The English Department contributes several courses to SUNY Fredonia's general education program, Fredonia Foundations. Go to YourConnection to search for all university courses by Fredonia Foundations theme and category.
Fall 2025 Fredonia Foundations Course Offerings
None of these classes count towards majors within the department except where indicated.
American History & Civic Engagement/Critical Thinking & Reasoning
| Mary Weiser | Section 01
| This course, based on immersion in American literature and narrative representation of the American Dream, is designed to expose students to a range of historical and current texts. Students will examine how a sense of national identity shapes individual understandings and visions of what’s possible in the context of social and political climates in America. |
| Bruce Simon | Section 02 TR 3:30-4:50 | This section will address four themes: American origins and mission, slavery and freedom, migration and travel, and utopianism and apocalypticism. |
| Rebecca Cuthbert | Section 03 Section 04 | These sections of American Fictions will explore and discuss both the recorded and the real American narrative through its individual ghosts stories. We will start with indigenous cultures and read our way to contemporary authors. |
The Arts/Creativity & Innovation
| Susan Spangler | Section HR MWF 9:00-9:50 | We will study the interrelation of words and images through graphic memoirs in this reading/writing workshop. Write your own graphic memoir throughout the class to make sense of your life experiences. |
The Arts/Creativity & Innovation
| Prof. Alison Pipitone | Section 01 & 02 Internet-Based Course Section HR Internet-Based Course | This is an online/asynchronous course, open to students with or without songwriting experience. Students will complete assignments on lyrics; music; production; close listening- and more! We will also explore the concept of Resilience in songs, using three eras in history as a starting point. |
Humanities/Critical Thinking & Reasoning
| Daniel Laurie | Section 01 TR 12:30-1:50 | This section of Reading Humanity focuses on group dynamics and the sense of belonging. The key questions we will consider are: What does it mean to belong? What does it mean to be an outsider? And what’s at stake in conformity? |
| Emily VanDette | Section 02 Section 03 | This section of Reading Humanity focuses on the theme "Representing Animals," and the course explores depictions of animals in literary works, philosophical discussions, and examples from art history. |
World Hist & Global Awareness/Global Perspectives
| Ici Vanwesenbeeck | Section 01 Section 02 | These sections of the course, “Border Crossings: Away from Home” will focus on the experience of refugees, exile, and migration in parts of the world affected by war, conflict, and political unrest. Students will study literary narratives (multi genre) about homelessness, displacement, memory, nostalgia, melancholia, in specific relation to war and armed conflict. |
| David Kaplin | Section 03 MWF 1:00-1:50 | The Romantic Movement developed in Western Europe, but it has influenced writers across the globe from the nineteenth century to the present day. This course explores Romantic influences in the literatures of Russia, India, and Japan with a focus on how writers incorporate Romantic themes and conventions into their own literary traditions. |
| Birger Vanwesenbeeck | Section 04 ONLINE | Can the Holocaust be represented? To capture the scope and magnitude of the Nazi atrocities has often been said to lie beyond the limits of the literary or artistic imagination even as artists have also recognized the need to do so. This course will offer an overview of various writings--philosophical, literary, and historical--as well as documentaries and how they have sought to bear witness to the Holocaust. |
Humanities/Creativity and Innovation
Ann
| Section 02
| Change is difficult! Together we'll read plays and screen films that explore ways we humans handle change.
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| Shannon McRae | Section HR T 3:00-5:50 R 3:00-3:50 | Are you or a loved one obsessed with ancient Rome? Now you can have friends! We read Greek plays, Greek and Roman myths, and Roman satire and watch recent movies that interpret them. You'd be surprised how different and how much the same we are now than back then. |
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Social Justice/Creativity and Innovation
| Saundra Liggins | Section 01 MWF 9:00-9:50 | This class gives students the opportunity to read texts by Black women to see the world the way that they did (or still do) while also seeing our world through their perspectives. |
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Social Justice/Critical Reasoning & Reasoning
| Bruce Simon | Section 01 TR 9:30-10:50 | What has it meant, what does it mean, what could it mean, what should it mean to be an American? This semester, we will focus on the power and future of the stories we tell ourselves and each other about “America." |
The Arts/Creativity & Innovation
Jason Bussman
| Section 01 Section 02 | Fiction, Non-Fiction, Poetry: oh my! In this introductory course, we will venture over the rainbow to the land of writing activities, short fiction, writing workshops and beyond. Be careful: once you venture into these waters, you may never be the same! |
Rebecca Cuthbert
| Section 03 Section 04 | As the prerequisite for all higher-level creative writing courses, this multi-genre course will introduce core concepts in creative writing, with readings of published works and peer works, as well as regular writing exercises. |
| Mara Beneway | Section 05 Section 06
| In this course you will identify and discuss traditional writing genre standards and build creative writing craft knowledge. The goal is for you to develop a set of skills and artistic practice which allows you to successfully articulate what matters to you on the page. |