Race, Empire, Colonialism (REC) Courses

Courses fulfilling the REC requirement engage students in the study of black diasporic and African American, Asian diasporic and Asian American, Latinx, indigenous and Native American, and postcolonial literatures. 

Courses focusing on literature in the Black Studies Department (BLST) can, with the approval of your advisor, count toward English major requirements as REC courses or electives. English majors are strongly encouraged to include at least one BLST course among their major requirements. 

REC course offerings change semester by semester, but may include the following: 

  • ENGL 115, Multi-Ethnic American Literature
  • ENGL 136, Contemporary African American Playwrights
  • ENGL 248, Human Rights & World Literature
  • BLST/AMST 252, African American Literature (was ENAM 252)
  • BLST/AMST 259 Re-Presenting Slavery
  • ENGL 268, Literature of Displacement
  • ENGL 270, Postcolonial Literature from South Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean
  • ENGL 275, Multi-Ethnic British Literature
  • BLST/AMST 358, Reading Slavery and Abolition
  • ENGL 373, Postcolonial Literature and the City
  • ENGL 462, Literature of Migration and Displacement
  • ENGL 465, Reading Race in the 21st Century (was ENAM 306)
  • ENGL 471, Afro-Asian Encounters
  • ENGL 1034, African Environmental Works
  • ENGL 1075, Debating Global Literature

Pre-1800 Courses 

Courses fulfilling the Pre-1800 requirement include courses in Medieval, Early Modern, and 18th-century literature. Only one Pre-1800 course may be a course on Shakespeare.  

Pre-1800 course offerings change semester by semester, but may include the following: 

  • ENGL 107, The Experience of Tragedy
  • ENGL 201, British Literature and Culture I
  • ENGL 204, Foundations of English Literature
  • ENGL 216, Shakespeare’s Rivals
  • ENGL 225, Eighteenth-Century Literature
  • ENGL 227, Nature, Culture, Poetry
  • ENGL 302, Unquiet Minds: Gender & Madness
  • ENGL 303, Shakespeare, Nature Poet
  • ENGL 328 (was ENAM 1027), England’s Ovid
  • ENGL 330, Shakespeare’s Career
  • ENGL 331, Shakespeare’s Comedies
  • ENGL 332, Shakespeare’s Tragedies
  • ENGL 419, Gender, Power, Politics on the Early Modern Stage