Ph.D. Course Offerings
Graduate-level seminars are an integral part of the doctorate program. The seminars vary each semester; see the most recent offerings below.
Spring 2026
ENGL 8121.01: Pedagogy Workshop
Candice Amich
M 3:35 – 6:25 PM
This a workshop of pedagogical strategies required of all third-year PhD students as a continuation of ENGL 8120. The course is designed as a practical support for first-time instructors. The workshop includes biweekly meetings and class observations. [2]
ENGL 8138.01: Modernity and Revolution
Alex Dubilet
T 1:00 – 4:00 PM
What is a revolution? How does it define political modernity and its abolitionist horizons? What visions of freedom, equality, and justice motivate revolutionary action? What senses of time, future, and possibility emerge out of revolutionary experience? How does it emerge in response to the modern conditions produced by capitalism, the modern state, and colonialism? This seminar will pursue these questions by studying the most radical modern political sequence: the mass self-emancipation of the enslaved that occurred in the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804), a sequence understood as the only successful slave revolt in history and the founding moment of postcolonialism. Using the Haitian Revolution as a prism, this course will introduce students to a set of important interdisciplinary conceptual questions and theoretical frameworks, including: the human and its others; universal history and revolutionary untimeliness; law, property, and the state; historiography and narrativity; the politics of modernity and universalism; and the (after)lives of plantation slavery. Likely authors (on the Haitian Revolution) include: CLR James, Michel-Rolf Trouillot, Susan Buck-Morss, Louis Sala-Molins, Carolyn Fick, Sibylle Fischer, Nick Nesbitt, Jean Casimir, David Scott, Johnhenry Gonzalez, and Adom Getachew. Possible authors (on broader theoretical questions) include: Cedric Robinson, Hannah Arendt, Reinhart Koselleck, Massimiliano Tomba, Walter Benjamin, Antonio Negri, Sylvia Wynter, Giorgio Agamben, and Saidiya Hartman.
First day attendance is imperative. No prior knowledge or experience is required. [4]
ENGL 8331.01: Studies in Medieval and Early-Modern British Literature: Once Upon a Poem
Mezzanine with 3744.01
Jessie Hock
R 12:30 – 3:30 PM
Perhaps you have never heard of Andrew Marvell (1621-1678), but he is one of the greatest poets ever to write in the English language. One reason he is not familiar to the general public is that he didn’t write much, only about fifty poems in English, but each is a complex jewel. This class will revolve around his most remarkable piece of writing, “Upon Appleton House,” a short poem with epic sweep, which we will take as a jumping-off point to learn about the contexts that shaped Marvell, his age, and his poem. Topics will include the lyric genres and poetic movements of early modern England, including Petrarchism, metaphysical poetry, cavalier poetry, pastoral, devotional lyric, satire, and more. We will also learn about the cultural impacts of the English Civil Wars (1642-1651), which left an enormous mark on England, its people, and its literature. The relation between politics and poetry will be a major topic for the course. Nevertheless, at its heart, this is a class about one poem, which we will read and reread each week, even as we add layers of context, analysis, and reflection. My hope is that this will make the class an exercise in learning to love poetry (or love it more, or differently), insofar as getting to know one poem intimately will teach us the power of slowing down and marveling (pun intended!) at the wonders of poetic form. Assignments will include weekly readings (primary and secondary), response papers, and active class participation. Students will also write a shorter midterm and longer final paper. Students taking the class as a graduate seminar will complete additional secondary readings each week and write a longer research paper for their final assignment. [4]
ENGL 8351.01: Studies in 20th and 21st Century American Literature: William Faulkner
Mezzanine with ENGL 3894.02
Vera Kutzinski
MW 4:40 – 5:55 PM
How have different audiences read and re-read Faulkner, by turns celebrating and loathing his work? Why do we still read him today? We begin by looking at the 1949 Nobel laureate as one of the centerpieces of the post-WWII American literary canon and ask, for instance, which of his novels the New Critics, who dominated that US academy at the time, privileged and why. What aesthetic, cultural, and political values did Faulkner’s literary writings represent to them? Which specific aspects of his texts did they emphasize, which did they prefer to ignore? Along with mid-century and more recent commentaries on Faulkner, we will examine three of his novels (The Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom!, and Intruder in the Dust) and several short stories. [4]
ENGL 8450.01: Studies in Early and 19th-Century American Literature: Black Atlantic Currents
Mezzanine with ENGL 3620.01
Ajay Batra
MW 2:30 – 3:45 PM
Between the sixteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the transatlantic slave trade and the institution of chattel slavery exposed millions of people of African descent to conditions of forced captivity, racialized violence, and labor exploitation. In response to those oppressive conditions, Black individuals and communities spanning the coasts of West Africa and the colonized New World forged a dynamic tradition of creative expression and resistance that powerfully demonstrated their resilience, their political consciousness, and their desire for collective liberation. That widespread tradition—known to scholars as the Black Atlantic—will be the focus of our work in this seminar. Reading a wide selection of primary sources in English from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century North America and the Caribbean, we will examine how Black writers used literature and print culture both to contest the injustices of slavery and to envision forms of freedom beyond it. Moreover, we will read leading works of theory and criticism to gain familiarity with the innovative methods and the urgent questions currently animating scholarly debates at the nexus of Black studies, American studies, and Caribbean studies. Students in this course will complete in-class presentations and writing assignments designed to foster both intensive engagement with our subject matter and the development of advanced skills in research, analysis, and scholarly writing. [4]
Courses of Interest in other Departments
GSS 8304.01 Gender, Power, and Justice
Kathryn Schwarz
MW 4:00pm – 5:15pm
What is the relationship between theory and practice? It’s an old question; still, as I write a course description amidst our current cultural dynamics, it strikes me with new force. We invest much energy to create theoretical paradigms for social experiences: theories of gendered, racial, economic, and sexual inequities; of discipline and ideology; of separatism, coalition, and community; of vulnerability, interdependence, oppression, and resistance. At what points do theory and practice meet to produce effective action, and to facilitate the pursuit of social justice?
As we consider the complicated nexus of gender, justice, and power, we’ll engage thinkers who interweave the conceptual with the experiential: feminists of color; queer activists; radical separatists; advocates for interrelation and coalition; creators of manifestoes and polemics. I’ll set some of these texts, but our archive will be a collaborative project. Each of you will have opportunities to share resources, drawn from your own disciplines, from contemporary popular discourses, and from other contexts that add depth and vitality to our conversations. We’ll work together to bring individual insights and experiences into conversation with one another. And we’ll approach theories of social justice not only on their terms but also on our own, with a degree of enthusiasm, a measure of skepticism, and at least a flicker of hope.
Fall 2025
ENGL 8110.01: Proseminar
Jessie Hock
W 12:00 – 2:50 PM
The proseminar provides an introduction to English graduate studies through attention to both practical and theoretical issues. We will preview the arc of progress through the PhD program, from the art of the seminar paper to developing a dissertation project. Special attention will be paid to developing the writing skills necessary for professional success; you will draft and exchange conference abstracts, conference papers, and book reviews. We will also examine the stages through which an essay, that begins as a conference or seminar paper, may move toward publication. Together we will read a host of theoretical and critical essays that cover established and emerging approaches across historical periods, geographic areas, and genres. [4]
ENGL 8120.01: Pedagogy Seminar
Candice Amich
MW 4:40 – 5:55 PM
This is a learning-intensive workshop where you will plan your spring 2026 1000-level class. We will emphasize a learning-centered, student-oriented approach to teaching, and a revision-based approach to writing instruction. You will learn how to plan your class holistically, to backward design from clearly defined learning goals. You will design assignments from assessment models that connect organically and transparently to your learning goals for the class. You will get ideas for interacting with and managing classroom affect to produce better learning for your students. You will learn, in tandem with your observation of other courses, to design and run fruitful class discussions with your students’ learning outcomes in mind. You will learn to evaluate and comment productively on student papers. You will finish with a fully designed class, with plans for each day, with discussion plans, writing and recall exercises, and other classroom activities. [4]
ENGL 8331.01: Studies in Medieval and Early-Modern British Literature
Mezzanine with ENGL 3343.01
Shoshana Adler
TR 11:00 – 12:15 PM
Monsters that live on the margins of maps; libels about Jewish neighbors; King Arthur’s questing knights; fantastical tales of unknown islands; Shakespearean stage productions; cannibals, crusaders, and Muslim princesses: the foundational elements of much of English literature are inseparable from the history of race. This course examines some of the earliest incarnations of race-making in medieval and early modern English literature, in all their vast strangeness and discomfiting familiarity. What about our contemporary assumptions about race might shift when we consider its earliest discourses? How might the racial ideologies of the past help us to imagine our present differently? We will also read theorists of comparative racial critique. No prior knowledge or expertise in early literature required. [4]
ENGL 8351.01: Special Topics: 1925: A Year in Art, Literature, and Film
Combined Course with ENGL 3898.02
Scott Juengel
TR 1:15 – 2:30 PM
One hundred years ago the Western world was emerging from a pandemic, witnessing the rise of authoritarianism, and losing faith in its democratic institutions, which were thought to be governed by a “phantom public.” It also happened to be one of the most extraordinary years of literary, artistic, and cultural production in modern times. Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby; Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway; Kafka’s The Trial; Cather’s The Professor’s House; Hemingway’s debut, In Our Time; Dos Passos’s Manhattan Transfer; Alain Locke’s anthology of the Harlem Renaissance; Chaplin’s The Gold Rush; Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin; Dreiser’s An American Tragedy; Maugham’s The Painted Veil; T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” and Langston Hughes’s “The Weary Blues”; Hitchcock directs his first film; Louis Armstrong forms his own band; Walter Benjamin submits his work on the Trauerspiel; Walter Lippmann publishes The Phantom Public and Marcel Mauss, The Gift; there are key developments in the history of television and in quantum mechanics. And here in Tennessee, the Scopes ‘Monkey Trial. This course is the study of a single, remarkable year, mostly but not exclusively through its art and literature. What is involved in breaking history down per annum? How should we understand the relationship between cultural disquiet and creativity? [3] (HCA)
ENGL 8410.01: Studies in Romantic and Victorian Literatures: Nineteenth-Century Literature and Visual Culture
Rachel Teukolsky
M 12:20 – 3:10 PM
This interdisciplinary course will study nineteenth-century British literature alongside the era’s visual culture. “Visual culture” is a newer branch of visual studies that expands the art-historical field to include not only paintings and sculptures but also more popular, mass-circulated items and experiences. The nineteenth century witnessed the explosion of visual culture in objects that ranged from hand-held stereoscopes to panoramas to world exhibitions. The course will approach the topic from multiple angles. We’ll read literary works remarkable for their visual play, including works by Charles Dickens and Charlotte Brontë (among others). We’ll consider the influential art criticism of John Ruskin, who used a deeply political lens to theorize aesthetics. We’ll explore some key archives of nineteenth-century visual culture, including illustrated books, advertising posters, and representations of the Great Exhibition of 1851, usually considered the first world’s fair. Class meetings will also consider Victorian photography, illustration, ekphrasis, criminality, and empire, as well as the 1890s invention of cinema. Important theorists will include W.J.T. Mitchell, Walter Benjamin, Jonathan Crary, Tom Gunning, Anne McClintock, Michel Foucault, and Sharon Marcus, among others. The course welcomes both novices and more advanced readers. We will also take a field trip to the Vanderbilt Museum of Art, for a curator-led tour of the fall exhibition (“Paper Backs: Hidden Stories of European Prints from VUMA’s Collection”) and a dive into Vanderbilt’s special holdings in the nineteenth century. [4]
ENGL 8442.01: Media Studies: Race and Digital Culture
Mezzanine with ENGL 3726.01
Huan He
TR 4:15 – 5:30 PM
Can virtual reality automate empathy with others? How do video games make race and racism playable? Who labors to make our digital worlds possible? How does AI reproduce an imaginary of the human that reinforces whiteness? This course examines the dreams and nightmares that make up our collectively experienced “digital age,” which has a long history before the Internet and social media. We will read theoretical essays, literature, art, and interactive media to understand the embodied stakes of digitality and address questions of race and identity in online and virtual spaces. We will study how technologies perpetuate new and old forms of domination, and we will learn from writers and artists who imagine alternative digital futures. Certain days will be dedicated to hands-on activities with new media technologies such as VR, ChatGPT, and gaming consoles. No technical knowledge is required. In addition to written assignments, students will propose a final research or multimedia project based on individual interest. [4]
Courses of Interest in other Departments
PHIL 9020.02 Critical Theory
Karen Ng
Wednesday 3:10pm – 5:30pm
This graduate seminar is an intensive introduction to the tradition known as Frankfurt School Critical Theory, engaging with thinkers associated with its first generation to the present. Rooted in the philosophies of Hegel and Marx, critical theory is a tradition of social and political philosophy that combines descriptive and normative aims, where social critique has the goal of transforming society to ameliorate the human condition. The focus of the seminar will be the concept of “ethical life” (Sittlichkeit) and how this idea provides a lens through which to understand the unique contributions of this tradition. Readings may include works by Aristotle, Hegel, Marx, Lukács, Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, Robinson, Césaire, Habermas, Honneth, Jaeggi, Fraser, and others.
Spring 2025
ENGL 8112.01: Project Publish
Jay Clayton
R 1:15 – 4:15 PM
Project Publish is 2-credit graduate seminar designed to help each student produce an academic article ready to submit for publication by the end of the semester. The course will combine analysis of exemplary critical articles, practical advice about the mechanics of publishing, and writing workshop sessions in which we read one another’s drafts. You should come to the first meeting having identified one of your best papers from a previous seminar to spend the semester revising for publication, and you should expect to produce multiple drafts over the course of the term. [2]
ENGL 8138.01: Seminar in Critical Theory: Literature and Philosophy
Jessie Hock
W 10:30 – 1:30 PM
In What is Philosophy? (1991), Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari distinguish between philosophy, art, and science. These three disciplines do different things: philosophy creates concepts, the arts create percepts (i.e. sensual perceptions), and science creates functions (that is, predicts the behavior of systems). This class examines the relation between the literary arts and philosophy, with a focus on questions such as: how has the relation between literature and philosophy been articulated differently at different moments in the western literary tradition? What are the theoretical overlaps and methodological differences between literature and philosophy, and how do our methods for reading literary and philosophical texts differ or overlap? How can we bring literature to bear on philosophy, and vice versa, and is it possible to think their relation with greater complexity than a simple back and forth?
Obviously, “philosophy and literature” is an enormous topic, and the course will be tailored to the interests of its students in terms of genres, philosophical schools, and historical periods. Selected authors might include (in no particular order): Plato, Lucretius, Alain de Lille, William Wordsworth, Toni Morrison, Emily Dickinson, Anne Carson, Friedrich Nietzsche, Gilles Deleuze, Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Luce Irigaray, Herman Melville, Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, Lydia Davis. [4]
ENGL 8138.02: Seminar in Critical Theory: Modernity and the Question of Political Theology
Alex Dubilet
T 4:15 – 7:15 PM
Through an engagement with classical and contemporary texts in critical theory, this class explores a set of interlocking questions about theological presuppositions underwriting political modernity and the ongoing planetary catastrophe. It traces how theological conceptions, grammars, and operations have surprising afterlives and continue to structure putatively secular realities such as sovereignty, subjection, law, history, and violence, as well more insurgent imaginaries. Engaging the lively interdisciplinary field of political theology, this class explores the conceptual and narrative (dis)continuities that bind histories of monotheism to modernity. In the process, it also introduces students to critical perspectives on the status of secularity and secularism. Authors may include Karl Marx, Walter Benjamin, Carl Schmitt, Hannah Arendt, Michel Foucault, Jacob Taubes, Sylvia Wynter, Tomoko Masuzawa, Gil Anidjar, Saba Mahmood, Jan Assmann, and Giorgio Agamben. [4]
ENGL 8410.01: Studies in Romantic and Victorian Literature: Science and Science Fiction in the Nineteenth Century
Mezzanine with ENGL 3898.02 (Honors Seminar)
Jay Clayton
M 12:20 – 3:20 PM
Twice during the nineteenth century, scientific discoveries galvanized creative changes in the novel, giving rise to the genre we call science fiction. Everyone knows about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), often regarded as the first true SF novel. But were you aware of how voyages of discovery by Darwin and others sparked revolutionary speculative fictions like Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838)? At the other end of the century, a plethora of utopian tales, science fiction novels, horror stories, and imperial romances thrilled readers with their controversial speculations. These fictional works were often more influential than the scientific discoveries that they referenced, fueling some of the most disturbing social movements of the fin de siècle: so-called “racial science,” eugenics, and imperialism.
The first part of the course will juxtapose two novels published in the same year, Frankenstein and Jane Austen’s Persuasion, to highlight the major differences between SF and realist fiction. After reading Darwin and Poe, we will fast-forward to the second half of the century to sample science fiction and horror stories such as Robert Lewis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Grey (1890), H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine (1895), and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897); and an imperial romance, H. Ryder Haggard’s She (1887), as well as Pauline Hopkins’s African American inversion of colonial romance, Of One Blood (1903). We will conclude with Octavia Butler’s harrowing Neo-Victorian novel, Kindred (1979), and Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad (2016). [4]