Course Offerings

 

Wichita State University, English Department

Summer and Fall 2026 Graduate-level Classes

 

Summer 2026

Engl 522: Renaissance Literature

Michael Behrens, CRN 30479

The theme of this Renaissance Literature course is cultural encounter, discovery, travel, and travel writing, broadly conceived. We will read poetry, drama, fiction, and nonfiction prose by writers of the 16th through the mid-17th centuries. Authors will likely include Thomas More, Shakespeare, John Donne, and Margaret Cavendish. Prerequisite(s): junior standing and one college literature course, or instructor's consent. Fulfills elective or pre-1900 period course requirement.

Engl 576: Advanced Studies in Graphic Novel

Darren DeFrain, CRN 30480

ENGL 576 introduces students to visual linguistics and brings trauma theory and other critical approaches to graphic narratives. This course will explore important, enriching ways graphic narratives are fundamentally different than text-only novels and help students develop a deeper understanding of the genre. Students need not have taken ENGL 377 to enroll in ENGL 576 but may need special clearance without it. Fulfills elective requirement and could be substituted in for post-1900 period course requirement.

Engl 580AJ: Civil War Literature

Rebecah Bechtold, CRN 30481

This special topics course examines the literary culture that emerged during the Civil War years, exploring how early American writers envisioned the political, creative, and personal impact the war would have on American identity. Our conversations will include discussions of how early Americans understood race, class, disability and the body, definitions of womanhood and manhood, violence and death, sacrifice, and notions of freedom, among other central concerns. We also will be working with primarily literary texts—examining the poetry and short fiction of both prominent and relatively unknown American authors. Students will be expected to post weekly responses to our readings and work toward a final literary or pedagogical archival project based on the periodical culture of the war years. Fulfills elective requirement and could be substituted in for pre-1900 period course requirement.

Fall 2026
Online

Engl 515D: Shakespeare’s Plays and Poetry

Michael Behrens, CRN 14383

515D will examine the poetry and plays of Shakespeare broadly in the context of early modern English culture. We will also discuss a selection of Shakespearian criticism and scholarship. Fulfills elective requirement.

Engl 516B: Emily Dickinson

Rebeccah Bechtold, CRN 12163

“Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?” asked Emily Dickinson in 1862. This course hopes the answer is no as we’ll be spending our semester working with Dickinson’s poetry. Throughout the semester we will work with her writing—treating it as an object with textual, oral/aural, and tactile elements—while also considering its placement within the everyday landscape of nineteenth-century America. Fulfills elective course requirement.

Engl 579: Introduction to Digital Humanities

Mary Waters, CRN 12164

 Introduces students to some of the tools and projects that constitute the digital humanities, and considers issues raised by the field.Fulfills elective requirement.

Engl 686: Professional, Technical, and Scientific Writing and Editing

Michael Behrens, CRN 12165

This course introduces students to editing and writing in professional, technical, and scientific fields. Through careful reading and analysis of exemplary technical documents, you will gain exposure to numerous writing genres produced for different audiences and contexts. After some instruction in rhetorical analysis and an exploration of careers in this field, we will cover topics such as document design, online writing, and writing for public and popular audiences. You will create a range of documents, which may include instructions, infographics, newsletters, brochures, fact sheets, and social media content, among other possibilities. Assignments will help strengthen your rhetorical awareness, as well as the precision, clarity, and readability of your writing. We will also consider the use of AI in professional, technical, and scientific writing. Fulfills elective requirement.

Engl 700: Introduction to Graduate Study

Rebeccah Bechtold, CRN 12166

This course serves as an intensive introduction to the research and analytic methods prevalent in English Studies. It provides new graduate students with a foundation in the history, methodologies, debates, and traditions of the English discipline, including the major theoretical and disciplinary issues associated with the field. The course will provide an overview of the state of the profession, the structure of graduate studies, and the potential career options available to the MA, MFA, and future PhD student. Students will learn to navigate and practice the kinds of intellectual work commonly expected in the field, translating this acquired knowledge into academic, professional, and community environments. Required (online or in-person version) of all first-year students.

Engl 733A: Contemporary Anglophone Literature

TJ Boynton, CRN 14384

“Anglophone” literature is defined, simply, as literature written in English. Much of the world’s English-language literature, however, exists because of the fact that the British Empire once ruled over more than a quarter of the globe. The legacies of empire provided inspiration for a significant portion of the literature authored by peoples from Africa to Asia and the Caribbean throughout the mid- to late-twentieth century, as they tried to assert political, cultural, and creative independence from their former rulers. In more recent years, literatures from these regions have transformed further in relation to the influences of a globalized capitalism centered in the United States. Reading Anglophone literatures thus presents a unique challenge, requiring that we account for the influences of indigenous/native cultural traditions and history; British imperialism and its legacies; and the more recent developments of globalization. How do all of these layers inform and shape the work of Anglophone writers from the former imperial territories of the “Global South,” or those who have emigrated from such territories to the U.K. and the U.S.? How do such writers’ perspectives and techniques respond to such shaping? What can we learn about the history and possibilities of literature in English through examining all of the above? These are the key questions this course will pose. Fulfills elective requirement or post-1900 period course.

In-Person

Engl 533A: Horror by Writers of Color

Jean Griffith, CRN 14388, TR 2-3:15

This course will focus on horror fiction and film by contemporary Americans of color, particularly African and Native Americans. We will explore what is unique about African and Native American horror, what similarities they share and what distinguishes them, and how they both relate to the larger horror fiction and film scenes. Along the way, this course will help you improve upon your reading, viewing, critically engaging, and writing skills. Fulfills elective requirement or post-1900 period course.

Engl 680: Theory and Practice in Composition

Carrie Dickison, CRN 12004, W 4:30

This course will introduce you to theories of rhetoric and writing, major research questions in the field of composition studies, and best practices for teaching writing in schools and colleges. We will investigate writing processes, analyze varieties and examples of student writing, and hone our own writing skills by drafting, revising, and evaluating our own and others’ work. As we read significant publications in the field, we will continually consider the relationship between theory and classroom practice. Assignments will give you experience reading challenging pedagogical and theoretical texts; posing complex and worthwhile questions about the teaching of writing; performing research and synthesizing your findings; drafting course materials for current or future writing classes; reading instructional texts critically; and responding effectively to student writing. Topics of discussion will include writing about difficult texts; using writing as a reading strategy; teaching sentence structure and grammar; and responding to and assessing student writing. This course is designed especially for prospective and practicing teachers. Fulfills elective requirement.

Engl 513B: American Poetry After Modernism

Adam Scheffler, CRN 12006, T 4:30

Modernist poets sometimes receive more attention, but the poets who came after them were just as exciting. Whether it was Frank O’Hara writing about his love affair with a sexy ballet dancer, Thom Gunn writing about biker gangs, surfers, and drug trips, Sylvia Plath boasting about how she will rise “with my red hair” and “eat men like air,” or Robert Hayden writing about slave revolts, Bessie Smith, and Malcolm X, American poets after World War Two wrote edgy poems, energized by a period of rapid cultural change and increasing aesthetic freedom. Whereas Modernist poets sometimes tended to wax melancholic about modernity, with T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” eulogizing the collapse of European culture and speaking mournfully of “these fragments…shored against my ruins,” the American poets who followed reveled in fragments and pluralism, and in the exciting, wild, democratic possibilities they afforded. In this class, we will read and study the work of several exceptional poets, writing between 1950 and the end of the 20th century, and consider how they broadened the possibilities of American poetry, relishing in and celebrating new freedoms, while still staying attuned to darker realities and to how far America had fallen short of its ideals. 

[Course requirements will include a written research paper on one of the assigned poets, as well as presentations on secondary sources. Assigned poets may include Robert Hayden, James Wright, Frank O’Hara, Thom Gunn, Sylvia Plath, Sharon Olds, Yusef Komunyakaa, Wanda Coleman, and Allen Ginsberg.] Fulfills elective requirement or can be substituted in for post-1900 period course.

Engl 700: Introduction to Graduate Study

Vanessa Aguilar, CRN 12005, R 4:30

Prepares students to perform effectively in graduate classes in English. Covers: (1) basic bibliographical tools; (2) terminology both technical and historical; (3) various approaches to the study of literature, such as intrinsic analysis of a literary work, the relationships of biography to literary study, and the relevance of other disciplines, such as psychology, to literature; and (4) the writing of interpretative and research essays. Maintains a balance between criticism and research throughout the semester. Fulfills the university's professional and scholarly integrity training requirement covering research misconduct, publication practices and responsible authorship, conflict of interest and commitment, ethical issues in data acquisition, management, sharing and ownership for students who receive a grade of B or better. Required (online or in-person version) of all first-year students.

Engl 780: Advance Theory and Practice in Composition

Darren DeFrain, CRN 12007, R 2:00-4:30pm

For teaching assistants in English. Review of new theories of rhetoric, recent research in composition, and new promising developments in composition programs in schools and colleges. Students are given practice in advanced writing problems, situations and techniques and may propose projects for further special study. Fulfills elective requirement.