1. University Core Literary Requirement (UCLR 100) - Masculinity and Fiction
This foundational course in literary studies will explore a range of genres including novels, poetry, and drama. Our
focus will be on masculinity. Some of the questions we will consider are:
 What is literature?
 Why does it matter?
 What is the relationship between literature and culture?
 How is masculinity represented in literature?
 What difference does historical context (time and place) make in representations of masculinity?
Women in Literature (ENGL 283) - Women and War
As Sayre P. Sheldon notes, “Women have written about war as long as there has been writing…Yet war literature is
still seen as almost exclusively male.” We will examine this contention and the role of women in war-making and
war writing through short stories, novels, films and a graphic novel of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
We will examine women’s war fiction from WWI, WWII, and Vietnam, and films of the Gulf War and the Iraq
War, among others. This class will explore fiction’s form, media, voice, and purpose, and we will also learn to
contextualize fiction in its particular political, ethical, social and technological era.
Human Values in Literature (ENGL 290) - Strength and Honor: Martial Spirit and Masculinity in Contemporary
Literature and Film
War is an experience that separates the men from the boys, or so popular culture suggests. This course will examine
the relationship between martial spirit and masculinity in war literature and films from World War I, World War II
and Vietnam as well as more recent conflicts.
We will analyze texts with more emphasis on the “how” and “why” of narrative rather than on the “what” of the
plot, and we will learn to contextualize representations of masculinity in their particular political, ethical, social and
technological era.
Exploring Fiction (ENGL 273) - Fiction and WWI
Once known as the “war to end war,” World War I is often cited as the dividing point from the traditions of the 19th
century to those of the modern world. We will examine this contention, and its relationship to fiction, through short
stories and novels of the modernist era, with special attention to works about World War I.
We will examine literature of World War I by exploring its form, structure, genre, themes, voice, characterization,
point of view, purpose and bibliographic codes. We will also learn to contextualize fiction in its particular political,
ethical, social and technological era.
University Core Writing Seminar (UCWR 110) - Where I Come From: Writing, Education and Identity
The Writing Seminar aims to help you use writing and reading for inquiry, learning, thinking and communicating.
You will learn to approach writing as a series of tasks, including finding, evaluating, analyzing, and synthesizing
appropriate primary and secondary sources to clearly formulate your claim. We will discuss and implement ways of
anticipating and responding to the needs of different audiences and different kinds of rhetorical situations.
Understanding writing as an open process that permits you to use later invention and re-thinking to revise your
work, you’ll develop and practice flexible strategies for generating, revising, editing and proofreading. This course
will help prepare you for your other courses at Loyola by addressing grammar, compositional techniques, and
rhetorical skills.