ENGL 455

Fall 2025 Part of Term 1

Part of Term 1
Aug 25-Dec 10

Major Authors

SHOW FINAL EXAM SCHEDULE

Credit: 3 OR 4 hours.

Intensive study of the work of one or two major authors.

3 undergraduate hours. 4 graduate hours. May be repeated with permission of English advising office to a maximum of 6 undergraduate hours if topics vary. May be repeated for graduate credit if topics vary. Prerequisite: One year of college literature or consent of instructor.

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ENGL 455 class schedule data for fall 2025
CRN	Type	Section	Time	Day	Location	Instructor	Section Details
40444	Lecture-Discussion	1G	10:00AM -10:50AM	MWF	127 English Building	Hutner, G	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 08/25/25-12/10/25 Credit: 4 hours Section Info: FA25 ENGL 455 - Major Authors - Gordon Hutner - Henry James - The world of Henry James’s fiction is a complex, subtle, often foreign, sometimes alienating literary atmosphere for contemporary readers. As a key figure in the change from realism to modern, James demands a lively, persistent engagement with his singular prose style. He can be an incredibly challenging writer, thinker, and social observer, but by following the evolution of his art from his early fiction in the 1870s through the work of the first decade of the twentieth century, we will find ways of approaching and appreciating its psychological profundity, moral perplexities, and extravagant pleasures—of language and ideas and the senses. To do so, we will examine some of James’s most famous achievements, like The Portrait of a Lady and The Ambassadors, to learn how James continually reinvents—as no other writer before him had done so consistently—the rewards of reading fiction. Yet even if he had never written any novels, we would still read James’s tales and novellas, including masterpieces like “Daisy Miller” or “The Turn of the Screw.” And if he had never written any stories, we would still study James as one of the most instructive literary critics of his time as well as the premier nineteenth-century theorist of fiction. And that’s before we try selections from his travel writing, autobiography, and meditations on an America in the process of being modern. Restriction(s): Restricted to Graduate - Urbana-Champaign.
39507	Lecture-Discussion	1U	10:00AM -10:50AM	MWF	127 English Building	Hutner, G	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 08/25/25-12/10/25 Credit: 3 hours Section Info: FA25 ENGL 455 - Major Authors - Gordon Hutner - Henry James - The world of Henry James’s fiction is a complex, subtle, often foreign, sometimes alienating literary atmosphere for contemporary readers. As a key figure in the change from realism to modern, James demands a lively, persistent engagement with his singular prose style. He can be an incredibly challenging writer, thinker, and social observer, but by following the evolution of his art from his early fiction in the 1870s through the work of the first decade of the twentieth century, we will find ways of approaching and appreciating its psychological profundity, moral perplexities, and extravagant pleasures—of language and ideas and the senses. To do so, we will examine some of James’s most famous achievements, like The Portrait of a Lady and The Ambassadors, to learn how James continually reinvents—as no other writer before him had done so consistently—the rewards of reading fiction. Yet even if he had never written any novels, we would still read James’s tales and novellas, including masterpieces like “Daisy Miller” or “The Turn of the Screw.” And if he had never written any stories, we would still study James as one of the most instructive literary critics of his time as well as the premier nineteenth-century theorist of fiction. And that’s before we try selections from his travel writing, autobiography, and meditations on an America in the process of being modern. Restriction(s): Restricted to Undergrad - Urbana-Champaign.
40445	Lecture-Discussion	2G	12:30PM -1:45PM	TR	108 English Building	Gilmore, S	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 08/25/25-12/10/25 Credit: 4 hours Section Info: FA25 ENGL 455 - Major Authors - Shawn Gilmore - The X-Men, the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, the Incredible Hulk, Black Panther, Thor—all created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee in the early 1960s as part of Silver Age of superhero comics. Alongside characters one or both had a hand in creating—Spider-Man, Iron Man Doctor Strange, Galactus and the Silver Surfer, the Inhumans, and many more—Kirby and Lee helped establish Marvel Comics, the “Marvel Method,” and a wide range of superhero types that have continued through to their contemporary incarnations in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This course will treat the breadth of both Kirby and Lee’s careers, including Kirby’s career before the Silver Age (co-creating Captain America and his work in romance comics), his intersection with Lee, whose innovations in branding and promotion led to Marvel’s dominance, and their respective careers apart after Kirby left Marvel. Reading the comics both produced, Tom Scioli’s graphic biographies of each, and watching select film and television adaptations of their characters and stories, we will ask what role superheroes play in our cultural imagination, what changes in comics storytelling and characterization come from the work, and how adaptation and repetition function in the genres Jack Kirby and Stan Lee developed. Restriction(s): Restricted to Graduate - Urbana-Champaign.
32346	Lecture-Discussion	2U	12:30PM -1:45PM	TR	108 English Building	Gilmore, S	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 08/25/25-12/10/25 Credit: 3 hours Section Info: FA25 ENGL 455 - Major Authors - Shawn Gilmore - The X-Men, the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, the Incredible Hulk, Black Panther, Thor—all created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee in the early 1960s as part of Silver Age of superhero comics. Alongside characters one or both had a hand in creating—Spider-Man, Iron Man Doctor Strange, Galactus and the Silver Surfer, the Inhumans, and many more—Kirby and Lee helped establish Marvel Comics, the “Marvel Method,” and a wide range of superhero types that have continued through to their contemporary incarnations in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This course will treat the breadth of both Kirby and Lee’s careers, including Kirby’s career before the Silver Age (co-creating Captain America and his work in romance comics), his intersection with Lee, whose innovations in branding and promotion led to Marvel’s dominance, and their respective careers apart after Kirby left Marvel. Reading the comics both produced, Tom Scioli’s graphic biographies of each, and watching select film and television adaptations of their characters and stories, we will ask what role superheroes play in our cultural imagination, what changes in comics storytelling and characterization come from the work, and how adaptation and repetition function in the genres Jack Kirby and Stan Lee developed. Restriction(s): Restricted to Undergrad - Urbana-Champaign.