Spring 2026 Course Descriptions - CSUN English Graduate Program
Below are course descriptions submitted by instructors for Spring 2026 graduate courses and certain 400-level English classes likely to be of interest to grad students. More descriptions will be added as they are received by the Graduate Adviser.
ENGL 507 Introduction to Graduate Studies -- Lee¶
English 507 introduces students to graduate-level research and writing skills across the three options in the English MA program: Literature, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric and Composition.
ENGL 512 Writing for Performance -- Mitchell¶
English 512: Writing for Performance, which is open to students from all options and levels of experience, will provide a productive, nurturing, and fun (!) space in which to practice the unique and exciting challenges of writing for performers and a live audience. The main focus of the workshop will be your writing, and you'll have ample opportunity to hear your work performed and receive feedback. Coursework will include frequent, in-class workshopping of student plays and performance texts, writing exercises/experiments, and the reading/viewing of some contemporary plays, as well as other performance texts, including stand-up comedy and one-person shows. And students will decide upon the shape of their final projects. One student, for example, might choose to work on a series of short plays, another could focus on solo performance, while yet another might develop a bilingual, full-length play, or even a TV script. Towards the end of the semester, students will have the (voluntary!) opportunity to present staged-readings of their work to the public through the Northridge Playwrights' Workshop. The course will meet on Tuesdays from 4:00 till 6:45 p.m.
ENGL 525PB: Picture Book Theory -- Stallcup¶
Artists illustrating children’s books draw upon a vast repertoire of techniques, materials, and culturally-specific visual codes to create complex, rich, profound works for even the youngest of readers. In this course, we will examine an array of picturebooks published between 1484 and 2025 in order to explore a variety of questions, including (but not limited to): Who are some of the important modern picture book artists? What makes their works compelling, evocative and note-worthy? By what means do we—children and adults—interpret these works? How do viewers and readers make meaning out of such texts? How does juxtaposing image and text affect the meanings a reader might create? In what ways do these works participate in the work of acculturating children? How do these works reflect/interact with/comment upon/reject both artistic and ideological concerns? Critical readings and discussion will draw not only from children’s literature criticism but also from the fields of visual arts, film, narrative, post-colonial, reader-response and feminist theories.
ENGL 525PF: Postmodernism and Film -- Byler¶
In recent years, postmodernism has been blamed for the increasing visibility of transgender-identified people; purportedly discriminatory Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies; and falling standards and quality of student work in higher education. But what is postmodernism? Why is it so terrifying or so easily used to terrify people? How is it that discussions of postmodernism can create strange bedfellows, for instance in the questioning of the concept of the real that, on the one hand, leads to expressions such as “alternative facts” and “fake media,” and, on the other, interrogates the biological and cultural reality of binary gender?
This class will explore definitions, performances, and uses of postmodernism in film, philosophy, and literary criticism. It doesn’t ask students to subscribe to any particular articles of faith in relation to postmodernism, but it does ask for sustained intellectual engagement with questions that can be disorienting as well as stimulating. Films may include The Matrix, Blade Runner, Ex Machina, Her, Nope, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Barbie Movie, The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Abre los Ojos.
ENGL 604: Seminar in Language and Linguistics -- Kleinman¶
This seminar will examine the history of English literature from the Middle Ages to the modern period from the perspective of language. By focusing on how language shapes literature (and vice versa), we will discover how the English language has changed over time, introduce basic theories of language structure and change, and develop a formal knowledge of grammar that is useful for the analysis and rhetorical use of English. More details about the course will be added soon. Note: This course will operate on a partial-asynchronous module designed for students who cannot make a 4:00 class. Class meetings will begin at 5:00 with the remaining hour conducted through asynchronous discussion on Discord througout the week.
ENGL 617 Studies in Shakespeare -- Bryson¶
This course will emphasize the influence of classical tragedy on Shakespearean tragedy. It will especially focus on the way Euripides, Aeschylus, and Seneca focus on female grief and loss and the desire for revenge, and the ways in which that emphasis manifests in Shakespeare's portrayals of multiple female characters and one male character experiencing grief and loss and the desire for revenge.
This course is going to try to replicate the conditions of scholarly work: reading a great deal of material in what seems like too-short a time, and then doing research into secondary and supporting materials before writing (and sometimes while writing) an academic essay that makes a focused and original argument. Jump into the reading as soon as possible, and try not to fall behind.
ENGL 622: Contemporary Poetry & the Record of History -- Hall¶
Scholar Anthony Kenny notes “Poetry, for Aristotle, has a kind of truth that comes between the necessary truths of philosophy and the contingent particulars of history .... [I]n the Olympiad of truth it is poetry that takes the silver medal, while history takes the bronze.” This course is interested in the intersection—both in the poet as historian and the significance of the poem itself (the public document) as recorded history. Some questions we’ll ask: What is the responsibility of the poet? What importance is poetry to the record of any particular history? Is imagination a problem that compromises history or the historical moment? What are the poet's limits? What can we truthfully write/record given the various systems of power (influence, etc.)?
Over the course of the semester, students will produce a portfolio of creative/scholarly writing that will document/examine a selected history (e.g. history of Los Angeles? the L.A. riots? BLM riots? ’94 Northridge earthquake? Katrina? 2020 election? Coronavirus shutdown? history of tattoos? witchcraft? film industry?). These poems and pieces of scholarship will rely on both primary and secondary sources. You will learn the work of the historiographer through the lens of the poet.
You may take this course for literature credit or poetry workshop credit. For the final project, students who would like Creative Writing workshop credit, will write a brief collection of poems, documenting a history of your choice. Students taking literature credit will examine poetry's connection to history through the study of selected primary texts and the history that informs them.
ENGL 698D Graduate Project -- Lee¶
This course is one of the available choices for the culminating experience in the English department M.A. program. In significantly revising existing written work, students will practice the tools of research used in the field of English Studies. While students in the Literature and the Rhetoric and Composition Options will focus on revising and developing a previously written essay, students in the Creative Writing Option will write a critical introduction to a revised portfolio of their creative work. Additionally, students will gain experience with professional conferences, presentations and productions.