The core course in the English Major focusing on the close reading and analysis of a single major literary text, or a focused set of texts, in historical and critical context. Students will develop analytical and interpretive skills that deepen their historical and conceptual understanding of literature, as well as their skills of critical reading, writing, and presentation. See departmental listings for different offerings per semester. ENG major and minor requirement. May be repeated to a maximum of 6 hours under different subtitles.

Literature has found new platforms in the digital age. E-books, digital archives, electronic literature, audio books, podcasts, born-digital fiction, interactive fiction, and other digital literary forms have diversified the media for stories and altered traditional understandings of literature. This course will explore one or more forms of digital literature, introducing students to the principal theories and questions of this growing field.

An advanced course exploring the works of a single important author of English literature, or literature in translation, from any period or nationality. It focuses on developing a strong familiarity with the oeuvre of a specific important writer. Open to students from any major. Provides ENG Major Elective credit and ENG minor credit. May be repeated to a maximum of 9 hours under different subtitles. May fulfill ENG Early Period requirement depending on the course: see departmental listings for different offerings per semester.

A course offering advanced study of a representative selection of Shakespeare's plays across the length of his career. It situates Shakespeare within Renaissance theatre culture: the playhouses and audiences he wrote for, the structure of his acting company, and the patronage system that supported their business. Students will learn how his plays departed from received ideas about dramatic genres and in some instances set new standards for how certain types of plays should look and feel.

A course on Modernist Literature: British, Irish and American writing from the first half of the twentieth century. Virginia Woolf once tried to explain modernism by claiming, "on or about December 1910, human character changed." Much of the writing of the period might be read as an attempt to record and understand that change. Texts include the fiction, poetry, drama, and essays from writers such as Woolf, James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, Wyndham Lewis and Gertrude Stein.

A course examining contemporary American fiction primarily since the 1970s and 1980s, as well as the diverse categories by which its critics and readers have sought to identify it: minimalism, hyperrealism, postmodernism, cyberpunk, the magical real. The class investigates contemporary authors in order to generate the key terms and problems for approaching work in diverse current genres, from science fiction and graphic novels to historical novels and self-consciously literary fiction. Open to students from any major. Provides ENG Major Elective credit and ENG minor credit.

This course explores the relationship between two creative traditions, literature and film, focusing on film adaptations of literary works for the screen. Subjects can include the adaptation of works by a particular writer such as Shakespeare or Jane Austen, or it may range more widely among the thousands of innovative cinematic reinventions of literary texts, e.g. Richardson's Tom Jones, Altman's Short Cuts.

For undergraduate majors in English with high standing. Students pursue an independent course of study, tutorial, or directed project under the guidance of a faculty member, with appropriate assessment and grading (e.g., term paper(s), examinations, final project). Projects are generally proposed and arranged by students themselves, reflecting individual interests and goals. Limited enrollment. Prerequisites: ENG major with a major GPA of 3.0 or above; prior permission of faculty advisor and ENG chairperson; approved Learning Contract. May be repeated to a maximum of 6 credits.

For undergraduate majors in English with high standing. Students pursue an independent course of study, tutorial, or directed project under the guidance of a faculty member, with appropriate assessment and grading (e.g., term paper(s), examinations, final project). Projects are generally proposed and arranged by students themselves, reflecting individual interests and goals. Limited enrollment. Prerequisites: ENG major with a major GPA of 3.0 or above; prior permission of faculty advisor and ENG chairperson; approved Learning Contract. May be repeated to a maximum of 6 credits.

The Department of English internship is available for qualified students to receive academic credit toward the Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science in English through applied and practical experience with a variety of private and public entities, including but not limited to the University Press of Kentucky. The student will identify a field-, community-based, practical or applied educational experience and locate a sponsor to host their internship, which will be supervised by both a responsible person on site and by an English Dept. faculty member.