Spring 2027 Topics Courses, Department of English, CSUSB
English 4400 Hard Times: 1930s American Literature and the Great Depression
Prof. Dave Carlson
MW 1-2:15 pm
The literature produced during the Great Depression (1929-1941) tells a complex story of protest and resilience, as individuals and communities confronted the massive economic and political crises of their times. Complicating the celebratory rhetoric of American progress that had dominated in previous decades, American writers and artists in the 1930s wrestled with the question of what had gone wrong with the so-called American Dream. They began to wonder whether experiences of poverty and class difference were even more important in shaping the national narrative than long-cherished beliefs in American exceptionalism and economic opportunity. These are questions that continue to be relevant today. Indeed, they may be more relevant than ever as we approach the 2030s.
In this course we will focus on a range of literary works that explore different facets of the lives of American workers during the Great Depression. We will study texts written by working class people themselves (examples of what is sometimes called “proletarian literature”) as well as politically engaged texts by other writers. We will consider the experiences of sharecroppers and factory workers, labor organizers and radicals, migrant laborers and other types of economic refugees. As we do so, we will have the opportunity to reflect both on how the working class was represented in mainstream American culture and on the often-contrasting ways that working people wrote about themselves.
Course readings will include the following:
James Agee/Walker Evans. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (nonfiction/photojournalism)
Tillie Olson. Yonnondio: From the Thirties (novel)
William Attaway. Blood on the Forge (novel)
Clifford Odets. Waiting for Lefty (play)
John Steinbeck. In Dubious Battle (novel)
Muriel Rukeyser. The Book of the Dead (poetry)
Meridel LeSueur. Salute to Spring (short stories)
English 4410 Jonathan Swift
Prof. Jenny Andersen
TR 1-2:15 pm
The satires of Jonathan Swift help us to understand the conditions for authorship and publication between 1660 and 1740. This period saw the rise of daily newspapers, gazettes, and coffee houses where people read and discussed the news. Yet the public sphere was also saturated with misinformation, works published anonymously and pseudonymously, and fierce political polemics. Swift parodies and exploits elements of these new periodical genres and discourses of the public sphere for social and political satire. His satires recurrently draw attention to problems of poverty, colonial exploitation, technological progress, and the treatment of animals.
English 4630 “Bad” Books
Prof. Ann Garascia
MW 9-10:15 am
The supernatural gorefest in Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead (1981)begins with an everyday object: a book. However, some background info clarifies this is not just any book. It’s the Book of the Dead, which is “bound in human flesh and inked in human blood” and contains incantations to reanimate the (evil) dead. Not limited to Raimi’s film, books historically have been thought to hold the power to charm, disturb, possess, and even destroy. From ancient Egypt’s book curses (“To steal this book, if you should try / It’s by the throat that you’ll hang high”) to the unnamed “yellow book” that led to Dorian’s downfall in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), books can be bad.
ENG 4630, “Bad” Books, will provide an unnerving tour of literature and film centering on corrupting, possessed, and cursed books, manuscripts, and archives. More than background objects, the book objects themselves take on unexpected agencies as antagonists to have us investigate the allure and dangers of authorship and readership. To frame these explorations of “Bad Books,” ENG 4630 will take a book historical approach that introduces students to the evolution of book objects, the material creation of book objects, patterns of textual circulation and dissemination, and histories of audience reception. Throughout the semester, students will also have opportunities to craft their own book objects as a hands-on way of engaging with course materials. Possible texts include: Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves (2000), Robert Chambers’ The King in Yellow (1895), Gemma Files’ Experimental Film (2015), Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead (1981) and short stories by Arthur Machen, Silvia Moreno Garcia, and Carmen Maria Machado.
English 5130 Memoir
Prof. Paula Priamos
MW 5:30-6:45 pm online synchronous
We all have personal stories worth telling. Using creative writing techniques, this course will help you transform personal memories into meaningful and entertaining narratives. Through close readings of contemporary memoirists, generative exercises that help you remember the past and make sense of it, and work throughout the semester on your own essays or perhaps a book project, you will evaluate and experience the powerful elements of creative nonfiction.
English 5150 Nineteenth-Century Russian Novel
Prof. Jenny Andersen
TR 4:00-5:15 pm
Our two major novels, Ivan Turgenev’s Fathers and Children (1860) and Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment (1866) focus on university students or recent graduates who espouse revolutionary ideas and attempt to put them into practice. Russian writers, like many European writers in the wake of the French Revolution (1789-1799), were haunted by the question of how they could solve their country’s social problems. The abolition of serfdom in Russia (1861) shifted centuries-old relationships between aristocratic landowners and peasants. Turgenev and Dostoevsky’s young protagonists – Arkady, Bazarov, and Raskolnikov – are obsessed with (even possessed by) contemporary ideas about relieving suffering and building social justice. Nineteenth-century Russia was however still ruled by an autocratic monarchy that strictly enforced censorship and lacked forms of democratic political representation. A lively intelligentsia talked about these ideas at social gatherings and looked for ways, such as fiction, to air them publicly.
English 5150 American Horror Story: Gothic Fiction from Otranto to Nosferatu
Prof. Chad Luck
MW 10:30-11:45 am
When—and where—did people first begin writing horror fiction? What is the history of the horror story in America? How is “horror fiction” related to that thing we call “gothic fiction”? These are the questions that this course will tackle and try to answer. We will do that by reading and watching a rogue’s gallery of sometimes crazy, sometimes terrifying texts. From the sublime weirdness of Horace Walpole’s early novel, The Castle of Otranto to the supernatural horror of Robert Eggers’ 2025 remake, Nosferatu, we will trace the growth of Gothic horror in America. Along the way, we’ll touch on some celebrated classics like Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and we’ll try out some new classics-in-the-making like Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s 2020 breakout novel, Mexican Gothic.