ENGL 204 B: Popular Fiction and Media

University of Washington

ENGL 204 B -- Popular Fiction and Media -- Autumn 2025

Instructor: …………………………………………….Avu Chaturvedi achatur@uw.edu

Course Meetings:……………………………………..MW 1:30 - 3:20 ART 317

Office Hours:…………………………………………MW 11:30-1:00 PDL A303

In Odysseus’ Wake: Exploring the Legacy of Homer

Welcome to ENGL 204 B! This course has been formulated ahead of Christopher Nolan's widely anticipated adaptation of Homer's Odyssey, scheduled to be released in July of 2026. By discussing other works inspired by or adapted from the Odyssey, the course will examine the ongoing relationship between culture, history, mythology, and the politics and aesthetics of adaptation itself. Though we unfortunately won't have time to really delve into James Joyce's Ulysses, perhaps the single most celebrated descendant of Homer, literary works like Madeline Miller's Circe and Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad, as well as films like Contempt, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Cold Mountain, and The Return will provide ample opportunity to appreciate the ways in which antiquity continues to have a grasp on the contemporary.

Learning Goals 

As a humanities seminar, our learning goals are related to developing your critical capacities as a writer, analyst, and communicator: 

1. Critically read primary and secondary texts, focusing on identifying authors’ arguments and historical significance.
2. Examine the ways in which popular culture both reflects and refracts key issues that are germane to the societies in which it is produced and consumed.
3. Engage with critical methodologies that demonstrate the ways in which academics intervene in the humanities.
4. Form compelling arguments that can be supported with evidence from a variety of types of sources.
5. Compose papers that clearly convey and support your arguments.

Course Expectations 

1. Complete all assignments on time and come to class prepared to share your work with your peers.
2. Actively participate in classroom activities, group work and conferences. Please note that if you are sick, you should not come to class.  However, you should communicate by email to let me know you are ill and to discuss options for late or electronic submission of your work.  
3. Provide thoughtful written and oral comments in our weekly discussion boards. This will count towards your final grade.
4. Treat everyone and everyone’s ideas with respect. Recognize that everyone is working on improving as a scholar. To those ends, try to identify strengths in your peers’ contributions as well as constructive criticism.

Course Materials 

Two texts, Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad and Madeline Miller’s Circe are required for purchase. These texts are available at the UW bookstore. You may also purchase or borrow these books in any edition from other sources. All other course materials are available for free on the Canvas website. If you experience any obstacles accessing course materials, please let me know.

The syllabus and schedule are provisional. For the most up-to-date information, always refer to Canvas modules and announcements.   

Assignments 

As a (W) course, much of the work that I will be requiring revolves around writing. To make things simple, I have two main categories of assignment: formal and informal. Informal assignments include discussion boards, reading annotations, and shorter pieces of writing. Formal assignments include two sequences that include a rough and final draft, detailed below.

Major Assignment 1: Gambit and Methodology

Those of you who have seen the slightly above average Netflix miniseries The Queen’s Gambit will likely recognize the first word to come from the world of chess. Generally, a gambit is the opening moves of a game, and is something that I’d like to consider in the world of academic scholarship. Methodology, writ large, might refer to the overarching procedure or modus operandi by which a scholar makes their argument. What kind of evidence does the author use? How do they utilize this evidence? What is their overall goal and how does their method serve this purpose? For this assignment you will select a peer-reviewed scholarly article about one of the texts in class and will examine the opening moves (gambit) and overall argumentative strategy (methodology) to better get an insight into, cribbing a phrase from the business world, “best practices” of highly motivated scholars.

Major Assignment 2: Research Paper

For the first major assignment you’ll examine someone else’s scholarly work. For the second, you’ll produce your own. It’ll be fun, and we’ll go over the specific details of the project later in the term.

Submission: All assignments must be submitted on Canvas by the due date and time in .pdf, .doc, or .docx format. (Other formats will not be readable/accessible to me.) 

Formatting: Assignments should be formatted using an appropriate citation style: 12 pt Times New Roman font, 1 inch margins, double-spaced, and including last names and page number in each upper right corner. In the left-hand corner of the first page, you must have a header with your name, my last name, the course number, and the submission date.  

Unless otherwise stated, all assignments will be due to Canvas before the start of class. 

Grading Policy

In this course we will be using what’s known as “contract grading.” This is a grading system where I will tell you up front what is required to receive a certain grade in this course, and then you can aim for the grade of your choice based on what you are willing and able to do this quarter. The system rewards students’ effort and completion in this course, not the knowledge you brought to the course. As a result it mitigates bias on the part of the instructor (who can, even unconsciously, favor certain kinds of student performance over others) while also giving the student greater power over what they get out of the course, and what grade they receive.

My hope is that, since you will not be preoccupied by assignment grades, you will be more willing to take risks in your writing that you might not otherwise take. With this system you are encouraged less to please me, and more to please yourself (and your audience). The best writers are those who are willing to fail productively, incorporate feedback, and revise. My hope is that this system sets you up to do that.

What follows is a list of objectives you must meet in order to earn the specified course grade. All major and minor assignments throughout the course will be given a grade of “complete” or “incomplete” in Canvas. If you don’t submit an assignment by the deadline I will mark it incomplete. If you turn it in WITHIN ONE WEEK of the deadline, I will change the grade to complete but it will count as late. To prevent people from turning in all their assignments at the end of the quarter, you cannot get credit for assignments more than a week late.

At the end of the quarter I will look at the gradebook and give you the grade that corresponds with the number of completes/incompletes you have earned. It is important to note that your peers and I will still provide feedback on your work in this course, and you should incorporate that into your revisions! It’s just that feedback will not be tethered to your course grade.

You are responsible for tracking your own progress in the course. If at some point you find you are not on track to earn a 4.0 as you had planned, get in touch with me ASAP and we can determine together whether and what kinds of additional work you can do to get back on track. I am happy to be flexible with you, but I am not psychic. Please keep in good communication.

Requirements for a Grade of 4.0:

1. Participate in and put demonstrable effort into all class readings, discussions, and activities. You may miss one informal assignment 
2. Complete all informal writing assignments on time with one late assignment permitted.  (This is in addition to being allowed to miss one informal assignment, as mentioned above.) Most of our informal assignments are discussion forums or readings annotations; completing discussion forum posts on time means doing the reading, formulating an original post, and/or posting substantive comments on others’ comments, all before the deadline. 
3. Submit substantive and complete rough drafts of formal/major writing projects on time. “Complete” is defined as having all parts finished, and demonstrating a good faith effort (demonstrated in part through responsiveness to feedback) to meet the rubric criteria given for each assignment.
4. Submit revised final drafts of the three major writing projects on time.
5. Complete the course surveys and check-ins with collegiality and sincere reflection.

Requirements for a Grade of 3.7: 

To earn an A- (3.7), you must complete requirements 1-5 with the added wiggle room that you can miss or submit late an additional assignment (for a total of two), or submit one late project draft (rough or final). 

Requirements for a Grade of 3.5: 

To earn a B+ (3.5), complete requirements 1-5 with the added wiggle room that you can miss or submit late two assignments, and/or submit two late project drafts (rough or final).

Requirements for a Grade of 3.0: 

To earn a B (3.0), complete requirements 1-5 with the added wiggle room that you can miss or submit late three assignments, and/or submit two late project drafts (rough or final).

Requirements for a Grade of 2.5: 

To earn a C (2.5), complete requirements 1-5 with the added wiggle room that you can miss or submit late three assignments, submit two late project drafts (rough or final), OR miss one draft (rough or final) altogether.

A NOTE ON GRADES BELOW 2.0

The instructor reserves the right to award a grade below a 2.0 to anyone who fails to meet the grade contract criteria in a systematic way. A 1.0 grade denotes some minimal fulfilling of the contract. A grade of 0.6 is absence of enough satisfactory work, as contracted, to warrant passing of the course.   

I am attempting to capture all likely configurations in the terms described above, but inevitably other versions come up. I promise to err on the side of generosity if you promise to communicate regularly.

Course Schedule*

*Required secondary readings will be available on Canvas and Hypothesis Annotations for each class

Technology & AI (Artificial Intelligence) 

You will need to bring your laptop/tablet to class to help you access online materials. Please refrain from using your computer for other purposes while we are in class, whether that’s texting, using social media, or doing work for another class. I do understand that stuff comes up even when you are in class—an urgent phone call, text, or email. In that case, excuse yourself to the hallway to deal with any pressing issues. 

With new developments in artificial intelligence, many people have begun to deeply consider issues of plagiarism, labor, and submitted work. ChatGPT can churn out a paper in seconds. And yet, having taught college writing for over ten years and now in the Age of AI, I caution you: right now, AI-generated prose is very easy to spot. 

Access and Accommodations 

Your experience in this class is important to me. If you have already established accommodations with Disability Resources for Students (DRS), please communicate your approved accommodations to me at your earliest convenience so we can discuss your needs in this course. 

If you have not yet established services through DRS but have a temporary health condition or permanent disability that requires accommodations (conditions include but not limited to; mental health, attention-related, learning, vision, hearing, physical or health impacts), you are welcome to contact DRS at 206-543-8924 or uwdrs@uw.edu or disability.uw.edu. DRS offers resources and coordinates reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities and/or temporary health conditions.  Reasonable accommodations are established through an interactive process between you, your instructor(s), and DRS.  It is the policy and practice of the University of Washington to create inclusive and accessible learning environments consistent with federal and state law. 

Guidelines for Communicating with Faculty 

The unwritten norms of academia are often difficult to decipher. This web resource dedicated to email guidelines from Purdue University demystify the conventions surrounding communicating with your faculty: www.purdue.edu/advisors/students/professor.php.  

Department of English Statement of Values 

The UW English Department aims to help students become more incisive thinkers, effective communicators, and imaginative writers by acknowledging that language and its use is powerful and holds the potential to empower individuals and communities; to provide the means to engage in meaningful conversation and collaboration across differences and with those with whom we disagree; and to offer methods for exploring, understanding, problem solving, and responding to the many pressing collective issues we face in our world—skills that align with and support the University of Washington’s mission to educate “a diverse student body to become responsible global citizens and future leaders through a challenging learning environment informed by cutting-edge scholarship.”  

As a department, we begin with the conviction that language and texts play crucial roles in the constitution of cultures and communities.  Our disciplinary commitments to the study of language, literature, and culture require of us a willingness to engage openly and critically with questions of power and difference. As such, in our teaching, service, and scholarship we frequently initiate and encourage conversations about topics such as race, immigration, gender, sexuality, and class.  These topics are fundamental to the inquiry we pursue.  We are proud of this fact, and we are committed to creating an environment in which our faculty and students can do so confidently and securely, knowing that they have the backing of the department. 

Towards that aim, we value the inherent dignity and uniqueness of individuals and communities. We aspire to be a place where human rights are respected and where any of us can seek support. This includes people of all ethnicities, faiths, genders, national origins, political views, and citizenship status; nontheists; LGBQTIA+; those with disabilities; veterans; and anyone who has been targeted, abused, or disenfranchised.  

Resources on Campus 

The Odegaard Writing and Research Center (OWRC) offers free, one-to-one, 45-minute tutoring sessions for undergraduate, graduate, and professional writers in all fields at the UW. We will work with writers on any writing or research project, as well as personal projects such as applications or personal statements. Our tutors and librarians collaborate with writers at any stage of the writing and research process, from brainstorming and identifying sources to drafting and making final revisions. For more information or to schedule an appointment, please see our website (https://depts.washington.edu/owrc), or come visit us in person on the first floor of Odegaard Undergraduate Library. 

The CLUE Writing Center offers free one-on-one tutoring and workshops, and is open from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m., Sunday to Thursday in Mary Gates Hall, throughout the regular school year (Fall, Winter, and Spring quarters). It's first come, first served — so arrive early and be prepared to wait if necessary! CLUE also offers tutoring on a range of other subjects, including math, science, and so on. Read more here: https://academicsupport.uw.edu/clue/subjects/writing-center/ 

UW Counseling Center workshops include a wide range of issues including study skills, thinking about coming out, international students and culture shock, and much more. Check out available resources and workshops at: https://www.washington.edu/counseling/ 

UW Career Center offers career counseling and planning, workshops and career fairs, a listing of part-time jobs on and off campus, and much more: http://careers.washington.edu/students 

The University of Washington Q Center builds and facilitates queer (gay, lesbian, bisexual, two-spirit, trans, intersex, questioning, same-gender-loving, allies) academic and social community through education, advocacy, and support services to achieve a socially-just campus in which all people are valued. For more information, visit http://depts.washington.edu/qcenter/. 

wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ – Intellectual House is a longhouse-style facility on the UW Seattle campus. It provides a multi-service learning and gathering space for American Indian and Alaska Native students, faculty and staff, as well as others from various cultures and communities to come together in a welcoming environment to share knowledge. 

Policies 

Religious Accommodation 

Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Religious Accommodations Policy (https://registrar.washington.edu/staffandfaculty/religious-accommodations-policy/). Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form (https://registrar.washington.edu/students/religious-accommodations-request/). 

Academic Integrity 

Plagiarism, or academic dishonesty, is presenting someone else's ideas or writing as your own. In your writing for this class, you are encouraged to refer to other people's thoughts and writing--as long as you cite them. As a matter of policy, any student found to have plagiarized any piece of writing in this class will be immediately reported to the College of Arts and Sciences for review.

Complaints

If you have any concerns about the course or your instructor, please see the instructor about these concerns as soon as possible. If you are not comfortable talking with the instructor or not satisfied with the response that you receive, you may contact the Director of Undergraduate Studies, Stephanie Clare, sclare@uw.edu. If you are still not satisfied with the response you receive, you may contact English Department Chair, Habiba Ibrahim, hibrahim@uw.edu, (206) 543-2690.