Summer courses are a great opportunity for students to take additional courses or to meet general education requirements here at UMBC. The English Department is offering a number of exciting courses this coming summer for consideration. Use the "Search for Classes" feature on myUMBC for more information about the following courses:

• SPCH 100: Public Communication

Preparation and practice in forms of oral communication. Emphasis is upon formal speaking in small-group and public address formats. Units to include selection of materials, organization, outlining, word choice, delivery and development of simple visual aids, and listening skills.

• ENGL 100: Composition

A course in critical thinking, reading, and composing, with an emphasis on integrating academic research and documentation. Students read and produce work for a variety of purposes and audiences, focusing on strategies for researching, organizing, drafting, sharing, and revising. To satisfy the composition general education requirement, this course must be taken within a student’s first thirty credit hours of enrollment at UMBC.

• ENGL 190: The World of Language I

Language as a distinctive characteristic of the human species. In this course, we examine the structure of both written and spoken forms of language across cultures, comparing them with animal communication and human gestural systems. We explore language’s neurological basis, theories of origin, and first- and second-language learning.

• ENGL 210: Introduction to Literature

An introduction to the conventions and characteristics of the major genres of literature – prose, poetry and drama. Some attention also may be given to film, television and other materials. This course is intended primarily for non-majors.

• ENGL 271: Introduction to Creative Writing—Fiction

An introduction to the writing of prose fiction.

• ENGL 393: Technical Communication

This course teaches students from various disciplines to communicate technical information effectively. The course's emphases on critical thinking, synthesis, analysis, and the writing process help students to inform and persuade their audiences through the composition of technical documents. Reflecting a professional writing style and document design principles, these documents demonstrate how text and visuals work together to reach different audiences with specific needs. Students also develop oral communication and collaborative skills along with technological and visual literacy.

On August 27, 2016, Sonora Review published Abby Dockter's review of Professor Piotr Gwiazda's latest collection of poetry, Aspects of Strangers. Here Dockter writes that:

Aspects of Strangers styles itself an ethnography: a series of cultural observations that have been cut, dried, and gathered into poems. A true anthropologist would not have been able to resist fleshing them out into a treatise—context, you know—but the speaker in these poems is more interested in blank space. There is a fresh, field-notes quality preserved in these records, and somehow his cherry-picked observations gradually suggest the beauty and complexity of what’s under description. Poems are for moments, and Gwiazda provides a gorgeous rush of them.

As Dockter reminds us, Gwiazda’s words provide us access to a side of the world worth exploring more and more. We are excited with every poem about the journey he encourages us to take. To read the full review, please visit https://sonorareview.com/2016/08/27/a-review-of-piotr-gwiazdas-aspects-of-strangers/#more-8998.

Baltimore Magazine recently released its “Best of 2016” edition, which highlighted leaders in arts and culture from across the city over the past year. Lia Purpura, Writer in Residence in UMBC’s Department of English, was named Baltimore’s top poet.

The magazine states: “In It Shouldn’t Have Been Beautiful, her latest collection published this year, Purpura impressively delivers poignant insight into our existence without pomp and circumstance. Her verses are little gems with short stanzas and an absence of flowery language, but that doesn’t make them any less profound. Instead, Purpura . . . proves how meaningful simplicity can be.”

Purpura has also been awarded a Pushcart Prize for her essay “Scream, or, Never Minding,” which was originally published in The Georgia Review. Also receiving recognition last month was Purpura’s poem “Resolution,” which was featured on The Academy of American Poets website as the national “Poem-a-Day” on August 8.

Lia Purpura’s work frequently appears in The New Yorker, Orion, The Paris Review, Best American Essays, The Iowa Review, and other national journals. Among her numerous honors are a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts and Fulbright Fellowships, and four Pushcart prizes. Her collection of essays, On Looking was a finalist for the National Books Critics Award. 

We offer our congratulations to our Writer in Residence, Lia Purpura, for this outstanding recognition of her work.