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INTRODUCTION
This handbook provides information about the English program at Saint Mary's
University. Every effort has been made to provide correct information, but the
University Calendar and Timetable are the official documents as far as academic
regulations and schedules are concerned.
The handbook is divided into two parts: 1) general information about the
discipline of English and about the Saint Mary's University English Department,
and 2) descriptions and reading lists for the Department's 2017-2018 course
offerings.
PART ONE: GENERAL INFORMATION
ABOUT THE SAINT MARY’S UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND
LITERATURE
If you have questions about the English degree program, please see the
Department Chairperson.
The Major Program
Students wishing to major in English must satisfy the general requirements set
out by the Faculty of Arts, and complete forty-two (42) credit hours in
English including three (3) credit hours at the Introductory level – ENGL
1205.
The Major Program (42 credit hours) consists of:
• Three (3) credit hours of ENGL 1205
• Twelve (12) credit hours: Six (6) credit hours of ENGL 2307 and Six
(6) credit hours in English at the 2000 level. (see detailed
requirements in year 2)
• Eighteen (18) credit hours in ENGL at the 3000 level (see detailed
requirements in year 3)
• Nine (9) credit hours in ENGL at the 4000 level
Suggested schedule
Year 1
• ENGL 1205 (NOTE: a passing grade in this course is required for
entrance into 2000 level ENGL courses). Six (6) credit hours from
one or two of the following: Philosophy 1200.0 (no other Philosophy
course satisfies this requirement); Mathematics [including MGSC
1205; MGSC 1206; and CISY 1225].
• Nine (9) credit hours from at least two of the following Humanities:
Classics, History, Religious Studies, English [other than ENGL
1205], Philosophy (other than PHIL 1200.0), and Modern Languages
courses on languages, literature, and culture
• Twelve (12) credit hours from first year courses in the following
social sciences: Anthropology, Economics, Geography, Linguistics,
Political Science, Psychology, and Sociology (a maximum of six (6)
credits will be counted in any one area)
Year 2
• ENGL 2307.0 Literary Traditions in English
• Six (6) credit hours from 2000 level English courses (the Department
recommends students take ENGL 2205 Practical Criticism as part of
this requirement)
Year 3
• Nine (9) credit hours from the following ENGL 3000 level courses
in the pre-Twentieth Century period:
ENGL 3331; 3344; 3347; 3348; 3404; 3408; 3409; 3410; 3411;
3415; 3452; 3458; 3412.0; 3414.0; 3416.0; 3419; 3446; 3447; 3481;
3482; 3483; 3484.
There may also be Special Author/Special Subject courses that fulfill
the distribution requirement for 3000 level course, if approved by the
Department Chairperson.
• Nine (9) credit hours from 3000 level English courses beyond the
above requirement.
Year 4
• Nine (9) credit hours from 4000 level ENGL courses
Concentrations in English
A minimum of twenty-four (24) credit hours in English is required to obtain a
concentration in English in partial fulfillment of the B.A. General degree (i.e.,
one with Double Arts Concentrations and a minimum of ninety (90) credit
hours). Further details are available from the Chairperson.
The Minor Programs in English
Students are welcome to declare a regular OR specialized Minor. A Minor
consists of at least twenty-four (24) credit hours in English with a maximum
of three (3) credit hours at the 1000 level and a minimum grade point average
of 2.0. Students may now Minor in 1) English 2) Creative Writing 3)
Culture, Race and Resistance in Literature 4) Dramatic Literature or 5)
English Language.
1) Minor in English
Any English course can be used to fulfill the regular English Minor.
2) Minor in Creative Writing
Students who declare a Minor in Creative Writing must take at least twelve
(12) credit hours in Creative Writing in at least two of the four genres offered
(fiction, poetry, drama and non-fiction).
Students are also required to take twelve (12) credit hours more in English
courses beyond ENGL 1205.
Students who wish to Major in English and Minor in Creative Writing must
take forty-eight (48) credit hours in English courses above ENGL 1205 and
fulfill the requirements of both programs.
3) Minor in Culture, Race and Resistance
An English minor in “Culture, Race and Resistance” brings together a diverse
range of courses that explores issues of race, nation, globalization, social
justice, activism, and cultural resistance. It enables students to specialize in
the study of literature from transnational, translocal and interdisciplinary
perspectives. The courses investigate postcolonial, anti-colonial, orientalist,
black and Indigenous writing alongside theories of cultural and literary
analysis. The literature examined covers a range of periods and cultures, and
include topics such as African women’s writing, South Asian literature,
Mi’kmaq literature, black Atlantic and black British literature, Irish literature,
and critiques of race in contemporary consumer culture. The minor offers an
exciting opportunity for students to explore how literature reflects and
galvanizes resistant cultural movements in ways that remould our
contemporary world.
Prerequisite: ENGL 1205 Introduction to Literature
Strongly recommended courses: ENGL 3302.1 Literary Theory I; AND/OR
ENGL 3303.2: Literary Theory II; ENGL 3343 Cultural Studies.
The following courses can be considered to fulfill the Minor credit
requirement:
• ENGL 2261: Postcolonial Literature: Africa, the Caribbean, and
South Asia
• ENGL 2262: Postcolonial Literature: Canada, Australia, New
Zealand
• ENGL 3302: Literary Theory I
• ENGL 3303: Literary Theory II
• ENGL 3343: Cultural Studies
• ENGL 3443: Irish Poetry
• ENGL 3453: Irish Drama in the 20th Century
• ENGL 3361: World Literature in English
• ENGL 3521: North American Indigenous Literature I (U.S..)
• ENGL 3522: North American Indigenous Literature II (Canada)
• ENGL 3543: Literature of Modern Ireland
• ENGL 3837: Post-1945 Black British Writing
• ENGL 4457: African American Literature: The Harlem Renaissance
• ENGL 4464: Postcolonial Literature
• ENGL 4465: Indigenous Literature Seminar
• ENGL 4466: Representations of Indigenous Womanhood
• Special topic courses at 2000, 3000, and 4000 level (see Handbook,
produced annually)
4) Minor in Dramatic Literature
A Minor in Dramatic Literature provides students with an opportunity to
specialize in drama as a literary form read within a context of staging and
theatre history and and from the perspective of performance theory. A
dedicated minor brings together courses covering drama from a wide array of
historical, thematic, international, national, and regional backgrounds,
beginning with the antique drama of Greece and Rome and extending to
contemporary drama and performance; it enables students to explore dramatic
literature from a range of theoretical and cultural approaches that shaped the
study of drama and theatre in their vibrant and diverse responses to society,
politics, ideology, history, culture, gender, sexuality, and race. The Minor in
Dramatic Literature offers students a unique and exciting opportunity to study
one of the oldest genres of literary and cultural expression and to understand
it as an agent of cultural and social critique and change across its long history.
Prerequisite: ENGL 1205: Introduction to Literature
The following courses can be considered to fulfill the Minor credit
requirement:
• ENGL 2341: Introduction to Drama I (Ancient Greece to 1700)
• ENGL 2342: Introduction to Drama II (1700 to Contemporary)
• ENGL 3382: Writing Plays
• ENGL 3408: Drama and Society: Restoration to 18th Century
• ENGL 3435: Twentieth-Century European Drama
• ENGL 3437: Canadian Drama
• ENGL 3444: Shakespeare I (comedies and romances)
• ENGL 3445: Shakespeare II (history plays and problem plays)
• ENGL 3446: Shakespeare III (tragedies)
• ENGL 3447: Shakespeare’s Contemporaries
• ENGL 3451: British Drama Since 1945
• ENGL 3453: Irish Drama in the 20th Century
• Special topic courses at 2000, 3000, and 4000 level (see handbook,
produced annually). This includes the study-abroad course ENGL
4500.0: Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon: Theatre and Text.
5) Minor in English Language
A Minor in English Language allows students to study the English language
as a subject, explicitly focusing on its grammar, its history and varieties, its
uses and users. In taking the minor students will not only acquire extensive
knowledge of English, but also learn how to describe a particular language
and its varieities, and how to linguistically characteize instances of discourse
in English – from everyday talk and texts to literary genres. Such explicit
knowledge of English is complementary to studies of English Literature,
Linguistics, Modern Languages or indeed any field where explicit knowledge
of the grammar, dialects, history, and discourse patterns of English might be
useful.
Prerequisite: ENGL 1205: Introduction to Literature
Courses listed below can be taken for credit towards a Minor in English
Language. On the recommendation of the program coordinator/chair of
English literature course in an area of particular interest and relevance for
their prgram of study.
• ENGL 2212: Varieties in English [under approval, Faculty of Arts]
• ENGL 2308: The Development of English Prose Style from 1500
• ENGL 2326: Modern English Language
• ENGL 2326: Language and Gender
• ENGL 3402: History of the English Language
• ENGL 3404: Chaucer: Canterbury Tales
• ENGL 3405: Chaucer: Troilus and Criseyde
• ENGL 4427: Language, Gender, and Power
• ENGL 4493: Doing Discourse Analysis
• ENGL 4494: Approaches to Discourse Analysis
• Special topic courses at 2000, 3000 and 4000 level courses (see
Handbook produced annually).
The Honours Program
Students wishing to major in English with honours must satisfy the general
requirements set out by the Faculty of Arts, and complete sixty (60) credit
hours in English including three (3) credit hours at the Introductory level –
ENGL 1205.1(.2).
The Honours program (60 credit hours) consists of:
• Three (3) credit hours of ENGL 1205
• Twelve (12) credit hours at the 2000 level (see detailed requirements
in year 2)
• Thirty (30) credit hours at the 3000 level (see detailed requirements
in year 3)
• Three (3) credit hours ENGL Language course selected from ENGL
2308, 2311, 3402, 4493
• Six (6) credit hours of the Honours Seminar
• Nine (9) credit hours at the 4000 level
Suggested Schedule
Year 1
• ENGL 1205 (NOTE: a passing grade in this course is required for
entrance into 2000 level ENGL courses).
• Six (6) credit hours from one or two of the following: Philosophy
1200.0 (no other philosophy course satisfies this requirement);
Mathematics [including MGSC 1205; MGSC 1206; and CISY 1225]
• Nine (9) credit hours from at least two of the following Humanities:
Classics, History, Religious Studies, English [other than ENGL
1205], Philosophy (other than PHIL 1200.0), and Modern Languages
courses on literature and culture
• Twelve (12) credit hours from first year courses in the following
social sciences: Anthropology, Economics, Geography, Linguistics,
Political Science, Psychology, and Sociology (a maximum of six (6)
credits will be counted in any
• one area)
Year 2
• ENGL 2307.0 Literary Traditions in English
• Six (6) credit hours from 2000 level English courses (the Department
recommends students take ENGL 2205 Practical Criticism as part of
this requirement)
Year 3
Fifteen (15) credit hours, satisfying the following area requirements
(with three (3) credit hours from each of Medieval and Renaissance
Literature):
i. Medieval: ENGL 3404, 3439, 4405
ii. Renaissance: ENGL 3419, 3421, 3444, 3445, 3446;3447, 4422,
4423, 4424
iii. 18th Century: ENGL 3408; 3410, 3411, 3412, 3414, 3415, 3416
iv. 19th Century: ENGL 3344, 3347, 3348, 3409, 3452, 3481, 3482,
3483, 3484;
v. 20th Century/Contemporary: ENGL 3334, 3343, 3345, 3351, 3367,
3429, 3435, 3437, 3438, 3443, 3450, 3451, 3453, 3459, 3460, 3461,
3471, 3472, 3473.
There may also be Special Author/Special Subject courses that fulfill one
or more of these distribution requirements for 3000 level courses, if
approved by the Department Chairperson
• Six (6) credit hours of ENGL 3301 Literary Theory OR ENGL 3302
Literary Theory I AND ENGL 3303 Literary Theory II
• Twelve (12) credit hours from ENGL 3000 level courses
• Nine (9) credit hours from ENGL 3000 level courses
Year 4
• Six (6) credit hours of the Honours Seminar (topics vary from year to
year; students are encouraged to check the departmental calendar for
offerings)
• Nine (9) credit hours from 4000 level English courses
General Information
Research Tools and Methods
You should own a good college dictionary and a dictionary of literary terms.
The department recommends The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary
Terms, by Chris Baldick. You should be familiar with some of the basic tools
for scholarly work in the discipline: the complete Oxford English Dictionary
(second edition), the NOVANET online library catalogue for Halifax and
other university libraries, the serial list for the Patrick Power Library, and the
MLA International Bibliography,
available both in hard copy and on CD-ROM on line through Saint Mary's
University computer accounts.
The following journals and reviews are of particular critical interest: Ariel,
Critical Inquiry, Books in Canada, English Studies in Canada, New York
Review of Books, PMLA, Representations, Signs, The South Atlantic
quarterly and The Times Literary Supplement (TLS). The English Review is
a literary journal aimed specifically at students of literature.
The Department has published A Brief Guide to the Preparation of Essays and
Reports, which explains the method of documentation for academic work in
the discipline of English. All majors and honours students should purchase a
copy from the University Bookstore.
Department Prizes and Activities
The Norman Stanbury Scholarship in English is awarded annually to a student
entering his or her third or fourth year honours majoring in English. The
award decision is made upon the recommendation of the Dean of Arts.
The Lori Mahen Scholarship is awarded annually to an outstanding English
major.
The Robert Hayes Memorial Scholarship is awarded annually to a student
who is in his or her sophomore, junior, or senior year, and has demonstrated
an interest in and aptitude for creative writing. The award decision is made on
the recommendation of the chair of the English Department.
The Joyce Marshall Hsia Memorial Poetry Prize, administered by the English
Department, is awarded annually in the second semester. It is open to all
currently enrolled Saint Mary's students, and information on how to enter is
posted in the English Department in the second semester.
Margó Takacs Marshall Prize for Excellence in Short Story Writing,
administered by the English Department, is awarded annually in the second
semester. It is open to all currently enrolled Saint Mary's students, and
information on how to enter is posted in the English Department in the second
semester.
The Saint Mary’s Reading Series
Since the 1980s the Department of English has been inviting Canadian
authors to read their work on campus to students, faculty, and the general
public. After years of readings featuring such poets and fiction-writers as
Mary Dalton, Anne Michaels, Nino Ricci, David Adams Richards, Harry
Thurston and Jane Urquhart, in 1994 we established The Sun Room Reading
Series (1994-98), which was followed by The Gallery Reading Series (1998-
2010). Funded with the help of the university, the Canada Council for the Arts
Literary Readings Program, and publishers, our series – the most extensive
and popular in Nova Scotia – is now simply known as The Saint Mary’s
Reading Series. You can follow it at “Saint Mary’s Reading Series” on
Facebook.
We have hosted many of Canada’s best-known writers as well as those near
the beginnings of their careers. These visitors have included poets such as
Mark Abley, Robert Bringhurst, Anne Carson, Anne Compton, Jeffery
Donaldson, M. Travis Lane, Ross Leckie, Dennis Lee, A. F. Moritz, Erin
Mouré, David O’Meara, Eric Ormsby, Kerry-Lee Powell, Sue Sinclair, Karen
Solie, Bruce Taylor, and Jan Zwicky; writers who have published both poetry
and fiction, such as Tammy Armstrong, Tim Bowling, Barry Dempster,
Aislinn Hunter, David Manicom, Carmelia McGrath, and Patricia and
Terence Young; and novelists and short-story writers such as Peter Behrens,
Bonnie Burnard, Catherine Bush, Michael Christie, Austin Clarke, Lynn
Coady, Ian Colford, Craig Davidson, Marina Endicott, Steven Galloway,
Wayne Johnston, Thomas King, Annabel Lyon, K. D. Miller, Mary Novik,
Fred Stenson, Joan Thomas, and Richard Wagamase. We have been
especially pleased to welcome to our series former Saint Mary’s students –
Sue Goyette, Danny Jacobs, Vanessa Moeller, Matt Robinson – as nationally
recognised writers. Our readings sometimes serve as launches for new books.
In early March, we also host the one-week stay of a short-term writer-in-
residence. This writer meets with creative writing and literature classes, is
available for on-one-one conferences with students to offer feedback on their
writing, and gives a public reading. We have hosted residencies by writers
from Newfoundland, Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British
Columbia, and Virginia; our students and faculty have benefited from the
visits of writers-in-residence (listed chronologically in terms of their times on
campus) Steven Heighton, Joan Clark, Tim Lilburn, Marilyn Bowering, John
Steffler, Bryden MacDonald, Michael Winter, Roo Borson, Richard Cumyn,
Marilyn Dumont, Michael Redhill, Don Domanski, Eric Trethewey, Stan
Dragland, Robyn Sarah, Michael Crummey, Don McKay, Clark Blaise, Diane
Schoemperlen, and John Terpstra.
The Saint Mary's University English Society arranges social and cultural
events through the year.
Applications to Professional and Graduate Schools
Early in your final year, check the application deadlines for programs you
plan to apply to. Often these deadlines are quite soon after the Christmas
break.
Faculty members are happy to provide references for students. However, you
should ask for references at least two weeks before they are due. You must
give referees the correct address, the deadline by which the reference must
arrive, and any other information specific to the application (a copy of your
letter of application, copies of transcripts, your résumé and so on are helpful
in preparing references). Writing reference letters is time-consuming, and it is
in your best interest to provide as much notice and information as possible.
DEPARTMENT STATEMENT ON COURSE STANDARDS
(1) Grading
All grades awarded by English Department instructors are given in
accordance with the definitions of grades stated in Academic regulation 5a of
the university calendar. As well, the department considers that the letter
grades have the following significance.
A “is reserved for excellence and A+ is awarded in exceptional
circumstances”
B “is the entry level for an honours degree in this university; the B
range indicates good to very good work”
C “is the grade given to "average" or "satisfactory" work”
D “is the grade for passing but not satisfactory work”
F “is the grade for failing work”
(2) Grade Requirements for English Majors
Requirement 7 of the Faculty of Arts states that "In order to have major
subjects or areas of concentration formally entered upon their records,
students must have maintained a minimum cumulative quality point average
of 2.00 (or an average grade of C)" and "must have fulfilled any additional
requirements specified by their departments. Students who fail to achieve this
average may, provided that they fulfil all other requirements, graduate as
non-majors." What this means is
that if your average grade is below C, you cannot graduate with a major in
English.
(3) Attendance and Participation
As students, especially if you are doing Honours or Majors, you have a
responsibility to yourself, other students, and the University to attend and
participate in classes. This responsibility is even more pressing in upper-level
courses. Participation includes preparing assigned material before class, so
you can discuss material and/or be an informed listener. Therefore, you
should plan to study for approximately three hours for each hour of scheduled
class time. Read any assigned material before coming to class and bring the
assigned reading with you.
(4) Assignment Deadlines
You are expected to meet deadlines for assigned work. While most instructors
allow for extenuating circumstances, they do not have to accept any late
work. * Late work may be graded and returned without comment.
* If you become seriously ill or suffer other personal misfortune, you should
get in touch with your professors and/or the Chairperson as soon as it is
possible to do so in order to get guidance. Arrangements can be made to
ensure that illness or personal misfortune is not made worse by academic
penalties.
(5) Plagiarism
Academic regulation 19 gives a definition of plagiarism as "the presentation
of words, ideas or techniques of another as one's own." You should learn to
recognise situations where plagiarism is likely to occur, and acquire the
techniques of "proper citation" as soon as possible. Most English handbooks
and the Department’s A Brief Guide to the Preparation of Essays and Reports
by Dr. Perkin explain the standard methods of documentation and citation.
Instructors are ready to give advice, but will penalise any students who submit
plagiarised work.
PART TWO: COURSES AND TENTATIVE TIMETABLE
FOR 2017-2018
Please note: .1 is first term .2 second term .0 full year
.1(.2) offered both terms.
1205.1(.2) Introduction to Literature
This course introduces students to works of literature in English representing
a variety of historical and cultural contexts. It develops the student’s ability
to interpret written texts and to write about them in an informed and
organized manner.
A passing grade in ENGL 1205.1(.2) is normally required for entrance to
2000-level English courses.
ENGL1300.1 WORD, IMAGE, POWER
Time: MW 11:30-12:45
Instructor: T. Takševa
Description: In this course students will examine the power of words and
images to communicate a variety of social, cultural and personal meanings.
Through the interactive and collaborative study of a variety of powerful texts
created by famous and influential writers and thinkers, students will discover
what makes some words and images powerful and effective, and improve
their own communicative ability, both in writing and in speaking. Materials
we will study include memorable and often quoted speeches delivered by
leaders worldwide, as well as examples from contemporary visual culture and
the advertising industry. Students will learn to decode the discreet but
emotionally charged messages communicated via the various visual culture
platforms that surround us.
Method of instruction: seminar model: discussion; in-class writing activities
Texts: TBA
ENGL2205.1 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
Time: TR 10:00-11:15
Instructor: G. Hlongwane
Description: This course provides an introduction to the discipline of literary
criticism through extensive exercises in the practical criticism of selected
literary works of poetry, prose, and drama. It is aimed at developing essential
skills in close reading and a critical vocabulary with which to analyze and
discuss literature, while sharpening students’ attentiveness to the way that
form and content contribute to meaning in a literary work.
Texts: Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (Penguin)
Joseph Kelly, ed., The Seagull Reader: Poems, 3rd edition
William Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Kim F. Hall (Bedford)
ENGL2205.2 PRACTICAL CRITICISM
Time: MW 1:00-2:15
Instructor: R. Perkin
Description: This course provides an introduction to the discipline of
literary criticism through extensive exercises in the practical criticism of
selected literary works. It is aimed at developing essential skills in close
reading and a critical vocabulary with which to analyze and discuss literature,
while sharpening students’ attentiveness to the way in which form and content
contribute to meaning in a literary work.
Texts: Joseph Kelly, ed., The Seagull Reader: Poems, 3rd edition.
William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure (Signet)
James Joyce, Dubliners
ENGL2261.1 POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE
Time: TR 2:30-3:45
Instructor: G. Hlongwane
Description: This course introduces students to postcolonial writing in
English from Africa, the Caribbean and South Asia.
Texts: Chimamanda Adichie, The Thing Around Your Neck;
Dionne Brand, In Another Place, Not Here;
Rohinton Mistry, Tales From Firozsha Baag;
Victor Ramraj, ed. Concert of Voices
ENGL2301.2 19th CENTURY DETECTIVE FICTION
Time: TR 11:30-12:45
Instructor: S. Muse Isaacs
Description: This course considers the development of fiction of crime,
mystery, and detection during the nineteenth century, a period in which this
genre flourished. Authors to be studied include Anna Katharine Green,
Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe, R. L. Stevenson, Wilkie Collins, and
Henry James. Attention may be given to relevant social developments such
as the rise of the police force, punishment, and justice, advances in
criminology and detection, the typology and psychology of the criminal, the
Victorian underworld, and the “lady detective.”
Texts: Edgar Allan Poe – Selected Tales
Wilkie Collins – The Woman in White
Anna Katherine Green – The Leavenworth Case
Arthur Conan Doyle – The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Robert Louis Stevenson – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde
ENGL2307.0A LITERARY TRADITIONS IN ENGLISH
Time: MW 10:00-11:15
Instructor: R. Hulan
Description: This course reflects the rich diversity of literature written in
English through the study of representative works of poetry, prose, and
drama. It is designed to provide a foundation in the discipline of literary
studies and to encourage students to become effective close readers of literary
works by attending to aspects of form and genre in historical and cultural
context.
Format: Lecture and discussion
Texts: Greenblatt, Stephen, ed. The Norton Introduction to
Literature: The Major Authors. 9th ed. New York: W. W.
Norton, 2013.
Momaday, N. Scott. The Way to Rainy Mountain.
Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1969.
ENGL2307.0B LITERARY TRADITIONS IN ENGLISH
Time: TR 11:30-12:45
Instructor: M. Barr
Description: This class is a survey of 1000 years of artistic effort, placing
the greatest works written in English into various interpretive, theoretical,
historical and cultural contexts so that you, the English Major, will be better
able to complete study in more advanced and specialized courses later in your
academic career. I really see this course as an introduction to the discipline of
literary studies, and part of that will involve reflecting on the ideological
dimensions of such terms as "literature" and "the literary canon" and thinking
about what kind of "use" the study of literature might have in modern society.
This is not an easy course: there’s a great deal of reading ahead
(much of it POETRY), of texts that will sometimes (due to temporal distance
or complexity of thought, language or composition) seem rather inaccessible.
You may also find my teaching style annoying: I require a great deal of
collaborative learning where students talk to each other (usually in semi-
permanent learning teams), work through problems and issues together (under
my supervision), and even compete against each other. If you're still not put
off, however, welcome aboard: we are going to have a great time.
Texts: Stephen Greenblatt, ed. The Norton Anthology of English
Literature (9th ed)
ENGL2311.1 MODERN ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Time: MW 1:00-2:15
Instructor: E. Asp
Description: The course will examine the nature of modern English
semantics (meaning), syntax (‘wordings’), and morphology (word formation).
Some attention is also paid to intonation (soundings). The course is presented
using contemporary grammatical theories.
What the course description means. We’ll conduct a detailed survey of
major syntactic and morphological structures and relations in Modern
English.
In the process, you will learn about
• word categories (What makes a noun a noun, an adjective an
adjective, a verb a verb?)
• phrase and clause classes (What is a phrase? What makes a
dependent clause dependent, an independent one independent?)
• and about the meanings of everything we discuss.
You will also learn how to analyse syntactic structures within a contemporary
linguistic framework. We will talk about language varieties and attitudes to
language, intonation in English and probably lots of other stuff too.
What the course description doesn’t mean. This is not an ‘advanced
composition’ course and, although we will certainly discuss ‘prescriptions’ of
various kinds, it is not a course designed to correct ‘bad grammar’. (We can
talk about why we’re not doing that if you want to.) However, the course does
provide a description of Standard Modern English and most people do find
that helpful. Also, knowing things like what makes a noun a noun, and an
independent clause independent does help in the long run when writing
because it gives you a vocabulary for thinking and talking about the language
that you use.
Who is the course for? Anybody interested in Modern English. You do not
need a background in linguistics to take it. I teach as though nobody has one.
Texts: Huddleston, R. & Pullum, G.K. 2005. A Student's
Introduction to English Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
ENGL2314.1 LITERARY LEGENDS: DON JUAN
Instructor: D. Heckerl
Time: MW 11:30-12:45
Description: This course introduces students to a gigantic figure of
literary legend and myth, the infamous lover and seducer known as Don Juan.
We will explore the evolution of the Don Juan character in various forms –
drama, poetry, fiction, philosophy, music, and film – from its origins in 17th
century Spain to Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s recent film, Don Jon. The
centerpiece of the course is one of the greatest works of art ever created:
Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni.
Texts: TBA
ENGL2315.1 MASTERPIECES OF WESTERN LITERATURE I
Instructor: D. Heckerl
Time: TR 1:00–2:15
Description: This course is a beginning survey of selected masterworks
of Western literature and philosophy extending from the ancient Greeks
(Homer, Sophocles, Plato) to the 18th century ‘storm and stress’ romanticism
of Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther. Students will be introduced to a
wide range of literary styles and genres, including an example of the popular
art-form known as opera.
Texts: TBA
ENGL2316.2 MASTERPIECES OF WESTERN LITERATURE II
Instructor: D. Heckerl
Time: TR 10:00–11:15
Course Quotation: “The beauty of the world is the mouth of a labyrinth.
The unwary individual who on entering takes a few steps is soon unable to
find the opening. Worn out, with nothing to eat or drink, in the dark,
separated from his dear ones, and from everything he loves and is accustomed
to, he walks on without knowing anything or hoping anything, incapable even
of discovering whether he is really going forward or merely turning around on
the same spot. But this affliction is as nothing compared with the danger
threatening him …”
--- Simone Weil
Course Description: The aim of this course is to engage students in the
conversation of Western literary culture through careful reading and lively
discussion of representative works of literature and philosophy. The readings
chosen for this term explore in different ways the deeply unsettling
experience of art and creativity, and more specifically how the desire for
beauty complicates the individual’s ability to live comfortably in the world.
A primary question for discussion concerns the relation between aesthetic and
moral experience: is there a stable or positive connection between sensitivity
to beauty and being a good person? As our reading and conversation will
show, the answers to this question are intriguingly various and complex.
Texts: TBA
ENGL2318.2 THE WRITER AND NATURE
Instructor: B. Bartlett
Time: TR 1:00–2:15
Description: This course will explore the writings of American and
British writers particularly concerned with the so-called “natural world.” We
will try to find answers to several key questions. How has the word “nature”
been variously defined? How much is Homo sapiens a part of nature or
distinct from it? How has nature been viewed in Judaeo-Christian and Native
American traditions? What is anthropomorphism? What influence has nature
writing had on today’s ecological movements? How does your cultural,
ethnic, economic background influence how you experience nature? What
literary devices and aesthetic choices are involved in writing about nature?
We will spend most of the term exploring writing from the genre of non-
fiction prose, since authors labelled “nature writers” have excelled at it. We
will study essays or book excerpts ranging from Gilbert White’s observations
in the late eighteenth century to Thoreau’s trailblazing prose in the mid-
nineteenth century to turn-of-the century writings of John Muir and John
Burroughs to the more recent art of Rachel Carson, Annie Dillard, Edward
Abbey, and Leslie Silko. While our study of prose selections will be largely
limited to writers who have made nature their primary literary territory, we
will also spend a few classes looking at poetry, and at excerpts from Kipling’s
The Jungle Book, Roberts’s animal stories, Grahame’s The Wind in the
Willows, and Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.
Texts: TBA
ENGL2320.1 WRITING BY WOMEN I
Time: MW 1:00 – 2:15
Instructor: D. Kennedy
Description: This course focuses on women’s literature from the middle
ages to the end of the eighteenth century. It covers a variety of literary
genres, and it includes writers such as Anne Bradstreet, Anne Finch, and Jane
Austen.
Texts: Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (Penguin)
Volume I of Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, eds. The
Norton Anthology of Literature by Women (2007) (Norton)
ENGL2325.1/2 MEDIA AND EVERYDAY LIFE
Time: Fall - TR 11:30 – 12:45 Winter TR 2:30 – 3:45
Instructor: J. Vanderburgh
Description: Media texts, technologies and environments are central to
how we form and resist ideas that contribute to everyday life and to our
conceptualization of ourselves and our world. Using a variety of approaches
to textual analysis grounded in media studies, this course provides an
introduction to engaging with texts, technologies and environments across a
variety of media contexts.
Texts: TBA
ENGL 2341.1 INTRO. TO DRAMA I
Time: MW 11:30-12:45
Instructor: A. Watson
Description: This course is a survey of representative plays from ancient
Greece in the fifth century BCE to neo-classical France in the seventeenth
century. It will cover methods of reading dramatic texts and will also touch
on the history of theatre and staging in this period.
Texts: TBA
ENGL2342.2 INTRO. TO DRAMA II
Time: MW 11:30-12:45
Instructor: A. Watson
Description: This course is a survey of representative plays from 1700 to
the contemporary stage, with an emphasis on methods of reading dramatic
texts, as well as issues of production and theatre history in the period. Authors
we will examine may include Sheridan, Schiller, Wilde, Chekhov, Brecht,
Beckett, Soyinka, Clarke, and Churchill. (Note: You do not need to have
taken Introduction to Drama I to enroll in Introduction to Drama II.)
Texts: TBA
ENGL2360.1 THE FANTASTIC
Time: TR 2:30-3:45
Instructor: M. Barr
Description: This course will explore the development of what is now
commonly called "Fantasy Literature" from its putative origins in the 19th
century through to its diverse forms in the modern day: novels, short stories,
poetry, graphic novels, games, and film. I'll offer some theories about the
ideological, psychological, and socioeconomic forces driving fantastic
literature, and make some links back to the Romantic period and to modern
anxieties about social change. In suggesting that Fantasy describes a struggle
between the two dominant discourses of the modern age (religion and
science), I hope to put us in a position to speculate usefully on how fantasy's
various manifestations tie us to the past and reconstruct identity and society in
the postmodern era. Although this course is only for the Fall term, it’s also
intended as the introduction to English 2828.2 (The Inklings) that I'll run in
the Winter term.
Texts: Course Pack
Donaldson, Lord Foul's Bane
LeGuin, The Tombs of Atuan
Gaiman, Sandman, Vol 5: A Game of You
ENGL2364.1 MODERN NOVELLA
Time: TR 10:00-11:15
Instructor: S. Malton
Description: Goethe famously defined the novella as that genre in which
a “real unheard-of incident” occurs. In this course, we will examine the
novella’s engagement with the realm of the “unheard of” – the uncanny,
unexpected, or unexplainable -- by reading a range of works from the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In doing so, we will consider the genre’s
engagement with modernity, the modern imagination, and cultural
consciousness.
Texts: Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843)
Henry James, The Turn of the Screw (1898)
Kate Chopin, The Awakening (1899)
James Joyce, The Dead (1914)
George Orwell, Animal Farm (1945)
Ian McEwan, On Chesil Beach (2007)
ENGL2391.1 THE STUDY OF SHORT FICTION
Time: MW 2:30-3:45
Instructor: T. Heffernan
Description: This course will introduce students to short fiction. We will
cover nineteenth-century classics of the genre through to twenty-first century
works. We will focus on practicing close readings, honing analytical skills,
writing evidence-based arguments, and developing a literary vocabulary.
Text: The Broadview Introduction to Literature: Short Fiction
(2nd edition)
ENGL2392.2 THE STUDY OF NARRATIVE
Time: TR 8:30-9:45
Instructor: G. Hlongwane
Description: This course is designed to introduce students to the novel in
English as well as to the analytical concepts necessary for its critical
appreciation and judgment.
Texts: TBA
ENGL2392.2 THE STUDY OF NARRATIVE
Time: MW 2:30-3:45
Instructor: H. Saroukhani
Description: “To tell a story is to exercise power.”
− Ross Chambers in Story and Situation
This course introduces students to a wide range of narratives that interrogate
the predicaments of those on the fringes of society – the “anomalous,
indefinable, alienated… freakish outsider[s]” of literary history (Gilbert and
Gubar). From the ninth century to the contemporary, we will examine the
significance of the ways in which so-called “narratives of opposition” are
composed (Chambers). With particular attention to the English novel and key
essays in narrative theory, this course examines how stories, through their
aesthetic composition, are embedded within specific political, social, ethical
and ideological frameworks. Investigating the history of the novel from its
rise in the eighteenth century to its various iterations within modernist,
postmodernist and postcolonial discourses, this course asks what we gain
from studying narrative in detail with a rigorous eye to form, content and
context. Why do we tell stories and why do they matter?
Texts: Excerpt from Arabian Nights (in course pack)
Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders (Penguin Classics)
Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (Oxford World’s
Classics)
William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying (Vintage)
Muriel Spark, The Driver’s Seat (New Directions)
Caryl Phillips, The Lost Child (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Course pack (available at SMU Bookstore)
ENGL2393.2 STUDY OF POETRY
Time: TR 10:00-11:15
Instructor: S. Kennedy
Description: This course will serve as an introduction to poetry and
poetics, with an emphasis on formalism and close reading.
Texts: TBA
ENGL2511.1 READING FILM
Time: TR 2:30-4:30
Instructor: J. VanderBurgh
Description: This course introduces students to the fundamentals of film
language and the formal analysis of film. Terminology and analysis
techniques will be applied to the interpretation of films from a variety of
genres and production contexts.
Class: 2 hours / Screening 2 hours.
Texts: TBA
ENGL2513.1 INTRO. TO NATIVE LITERATURE
Time: TR 11:30-12:45
Instructor: S. Muse-Isaacs
Description: The literatures of Indigenous North America (Turtle Island)
have a long and rich history, from the Mayan and Aztecan codices to Dakota
winter counts, from Mi’kmaq and Haudenosaunee wampum belts to Haida
totems and Anishnaabe petroglyphs, along with songs, treaties, letters,
medical formulae books, autobiographies, histories, poems, stories, novels,
comic books, plays, and other texts. This course will examine contemporary
North American Indigenous literatures in English, both American Indian in
the United States, and the Indigenous peoples in Canada (First Nations, Inuit,
and Métis). We will start by examining several oral Creation stories from the
four sacred corners in order to understand the origins of various groups and
their relationship to their Earth space. As the texts are themselves concerned
with social, political, historical, spiritual, and intellectual issues, our
discussions and analyses will also engage with those contexts, with an eye
toward decolonization.
Texts: Alexie, Sherman The Absolute True Diary of a Part-time
Indian.
King, Thomas The Truth About Stories
Maracle, Lee Ravensong
Robinson, Eden Monkey Beach
ENGL2826.1 VIKINGS
Time: TR 11:30-12:45
Instructor: S. Morley
Description: This course will introduce students to the literature,
mythology and history of what is known as the Viking Age in Britain (793-
1066 CE). It will examine the history of northern Europe though the Vikings-
-who, by the way, never called themselves that--and the peoples they
encountered as raiders, traders, and settlers by reading the major works
produced between the twelfth and the fourteenth centuries. These texts will
offer insight into the cultures of these Germanic peoples as they converged
and clashed throughout the Middle Ages. Some attention will also be paid to
how Vikings and Viking lore are idealized in popular culture (television,
Viking Metal) and fantasy (Gaiman, Tolkein).
The readings will be modern English translations of Old English and Old
Norse. This course does not count as a medieval literature requirement for
the Honours program.
Texts: TBA
ENGL2827.2 SPY NOVELS
Time: MW 10:00-11:15
Instructor: R. Perkin
Description: Throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first,
espionage has played an important role in furthering the policy aims of
various governments; it has been used to maintain empires, to fight the Cold
War, and to combat terrorism. A surprising number of writers have been
involved in some way in spying, and conversely the spy novel is a popular
literary form that has engaged some highly respected novelists. In this course,
students are introduced to a tradition of British spy novels that stretches from
the imperial romances of the early twentieth century to John le Carré, the
major practitioner of the genre.
Texts: Rudyard Kipling, Kim (Oxford World’s Classics)
Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent (Oxford World’s Classics)
Helen MacInnes, Above Suspicion (Titan)
Graham Greene, The Quiet American (Vintage)
John le Carré, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
(Penguin)
ENGL2828.2 THE INKLINGS
Time: TR 2:30-3:45
Instructor: M. Barr
Description: Although intended as a companion course to English 2360.1
(Fantasy Literature), this class can stand on its own as an exploration of that
circle of celebrated Oxford authors known as "The Inklings." This
incarnation of the course will focus primarily on placing the work of JRR
Tolkien and CS Lewis into its historical, cultural, and ideological context.
Texts: C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength;
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe;
The Last Battle
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings;
The Silmarillion
ENGL3302.1 LITERARY THEORY I
Time: MW 11:30-12:45
Instructor: T. Heffernan
Description: This course serves as an introduction to the major issues,
figures, and theoretical approaches in the discipline of literary criticism and
theory. This section covers the ancients through to nineteenth-century writers
and provides an excellent grounding in critical thinking and literary historical
periods.
Texts: The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism
ENGL3303.2 LITERARY THEORY II
Time: MW 11:30-12:45
Instructor: T. Heffernan
Description: This course provides an introduction to the major issues,
figures, and theoretical approaches in the discipline of literary criticism. This
section covers writers from the twentieth to the contemporary period and
serves as an excellent grounding in critical thinking.
Texts: The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism
ENGL3343.1 CULTURAL STUDIES
Time: F 10:00-12:30
Instructor: H. Saroukhani
Description: “… if culture happens to be what seizes hold of your soul,
you have to recognize that you will always be working in an area of
displacement.”
– Stuart Hall “Cultural Studies and its Theoretical Legacies”
This interdisciplinary course introduces students to the field of cultural
studies. Our framing questions will be: what is culture and what is at stake in
the practice of cultural studies today? We will be examining key theories and
methodologies in the field that propound and question the significance of
cultural production in a specifically capitalist economy. We will explore
theories of race, class, gender, sexuality, globalization and cyborgs. In our
investigation of culture and the politics of theory, we will look to film,
architecture, photography, advertising, music, literature and cars, amongst
other subjects. The aim of this course will be to provide a solid conceptual
foundation of cultural studies both as an institutionalized program and
philosophical field of inquiry that enables a more critical view of the
everyday world around us.
Texts: Course pack (available at the SMU Bookstore)
ENGL3344.1 CANADIAN LITERATURE TO 1920
Time: TR 11:30-12:45
Instructor: B. Bartlett
Description: 2017, marking the150th anniversary of Canada’s founding in
1867, is an ideal time to be taking this course. We will explore early Canadian
writing, from its beginnings in pre-Confederation colonial literature to its
development until about the end of World War I. The course will examine
questions of genre, stylistic features, narrative strategies, politics, and history
in relation to many literary forms: the non-fiction prose of exploration
narratives (Samuel Hearne, David Thompson, Anna Brownell Jameson),
accounts by pioneer settlers in Canada (Susanna Moodie, Catherine Parr
Trail), satire in both prose and poetry (Thomas Chandler Haliburton, Joseph
Howe), science fiction (James DeMille), short fiction and novels (the “animal
stories” of Charles G. D. Roberts, the humorous sketches of Stephen
Leacock), and poetry (Isabella Valancy Crawford, Charles G. D. Roberts,
Archibald Lampman, Duncan Campbell Scott). The course will concentrate
on literature written in English, except for a few classes on the oral narratives
of Skaay or Ghandl, two nineteenth-century classical Haida storytellers
translated by Robert Bringhurst. Texts by writers such as Hearne and Moodie
will be linked to much later writings by John Newlove, Margaret Atwood,
and Stan Rogers.
Studies are strongly advised to read, prior to the course, a summary
of Canadian history such as Canada: A Story of Challenge (J. M. S. Careless)
and The Pelican History of Canada (Kenneth McNaught).
Texts: Carole Gerson and Gwendolyn Davies, ed. Canadian
Poetry from the Beginnings to the First World War.
Charles G. D. Roberts, Selected Animal Stories (ed. Terry
Whalen).
James De Mille, A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper
Cylinder (Broadview).
Moyles, R.G., ed. ‘Improved by Cultivation’: English-
Canadian Prose to 1914.
Course-pack.
ENGL3345.2 CANADIAN LITERATURE AFTER 1920
Time: MW 1:00-2:15
Instructor: R. Hulan
Description: In this survey of Canadian literature produced in Canada since
1920, we will focus on movements in Canadian literary history with an emphasis
on the issues arising from the study of national literatures, issues such as
authenticity, identity, canonicity, and multiculturalism with assignments
designed to evaluate and to develop the students’ critical skills and knowledge of
the field.
Format: Lecture and discussion
Texts (may change depending on availability):
Cynthia Sugars and Laura Moss, ed. Canadian Literature in
English Vol. II.
Maria Campbell Halfbreed
Timothy Findley The Wars
Hugh MacLennan Barometer Rising
ENGL3347.2 AMERICAN LITERATURE 1820-65
Time: TR 1:00-2:15
Instructor: D. Heckerl
Description: A survey of major works of American literature from 1820
to the end of the Civil War. Authors may include Dickinson, Douglass,
Emerson, Hawthorne, Melville, Thoreau, and Whitman. This course, along
with American Literature 1865-1914, provides students with a sound
historical understanding of this most formative period in American literature.
Texts: TBA
ENGL3361.2 WORLD LITERATURE IN ENGLISH
Time: TR 11:30-12:45
Instructor: G. Hlongwane
Description: This course will attempt to redress what Anne Adams
Graves calls the “inattention to women in African literary scholarship.” These
otherwise unheard voices will be privileged in a course that exposes African
women writers’ special difficulties and special achievements. Important
topics will include the politics of the canon in African, postcolonial counter-
discourse, tensions between tradition and modernity, as well as the
intersections of race and gender.
Texts: TBA
ENGL3381.0 WRITING POETRY
Time: M 4:00-6:30
Instructor: B. Bartlett
Additional prerequisite: Submission of samples of work, and
permission of creative-writing coordinator. Before registering, please
e-mail 10-15 pages of your poetry to [email protected]
Description: This course should help you appreciate both the excitement
and the difficulty – the rewards and the demands – of writing poetry. As Don
McKay recently wrote: “In poetry, language is always a singer as well as a
thinker; a lover as well as an engineer. It discovers and delights in language in
its own physical being, as though it were an otter or a raven rather than
simply the vice president in charge of making sense.”
We will begin with the belief that writing poetry should go hand in hand with
reading a wide range of published poems. Discussions will cover such topics
as the sources of poetry, the tension between influence and originality, the
differences between poetry and prose, the values of metaphor, and the
contrasting models of the poem as a built object and the poem as a relative of
speech. Such matters as line lengths and breaks, stanzaic structure, sound,
rhythm, and associative leaps will be tackled in writing assignments. You will
experiment with a wide range of poetic structures, styles, and voices. You will
read a few essays by poets, and write a report on a public reading. The course
will also feature visits from poets.
Roughly half of our class time will consist of workshops. You will distribute
copies of your work to your classmates, accept comments and suggestions
from them, and do the same for them. We will spend some time exploring
processes of revision, and look at drafts by poets whose worksheets have been
published. Due to the intensive workshop format of this course, attendance
and participation in discussion are crucial.
NOTE: If you are in a degree program at Saint Mary’s, you are advised to
take this course only if you’ve completed or are concurrently taking ENGL
2393.1(2) The Study of Poetry.
ENGL3405.1 CHAUCER: TROILUS AND CRISEYDE
Time: TR 2:30-3:45
Instructor: S. Morley
Description: This course will provide a general introduction to the works
of Geoffrey Chaucer by reading his most lauded long poem, Troilus and
Criseyde, in its original Middle English. We will examine his achievement as
a late medieval writer by considering his innovative experimentation with
literary texts, his fascination with issues of literary authority and ownership,
and his interests in how readers perceive and interpret the written word. We
will also pay attention to the social and cultural context of Chaucer’s work, its
influence on later writers and revisionist viewpoints of later periods, as well
as theoretical insights of current literary criticism.
The majority of the readings will be in Middle English, however, no prior
knowledge of Middle English is assumed and guidance will be given in the
reading of medieval English texts. This course will count as a medieval
literature requirement for the Honours program.
Texts: TBA
ENGL3410.1 EARLY 18th CENTURY LITERATURE
Time: MW 10:00-11:15
Instructor: D. Kennedy
Description: From coffeehouses to flying islands, the world of the
eighteenth century is full of surprises. This course focuses on the various
forms of English poetry and prose written from 1660 to 1750. It includes
writers such as Samuel Pepys, John Dryden, Anne Finch, Alexander Pope,
and Jonathan Swift. The course aims to present a diverse collection of
imaginative works from the eighteenth century on topics ranging from fashion
to politics to the literary life.
Texts: The Longman Anthology of British Literature, vol. 1C
(Fourth edition 2010)
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels (Oxford)
ENGL3421.2 POETRY & PROSE OF THE 17th CENTURY
Time: MW 11:30-12:45
Instructor: T. Takševa
Description: This course focuses on English poetry and prose of the 17th
century, and on the cultural and social contexts in which these texts
originated. The literature of the so-called early modern period reflects the
contemporary historical circumstances: the 17th century was a time of
turbulence and change, a time of great movement in the understanding of the
material, mental and political worlds. We will study the lyrics of the so-called
“metaphysical” school of poetry (both secular and devotional), and their
affinity with Baroque sensibility. We will also read selections from
contemporary texts on kingship, politics and rule, as well as philosophy and
science. Our goal will be to understand the important discourses and
ideologies that shaped the literature and culture of the 17th century, and to
trace the evolution of ideas from the early modern era to the present day.
Method of instruction: seminar model: discussion and collaborative learning
Texts: John Milton, Paradise Lost (Ed. A. Fowler), Norton Critical
Edition
Aphra Behn's Oronooko, or the Royal Slave (Ed. J. Todd),
Penguin
An instructor’s handout of selected 17th century texts and
modern criticism
ENGL3435.1 20th CENTURY EUROPEAN DRAMA
Time: T 4:00-6:30
Instructor: A. Watson
Description: A study of the principal European dramatists and theatrical
movements in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries with emphasis on the
ones that have most influenced drama written in English. Dramatists and
theorists of the theatre who will come under examination may include Ibsen,
Strindberg, Chekhov, Stanislavsky, Pirandello, Brecht, Artaud, Beckett,
Ionesco, Genet, and Weiss.
Texts: TBA
ENGL3443.2 IRISH POETRY
Time: TR 2:30-3:45
Instructor: S. Kennedy
Description: Drawing on the theoretical work of Michel Foucault, this
course will use Irish poetry, from W.B. Yeats to Paula Meehan, as a lens to
study the ways Irish writers have resisted and reframed official discourses
about Irish sex and sexualities.
Texts: TBA
ENGL3444.1 SHAKESPEARE I: COMEDIES
Time: MW 2:30-3:45
Instructor: T. Takševa
Description: In this course we will be studying a selection of
Shakespeare’s best loved comedies and romances. We will examine the plays
in the context of Shakespeare’s society as well as their modern critical
reception. We will be concerned with the plays’ status as performances in
Early Modern England and their contemporary reception, as well as the
revived interest in Shakespeare evidenced by many recent adaptations of the
plays, into film as well as other literary forms, such as Manga and novel. The
objective of the course is to provide students with deeper understanding of
Shakespeare’s most popular comedies and romances and their modern
interpretations in the context of popular culture.
Method of instruction: Informal lectures followed by discussion/group-
work.
Texts: The Taming of the Shrew (Cambridge University Press,
2009)
Twelfth Night, or What You Will (Modern Library, 2010)
The Merchant of Venice (Cambridge University Press,
2005)
Manga Shakespeare Series The Merchant of Venice
(SelfMadeHero, 2009)
The Tempest (Cambridge University Press, 2014)
Margaret Atwood, Hagseed (Knopf, 2016)
ENGL3446.2 SHAKESPEARE II: TRAGEDIES
Time: TR 10:00-11:15
Instructor: G. Stanivukovic
Description: In this course we will study a selection of Shakespeare’s
tragedies written and performed at different times in his long career as a
dramatist. We will explore these tragedies as both literary texts and as works
primarily intended for performance. In our discussions we will focus on
exploring affective, political, historical, social, and aesthetic features of
Shakespeare’s tragedies, and will ask the questions of what Shakespearean
tragedy is, why Shakespeare’s tragedies give pleasure, and what is tragic
about the actions of men and women in these plays.
Texts: Romeo and Juliet, Titus Andronicus, Anthony and
Cleopatra, Hamlet, and Macbeth
ENGL3461.1 BRITISH LITERATURE: 1945-2000
Time: MW 2:30-3:45
Instructor: R. Perkin
Description: The course surveys British literature from the end of the
Second World War to the conclusion of the twentieth century, and includes
works of poetry, prose, fiction, and drama. Attention will be paid to the
social, cultural, and historical contexts of the literature, with reference to
topics such as the end of the British empire, the Cold War and its aftermath,
and the growing importance of the electronic media. We will consider the
literary impact of the feminist movement and the writer’s relationship to
nature in an increasingly urbanized and mechanized country. Dramatists to
be studied include John Osborne and Caryl Churchill; poets include Dylan
Thomas, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes, Geoffrey Hill, and Carol Rumens. We
will read short fiction by Doris Lessing, Alan Sillitoe, and Zadie Smith, along
with David Lodge’s novel about growing up in post-war Britain, Out of the
Shelter.
.
Texts: The Broadview Anthology of British Literature, vol. 6B
The Late Twentieth Century and Beyond: From 1945 to the
Twenty-First Century, ed. Joseph Black (Broadview);
John Osborne, Look Back in Anger (Faber);
David Lodge, Out of the Shelter (Vintage).
ENGL3470.2 CONTEMPORARY NOVEL
Time: W 4:00-6:30
Instructor: T. Heffernan
Description: From apocalyptic preoccupations to globalization and
cosmopolitanism to advances in science and technology to posthumanism,
this course will track the novel in the late twentieth and early twenty-first
century.
Texts: Cormac McCarthy, The Road;
Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go;
Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake;
Aravind Adiga, White Tiger;
Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents
ENGL3481.1 19th CENTURY NOVEL I
Time: TR 1:00-2:15
Instructor: S. Malton
Description: This course addresses the British novel of the first half of
the nineteenth century, taking account of the development of the genre and its
place as an important cultural form in an era of turbulent change. As we
examine its various manifestations -- the gothic, the “autobiographical”
narrative, the social problem novel -- we shall consider the novel’s
engagement with such issues as economic unrest; changing notions of class
and gender; biological science and evolution; and British industrial and
imperial expansion.
Texts: Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey (1817)
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (1847)
Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (1847)
Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton (1848)
Charles Dickens, Hard Times (1854)
Course Pack
Notes: This course makes a useful companion to English 3484.2 (Victorian
Poetry and Prose II), which will be offered in the Winter 2018 term.
Students should have completed a minimum of 6 credit hours at the 2000
level prior to enrolling in 3481. Those students with questions on these
matters are encouraged to consult the Professor in advance.
ENGL3484.2 VICTORIAN POETRY AND PROSE II
Time: TR 1:00-2:15
Instructor: S. Malton
Description: This course focuses on the poetry and prose of the later
Victorian period, including poets such as Matthew Arnold, The Rossettis,
William Morris, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Thomas Hardy, and prose
writers such as John Henry Newman, Charles Darwin, Matthew Arnold,
Walter Pater, and Oscar Wilde. It intended to provide a means for conceiving
of literature in the context of some of the major social and cultural concerns
of the period; attention will therefore be paid to such issues as the aesthetic
movement; the definition of culture; the crisis of religious faith; technology,
industrialism, and imperialism; medievalism; and the Woman Question. The
role and development of specific forms – the essay, the monologue, elegy,
sonnet – in the literature of the period will also be central to our study.
Texts: The Broadview Anthology of British Literature Vol. 5: The
Victorian Era.
Notes: This course makes a useful companion to English 3481.1 (Ninteenth-Century
Novel I), which will be offered in the Fall 2017 term.
Students should have completed a minimum of 6 credit hours at the 2000
level prior to enrolling in 3484. Those students with questions on these
matters are encouraged to consult the Professor in advance.
ENGL3511.2 FILM AND THE CITY
Time: W 4:00-8:00
Instructor: J. VanderBurgh
Description: Since cinema’s emergence in 1895, films have represented
urban life. This course will engage in textual analysis of “city films”––a genre
of narrative films whose representation of cities comments on political, social,
spatial, and temporal aspects of contemporary urbanity. As actual cities and
understandings of cities are historically and culturally derived, the course will
adopt a roughly chronological approach and focus on films and theoretical
ideas about the city and cinema from Europe and North America.
Class time will include a lecture and a screening.
Texts: TBA
ENGL3534.1 LITERATURE OF MODERN IRELAND
Time: TR 10:00-11:15
Instructor: S. Kennedy
Description: This course will use Ireland as a case study in anti-colonial
revolution. Drawing on the works of Ireland’s major revolutionaries and
writers, including Patrick Pearse, James Connolly, Constance Markievicz,
Lady Gregory, James Joyce and W.B Yeats, we will examine how and why
colonised peoples resist, and what the long term effects of colonialism, and its
overthrow, might be.
Text: TBA
ENGL3829.2 LITERATURES OF THE BLACK ATLANTIC
Time: MW 10:00-11:15
Instructor: H. Saroukhani
Description: “The history of the black Atlantic yields a course of lessons
as to the instability and mutability of identities which are always unfinished,
always being remade.”
− Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic:
Modernity and Double Consciousness
This course examines transnational literatures from African, Caribbean,
European and North American contexts with a focus on the multidirectional
networks and the distinctive poetics of water that constitute the historical and
literary formation of the black Atlantic. We will cover a range of texts from
music, film, and art to literature. Writers examined may include: Olaudah
Equiano, Phillis Wheatley, Claude McKay, James Baldwin, Derek Walcott,
Dionne Brand, Lawrence Hill, Bernardine Evaristo and Caryl Phillips.
Texts: TBA
ENGL3462.1 POST-1945 BLACK BRITISH WRITING
Time: MW 10:00-11:15
Instructor: H. Saroukhani
Description “The sadness for a lot of black literature, though, is that we have
mainly been remarked upon and desired for our content. Ever since the
eighteenth-century days of Olaudah Equiano, whose depictions of the slave
experience helped fuel the abolitionist movement in Britain, or the nineteenth-
century days of Frederick Douglass in America, you could argue that black
writing has been prized chiefly for its ability to bring information about lives
beyond the experience of your average book buyer.”
– Diran Adebayo (2007)
This course introduces students to post-1945 black British writing in ways
that remain attentive to the political, ethical and aesthetic ground of their
formation. Through the work of key thinkers (such as Stuart Hall, Darcus
Howe, and Paul Gilroy), alongside a selection of generically diverse texts
(novels, films, poetry), we will examine the critical debates surrounding black
British writing which engage with histories of slavery and colonization, the
aesthetics of modernism and postmodernism, race and anti-racism, concepts
of diaspora and the black Atlantic, the politics of location and representation,
and the influence of globalization and discourses of cosmopolitanism. The
course gives students an opportunity to investigate a vibrant field of study that
explores how notions of race, class and nation have constituted this
increasingly heterodox and politicized category of writing.
Texts: Sam Selvon, The Lonely Londoners (Penguin Modern
Classics)
Linton Kwesi Johnson, Selected Poems (Penguin)
Hanif Kureishi, My Beautiful Laundrette (in-class
screening)
Hanif Kureishi, The Buddha of Suburbia (Penguin)
Caryl Phillips, Crossing the River (Vintage)
Zadie Smith, Swing Time (Hamish Hamilton)
ENGL4466.1 REPRESENTATION OF INDIGENOUS
WOMANHOOD
Time: W 4:00-6:30
Instructor: S. Muse Isaacs
Description: Indigenous women of Turtle Island (North America) have
experienced oppression and dislocation from land, communities, spirituality,
and traditional roles as a result of European colonization. These dislocations
are accomplished in part through practices of representation that entrench
widespread misunderstandings of Indigenous women through a dichotomy
described by Janice Acoose as “easy squaws or Indian princesses.” In this
course, we will explore writings and cultural productions by and about
Indigenous women that articulate and interpret dislocations and acts of
oppression arising from the following: creation and perpetuation within
colonizer literature and other productions of inaccurate and stereotypical
images; colonizer-institutionalized policies of both Canada and the United
States; media and societal-influenced attitudes about the role and positions of
Native women, and; physical, spiritual, sexualized and racialized images
which have caused and furthered oppressive and genocidal actions against
Indigenous women, including murder. Genres to be studied include
auto/biography, fiction, poetry, theater, media (mainstream and alter/native),
and documentary film.
Texts: Course Pack and TBA
ENGL4470.2 RISE AND FALL OF THE PRINTED BOOK
Time: MW 2:30-3:45
Instructor: T. Takševa
Description: This course focuses on the history of the printed book and
examines the phenomenon of mass literacy and its implications for different
types of literature. The course will examine what it meant to be a reader and a
writer during the Late Age of Print (mid-and late 20th century), and compare
those findings with forms of reading writing that are emerging today in the
Digital Era, propelled by rapid developments in information and
communication technologies. We will start by investigating the history of
reading and the printed book. Through the lens of New Media studies and
theory, we will then study the impact of social media such as Facebook and
Twitter on language, literacy, reading habits as well as modes of thinking. We
will also pay some attention to emerging literary genres such as the cell-
phone novel, digital fanfiction and transmedia narrative. We will engage with
questions such as, what is literature? How is its value determined? To what
extent does the medium mediate the message, that is, how does technology
influence language, and how we read and write?
Method of instruction: seminar model: informal lectures; discussion/group
work
Texts: Instructor’s handout/Brightspace files
ENGL4488.2 THE POST-1945 BRITISH NOVEL
Time: TR 10:00-11:15
Instructor: R. Perkin
Description: The year 1945 is often seen as a new beginning in British
history, not only because the Second World War ended, but because the
Labour Party won a surprising and historic victory in the general election of
that year. This course will emphasize the way that British fiction reflects
social and political developments from 1945 to the late twentieth century,
including the Cold War, the dismantling of the British empire, the sexual
revolution and women’s movement, and globalization.
Texts: George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (Penguin);
Graham Greene, The End of the Affair (Vintage);
Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Penguin);
John Fowles, The French Lieutenant’s Woman (Little,
Brown);
V. S. Naipaul, The Enigma of Arrival (Vintage).
ENGL4493.2 DOING DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
Time: MW 1:00-2:15
Instructor: E. Asp
Description: This course focuses on learning how to analyze written and
spoken texts using models from linguistics, semiotics and structuralism. The
main goal is to develop your ability to analyze interactional, organizational
and experiential functions as reflected in linguistic patterns in discourse as
well as investigating conversation analysis, speech act theory, relevance
theory, and theories of discourse structure (e.g. narrative) and genre (e.g.
romance novels, psychiatric interviews, war reporting). In the process of
learning how to analyze discourses, we'll look at specific applications of
discourse analysis techniques and their relevance in addressing questions in
such widely varied areas as social-political thought (critical discourse
analysis), medicine (doctor-patient interactions, talk therapies, clinical
discourse analysis), law (forensic discourse analysis), education (teacher-
student interactions, literacy skills, socio-cognitive development), and literary
and cultural studies broadly.
Texts: TBA
ENGL4826.1 LITERARY CULTURES OF ATLANTIC CANADA
Time: R 1:00-3:30
Instructor: R. Hulan
Description: In this course, we will explore the making of literary culture
in Atlantic Canada by paying close attention to the literary genres and modes
used to imagine the pasts of Newfoundland and Labrador. From the
“Newfcult” or “Newfoundland renaissance” of the 1970s and 1980s to the
Burning Rock Collective in the 1990s, the literary culture of Newfoundland
and Labrador has been shaped by persistent themes such as exile, struggle,
and loss rooted in the interpretation of colonial, confederation, and post-
confederation history. In addition to critical articles available on-line and/or
on reserve in the Patrick Power Library, students will read literary works by
Lydia Campbell, Margaret Clarke, Michael Crummey, Wayne Johnston,
Carmelita McGrath, Lisa Moore, John Steffler, and Kathleen Winter among
others.
Format: Seminar
Texts: TBA
Note: This course is cross-listed with a graduate course in ACST. Separate
grading schemes will be used for graduate and undergraduate students.
ENGL4555.1 HONOURS SEMINAR: LITERATURE AND
PSYCHOANALYSIS
Time: W 4:00-6:30
Instructor: S. Kennedy
Description: This course will examine the origins of psychoanalysis in
literature as well as the psychoanalysis of literature in literary theory. As well
as reading founding texts, such as Oedipus Rex and Hamlet, we will read
early case studies by Freud and others and look also at key moments in the
history of the relationship between these two institutions, such as the great
age of hysteria and the rest-cure.
Texts: TBA
ENGL4556.2 HONOURS SEMINAR: THEATRE ON THEATRE
Time: W 4:00-6:30
Instructor: A. Watson
Description: TBA
Texts: TBA
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Future Seminars:
Honours Seminars 2018-2019
Spectacular History: Culture, Memory, Monument in C19 Culture
S. Malton – Fall 2018
Politics and British Literature in the 1970s
R. Perkin – Winter 2019
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