Explore Our Courses
Do you wish to...
- Explore the rhetorical and linguistic strategies used by legal, government and media
experts?
- Discover the roots of English drama starting in the 10th century?
- Analyze the conflict of rational and irrational that permeates Gothic literature?
Our diverse course offerings provide an abundance of opportunities to study every
and all aspects of the English language.
Featured Upcoming Courses: Spring 2026
ENG 303: Advanced Workshop in Creative Writing
ENG 303: Advanced Workshop in Creative Writing
Taught By: Dr. David Hicks
This course will provide you with lessons on the craft of fiction writing, along with
extensive opportunities to practice this form. In addition, we will read, discuss,
and learn from examples of contemporary fiction. By the end of the course, you will
have developed an improved ability to craft a scene, story, or book chapter; to “read
as a writer”; to identify successful and unsuccessful uses of craft elements and apply
those lessons to your own writing; and to revise your work efficiently and effectively.
Required Text: The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story
ENG 324: History of the English Language [DH- & WGS-designated]
ENG 324: History of the English Language [DH- & WGS-designated]
Taught By: Dr. Thomas A. Hamill
In this course we will examine the history of English, beginning with a comparative
study of the language from its origins in Proto-Germanic (and Proto-Indo-European)
and working our way chronologically up through the sounds and symbols we use (and
continually adapt) today. Our aim will be to acquire a working vocabulary for language
study and grammatical and linguistic analysis, as well as a critical understanding
of the historical, social, political, cultural, and material forces that have affected
(and still shape) the ways we communicate and comprehend—and the ways in which we
identify ourselves and others—in and through English.
We will study in detail the internal lexical and grammatical features of the major
versions of the English language that have evolved over the last 1500 years—Old, Middle,
and (Early) Modern English—as we consider thoroughly the broader, external factors
involved in language change. In conjunction with our chronological mapping of developments
across the history of English, we will regularly examine and engage contemporary instances
of language change that unfold around us (and that we participate in and perpetuate)
every day; we will also consider and project, from an historical linguistic perspective,
the changes English will likely continue to undergo due to variables as language-specific
as usage patterns and as general as socio-cultural change and technological innovation.
While our course focus and readings will primarily be linguistic, we will also read
and literary texts that provide important historical examples of English and that
align with Wilkes University Spring Theatre Production and the Department of English’s
Allan Hamilton Dickson Spring Writers Series.
Tentative Course Assignments: Students will complete two unit exams, a final exam, one short response paper (5-7
pages); a word history paper (5-7 pages), a research essay (10-12 pages), and a digital
lexicology/lexicography project.
Eng 334: Studies in Eighteenth-Century Literature – Gender, Race, Class / WGS
Eng 334: Studies in Eighteenth-Century Literature – Gender, Race, Class / WGS
Taught By: Dr. Mischelle Anthony
This course will explore how gender, race, and class concerns appeared across texts
of the long eighteenth century (1660-1820) as the reading public expanded. In addition
to sampling the era’s rich individual perspectives, discussions and assignments will
revolve around audience, purpose, and context. Our explorations will complicate stereotypes
and assumptions and also examine how reading changes with cultural pressures and practices.
Major Assignments
- Oral Presentation,
- Research Essay (10-12 pages)
- Midterm
- Final Exam
Possible Texts
- Knight, Sarah Kemble. The Journal of Madam Knight
- Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels
- Eliza Haywood, Love in Excess
- Burney, Frances. Journals And Letters
- Nightwalkers: Prostitute Narratives from the Eighteenth Century
- Franklin, Benjamin. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
- Gay, John, The Beggar’s Opera
- Voltaire, Candide
- Equiano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
- von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, The Sorrows of Young Werther
- Brown, Charles Brockden. Wieland
- Manvill, Mrs. P.D. Lucinda; Or the Mountain Mourner
- Bailey, Abigail Abbot. Religion and Domestic Violence in Early New England
ENG 397: Senior Seminar in Modern American Drama in Film
ENG 397: Senior Seminar in Modern American Drama in Film
As a course in Literature and Film, this section of ENG 397: Senior Seminar will involve
the close and careful study of a range of texts within the field of late-20th Century
American plays and their film adaptations. Most specifically, we will focus on the
work of Edward Albee, David Mamet, Neil Labute, and John Guare. We will spend 2/3
of our in-class time watching films, using written work to engage in response and
analysis, supplementing discussion.
In a broader sense, this section of ENG 397 will provide a basic introduction to the
theories, methods, questions, and concerns of film studies, helping students develop
a vocabulary of cinematic analysis and criticism, and providing an analytical base
that is vital to work in actual film production or screenplay writing. Considering
our approaches to film studies, students will be able to work with the course materials
(films and literary texts) in ways that relate to varied studies.
Focusing on writing and the written analysis of film and literature, students will
be responsible for numerous in-class/take-home worksheet assignments. In terms of
major assignments, students will complete: TWO 5-page Cinematic Analysis Papers; ONE
Annotated Bibliography; and ONE 10-page Cinematic Criticism Paper, employing research
in the areas of literary and cinematic studies. Notably, as film studies involve the
study, analysis, and commentary on visual media, we will practice the inclusion and
analysis of visual data—or “visual quotes”— and well as traditional textual quotes
in our writing. The course will also include an end-of-semester roundtable discussion
of our final research and work.
Please consider that this course focuses on, in part, texts that contain realistic
and potentially “harsh” language, complex political, racial, ethnic, religious, and
sexual themes, etc. This course will require our mature, thoughtful, and ethical study
of these aspects of the material.
Required Texts
- William Inge Picnic (film only)
- Edward Albee Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Berkley. ISBN-13: 978-0451218599
- David Mamet Glengarry Glen Ross Grove. ISBN-13: 978-0802130914
- David Mamet Oleanna Vintage. ISBN-13: 978-0679745365
- Neil Labute In the Company of Men Faber & Faber. ISBN-13: 978-0571199313
- Neil Labute The Shape of Things Faber Drama. ISBN-13: 978-0881452228
- John Guare Six Degrees of Separation. Vintage. ISBN-13: 978-0679734819
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