Detailed Course Descriptions | English Language and Literature

100-Level | 200-Level | 300-Level | 400-Level

This page gives fuller descriptions of English courses based on past syllabi. Note that the specific details of syllabi can vary from term to term, so there may be some variation in course content. See the Undergraduate Calendar for official catalogue descriptions.

100-Level Courses

Fiction (ENGL 100A): In this course students learn the fundamentals of the novel and short fiction, from its roots in other forms such as the epic to the rise of the short story cycle. The course will focus on the conventions of these two forms and the key terms coined for their analysis in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Course readings in assignments will develop your skills in argumentation, organization, and analysis. At the end of the course, students should be able accurately to use appropriate literary terminology to discuss the varieties of prose narrative covered in the course.

Poetry (ENGL 100B): An introduction to poetry through a detailed examination of a range of poetic texts.

Drama (ENGL 100C): An introduction to dramatic literature through the detailed examination of a range of dramatic texts.

Introduction to Literary Studies (ENGL 101A): We will be reading and analysing texts from Western culture, in English translation where necessary, from antiquity to the present-day. We will focus on the three major genres of imaginative literature: drama, poetry, and prose fiction, together with a brief historical overview of the period in which they were composed, and an investigation into some critical arguments about them. We will also explore some of the rudimentary elements of literary theory.

Introduction to Rhetorical Studies (ENGL 101B): This class seeks to introduce students to the essential concepts, frameworks, and controversies in the history and theory of rhetoric by analyzing key selections from foundational texts, both ancient and contemporary. In addition to demonstrating the relevance of rhetorical theory and criticism to a variety of social, intellectual, and cultural fields (law, politics, philosophy, literature, advertising, etc.), the class also explores emerging forms of rhetorical practice made possible by new media technologies, such as propaganda, computational gaming, and information warfare. Students will leave the class with a firm grasp of basic concepts of rhetorical theory, a sense of the history of rhetoric, and deeper appreciation for rhetoric as an inventive, critical, multimodal, and multidisciplinary enterprise—what Quintilian calls an “encompassing art” (ars circumcurrens).

Introduction to Literature and Rhetoric (ENGL 101C): This course examines the interrelationships between literature and rhetoric through the study of a range of literary and rhetorical genres and elements.

Combating Racisms (ENGL 103): This course examines historical and contemporary practices, theories, principles, figures, and allies of anti-racism. Students will learn methods of communicating and pursuing anti-racism in culture, society, and in personal and professional interracial relationships. Coursework will immerse students in recognizing language, behaviours, institutions, and discourses that maintain white supremacies and further enable racist policies and practices in North America. Students will be challenged to apply course material to real issues of racisms in local contexts and communities.

Rhetoric in Popular Culture (ENGL 104): This course explores how popular culture can persuade, influence, and convince in ordinary life. Using a variety of rhetorical methods, we will analyze a range of artefacts in this class, including – but not limited to – advertising, comics, film, television, theatre, music videos, technology, video games, and blogs. The goals of this course are both theoretical and practical: we aim to first understand rhetorical methods, and then to apply those methods in order to identify and explore the various forms of popular culture that surround us.

The Superhero (ENGL 108A): An examination of hero figures, ranging broadly from ancient characters such as Gilgamesh to the modern comic book superhero. Literary as well as nonliterary materials (e.g., film, comics, games) will be considered. The objective of this course is to track our cultural fascination with superheroes throughout the past century and place it within a broader literary context of the hero figure in general. Why are we drawn to the superhero? What cultural values are reflected through the superhero? What does the superhero say about us and our society in contrast to earlier societies? How does the superhero compare to older mythologies? Additionally, the course will seek to cultivate active reading and analytical skills alongside essay-writing ability

Global English Literatures (ENGL 108B): English is a language not just of global business but also of world literatures. The spread of English in its many forms and dialects has had a profound influence on English literary studies, especially in the 20th and 21st centuries. But what does it mean to call “English” a “global language,” and how have writers from around the world used English to shape and articulate their own worldviews? Questions that will inform this course include the following: What role did British imperialism play in the spread of English language and literature? How do people who are not of British background use English to express their own views, experiences, and identities? How are sound and meaning connected? What role does myth play in the literary imagination?

Digital Lives (ENGL 108D): This course examines how digital communication technologies construct and constrain the formation of online identities and social spaces. More specifically, we will explore the technical, cultural, and social forces that make digital lives both familiar and unfamiliar, traditional and subversive. In addition to studying the who, what, where, why, and how of “digital lives,” this course is focused on helping you develop your skills as an academic reader and writer in the discipline of English. This course will frame two primary analytical methods, self- presentation online and participatory culture. We will use these critical tools to look at several thematics that include Civic Life Online, Digital Media and Credibility, Gender, Race & Ethnicity, and Game Ecologies, among others.

Gender and Representation (ENGL 108E): A study of the ways gender in all its diversity is constructed and gendered experience is expressed in literature, rhetoric, and a variety of media.

The Rebel (ENGL 108F): We will be looking at various kinds of rebels and acts of rebellion by examining different works of literature in which the protagonist rebels against existing norms. The course will look at how the rebel is defined, providing insight into issues of authority, challenges to authority, social expectations regarding what constitutes appropriate behaviour, and whether or not rebellion is justified. We will also look at the role that politics, culture, nation, race, religion, and gender play in the textual construction of rebels. To this end, the course will be looking at a variety of literary and artistic genres including poetry, fiction, prose, photography, film and activism.

Horror (ENGL 108G): A study of the contemporary horror genre in literature and film. Topics may include the history of horror, the construction of fear, and the development of horror archetypes. Authors and creators may include H.P. Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson, George Romero, and Stephen King.

Popular Potter (ENGL 108P): This course teaches critical perspectives on the first seven Harry Potter novels by J. K. Rowling. Since the release of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in 1997 (or the Sorcerer's Stone in its American publication), the series has gone on to achieve global popularity, selling millions of copies and inspiring a media empire of films, amusement park attractions, videogames, and more. Given this massive influence on popular culture, it becomes important to examine Harry Potter critically, and the main objective of this course will be to discuss how the series addresses real world issues in a fantasy setting and where it fits into larger forms of cultural significance. Where does Rowling's work in terms of the traditions of fantasy, children's literature, and young adult literature? How does it address larger themes such as pedagogy, growing up, and family? Does the series engage well with contemporary issues of gender and race? Why has it been so successful in inspiring devoted creative works and fandoms? What purpose, if any, does the Harry Potter series and popular culture at large serve in how we live our lives?

Tolkien: From Book to Film (ENGL 108T): A study of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954-55), and their film adaptations by Peter Jackson (2001-03, 2012-14). The works will be explored in the context of adaptation studies, particularly the relationship of source text to adapted work, as well as transmedia studies.

Literature and Medicine (ENGL 108X): How can literature help us understand the body, illness, and healing? The course considers the perspectives of patients and medical practitioners across a range of works, including poetry, fiction, medical texts, and other nonfiction.

Introduction to Academic Writing (ENGL 109): The course will explore a variety of issues in academic writing such as style, argument, and the presentation of information. English 109 is designed to get you comfortable writing in an academic context. You will learn about different forms of academic writing, as well as the processes that great writers engage in to create their best work. You will read texts to learn more about how they were written, and thus to improve your own writing. Because we value learning as a social activity, and thus recognize that writers and readers learn from one another, much of your work in English 109 will involve different kinds of collaboration with your peers.

Communications in Mathematics & Computer Science (ENGL 119): This course aims to build students' oral and written communication skills to prepare them for academic and workplace demands. Working independently and in collaboration with others, students will analyze and produce various written and spoken forms of communication. Projects and assignments will draw on materials for Mathematics and Computer Science students. By the end of the term you should gain confidence in your ability to complete research and communication projects. You should also improve your skills in working as part of a team, communicating, practicing professional behaviour, and making oral presentations.

Prereq: Honours Mathematics students

Written Academic English (ENGL 129R): Designed specifically for students for whom English is not the first language, this writing skills course provides instruction in grammar, sentence and paragraph structure, elements of composition, and academic essay writing, including a focus on theme, development of central ideas, exposition, and argumentation.The course also provides instruction in grammatical accuracy, written fluency, and conventional essay patterns. ENGL 129R is not open to students with native-like, near-native, or similar advanced ability.

Introduction to Modern Arab and Muslim Drama (ENGL 132R): The course explores contemporary Arab and Muslim drama in English (1940s-present) from multiple perspectives, including literary, social, economic, and political.

The Use of English (ENGL 140R): Many of us are under the false impression that there is a universal Standard Academic English (SAE). For the most part, English-Only policies populate the North American academy and workplace. However, English is in fact what Min-Zhan Lu calls a “living” language or a language that is constantly evolving and challenging standardized usages. Language diversity challenges linguistic imperialism or dominant language ideologies. We will study and evaluate language as it used for a variety of purposes (i.e. colloquial, political, literary, academic, and journalistic) in order to develop critical awareness as well as oral presentation, editing, and writing skills.

Shakespeare (ENGL 190): Designed for students in all faculties, the course examines some of Shakespeare's comedies, history plays, and tragedies. Its principal aim is to make us better – more careful, more perceptive, more knowledgeable – readers of Shakespeare's plays, and thereby to make us more alert and alive to the problems that the plays invite us to experience and contemplate and to the pleasures that they invite us to share. Although we cannot hope to know these plays with any finality, we can become more aware of their involvement with the issues of their time and of the challenges and opportunities they present to modern readers. Shakespeare's variety and flexibility in developing characters and dramatic structures are stressed, as are significant themes.
[Note: No previous work in Shakespeare is required.]

Communication in the Engineering Profession (AE, CIVE, ENVE, GEOE) (ENGL 191): In this course students in Architectural, Civil, Environmental, and Geological Engineering will enhance oral and written communication competencies in contexts relevant to the engineering profession.

Communication in the Engineering Profession (COMPE, ELE, MGTE) (ENGL 192): In this course students in Computer, Electrical, and Management Engineering will enhance oral and written communication competencies in contexts relevant to the engineering profession.

Communication in the Sciences (ENGL 193): In this course students will enhance oral and written communication competencies in contexts relevant to the life sciences and physical sciences.

200-Level Courses

English Literatures 1 (ENGL 200A): An introduction to the diverse forms and voices of literature written in English from the Middle Ages to the late 18th century, focussing on key writers and works, including works by women and people of colour. Students will explore literary techniques, historical and cultural contexts, and the question of the canon.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

English Literatures 2 (ENGL 200B): An introduction to the diverse forms and voices of literature written in English from the late 18th century to the present, focussing on key writers and works from Britain and North America, and including works by women and people of colour. Students will explore literary techniques, historical and cultural contexts, and the question of the canon.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

English Literatures 3 (ENGL 200C): An introduction to literature written by people of colour and Indigenous and Black authors. Using a postcolonial and anti-racist framework, this course examines historical and contemporary issues of race, racism, and colonialism in a variety of literary texts.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

The Short Story (ENGL 201): This course is designed as an overview of the short story in English. We will read stories from a variety of geographies, histories, and narrative traditions, from Ireland to India, from the Southern Gothic to the autobiographical. We will examine the history and theory of the short story as a distinct narrative form. We will incorporate earlier stories that challenge the history of the short story as a twentieth-century form, later stories that challenge its generic norms, and stories in translation that have influenced the tradition in English.

The Bible and Literature 1 (ENGL 202A): In this course you will become familiar with the major stories and themes of the Old Testament. You will also be introduced to the Old Testament's major genres, symbols, and poetic structures. At the end of the course you will be able to anticipate New Testament elements in the Old Testament and to recognize allusions to the Old Testament in a variety of literary works.

The Bible and Literature 2 (ENGL 202B): A study of the major stories, themes and literary characteristics of the New Testament of the King James Bible and of its influence on English literature. More information coming soon.

Designing Digital Media (ENGL 203): This course draws on multiple theoretical perspectives to introduce students to the fundamental principles of multi-modal communication design in its social context. Students will analyze, design, and produce digital media for use in a variety of platforms.

Prereq: Honours English students only.

Designing Digital Video (ENGL 204): This course introduces students to the principles of designing time-based multi-modal communication in a social context. Students will analyze, design, and produce video for use in a variety of digital platforms.

The Canadian Short Story (ENGL 205R): Exploration of the Canadian short story, from its beginnings - in the bush, in the north, on the land, in the small towns - through the struggles of an urbanizing society to the present. Students will be expected to work in some depth with individual authors.

Writing Lives (ENGL 206): This course studies the ways the self is constructed through text by examining a variety of life-writing approaches, organized from youth to old age, along with theories of identity, memory, gender, narrative, cultural studies, and autobiography as a genre.

Forms of Fantasy (ENGL 208A): This course deals with contemporary fantasy narratives, in literature and other media, and the myths and legends that inspire them. The main objective of this course is to examine how fantasy worlds are built, and how those fantasy worlds engage (or fail to engage) with social and political issues in the real world. We will begin by learning different ways of defining the genre and learning a few different political frameworks (feminism, critical race theory, disability studies) we can use to evaluate the genre. Then, students in this class will answer questions such as: How do fantasy narratives shape our understanding of world history? How are social or political issues represented in fantasy narratives? Whose fantasy is represented? How do traditionally underrepresented groups create their own fantasy worlds?

Science Fiction (ENGL 208B): The course examines works that generally fall under the generic heading "science fiction." Texts will include examples of various science fiction sub-genres, including Utopian and anti-Utopian science fiction, social science fiction, "gadget" science fiction, parapsychology, and alternate worlds fiction. The course will examine the literary, social, and political significance of individual texts and explore the nature of science fiction as a genre.

Studies in Children's Literature (ENGL 208C): This course will develop a critical understanding of the genre of children's literature. Throughout the course we wil explore the historical construction of children's literature as well as the internal structure of the specific texts we will be reading. By exploring the recurring themes of these texts and how these themes shift between texts, we will also begin to understand what "child" means and has meant at various points in western history over the past four hundred years.

Women's Writing (ENGL 208E): This course explores a range of women's writing and the social and cultural contexts in which they made their voices heard.

Gothic Monsters (ENGL 208G): A study of monstrosity, fear, terror, and horror in the gothic mode from its origins to the present, with attention to the ways various genres (from the novel to new media) represent gothic sexualities, genders, politics, and aesthetics.

Detective Fiction (ENGL 208K): This course is designed to introduce you to the expansive and generative genre of detective stories or crime fiction, and to some of the critical thought that surrounds it. We will read a variety of detective texts from Canada, the United States, and Britain, both to see how the genre has changed across time, and to analyse how detective fiction has adapted to and responded to changes in cultural contexts. Because the field of detective stories, novels, television shows, and films is enormous, we will focus on novels and short stories in our main reading list, but you will have the opportunity to explore other mediums and genres.

Race and the Literary Tradition (ENGL 208L): How have ideas of race been represented, transmitted, and resisted in the canon of literature in English over the centuries? Topics may include the invention of race, Eurocentrism and imaginative geography, racial beauty myths, internalized racism, and issues of gender, sexuality, and colonialism.

Travel Literature (ENGL 208M): The course examines the forms and functions of travel literature as a genre. Topics will include the representation of travel as adventure, discovery, pilgrimage, and escape; travel and tourism; travel and gender; travel and colonialism.

Sex in Literature (ENGL 208N): This course examines how varieties of sexual desire, sexual activity, and cultural attitudes to sex are represented in a selection of literary works from the middle ages to the present.

Advanced Academic Writing (ENGL 209): This course will explore relationships between audience, situation, purpose, and form in academic writing in the disciplines. One of the best ways to learn to write is by writing, and for that reason students in this course will be asked to do a lot of inventing, drafting, and revising. Sharing work with others, either in peer-response sessions or in collaborative writing groups, promotes learning about writing by widening the response writers get to their work. Finally, reading constitutes another importrant component of learning to write and guidance from texts will help you answer questions you may have or suggest ways to go about the business of writing.

Prereq: Level at least 1B.

Genres of Creative Writing (ENGL 210C): This course introduces students to both contemporary and historical forms of creative writing. Students will explore genres of poetry, prose, and/or drama through their own writing. Students will also investigate the culture of publishing, learn key revision strategies, and workshop the writing of their peers to develop their critical abilities.

Genres of Technical Communication (ENGL 210E): This course explores writing, presentation, and design across various genres of technical communication, with a primary focus on printed and/or online computer documentation. We will be primarily concerned with the theory and application of rhetoric in document analysis and design; that is, what makes a “good” (or bad) technical document? How can we improve upon existing industry practices? Although we will be drawing from the text throughout the term, much of the course will be focused on practical applications of analysis and design.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Genres of Business Communication (ENGL 210F): Assignments in English 210F will introduce you to the major genres of business writing, and help you develop the critical thinking skills necessary to define your purpose and audience—why and for whom you are writing. You will also develop your ability to write persuasively using key rhetorical principles and appeals to ethos, logic, and emotion. You will learn how to present an argument for common real world scenarios such as recommending a course of action or maintaining trust and goodwill with your clientele. But most importantly, English 210F will help develop your ability to communicate in a professional, concise, and appropriate style for the business world.

Prereq: Level at least 1B.
Offered only online.

Genres of Fundraising Communication (ENGL 210G): This course covers researching, organizing, drafting, and editing documents used to raise funds in contexts such as public and charitable organizations, academic research, and the arts. Students will design and write materials such as grant proposals, applications, and fundraising campaigns, using traditional and digital media. Students will have the opportunity to cater projects to their specific needs and objectives as fundraisers.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Arts Writing (ENGL 210H): A study of the various forms, processes, and modes of publication of professional writing in the arts. The course will consider both freelance writing and writing within institutional contexts. Pracice in research, writing, and editing will be emphasized.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Legal Writing (ENGL 210I): A study of the principles, processes, and various forms of writing used in the practice of law and drafting of legislation. The history and structure of legal writing, including current debates about plain language, will be examined.

Technical Editing (ENGL 210J): This course will introduce students to practices and tools of technical editing, such as language and format editing, verification and fact-checking, style guide consistency, discourse appropriateness, and the use of profession-specific software.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

First Nations, Metis, and Inuit Literatures (ENGL 211): This course is an introduction to indigenous literatures in Canada. We will read works in several genres—novels, poetry, drama, essay, oratory, autobiography, and more. We will study texts that date back to the 19^th century or earlier, as well as more recent texts, with an eye to connecting them, thereby creating an awareness of how the past continues to shape the present. Our analyses will be informed by indigeneous literary criticism, which draws our attention to how indigenous literatures affirm indigenous knowledge, world views, and values.

Literature and the Law (ENGL 213): A study of literary works that involve legal matters and/or have led to litigation on such grounds as obscenity, treason, heresy, libel, and plagiarism. More information coming soon.

Canadian Children's Literature (ENGL 217): A study of 19th- and 20th-century Canadian literature for children.

Monstrous Hunger (ENGL 221): In this course students will explore the role eating plays in emotional and physical well-being. Through close reading of literary texts and other textual objects, students will build an understanding of eating as a biological necessity that requires the confrontation of one's relationships with others, the environment, and one's own body and health. Furthermore, in gaining an ability to use the concepts of eating/food studies, students will not only consider how eating is an encounter with one's bodily vulnerabilities and dependencies but also ask how acts of and attitudes towards eating can become monstrous.

Health, Illness, and Narrative (ENGL 222): What stories do we tell ourselves about our bodies, relationships, and lives as we try - individually and as a culture - to be "healthy"? And how do stories help us cope with the uncertain, often scary, and sometimes tragic scenarios when illness replaces health? In this course students will pursue these questions by exploring the role narrative plays in our broader perceptions of health and illness. Through discussion and writing, students will analyze a range of media and genres to gain insight into the larger cultural discourses and social institutions that shape our understanding of these topics.

Introduction to Anti-Racist Communication (ENGL 225): This course surveys the rhetorical strategies of both more recent and historical civil rights and anti-racist activists. Students will use Black rhetorical theory and will examine work by international historical figures such as Franz Fanon, Aime Cesaire, Edouard Glissant, Albert Memmi, and Mohandas Gandhi, Frederick Douglas, WEB Dubois, Martin Luther King, Fannie Lou Hamer, Malcolm X, Angela Davis, Stokely Carmichael, Fred Hampton, Robert Hill, and Walter Rodney and such recent figures as Kimberle Crenshaw, Robyn Maynard, Brittney Cooper, Desmond Cole, Feminista Jones, Rinaldo Walcott, and Idil Abdillahi. The objective for students is to understand the evolution of liberatory, anti-racist rhetoric and the rhetorical successes and failures of key anti-racist activists.

Prereq: Level at least 2A or students pursuing the Diploma in Black Studies or the Diploma in Fundamentals of Anti-Racist Communication

The Pleasure of Poetry (ENGL 230): This course is an introduction to the enjoyment of poetry: what we like about it, what makes it fun, and how we can enjoy it more. Students will have an opportunity to expand their understanding of poetry. A range of poems will be sampled, and students will have opportunities to share poems that they like.

Graphic Narrative (ENGL 232): A study of graphic narrative (such as comics, graphic novels, and alternative modes) from the eighteenth century to the present. This course addresses issues such as the history and formal conventions of the medium as well as the unique rhetoric of comics-based storytelling. Topics of interest may include graphic memoir, multimodality, cross-cultural influence, and the comics-as-literature movement.

Sexual Health and Well-Being in Comics (ENGL 233): This course will present a concentrated history of the major trends and patterns within the representation of human sexuality and sexual health in 20th- and 21st-century comics art. Students will be introduced to the unique and powerful role that comics have played in representing sexuality and sexual well-being through exposure to various artists and scholars on the subject. Students will explore key concepts through close readings of relevant texts, and through the application of key theoretical materials, modeling the kind of analytical work that students will then produce themselves in both discussion and written assignments.

Migration, Diaspora, and Exile in Muslim Narratives (ENGL 240R): This course examines Muslim narratives written in the diaspora, such as from North America or the United Kingdom. It investigates the diversity of Islamic culture and expression in diasporic contexts, exploring an array of experiences and issues written from various sociocultural locations.

Sacred Spaces and Human Geographies in Muslim Literary Expressions (ENGL 241R): Using the Muslim dimension as a central theme, this course explores the social, cultural, and political implications to be found in a range of postcolonial literatures from Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East. Students investigate issues such as identities, nationalism and politics, cultural memory, and sacred space and place.

Literature, Rhetoric, and the Visual Arts (ENGL 242): This course will study literature and rhetoric in dialogue with the visual arts, including potential materials such as paintings, photography, illustrations, sculpture, monuments and memorials, installation art, multimedia and digital media. Course material will draw on a variety of literary and rhetorical genres, historical periods, and forms of visual art.

Literature, Rhetoric, and Music (ENGL 243): This course explores the cultural, historical, and aesthetic relationships between literature, rhetoric, and music. Course materials may draw on a range of historical periods and themes, as well as a variety of literary, lyrical, and musical genres. Attention will be paid to ways that literary, rhetorical, and musical arts exist in artistic dialogue.

American Literature and Popular Culture (ENGL 247): The subject of this course is the vast, lively field defined by the relationship between literature (usually considered "high") and popular culture (usually considered "low"), and by the history of their interaction in the United States. Media covered may include books, movies, and television shows.

Literature for an Ailing Planet (ENGL 248): Can the humanities change how cultures relate to environments and the natural world? This course surveys environmental thought in works of literature and in popular culture.

Literary Theory and Criticism (ENGL 251): What exactly are we doing when we study literature? By examining a selection of critical methods and theoretical approaches, this course will enhance understanding of the many different emphases, values, and priorities critics bring to literature, and the many available perspectives on what constitutes literature's significance.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Manga (ENGL 262): Manga is graphic narrative from Japan that draws on complex historical contexts, global influences, and stylistic conventions in order to create a unique storytelling medium. By studying manga texts such as Dororo, Akira, and Deathnote, students in this course will be encouraged to think critically about visual narrative, cultural values in a global marketplace, and literature as a concept.

Fiction and Film (ENGL 275): A study of the relationships between written and cinematic narrative, focussing on adaptations of fiction to film and the different narrative techniques of each medium. Students will examine a range of works in both fiction and film, explore technical, theoretical, and contextual matters relating to narrative representation in fiction and in film, and develop an increased capacity to write effectively about narrative representation.

Literatures of Migration (ENGL 280): This course explores the literatures and cultures of diasporic and immigrant communities in North America, such as African, Asian, Caribbean, Middle Eastern, and Latin American. Topics to be covered may include memory, race, hybridity, home, and belonging.

Global Shakespeare (ENGL 290): An introduction to Shakespeare's continuing influence, focusing on adaptations and appropriations of his works in various media by contemporary writers, artists, and directors around the globe.

Global Literatures (ENGL 291): An examination of literature from around the world that explores such themes as colonialism, migration, transnationalism, and the global. More information coming soon.

Rhetorical Theory and Criticism (ENGL 292): This course provides a survey of the multidisciplinary field of rhetorical studies. In addition to introducing key concepts, theoretical frameworks, and critical debates, this course examines the role of rhetoric in a range of academic disciplines and social contexts.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Introduction to Digital Media Studies (ENGL 293): This course aims to introduce students to the ways in which new media of all types is examined and studied in the humanities. My hope is that by surveying many different types of new media and new media cultures students can determine what types of media they would like to examine for the final project and in their future studies. The connecting theme in this class is “media changing culture and culture changing media”, most of our discussions will revolve around how people and their culture(s) change technology by using it, and by portraying it in art, and how technology has then changed the way we live and the way we make art. By focusing on this reciprocal relationship between art culture and technology we will be able to see the connections between how technology is created, adopted, and made obsolete and how we portray and use that technology in our lives and art.

Introduction to Critical Game Studies (ENGL 294): This course introduces students to the field of humanities-based game studies. Topics may include the debate between ludological (rules-based) and narratological (story-based) approaches, procedural studies, platform and software studies, gamification, games and adaptation studies, and games as rhetorical objects.

Social Media (ENGL 295): This course surveys the popular social media landscape and charts scholarly approaches, both methodological and theoretical, to understanding and analyzing social media texts. Potential topics include memes, social networks, fan communities, digital identity, labour, sociality, trolling, ownership, and regulation. This course will enable you to critically analyze social media texts; evaluate the source, content, audience, and effects of social media; identify organizational and regulatory constraints in the social media system; understand and reproduce the codes of media texts such as memes and viral content; and assess key issues in social media such as regulation, labour and privacy.

300-Level Courses

Special Topics in Digital Design (ENGL 303): In this course students will learn advanced digital design theory. They will participate in workshops with professional designers, develop specialized digital materials, and contribute signature work to their digital portfolio.

Designing Digital Sound (ENGL 304): In this course students will be introduced to sound production and analysis. Students will learn to record, edit, and implement sound in a variety of genres and formats, with possible areas of investigation including podcasting, documentary, digital games, music, and audio art.

Old English Language and Literature (ENGL 305A): An introduction to the English language in its earliest form, and study of selected prose and poetry from pre-Conquest England in the original language, with attention to historical, cultural, and religious contexts.

The Age of Beowulf (ENGL 305B): A study of the earliest English literature in translation. The heroic epic Beowulf will be studied in depth, along with a selection of Old English poetry and prose, such as lyrics, riddles, and historical and religious writing.

Introduction to Linguistics (ENGL 306A): This course covers the core areas of linguistics: phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. Linguistics is a science, very different in its approach to language from the literary and rhetorical approaches with which you may be familiar. You will have to learn to see language abstractly, like a geologist looks at rocks, an astronomer at stars. We study what it means for a native speaker to know and use a language: they need to know the sounds, the words, the way words group together, and how those word groups fit into a web of meaning. We're also going to see how that knowledge interacts with other, nonlinguistic areas of cognition—in particular, perception, categorization, abstraction processes, and reasoning—to get some purchase on the way we express and exchange ideas and thoughts through weird little noises or marks on a page or lines and circles on a screen, like these ones.

How English Grammar Works (ENGL 306B): This course analyzes English grammar structures, "grammar rules," and the reasoning behind them. The course then examines English-language change, and considers grammar in pedagogical and multicultural contexts.

The History of the English Language (ENGL 306D): This course explores the history of the English language, from Anglo-Saxon dialects ("Old English"), through the combining of Anglo-Saxon and Norman French, its evolution in medieval and early modern Britain, up to its transformation within multilingual and multicultural contexts. The course examines not only the evolving vocabulary and grammar of the language, but also its social history.

Introduction to Semiotics (ENGL 306F): Semiotics is the discipline that studies the capacity of humans (and, in some respects, non-humans) to make, disseminate, and comprehend signs. What is a sign? Basically, a sign is anything that can stand for something else. Obviously, then, the range of semiotic inquiry is very broad—from the language you use, the way you sit, the clothes you put on, the way you wear your hair, the car you drive or the bus you take, etc. In this course we'll have three main tasks: to study the history and theory of semiotics; to learn the vocabulary and methodology of semiotics; and to practice this vocabulary and methodology on all kinds of everyday things.

Critical Discourse Analysis (ENGL 306G): This course provides an introduction to the theory and practice of critical discourse analysis (CDA), the close study of language and its effects in social context. Students will learn to apply discourse-analytical tools to a wide range of texts, conversations, images, and other artifacts.

Race and Resistance (ENGL 308): An examination of how contemporary literary and cultural texts represent, reconfigure, and resist ideas of race. Analyzing literature, film, art, popular culture, and social movements, this course covers major debates in critical race theory and anti-racist practices.

Rhetoric, Classical to Enlightenment (ENGL 309A): A study of rhetorical theories from antiquity through the Renaissance to the eighteenth century, with an emphasis on how these theories reflect changing attitudes towards language, society, and the self.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Contemporary Rhetoric (ENGL 309C): An examination of contemporary rhetorical theory and its relationships to criticism, interdisciplinary studies, and digital applications. We will survey the key authors, concepts, issues, and debates of contemporary rhetoric and place them in a practical context. The course will focus on the work of contemporary rhetoricians such as Richard Weaver, I. A. Richards, Kenneth Burke, Stephen Toulmin, and Chaim Perelman, and will concentrate on contemporary rhetoric at work in culture through power relations, discourse, sexuality, race, media, advertising, and propaganda. Recognizing with Kenneth Burke “how overwhelmingly much of what we mean by ‘reality’ has been built for us through nothing but our symbol systems,” we will examine theories of rhetoric to better understand the pervasiveness of rhetoric in our ways of knowing.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Speech Writing (ENGL 309E): The analysis, writing, and editing of speeches. Analysis will focus on the reading and viewing of several famous 20th-century speeches using theories of communication. Writing and editing will focus on implementing oral/aural communication strategies.

Prereq: Level at least 4A English Rhetoric and Professional Writing or English Rhetoric, Media, and Professional Communication.

The Discourse of Dissent (ENGL 309G): A study of the social, historical, and rhetorical dimensions of collective action. Topics may include health and welfare movements, civil rights and anti-war protests, and environmentalism. Potential activities include historical analyses of resistance groups, rhetorical analysis of texts of resistance, and even collective action as a group project.

Middle English Literature (ENGL 310A): A study of English writings during the later Middle Ages. Possible representative works include romances such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; alliterative literature, such as The Vision of Piers Plowman; selections from Chaucer; spiritual prose writings; Middle English lyrics and verse.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Chaucer (ENGL 310B): A study of Geoffrey Chaucer's writings. Depending on the instructor, this course may focus on a single work such as The Canterbury Tales, or a selection.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Early Canadian Literatures (ENGL 313): This course examines a selection of pre-1920 Canadian texts concerning first contact, imperialism, colonization, incipient nationhood, and early multi-racial immigration that participate in the ongoing invention of Canada. This era is home of a surprising variety of genres (the fantasy, the gothic tale), a fascinating range of documents (the letters of the Jesuit missionaries, the journals of pioneer women, the treaties between First Nations and Euro-settler migrants), and forms of writing adapted to suit the particular needs of Old World immigrants in the New World (the long poem on Canada). We will study the early literary history of Canada through a representative selection of its letters, narratives, poetry, and legal documents.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Modern Canadian Literature (ENGL 315): This course focuses on the varied ways in which 20th-century writers of poetry and prose participate in the shaping of Canadian literary culture, with emphasis on the literature of the middle decades. Modernism, an international movement in the arts, is variously understood as a period, a style, a particular approach to writing and responding to literature, and a particular response to the political and social issues of the mid-twentieth century. As a period, Modernism in Canada is usually considered to span the middle years of the twentieth century, from 1920 to 1970. In this course, we will look at the impact that Modernism has had on Canadian literature. By reading a number of poetic and prose texts, we will also examine the many definitions of Modernism as they relate to Canadian writing.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Canadian Drama (ENGL 316): This course explores traditions and experiments in Canadian drama through an analysis of Canadian plays, especially those from 1960 to the present, in their historical and theatrical contexts. Students will emerge from this course with a thorough appreciation of the key issues that impacted the development and content of Canadian drama in the twentieth century.

Contemporary Canadian Literature (ENGL 318): This course examines Canadian Literature written in the latter decades of the 20th century and into the 21st century. Literature is one of many powerful discourses that shape how we think about ourselves and our world. In this course we will analyze how specific works of Canadian literature engage with discourses that shape aspects of contemporary Canadian culture. This is NOT a course about “Canadian identity.” It is a course about how ideas about “identity” are formed, reformed, dismantled, critiqued, stablilized, destabilized, argued about, remembered, forgotten . . . in language. Questions to be explored include what are the texts teaching us and how? How do you respond to those messages? How does literature do certain kinds of social, political and cultural work? And what (if anything) is Canadian about all of this?

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

History and Theory of Writing and Print Media (ENGL 319): This course explores the social, political, and cultural contexts and consequences of the media technologies of writing and print (including the book) from their beginnings to the 20th century.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

History and Theory of Pre-Internet Media (ENGL 320): This course explores the social, political, and cultural contexts and consequences of media technologies such as newspapers, photography and film, radio, recorded music, television and early computing.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Postcolonial Literature of the Americas (ENGL 322): This course introduces students to key themes and reading strategies in postcolonial literatures through a comparative study of selected Caribbean, U.S., and Canadian literatures. We will focus on both written and oral genres and discuss how language practices adapt to and are created in colonial and postcolonial environments. The course is organized, in part, to establish literary and cultural contexts for comparing writers and texts from a range of historical and social positions, including colonial, postcolonial, diasporic, and First Nations writers, from 1492 to the present. Issues to be discussed will include national identity and belonging, resistance and creativity, gender and sexuality, and migration and multiculturalism. The core texts will be literary (short fiction, novels, poetry, drama, essays), but we will also explore the importance to postcolonial cultures of music, dance, religious ritual, storytelling, and public performance.

Modern and Contemporary American Drama (ENGL 324): This course explores traditions and experiments in American drama through an analysis of American plays, especially those from the 1940s to the present, in their historical, textual, and theatrical contexts.

Austen (ENGL 325): A study of selected novels by Jane Austen, including Pride and Prejudice and Emma. Her letters and juvenilia may also be considered, as well as some of the films based on or inspired by her novels.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Language, Life, and Literature in the Caribbean (ENGL 326): This course introduces students to the ways in which language shapes and sustains various forms of cultural expressions in the Caribbean region. Students will use the creative output of storytellers, poets, DJs, and playwrights as a lens to investigate and trace the evolution of a distinctly Caribbean identity from the post-colonial period (1960s) up to the present. Students are also introduced to the social dynamics of Creole language use in the Caribbean and an exploration of the ways in which these languages are implicated in diverse cultural art forms.

Prereq: Level at least 2A or students pursuing the Diploma in Black Studies or the Diploma in Fundamentals of Anti-Racist Communication

Black Diasporic Lives: 1740-1900 (ENGL 327): An introduction to cultural productions of the Black diaspora pre-1900, with an emphasis on political writing, memoir, fiction, and journalism. Students will engage works from a variety of regions, situated in their historical and cultural contexts, even as connections will be drawn to later social movements.

Prereq: Level at least 2A or students pursuing the Diploma in Black Studies or the Diploma in Fundamentals of Anti-Racist Communication

Introduction to Black Canadian Writing (ENGL 328): An analysis of Black writing and cultural achievement in Canada. Theoretical and literary texts will be studied to explore how contributions from this field have helped to shape Canada from the 18th century to the present.

Prereq: Level at least 2A or students pursuing the Diploma in Black Studies or the Diploma in Fundamentals of Anti-Racist Communication

Sixteenth-Century Literature 1 (ENGL 330A): A study of short poems by such writers as Wyatt, Gascoigne, Whitney, Ralegh, Spenser, the Sidneys, Shakespeare, and Donne. One aim will be to develop your ability to talk and write about how this poetry is written, as well as about what it says. A second will be to understand how the forms of lyric poetry contribute to the languages of love, politics, religion, and philosophy in early modern England.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Sixteenth-Century Literature 2 (ENGL 330B): A study of selected genres, topics, and works from Tudor literature.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Creative Writing 1 (ENGL 335): Aimed at encouraging students to develop their creative and critical potentials, the course consists of supervised practice, tutorials, and seminar discussions, and lots of opportunities to write, with units on poetry, short fiction, and creative non-fiction. Students will finish the term with a fat, messy folder of first drafts, and a portfolio of professionally polished work.

Prereq: Level at least 3A.

Creative Writing 2 (ENGL 336): This course is designed to assist advanced creative writers in developing a body of work in one or more genres by means of supervised practice, discussions of craft, and peer critiques.

Prereq: Level at least 3A and ENGL 335.

American Literature to 1860 (ENGL 342): A study of developments in early American Literature, possibly including Anglo-European movements such as gothicism and romanticism; captivity narratives and other colonial writings; Afro-American, Native American, and other minority traditions; sentimental and domestic fiction; and indigenous American forms such as the frontier romance, and other minority literatures. We will examine what the literary record tells us about early encounters between European colonists and indigenous peoples, literary contributions to the formation of "America" as an idea, important American cultural figures and movements, and literary reactions to colonial expansion into the West, slavery, and women's place and rights.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

American Literature 1860-1910 (ENGL 343): A survey of literary developments in America from the Civil War through the turn of the twentieth-century, including significant movements of the period such as realism, regionalism, and naturalism; the New Woman's writing and other developments in women's literatures; popular forms such as the Western; and minority literatures.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Modern American Literature (ENGL 344): A study of American Literature from the early twentieth century through the second world war, emphasizing aesthetic innovation in the modernist movement, and its aftermath in the social writings of the 1930s.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

American Literature in a Global Context (ENGL 345): Traditional literary study began as the study of the literature of nations. The study of British, American, and Canadian literature attempts to define what is unique about a nation´s literary output. While this is certainly a valuable course of study, much literature does not neatly fit national boundaries or express a unified national identity because it arises from the movement of and exchange between different communities. In this course, we will study American narratives (primarily novels) that have arisen from conditions of migration and intercultural exchange. These include narratives about slavery, immigration, border conflicts, colonization, and global capitalism. We will focus on topics including the fluidity of identity, the idea of race and racial hybridity, colonialism, and intercultural exchange.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

American Fiction (ENGL 346): A study of four to five writers. Topics may include the evolution of narrative style, realism and anti-realism, literature and story, fiction and history, the novel and film, gender and ethnicity.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Global Asian Diasporas (ENGL 346R): This course explores the literature and culture from one or more global Asian diasporas, with particular emphasis on cultures of East Asian origin. Topics may include identity, transnationalism, imperialism, war, labour, migration, and popular culture.

Prereq: Level at least 2A

American Literature Since 1945 (ENGL 347): We will explore a selection of American writing produced since 1945 in the context of cultural and political history, attending to the ways in which literature not only reflects, but filters, mutates, and re-imagines social material. We will read context not just as "background" but as revealed through close examination of literary activity in its small and large features.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

American Poetry Since 1850 (ENGL 348): A study of poems, poets, ideas, and movements, contributing to the growth of a distinctive American poetry from Whitman and Dickinson to the twenty-first century. A course on poetry and poetics, poems and theories, ENGL 348 will look at poetry that explores American answers (and a few others) to the question what is poetry? In the absence of a native literary tradition, American poetry, at least since Whitman, has been both experimental and theoretical. The question of what poetry is, or what it’s for, is always implicit.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Seventeenth-Century Literature 1 (ENGL 350A): A study of literature by such writers as Jonson, Donne, Wroth, Herbert, Bacon, Milton, Behn, and Dryden. This class will introduce you to the poetry written in seventeenth-century England. Although a perfect understanding of these poems will forever exceed our grasp, we will learn about their relationship to the public life and poetic forms of their time and reflect on the challenges and opportunities they present to modern readers. By making us more perceptive and knowledgeable readers of this poetry, the class also aims to make us more responsive to the experiences that the poems invite us to consider and to the pleasures and sorrows that they invite us to share.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Seventeenth-Century Literature 2 (ENGL 350B): This course will further your knowledge of historical British Literature. Our special focus will be John Milton's great epic poem, Paradise Lost. We will make a thorough study of the poem, and come to a better understanding of what it says, how it says it, and why it is as powerful, moving, and compelling as it is. In addition to our work on Paradise Lost, we will explore the popular culture of the period, and work closely with selected seventeenth-century documents.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Early Modern Worlds on Stage (ENGL 361):This course explores plays from the English Renaissance in their historical and theatrical contexts. Topics may include playhouses and staging, censorship, and collaboration.

Shakespeare 1 (ENGL 362): A study of the plays written before 1599-1600, excluding Julius Caesar. Close study of the plays is encouraged, with attention given to Shakespeare's techniques of plot construction, to his accomplishments in language, and to elements of his stage craft. We will reflect on social and political themes, and on the intellectual contribution of Shakespeare's writings. We will discuss the 16th century cultural and theatrical contexts from which the plays arise, and reflect on the uses to which Shakespeare's works are put in the present day. The course introduces students to developments in Shakespeare studies.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Shakespeare 2 (ENGL 363): A study of the plays written after 1599-1600, including Julius Caesar. The principle aim of this class is to make us better--more careful, more knowledgeable--readers of Shakespeare's plays, and thereby to make us more alert and alive to the problems that the plays invite us to experience and contemplate. Although we cannot hope to "know" these plays with any finality, we can become more aware of their involvement with the issues of their time or the challenges they present to modern readers.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Shakespeare in Performance at The Stratford Festival (ENGL 364): An historical, theoretical, and analytical introduction to Shakespeare's plays in performance, both on stage and screen, this course focuses on specific problems and decisive issues of past productions and of those in the current Stratford Festival season.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Selected Studies (ENGL 365): Designed to provide a study in-depth of problems and/or authors selected by the instructor. Students interested in initiating such courses are encouraged to do so by bringing their ideas to the attention of individual instructors.

Department Consent Required.

Selected Studies (ENGL 366): Designed to provide a study in-depth of problems and/or authors selected by the instructor. Students interested in initiating such courses are encouraged to do so by bringing their ideas to the attention of individual instructors.

Department Consent Required.

Voice and Text at the Stratford Festival (ENGL 367): Taught by faculty and Stratford Festival coaches, this practical course invites students to explore acting techniques and exercises to develop their stage voice with a particular focus on Shakespeare's plays. This is a block course that meets in Stratford for two weeks in May, and may be taken with ENGL 364, as the two courses are offered at complementary times. The course is offered as part of a consortium with faculty from five universities. Students are required to arrange their own transportation to Stratford.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Editing Literary Works (ENGL 371): Investigating scholarly, educational, popular, and electronic editions, this course explores the theory and practice of editing literary texts. More information coming soon.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Women and Medicine in Literature (ENGL 372): In this course students will engage with issues related specifically to women in Western medicine. The course will include an historical overview of the position of women in healthcare, but will focus primarily on the 20th and 21st centuries. Students will read a range of primary texts in areas such as fiction, poetry, drama, and life-writing alongside secondary readings that allow them to interrogate the representations and experiences in the primary texts. Through these readings, and through written work and in-class discussion, students will understand and respond to the specific concerns related to women in Western medicine.

Writing Anti-Racism (ENGL 373): In this course students will be introduced to counterstory as research method, genre, and organizing rhetoric within anti-racist movements. Students will examine counterstory in the context of Critical Race Theory and read classic counterstories by figures such as Derrick Bell, Patricia Williams, Richard Delgado, Bryan Brayboy, Tomson Highway, and Lee Maracle. Course activities will challenge students to assess and assert the value and truth of the Black lived experience, Black epistemologies, and Black knowledge production, including that of Black Canadians and their Indigenous and Allies of Colour. Students will write, workshop, revise, and publish their own actionable anti-racist commitments.

Prereq: Level at least 2A or students pursuing the Diploma in Black Studies or the Diploma in Fundamentals of Anti-Racist Communication

Topics in Black Language and Linguistics (ENGL 375): This course focuses on the formal linguistic, sociolinguistic, and communicative aspects of either a single Black language or a combination of Black languages or language varieties spoken within the contemporary African diaspora, e.g., in Africa, the Caribbean, Canada, or the United States. Attention will be given to the ways in which Black language has developed, how it is deployed by speakers and writers, and attitudes and debates about Black language use in culture, education, and society.

Prereq: Level at least 2A or students pursuing the Diploma in Black Studies or the Diploma in Fundamentals of Anti-Racist Communication

Professional Communications in Statistics and Actuarial Science (ENGL 378): This course introduces students to oral and written communication in the fields of Statistics and Actuarial Science. With emphasis on the public presentation of technical knowledge, the ability to give and receive constructive feedback, and communication in a collaborative environment, this course helps students develop proficiencies in critical workplace skills. This course is writing intensive and includes extensive collaborative assignments.

Students are encouraged to complete this course by their 4A term.

Prereq: At least 70% in one of EMLS 101R, 102R, EMLS/ENGL 129R, ENGL 109, SPCOM 100, 223; (STAT 331,371 or ACTSC 331). For Actuarial Science or Statistics major students only; not open to General Math students.

Early Modern Bodies (ENGL 381): This course draws on a variety of literary, religious, and medical texts to explore the ways that bodies were understood and represented in early modern England. Students will learn to situate contemporary cultural narratives about bodies, including race, gender, illness, and aging, within a historical context. They will build skills in analyzing the features and functions of narrative and representation, from close reading to thinking about how stories about bodies are shaped, shared, and passed down.

Information Design (ENGL 392A): The theory and practice of design for print and digital media, including the study of design concepts such as space, colour, typography, interactivity, immersion, motion, and presence. Students apply this knowledge by developing or revising documents. We will look at information design both as a rhetorical practice and as a professional activity, applying this knowledge to everything from document design to urban design and wayfinding.

Prereq: Level at least 2B

Visual Rhetoric (ENGL 392B): This course introduces students to the study of images from a rhetorical perspective, including the interaction of texts and images in such professional writing fields as advertising, book illustration, technical documentation, journalism, and public relations. Issues may include visual and textual literacy, the semiotics and rhetoric of design, and the ideological basis of visual communication.

Prereq: Level at least 2B

400-Level Courses

Digital Design Research Project (ENGL 403): Students work in small groups under the supervision of a faculty researcher on an ongoing, large-scale, digital design project.

Prereq: Level at least 3A

African American Rhetoric (ENGL 405): This course examines the artistic, cultural, political, and disciplinary histories of African American rhetoric, discourse, and persuasion. Students will study various genealogies of African American rhetoric through primary texts such as dialogues, essays, folklore, music, song lyrics, dance, interviews, news stories, raps, videos, and speeches by African Americans. Special attention will be given to the economic, gendered, and social conditions of African Americans from the enslavement period in North America to the present, as well as to the Black diaspora.

Prereq: Level at least 3A or students pursuing the Diploma in Black Studies or the Diploma in Fundamentals of Anti-Racist Communication

Advanced Rhetorical Study (ENGL 406): Topics may include communication, media, politics, science, and social movements. Students will explore the topic(s) in depth using a variety of rhetorical theories and methods.

Prereq: Level at least 3A

Language and Politics (ENGL 407): This course explores how language shapes and is shaped by the unequal distribution of power in modern societies. The role of language will be considered in, for example, the maintenance of sexual difference, the establishment and maintenance of national identity, and the conflict between social classes. The reading will consist of literary and theoretical texts, the latter including such writers as Bourdieu, Bakhtin, Foucault, Cameron, Lakoff, Ngugi wa Thion'go, and Paulin.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Writing for the Media (ENGL 408A): This course examines the genres and strategies of both journalism and public relations. With a strong orientation towards rhetorical and linguistic theories, this course will cover audience concerns from both within and outside organizations. By the end of the course you will be able to produce a wide variety of texts for a range of media. You will be able to follow the conventions associated with various types of stories, articles, and PR documents, and to accommodate the different audiences that read them either in print or online. You will also understand how social, technological, and organizational contexts affect the production and reception of media texts, and how the shifting landscape facing the media is leading to changes in how media texts are being made and consumed.

Prereq: Level at least 3A

The Discourse of Advertising (ENGL 408B): This course takes a rhetorical approach to the study of advertising, emphasizing questions of purpose, audience, context, language, design, medium, and delivery. Students will study important contributors to theories of meaning in language and semiotics, will examine recent developments in advertising practices, and will learn techniques for critical analysis. You will be expected to develop the vocabulary and tools to critically analyze advertisements.

Prereq: Level at least 3A

The Rhetoric of Digital Design: Theory and Practice (ENGL 408C): This course will address some of the basic tools and techniques for digital media projects--composition, text, colour, graphics, site design, multimedia, usability, interactivity--as well as some of the technical and structural issues faced by many developers of academic and commercial digital media publications. One key concern will be the fundamentals of design--how best to present complex information (the kind that scholarly as well as commercial digital work tends to produce) in accessible, appropriate, and possibly even beautiful ways. The course will reference the critical literature on digital design and practice, humanities computing, and information design and delivery. It will also involve working with design software.

Prereq: Level at least 3A

Rhetoric of Argumentation (ENGL 409A): This course studies the discursive, social, and rhetorical principles of argumentation, including topics such as evidence, reasoning, and the organization and presentation of arguments. Scholars studied may include Richard Whatley, Jurgen Habermas, Stephen Toulmin, Chaim Perelman, Lucie Olbrecht-Tyteca, Kenneth Burke, and Pierre Bourdieu.

Prereq: Level at least 3A

Eighteenth-Century Women Writers (ENGL 410): A selection of writing by women such as Behn, Finch, Montagu, Fielding, Edgeworth, and Austen. Topics may include the culture of sensibility, romance and the gothic, and the interaction of women's writing with discourses of race and colonialism.

Prereq: Level at least 3A.

Eighteenth-Century Literature: Sex, Satire, and Sentiment (ENGL 411): A selection of writing embracing the themes of sex, satire, and sentiment that characterize the Restoration and 18th century. Authors may include Behn, Swift, Finch, Pope, Defoe, and Radcliffe.

Prereq: Level at least 2A

Eighteenth-Century Literature and Media (ENGL 412): A study of oral, printed, and popular media and literature (such as ballads, fiction, and newspapers) in the Restoration and 18th century. Topics may include the role of women in the rise of print culture, the social role of popular print forms, and the literary reception of new media technologies.

Prereq: Level at least 2A

Transnational Feminisms and Contemporary Narratives (ENGL 425): This course examines the dialogue between transnational feminist theories and literary practices. Drawing on a range of literary and media genres from the late 20th and early 21st centuries, this course considers the historical developments, as well as contemporary contexts (e.g., migration, globalization), that gave rise to the framework of transnational feminism and its negotiations with Anglo-American and European feminist literary theories.

Prereq: Level at least 2A

Literature of the Romantic Period 1 (ENGL 430A): An examination of the first generation of Romantic writers, including such authors as Barbauld, Blake, Wollstonecraft, Wordsworth, and Coleridge. The course will situate Romantic literature as the literary embodiment of a larger movement that deliberately challenged the old ways of understanding with new ideas of self-formation, society, government, and art.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Literature of the Romantic Period 2 (ENGL 430B): The second generation of Romantic writers had a vexed relationship with their earlier idols, who had come of age in the heyday of the French Revolution. While they took the older generation to task for abandoning their earlier revolutionary politics and turning inward to the life of the imagination or to nature poetry, these younger romantics nevertheless remained committed to the aesthetic—to the assertion that "beauty is truth, truth beauty." This course will examine how the younger generation of Romantic writers deal with that tension between their dedication to the aesthetic and their fear that "the aesthetic" was just another name for escapism, political disengagement, or complicity. We will follow that tension through poetry and prose by John Keats, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, Felicia Hemans, and Letitia Elizabeth Landon. We will also pay special attention longer prose works such as Thomas De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater, Jan Austen's Persuasion, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Topics in Creative Writing (ENGL 432): This course will focus on a selected genre, approach, creative method, or other aspect of creative writing. Please see course instructor for details.

Prereq: Level at least 2A

Literature of the Victorian Age 1 (ENGL 451A): A critical study of early to mid-Victorian literature, including authors such as Carlyle, Arnold, Tennyson, the Brontës, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Gaskell, Ruskin, and Dickens. Topics may include liberty, work, gender, class, imperialism, and poetry.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Literature of the Victorian Age 2 (ENGL 451B): A critical study of mid- to late Victorian literature, including authors such as Christina Rossetti, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, George Eliot, Newman, Hopkins, Michael Field, Wilde, and Hardy. Topics may include the "Woman Question," the crisis in religious faith, and aestheticism.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Early Literature of the Modernist Period in the United Kingdom and Ireland (ENGL 460A): A study of the literatures of the United Kingdom before and after World War I, including such writers as Conrad, Forster, Hopkins, Mansfield, Shaw, Synge, Wilde, and Yeats. Straddling the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, these three or four decades created and determined so much of the course of the modern world as we experience it at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The issues of nationalism, colonialism, empire, globalization, terrorism, technology, environment, gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity emerged in their modern and still contemporary forms of crisis and conflict in this period. The clash of European nation-states (The United Kingdom and Germany principally), the use of terror as a political and cultural tool (both anarchist and state-sponsored), the violent and creative decolonization of empire (in Ireland principally), the assertion by women of their rights and existence as equals (in both the political sphere as universal suffrage and in the private sphere of the family), all these and the other forms of related crisis characterize this period and give form to its artistic expressions. A major objective of this course is to interpret how these crises are both reflected and represented in the major literary genres of this Early Modernist period.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Literature of the Modernist Period in the United Kingdom and Ireland (ENGL 460B): A study of the literatures of the United Kingdom and Ireland from World War I to World War II, including such writers as Auden, Eliot, Isherwood, Joyce, Lawrence, Orwell, West, and Woolf. This course explores the literature of High Modernism, the literature of great complexity, at once highly experimental and deeply traditional, written in the years before, during, and after World War I. Modernism was an international movement driven by the immense transformations that took place in all areas of human activity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Literary Modernism was driven by and contributed to those fundamental changes, and we will read texts with close attention to how the literature reflected and responded to its times.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Literature of the Postwar Period in the United Kingdom and Ireland (ENGL 460C): A study of the literatures of the United Kingdom and Ireland after World War II, including such writers as Beckett, Greene, Larkin, Murdoch, Osborne, Pinter, and Spark. Students will be introduced to major developments in various genres during this time period and will be asked to consider them within their historical and cultural contexts. Issues to be addressed include postmodernism, the politics of humanism, pressures to conform, and cultural configurations of gender and sexuality.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Contemporary Literature of the United Kingdom and Ireland (ENGL 460D): A study of the contemporary literatures of the United Kingdom and Ireland, including such writers as Byatt, Boland, Drabble, Heaney, Hughes, Rushdie, and Stoppard. The antagonisms of the Thatcher revolution will function as a precursor or parallel to the multiple antagonisms that characterize our period. In both nation-states, these antagonisms were both ancient and modern, dividing and uniting across all areas of human life: class, region, religion, race and ethnicity, migration, gender, and sexuality. Our central objective is to study the literary manifestations of these ancient and modern antagonisms in this period that may come to be called Postmodern when it ceases to be contemporary. This period of the Postmodern was also characterized in literature and other discourses by Postcolonialism and Poststructuralism and by the global literary phenomenon known as Magic Realism.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Irish Literature (ENGL 461): A study of modern and contemporary Irish literature in English. This course will introduce students to a range of Irish writing in its often turbulent historical and cultural context. The international dimensions of Irish writers and their work will be explored.

Postcolonial Literatures (ENGL 463): This course examines postcolonial literature (fiction, poetry, and drama) from Africa, Australia, Britain, India, New Zealand, and Pakistan. Some of the potential topics to be discussed include the range of creative forms and language use in the texts and issues such as indigeneity, migration, and settlement; the intersections of gender, sexuality, and race; the role of history in narratives of individual and collective identities; and the construction of cultural nationalisms and concept of "the authentic."

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Contemporary Critical Theory (ENGL 470A): An examination of several topics in recent critical theory, such as gender, race, subjectivity, textuality, and popular culture. Whenever we make assessments of texts, we are, whether we know it or not, applying a theory of what texts are and what they do. This course teaches students how to use contemporary critical theory to assess texts in a more self-reflective, rigorous way. Along the way, students will learn to think about texts in new ways, to ask new questions of them, and generally open our minds to new and different ways of thinking.

Prereq: Level at least 3A

History of Literary Criticism (ENGL 470B): A historical survey of major critical texts and movements from the Greek and Roman classics to the New Criticism of the mid-20th century, examining different critical theories and practices in a context of cultural changes. More information coming soon.

Prereq: Level at least 3A

Literary Studies in Digital Forms (ENGL 470C): A critical examination of literary publication, research, and criticism in digital forms.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Adapting Literary Works (ENGL 471): Focusing on adaptation of classic works of literature in English, this course examines the problems, possibilities, and principles of representing such works in other literary forms and in other media.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Research Methods in Technical Communication (ENGL 472): This course teaches students the practice and theory of research methods in the field of technical and professional communication. Topics may include resource validity and renewal cycles, data-gathering techniques and analytics, interview techniques for subject-matter experts, rapid research skills, and user-experience design.

Prereq: Level at least 2A.

Topics in the History and Theory of Language (ENGL 481): A special study of a selected topic in the history and theory of language. Please see course instructor for details.