English courses explore how writers, cultures, and institutions tell the stories that shape our world. With an average undergraduate class size of 23 students, we create engaging and supportive spaces where students learn to think and write critically – essential skills for college success, career readiness, and ethical living. Our undergraduate and graduate programs offer training in established fields and techniques as well as distinctive offerings in environmental humanities, comics studies, medical humanities, disability studies, rhetoric, digital humanities, and the study of race and ethnicity.
The University of Oregon course catalog offers a four year degree plan and a complete list of undergraduate and graduate courses in the Department of English.
Course Highlights
These three courses span lower and upper division coursework.

ENG 250
Literature and Digital Culture
Instructor: Mattie Burkert
In this class, we will read science fiction classic Frankenstein (1818) and consider the myriad ways Mary Shelley’s novel continues to resonate across digital culture -- from its reinterpretation in electronic literature like Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl (1995) to its frequent invocation in debates over the ethics of AI. Each student will develop a portfolio website of written work interpreting the text of Frankenstein and experimenting with new, digitally-enabled methods of literary analysis. As the foundation for the Digital Humanities minor, this class involves learning to use digital tools and technologies in a supported environment, but no prior technical experience or training is required.

ENG 280
Intro to Comic Studies
Instructor: Kate Kelp-Stebbins
This class provides an introduction to the history and art of comics and to the methodologies of the academic discipline of Comics Studies. Students will be exposed to a range of different comic-art forms (including newspaper strips, collections of serialized comic books, and free-standing graphic novels), as well as examples of contemporary comics scholarship.

ENG 260
Media Aesthetics
Instructor: Ari Purnama
This course explores the fundamentals of film and media aesthetics, including narrative, mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing, and sound. By learning how to analyze film and utilize proper cinematic language, students will begin to critically understand film as an art form and a product of culture. By the end of the course, students will see all aesthetic elements in a film as a series of choices made through the complex collaboration of artists and craftspeople. Students will also gain the key tools and concepts that they will implement in their own creative work.
Upcoming Courses
The table below lists the courses that the Department of English anticipates offering for Fall Term 2023 for the English major. The table is updated as curriculum decisions are made, so check back when considering future registration choices.
Course Number |
Course Name | Instructor |
---|---|---|
Undergraduate Courses | ||
Lower Division Courses | ||
ENG 104 | Introduction to Literature: Fiction | TBA |
ENG 107 | World Literature | Huang |
ENG 200 | Public Speaking as a Liberal Art | Waddell |
ENG 205 | Top Short Stories | Southworth |
ENG 207 | Shakespeare | Dawson |
ENG 208 | Shakespeare | Bovilsky |
ENG 209 | Craft of the Sentence | Upton |
ENG 230 | Introduction to Environmental Literature | LeMenager |
ENG 243 | Introduction to Chicano/Latino Literature | Cortez |
ENG 244 | Introduction to Native American Literature | Brown |
ENG 250 | Literature and Digital Culture | Burkert |
ENG 260M | Media Aesthetics | Purnama/OkH |
ENG 280 | Introduction to Comic Studies | Kelp-Stebbins |
Upper Division Courses | ||
ENG 303 | Foundations of the English Major: Text | Dawson/Laskaya/Wood |
ENG 330 | Oral Controversy and Advocacy | Cortez |
ENG 381M | Film, Media, and Culture | McGuffie |
ENG 391 | American Novel | Clevinger |
ENG 399 | Special Studies: Writing Associates Development | Bryant-Berg |
ENG 401 | Research | STAFF |
ENG 403/503 | Thesis | STAFF |
ENG 404 | Intern Disabilities Studies | STAFF |
ENG 404 | Intern Center for Teaching and Writing | STAFF |
ENG 404 | Intern Community Literacy | STAFF |
ENG 405 | Reading | STAFF |
ENG 407 | Seminar Writing for Comics | Johnson |
ENG 410/510 | Cascade Ice and Fire | Sayre |
ENG 410/510 | Medicine Ethics in Literature | Wood |
ENG 410/510 | Top Digital Story Telling | Burkert |
ENG 428/528 | Old English I | Bayless |
ENG 457/557 | Top Secrets and Scandals | Cheng |
ENG 479/579 | Top Virginia Woolf | Southworth |
ENG 492/592 | Historical Rhetoric and Composition | Crosswhite |
Graduate Courses | ||
ENG 601 | Research | STAFF |
ENG 603 | Dissertation | STAFF |
ENG 605 | Reading | STAFF |
ENG 608 | Work Coll Politics, Culture, and Identity (PCI) | STAFF |
ENG 608 | Work Diss Politics, Culture, and Identity (PCI) | STAFF |
ENG 610 | Composition GE Work | Simnitt |
ENG 613 | GTF Composition Apprentice | Gershow |
ENG 615 | Top Folk Known Natural History | Sayre |
ENG 690 | Introduction to Graduate Studies | Alaimo |
ENG 695 | Top Ungenderable Media | Miller |