Fredonia Foundations

Dr. Susan McGee

Section 01
TR 2:00-3:20

Students will explore, through literature, primary historical texts, and/or other genres and media, central U.S. myths and cultural narratives. Individual sections will examine particular themes chosen by the instructor.

Prof. Anne Fearman

Section 02
MWF 10:00-10:50

Students will explore, through literature, primary historical texts, and/or other genres and media, central U.S. myths and cultural narratives. Individual sections will examine particular themes chosen by the instructor.

Dr. Susan Spangler

Section 01 MWF 9:00-9:50

This writing-intensive course explores how words and images work together to make meaning in an artistic form. Students will study important features of at least one specific artistic form (such as poetry, drama, graphic memoir, or fiction) and then will compose their own creative work in a genre.

Prof. Alison Pipitone

Section 01 Internet-Based Course

Section HR Internet-Based Course

This online, asynchronous course asks students to consider songwriting in several ways. First, we will explore the fundamental aspects of the sound of songwriting, including melody, rhythm, hooks, arrangement, and production. We will also consider the lyric with a focus on word choice, rhyme, image, tone, and Voice. We will also explore the role that songs have in reflecting and influencing our culture.

Dr. Emily Van Dette

Section 02
TR 9:30-10:50

Section HR
Internet Based Course

This section of ENGL 144 Reading Humanity explores representations of animals in literature and other cultural productions. We will examine the status of nonhuman animals and the dynamics between humans and nonhuman animals as they are depicted in art, literature, philosophy, etc. The reading list includes literature by Anna Sewell, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Mark Twain, Alice Walker, and many others.

Prof. Daniel Laurie

Section 03
TR 12:30-1:50

This section of Reading Humanity focuses on group dynamics and the sense of belonging. The key questions we will consider are: What does it mean to belong? What does it mean to be an outsider? And what’s at stake in conformity?

Dr. Birger
Vanwesenbeeck

Section 01
Internet Based Course

Can the Holocaust be represented? To capture the scope and magnitude of the Nazi atrocities has often been said to lie beyond the limits of the literary or artistic imagination even as artists have also recognized the need to do so. How have writers and filmmakers, both Jewish and non-Jewish, sought to negotiate this inherent tension? What does it mean to “cross the border” into the proverbially unspeakable? And, for those who survived the camps, how does one bear witness (or testify) to that which lies beyond the reach of words? In order to answer these (and other) questions, this course will offer an overview of the literature of the Holocaust globally conceived.

Dr. Ici
Vanwesenbeeck

Section HR
Honors Internet Based Course

Study of a range of world literature, across multiple genres, that relates to the experience of the process of "Border Crossings."

Dr. Ann
Siegle Drege

Section 02
T 3:30-6:30
R 3:30-4:20

How do choices made on stage or on screen inform our interpretations? As we explore the conventions of film and drama along with the creative process, we'll consider them through the lens of change and individual/ community response to change. A unique and powerful aspect of dramatic literature is that plays in production become communal experiences, and films screened together also create a shared experience.  Together we will wrestle with what it means to be human through the work on stage and screen, discovering that it is heightened by experiencing it together and reflecting on it in collaborative ways. This class counts as an elective in the English major.

Dr. Saundra Liggins

Section 01
MWF 1:00-1:50

Section 02
MWF 9:00-9:50

This course is a study of the ways in which writers use the written word as a form of social critique and an instrument of social justice during the Civil Rights Movement.

Dr. Bruce Simon

Section 01
MWF 11:00-11:50

An exploration of the historical construction of American gender, ethnicity/race, and class; their present status; and their literary and cultural representations. This section aims to put recent trends and events that influence and reveal the infrastructures of American identities in a broad historical, political, legal, social, cultural, and economic context. While examining how selected fiction writers, memoirists, historians, legal scholars, cultural critics, and political activists represent and reflect on what is enduring and what is changing about American identities this century, we will consider the traditions they draw on and revise, the tensions they respond to and play out, and the perspectives they enable us to gain both on our own times and our own identities.

Prof. Rebecca Cuthbert

Section 01
TR 12:30-1:50

Section 02
MWF 2:00-2:50

Section 06
MWF 1:00-1:50

First in the sequence of creative writing courses, the prerequisite for all higher-level creative writing. Conducted in an informal workshop format, the course provides practical experience in the writing and evaluation of poetry and short fiction. Basic forms, prosodies, techniques, genres, and the problems they pose are considered through study of historical and contemporary examples, and through writing assignments

Prof. Neil Fitzpatrick

Section 03 
TR 11:00-12:10

Section 04
TR 2:00-3:20

This class is about becoming readers and writers of fiction and poetry. The focus will be on learning craft through practice: we will write fiction and poetry exercises that lead to longer works. We will share these works and learn to give and receive feedback. We will read contemporary literary fiction and poetry, both to see what published writers can teach us and to mine the pleasures found there. This is writing as discovery, both in terms of what the poem or story is about and what we’re about.

Prof. Shannon Jonas

Section 05
MW 3:00-4:20

By the end of the semester, you will be required to write and submit 2 short stories and 4 poems.  Ideally, we’ll have time to workshop at least 1 of the stories you each write.  We’ll workshop as a class at least 1 of your 4 poems, but ideally all 4.  The creative work you submit during the arc of the semester will be the basis of your final portfolio that you will turn in at the end of the semester.

TBA

Section 07
MW 4:30-5:50

This class serves as an introduction to what creative writers do. We will be working on the foundations of creative writing across genres—poetry and fiction, as well as creative nonfiction, playwriting, graphic narrative—and doing so via frequent, short exercises. The class will also include readings, discussions, and in-class peer review (workshops).