In Spring 2021, all students who wish to take introductory-level English courses (ENGL 114-130), first-year seminars, sophomore seminars, junior seminars, senior seminars, and some creative writing workshops must preregister for placement during the online preregistration periods listed below.
For Spring 2021 English lectures, no preregistration is required:
ENGL 151 Visions of Other Worlds in Medieval British Literature
ENGL 165 Gender, Class, and Narrative in the Victorian Novel
ENGL 194 Queer Modernisms
FILM 160/ENGL 196 Introduction to Media
LITR 143/ENGL 192 World Cinema
LITR 318/ENGL 191 The Arabian Nights, Then and Now
LITR 339/ENGL 159 Global Shakespeares: Race, Gender, and the Idea of the Human
LITR 340/ENGL 161 Global Shakespeares: Race, Gender, and the Idea of the Human (Writing Intensive)
First-year seminars: Preregistration will take place December 1 at 9.00 AM EST through December 2 at 5.00 PM EST; decisions will be available on Friday, December 9 at 5.00 PM EST.
A list of the seminars to be offered in Spring 2021 are available in Yale Course Search. Click “First Year Seminar ” under Yale College Attributes for a list of all first-year seminars.
All other English courses: Preregistration will take place Tuesday, December 1 at 9.00 AM EST through Wednesday, December 9 at 5.00 PM EST; decisions will be available on Monday, December 14 at 12.00 PM EST.
Selections may be revised up until 5.00 PM EST on December 9. After the deadline, the application process will close, and places to introductory courses will be assigned on the basis of a computerized lottery designed to maximize student preferences.
For advanced seminars, if a course is oversubscribed, students will be admitted according to the preferences of the instructor. In most cases, such preference is guided by year and major. Please see course sites on Canvas for details.
Class assignments will be pushed to student schedules and results will be emailed to participants by 12:00 PM EST on Monday, December 14. If you are not assigned to a class due to oversubscription but hope to be able to add it, please contact the instructor and ask if there is a waiting list. If you are unexpectedly unable to take a class you have been assigned, please notify the instructor immediately.
For questions about the preregistration process, please email Erica Sayers at erica.sayers@yale.edu or Jane Bordiere at jane.bordiere@yale.edu.
Introductory Courses
Students may be placed in one course from each category below. Follow the links to the preference selection site for each course. After entering your Yale NetID and Password, you will be able to view a list of available sections of the courses and rank your preferences.
Students may enroll in a second Foundational/ Introductory Literature Course if space permits; email the instructor after preregistration closes to see if there is a waiting list for the course you would like to add.
Introductory Course Descriptions
Introductory Writing Courses
Foundational Courses/
Introductory Literature Courses
ENGL 126 Readings in English Poetry II
ENGL 127 Readings in American Literature
ENGL 128 Readings in Comparative World English Literature
ENGL 129 Tragedy in the European Literary Tradition
ENGL 130 Epic in the European Literary Tradition
Sophomore Seminars
Junior and Senior Seminars
Preregistation requests for most English junior and senior seminars may be made on one Preference Selection site, where students will rank all of the classes they are interested in taking in the order of their preference. Students may be placed in multiple seminars where space permits if they indicate in the Comments field 1) how many English seminars they wish to take this semester and 2) if there are any particular reasons they especially need a given seminar. Seminars that are not included in the Preference Selection site are indicated below; for these, please see the Canvas course site for instructions.
Junior Seminars
ENGL 221 African American Literature in the Archives (see Canvas)
ENGL 225 Race and Gender in Transatlantic Literature, 1688-1818
ENGL 241 English Comic Drama, 1660-1800
ENGL 244 The Detective Story: Solving Mysteries from Oedipus to Sherlock (see Canvas)
ENGL 255 Victorian Origins of “Post-Truth” Culture
ENGL 259 Feminist and Queer Literary Methods
ENGL 260 Science and Narrative
ENGL 268 Literature and Philosophy, Revolution to Romanticism
ENGL 275 Emerson, Dickinson, Melville
ENGL 279 Indigenous Poetics and the Politics of Resistance
ENGL 281 Animals in Modern American Fiction (see Canvas)
ENGL 296 Auto-Criticism: Writing the Self in the World (see Canvas)
ENGL 325 Modern Apocalyptic Narratives (see Canvas)
ENGL 354 Language, Disability, Fiction (see Canvas)
ENGL 411 American Horror Stories
Senior Seminars
ENGL 300 Medieval Manuscripts
ENGL 311 Milton’s Paradise Lost
ENGL 322 Wordsworth and Coleridge
ENGL 328 The Literary Experiments of Immigration
ENGL 347 Lyric Theory
ENGL 381 Toni Morrison and the Matter of Black Life (see Canvas)
Creative Writing Workshops
ENGL 404 Reading Fiction for Craft
ENGL 411 American Horror Stories
ENGL 423 Writing about the Performing Arts
ENGL 425 Writing the Television Drama
ENGL 428 Young Adult Writing
ENGL 432 Writing about Food
ENGL 449 The Art of Editing (see Canvas)
Other creative writing and journalism courses may require an application in advance. Please see our Creative Writing & Journalism Courses page for details.