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Course Info for ENGL - 395 - 01, Fall 2026
Class number: 3302 Title: Crossing the Color-Line Department: English
Career: Undergraduate Component: Seminar Session: Regular
Instructor's Permission Required: No Grading Basis: Regular Units: 1.00
Enrollment limited to 15 Current enrollment: 11 Available seats: 4
Start date: Tuesday, September 8, 2026 End date: Wednesday, December 23, 2026 Mode of Instruction: In Person
Schedule: TR: 1:30PM-2:45PM, SH - N128 Instructor(s): Brown, David
Prerequisite(s): None
Distribution Requirement: Meets Humanities & Identity Power Equity Req
Note: For English majors, this course fulfills the pre-1800, elective, critical reflection, additional literature or film, and UVSJ requirements. For all students, it fulfills the College’s IPE and HUM requirements.
Course Description:
This is a course in Early modern English drama and African-American literature. The plays and prose pieces produced during these disparate literary periods share many thematic-and some conventional-points of contact that are often overlooked and consequently not fully explored. Both early modern English and African-American authors addressed several critical issues such as miscegenation, power (political, parental, social), class, sexuality, lineage, death, identity, passing, homosexuality/homosociality and race. These common preoccupations will enable our productive crossing of various boundaries, most notably, the historical boundary between the texts. Authors will likely include W. E. B. Du Bois, Suzan-Lori Parks, William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, James Baldwin, Nella Larsen and Harriet Jacobs. Format: discussion; mini-lectures; in-class presentations; and writing assignments.