The NEIU English Institute has stimulating courses available to enroll in for non-credit. Take a course for continuing education hours or just for personal growth and enrichment. To enroll, follow the link below for the course(s) you would like to take and pay online by credit card. No application process is needed for a non-credit enrollment other than creating an account in our registration system. Current and future NEIU students seeking college-level credit can take these courses by registering through the normal process. (Visit our Admissions page and register as a degree-seeking student or student-at-large if you are not already registered as an NEIU student.)
Spring 2022
ENGL 446: CRITICAL WRITING, CREATIVE WRITERS
English 446 is a seminar and writing workshop in one. Students will: examine models of texts that operate in the critical-creative or creative-critical mode; choose outside reading of their own through an inquiry-based process; produce various critical, creative, creative-critical, and critical-creative pieces; submit a book review/essay for possible publication; and through this process “enter the discourse,” as writers working in multiple modes.
Hybrid
7:05-9:45 p.m. Wednesdays, Jan. 18 through May 13
Prof. Olivia Cronk, o-cronk@neiu.edu
Fee: $600
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Olivia Cronk is the author of "WOMONSTER" (2020; a winner of the Tarpaulin Sky 2019 Book Awards), "Louise and Louise and Louise" (The Lettered Streets Press, 2016), and "Skin Horse" (Action Books, 2012). With Philip Sorenson, she edits The Journal Petra. Her most recent critical work has appeared in Critical Flame, Rupture and (writing about English Department faculty member Amanda Goldblatt's debut novel) Tarpaulin Sky Mag.
ENGL 384R: RESEARCH POETRY
Research Poetry engages students in poetry writing which incorporates the research process as a method for exploring topical questions relating to the humanities, social sciences, poetic identity, and inquiry. Students research various topics to define thematic written work that will ultimately be incorporated in a chapbook-length manuscript, the natural next step in a working poet's professional publishing undertaking.
Lecture
11:30 a.m.-12:45 p.m. Monday/Wednesday, Jan. 18 through May 13
Prof. Larry Dean, l-dean@neiu.edu
Fee: $600
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Larry O. Dean's numerous books include "Frequently Asked Questions" (2021), "Muse, Um" (2021), "Activities of Daily Living" (2017), "Brief Nudity" (2013), "Basic Cable Couplets" (2012), "ABBREV" (2011), "About the Author" (2011), and "I Am Spam" (2004). He is also an acclaimed singer-songwriter whose latest solo album is "Good Grief" (2015); "Product Placement," the sophomore album from his band, The Injured Parties, was released August 2019. For more info, go to larryodean.com.
ENGL 326: READINGS IN WORLD LIT: REAL FICTIONS
In this seminar we'll read works that explore the thin line that divides the (supposedly) fictive and the (supposedly) real. Literature has, for a long time, interrogated the idea of how we know what happened, calling into question the division between so-called "objective reality" and the narratives (eye witness, journalistic, historiographic, fictive) that give us access to it. Authors studied will include Laurent Binet and Éric Vuillard.
Lecture
5-9 p.m. Wednesdays
8 Weeks: Jan. 18 through March 8
Prof. Bradley Greenburg, b-greenburg@neiu.edu
Fee: $500
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ENGL 418: Studies in Shakespeare
This graduate seminar addresses a specific focus in Shakespeare's work. Past examples have included "The History Plays," "The Other in Shakespeare," "Shakespeare's Venice," and "Shakespeare & Theory." We'll read relevant plays (and/or poetry) very closely, paired with secondary sources chosen to provoke questions and insightful readings of these texts. Students will also study theoretical approaches to Shakespeare's work in reading of contemporary critical works.
Lecture
5-9 p.m. Wednesdays
8 Weeks: March 22 through May 10
Prof. Bradley Greenburg, b-greenburg@neiu.edu
Fee: $500
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Bradley Greenburg specializes in Shakespeare, as well as teaching film, creative writing, and other subjects at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. His publications range from articles on Shakespeare to T. S. Eliot, Pushcart Prize-nominated short stories and poems, and a novel, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed" (Sandstone Press, UK: 2014). His most recent article, on the pandemic and Shakespeare’s Venus & Adonis, can be found in Pop Matters.
ENGL 327: Chicago Drama
From "Grease" to storefront theaters, Chicago has contributed more than a Chicago style to the world of drama. This course examines the history of Chicago drama from the early performances of Joseph Jefferson to modern and contemporary playwrights, such as Tennessee Williams and David Mamet, who have found success in or been shaped by Chicago as well as its contributions to drama in the United States and even around the world.
Required texts will likely include:
- "American Buffalo"
- "August: Osage County"
- "Clybourne Park"
- "The Glass Menagerie"
- "Grease"
- "Raisin in the Sun"
- "True West"
Lecture
1:40-2:55 p.m. Tuesday/Thursday, Jan. 18 through May 13
Prof. Christopher Schroeder, c-schroeder2@neiu.edu
Fee: $500
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Christopher Schroeder is a member of the Joseph Jefferson Awards Committee, which has been honoring Chicago theater excellence for more than 50 years. He is also an award-winning researcher who has published books, chapters, articles, reviews, and others, and he teaches courses on drama in Chicago and the United States at NEIU where he is a professor of English and an affiliated faculty member in the global studies and linguistics programs.
ENGL 390: The Young Adult Novel
Young Adult Fiction is one of the most important and political genres. This genre centers on and caters to teenagers in the liminal space between childhood and adulthood. In this course, we will examine YA fiction from marginalized authors who challenge the normative narrative from childhood to adulthood, and moreover, who use this genre to think about what it means to develop a political subjectivity and a political identity.
Texts:
Elizabeth Acevedo, The Poet X
Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak
Walter Dean Myers, Monster
Erika Sánchez, I am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter
Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give
Gene Luen Yang, American Born Chinese
Online - Asynchronus
Email instructor for details
8 Weeks: March 22-May 10
Prof. Ryan Poll, r-poll@neiu.edu
Fee: $500
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Ryan Poll has researched and written extensively on U.S. Literature and Culture, Critical Theory, Popular Culture and Cultural Studies. In Spring 2020, Professor Ryan Poll became a staff writer at PopMatters, an online, "international magazine of cultural criticism and analysis,” which has been independently owned and operated since its inception. Almost immediately, Ryan created the Reading Pandemics series now featured on the site, to which he continues to contribute. Ryan also established a one-credit English course for Fall 2020 to examine historical pandemics in literature.
ENGL 394: Personal Essay
Students will write in the creative nonfiction genre of the personal essay. This will involve work on techniques and approaches in a workshop setting, as well as critiques of other students' work. How do we define “true” when writing about a slippery memory? What are the ethics of crafting stories that include other “real” people? This course will also explore the personal essay as a literary form through readings of classic and recent examples.
ONLINE
Jan. 18 through May 13
Prof. Christine Simokaitis, c-simokaitis@neiu.edu
Fee: $600
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Christine Simokaitis is a prose writer whose work has appeared in anthologies including "Are We Feeling Better Yet? Women Speak About HealthCare in America," and the journals Upstreet, Calyx, Paper Darts, and MAKE among others. She currently teaches Composition, Creative Nonfiction, Fiction and Flash Forms at NEIU.
