This summer we have four graduate literature courses on the schedule. Three are summer standards and the fourth, Magical Realism, is a new offering being run by a professor who is an expert in Latino literature and Magical Realism. Registration for summer courses opens on March 4. The administration hasn’t sent out the specific time registration opens on this date but in the past it has been 9:00am Eastern. The four summer courses are:

•  ENGL 509 Perspectives on the Essay

The course will study the essay as a distinct literary genre; its characteristics and types; its history; and its role in reflecting authorial consciousness. This course will examine the taxonomy of the essay in terms of its medium (verse or prose), its tone and level of formality, its organizational strategies, and its relationship to its audience and to particular modes of literary production (speech, manuscript, pamphlet, book, magazine, newspaper). It will trace the development of the essay from its origins to the modern era. 3 credits.

• ENGL 510 Theory & Practice of Expository Writing

The course is encouraged for any student who is a teacher or who aspires to teach secondary school or community college English, or to adjunct at senior colleges. But the course is also encouraged for anyone who simply wants to focus in on exploring and developing his or her own critical, expository writing. The course will address the techniques of expository writing as reflected in academic discourse. Ideally, students will learn the general practices of critical writing, but focus their work in their individual fields of interest. These interests may include aesthetic approaches, feminist approaches, deconstructive approaches, research in culture, education, etc. The course will specifically address techniques of analytic organization, and will consider the pedagogy and andragogy of writing. 3 credits.

• ENGL 517 Advanced Creative Writing

This course is intended for writers with some background or preparation in creative writing. “Some background” could simply be that you’ve worked in private on poems, essays, or stories; or that you’ve attended courses or workshops; or that you’ve been published. The idea is that each of you in the room will be continuing to develop whatever is your personal stage of creative writing prowess, rather than starting out from absolute zero. The course continues to develop each student’s creative writing ability through a close study of various writing styles and techniques, matched with assignments and workshops which encourage the students to further develop their own creative writing informed by such literary study. The emphasis of the course will shift depending on the expertise of the professor running it, and could emphasize or involve poetry, narrative, creative non-fiction, or other forms. 3 credits.

• ENGL 560 Magical Realism

A fuller description of this course will be forthcoming. In brief, though, it will explore Latino literature and in particular literature of Magical Realism, and will be taught by Dr. Celia Reissig-Vasile, an expert in this field.