1780s to the present. Includes works by authors such as Wollstonecraft, Blake, the Wordsworths, Coleridge, the Shelleys, Keats, Dickens, the Rossettis, the Brownings, Shaw, Wilde, Eliot, Woolf, Stoppard, and Friel.
Prerequisite: College Composition (5 units).
LIT 256 (3) AMERICAN WRITERS I
A study of American writers from the colonial period to he mid-19th century. Representative writers are Bradstreet, Taylor, Franklin, Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, Douglas, Hawthorne, Melville, Wheatley, Stowe, and Whitman.
Prerequisite: Successful completion of the College Composition requirement (5 units).
LIT 257 (3) AMERICAN WRITERS II
A study of American writers from the mid-19th century to the present. Representative writers are Clemens, Crane, Chopin, Frost, Eliot, Hurston, Hemingway, Faulkner, O’Connor, and Morrison.
Prerequisite: Successful completion of the College Composition requirement (5 units).
Upper-Division
LIT 325 (3) CHILDREN’S LITERATURE–GE
Consideration of the major classics and modern works recommended for children, including folk and fairy tales, animal stories, limericks and poetry, fantasy, and realistic stories for older children.
LIT 344 (3) AMERICAN NOVEL
A study of selected novels of major writers of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, with emphasis on theme and narrative technique.
Recommended: Literature 250.
LIT 345 (3) AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE
An advanced study of the African American literary tradition in its cultural context from its beginnings in African American vernacular culture, until the present.
Recommended: Literature 250.
LIT 346 (3) MAJOR AUTHORS IN AMERICAN LITERATURE
An advanced study of selected authors in American literature. The course provides students the opportunity to study selected writers in depth.
Recommended: Literature 250.
LIT 347 (3) AMERICAN LITERARY MOVEMENTS
An advanced study of selected movements in the history of American literature. Such movements as colonial American literature, the American renaissance, American realism and naturalism, American modernisms, Asian-American literature, and American Meta-fiction are considered.
Recommended: Literature 250.
LIT 361 (3) WORLD DRAMA AND POETRY
An advanced study of selected dramatic (non-Shakespearean) and poetic works, from the ancient world through the present, focusing primarily on works in translation. The course considers major developments in the genres of drama (including tragedy, comedy, and tragicomedy) and lyric poetry.
Recommended: Literature 201 and 250.
LIT 436 (3) NON-WESTERN LITERATURE
An advanced study of literature from non- European and non-American countries, covering primarily African and Asian writings. Includes a variety of eras and genres, placing the works within their cultural contexts.
Recommended: Literature 250.
LIT 437 (3) WOMEN WRITERS–WS
Considers women writers from a specific chronological period from the Middle Ages through the 20th century. The time period, themes and genres considered vary from year to year. The course focuses on questions related to gender, class, and race.
Recommended: Literature 250.
LIT 438 (3) READINGS: CONTINENTAL AUTHORS
Some of the most significant writers from the European continent of the modern era, including such authors as Dostoevsky, Zamyatin, Hesse, Frisch, Durrenmatt, Brecht, Ibsen, and Solzhenitsyn.
Recommended: Literature 250.
LIT 439 (3) LATIN AMERICAN LITERATURE SINCE 1910
A study of the Latin American narrative from the Mexican Revolution to the present.
Recommended: Literature 250.
LIT 444 (3) MEDIEVAL LITERATURE
A study of British literature from 1100 through 1500, including Chaucer, Langland, the Gawain Poet, Marie de France, Julian of Norwich, and Mallory, and covering medieval drama, poetry, prose, romance, and tale. Students learn to read Middle English as well as the historical, religious, and social contexts of the literature.
Prerequisites: Literature 254.Recommended: Literature 250.
LIT 445 (3) 17TH CENTURY ENGLISH LITERATURE
A study of British literature primarily from 1603 to 1688, focusing on the Scienfific revolution, the beginnings of modernism, the rise of women writers and discussions concerning gender, major religious movements, and the English Civil War.
Recommended: Literature 250.
LIT 446 (3) ROMANTIC LITERATURE
A study of the poetry, fiction, non-fiction prose, and drama of the Romantic Age (1780-1830), focusing on issues of the French Revolution, the rights of women, the abolition of the slave trade and slavery, the rise of democracy, industrialization and science, the philosophy of art, and the rise of new literary forms such as the Greater Romantic lyric and the gothic.
Recommended: Literature 250 and Literature 255.
LIT 447 (3) VICTORIAN LITERATURE
A study of the fiction, non-fiction prose, poetry, and drama of the Victorian age (1837-1901), focusing on the period's dominant issues of Industrialization, Imperialism, the Woman Question and Sexuality, the Crisis of Faith and Science, and Aesthetics and Art's role in society.
Recommended: Literature 250 and Literature 255.
LIT 448 (3) POST-COLONIAL LITERATURE
An advanced study of selected post-colonial literature and perhaps some post-colonial theory from the turn of the 19th century through 21st century. Class inquiry focuses on the effects of empire, colonization, neocolonialism, and decolonization presented in these texts and examines the ways in which these texts respond to or resist dominant colonialist and imperialist paradigms of power, identity, gender and the other.
Recommended: Literature 250, 203 or 255.
LIT 449 (3) ENGLISH NOVEL
A study of the development of the novel from the late 17th Century to the present, with attention given to historical-cultural contexts and movements informing the novels, the rise and adaptations of novel forms, and close reading of the literary features of the novel.
Recommended: Literature 250.
LIT 460 (3) THE HUMAN CHALLENGE-GE
This course seeks to engage students in a systematic, interdisciplinary reflection on some of the challenges of an “examined” and well-lived life. It poses three human challenges for interdisciplinary (literal, philosophical, psychological, and Wesleyan theological) perspective dialogue: 1) the challenge of evolving a “philosophical faith” (being wise); 2) the challenge of enlarging ones capacity to love (being loving); and 3) the challenge of broadening one's personal identity and vision of meaningful, creative work (being generative). Students read literary works that embody these developmental themes as well as selected articles in the fields of philosophy and psychology.
Prerequisite: Consent of instructor.
LIT 461 (3) SHAKESPEARE
A study of Shakespeare's comedies, histories, and tragedies within their cultural contexts, with special attention paid to rhetorical analysis and theatricality, as well as coverage of the political, philosophical, and religious implications of the plays.
Recommended: Completion of the general education literature requirement and Literature 250.
LIT 490 (1-3) SPECIAL STUDIES IN LITERATURE
An intensive study of a selected problem by an individual or group under the direction of a member of the faculty. May be repeated to a total of six units.
Prerequisites: Consent of instructor and department chair.
LIT 495 (3) LITERARY THEORY AND SCHOLARSHIP
This capstone course provides an in-depth study of contemporary critical trends such as Structuralism, New Historicism, Feminism, Deconstruction, Gender Studies, Reader- Response and Psychoanalytic criticism. Students also familiarize themselves with the critical commonplaces to which these new approaches are a response as well as with a traditional overview of trends and styles from medieval through modern literature. Students are expected to engage in some research and in written critical work. Preparation of a portfolio and summative evaluation is an important part of this class.
Prerequisites: Literature 250 and Senior standing.
LIT 499 (1-3) RESEARCH IN ENGLISH
Independent research under the guidance of a faculty member.
Prerequisites: Consent of instructor and department chair and Senior standing.Single-Subject Credential
LIT 535 (3) METHODS OF TEACHING ENGLISH
Both traditional and current research-based methodologies are studied, and many are demonstrated and practiced. The teaching of writing and the integration of the language arts and the California English Language Arts Framework are emphasized. Offered on a Quad basis. Offered fall semesters.