This Year's Courses | English Language and Literature

In this mixed methods course, students will read the in-between works of classic and contemporary Weird fiction writers, among them Algernon Blackwood, Shirley Jackson, M. R. James, Jeff VanderMeer, Helen Marshall and Sarah Tolmie. Concentrating on short fiction poised between the natural and supernatural, students will analyze the space between horror, SFF and literary fiction inhabited by Weird stories and have the opportunity to write their own.

ENGL 432 - Topics in Creative Writing (Section 002)
Topic: Writers on Creative Writing (Prof C. Wriglesworth)

ENGL 471 - Adapting Literary Works
- held-with DAC 402

ENGL 486 - Topics in Literatures Modern to Contemporary
- held-with ENGL 432, Sect. 001
Topic: Weird Fiction (Prof S. Tolmie)

In this mixed methods course, students will read the in-between works of classic and contemporary Weird fiction writers, among them Algernon Blackwood, Shirley Jackson, M. R. James, Jeff VanderMeer, Helen Marshall and Sarah Tolmie. Concentrating on short fiction poised between the natural and supernatural, students will analyze the space between horror, SFF and literary fiction inhabited by Weird stories and have the opportunity to write their own.

ENGL 491 - Topics in Literature and Rhetoric
- held-with ENGL 406, ERS 375
Topic: Literature for an Ailing Planet (Prof A. McMurry)

ENGL 494 - Topics in Forms of Media and Critical Analysis
- held-with DAC 403
Topic: Pics and It Didn’t Happen: Visual Literacy in the Post-Photography Era (Prof A. Morrison)

What is the “rhetoric of the image” in the age of limitless AI image slop? Humanist and visual arts scholars have been urgently calling for systematic training for all citizens in critical visual literacy from the very beginning of the mass media age in the early 20th century, but by and large most of us continue to take a naive and credulous view of photographic (and generated photographic-style) images as mimetic depictions of reality. In this course we overview the history of attempts to systematize a pedagogy of “visual literacy,” and will work to update these for the Jesus Shrimp era.

Winter 2027

ENGL 100A - Fiction

ENGL 101A - Introduction to Literary Studies

ENGL 101B - Introduction to Rhetorical Studies

ENGL 104 - Rhetoric in Popular Culture

ENGL 108B - Global English Literatures

ENGL 108D - Digital Lives

ENGL 108G - Horror

ENGL 108P - Popular Potter

ENGL 109 - Introduction to Academic Writing

ENGL 119 - Communications in Mathematics Computer Science

ENGL 190 - Shakespeare

ENGL 200A - English Literatures 1

ENGL 200B - English Literatures 2

ENGL 200C - English Literatures 3

ENGL 203 - Designing Digital Media
- cross-listed with DAC 201

ENGL 208B - Science Fiction

ENGL 208E - Women's Writing
- cross-listed with GSJ 208E

ENGL 210C - Genres of Creative Writing

ENGL 210E - Genres of Technical Communication

ENGL 210F - Genres of Business Communication

ENGL 210G - Genres of Fundraising Communication
- held-with DAC 303

ENGL 211 - First Nations, Metis, and Inuit Literatures
- cross-listed with GSJ 211

ENGL 213 - Literature and the Law
- cross-listed with LS 292

ENGL 234 - Young Adult Literature

ENGL 251 - Literary Theory and Criticism

ENGL 275 - Fiction and Film

ENGL 292 - Rhetorical Theory and Criticism

ENGL 294 - Introduction to Critical Game Studies
- held-with COMMST 235

ENGL 295 - Social Media

ENGL 304 - Designing Digital Sound
- cross-listed with DAC 203

ENGL 306A - Introduction to Linguistics

ENGL 306B - How English Grammar Works

ENGL 309A - Rhetoric, Classical to Enlightenment

ENGL 309C - Contemporary Rhetoric

ENGL 309G - The Discourse of Dissent
- cross-listed with COMMST 434, GSJ 309, HIST 309

ENGL 311 - Eighteenth-Century Literature: Sex, Satire, and Sentiment

ENGL 315 - Modern Canadian Literature

ENGL 335 - Creative Writing 1

ENGL 336 - Creative Writing 2

ENGL 347 - American Literature Since 1945

ENGL 363 - Shakespeare 2
- cross-listed with THPERF 387

ENGL 371 - Editing Literary Works

ENGL 372 - Women and Medicine in Literature

ENGL 392A - Information Design

ENGL 406 - Advanced Rhetorical Study
- held-with ENGL 492
Topic: “Sweet Smoke of Rhetoric!”: Shakespearean Persuasion in Theory and Practice (Prof M. MacDonald)

Although Renaissance humanism was closely associated with the revival of ancient rhetoric, early modern scholars and artists were not content with parroting classical models of style, persuasion and argument. Instead, they appropriated rhetoric for their own purposes. The plays of William Shakespeare provide a striking example of this transfiguration of classical rhetoric at work. Ranging over the tragedies, histories, comedies, and romances, this course investigates how Shakespeare takes up and transforms—“figures and disfigures”—the classical rhetoric drubbed into him as a boy at the King’s New School in Stratford. At the level of practice, it explores how Shakespeare retools ancient rhetoric in the “quick forge” of his imagination, fashioning a new kind of vernacular English eloquence for the London commercial theatre stage. At the level of theory, it examines how Shakespeare rehearses the vexing ethical, political, and philosophical problems rhetoric posed for early modern culture. Over the course of the semester we shall see how Shakespeare dramatizes the arts of persuasion in all their comic and tragic ambivalence: rhetoric can be both toxic and intoxicating, poison the mind with “pestilent speeches” and “ravish like enchanting harmony.”

Texts

Love’s Labour’s Lost; The Winter’s Tale; Richard III; As You Like It; King Lear; A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Othello; Macbeth; The Tempest; Hamlet

ENGL 408A - Writing for the Media

ENGL 430B - Literature of the Romantic Period 2

ENGL 432 - Topics in Creative Writing
- held-with ENGL 493-001
Topic: Introduction to Publishing (Prof J. Harris)

ENGL 460D - Contemporary Literature of the United Kingdom and Ireland

ENGL 491 - Topics in Literature and Rhetoric
Topic: Graphic Narratives (Prof B. Dadey)

ENGL 492 - Topics in the History and Theory of Rhetoric
- held-with ENGL 406

Topic: “Sweet Smoke of Rhetoric!”: Shakespearean Persuasion in Theory and Practice (Prof M. MacDonald)

Although Renaissance humanism was closely associated with the revival of ancient rhetoric, early modern scholars and artists were not content with parroting classical models of style, persuasion and argument. Instead, they appropriated rhetoric for their own purposes. The plays of William Shakespeare provide a striking example of this transfiguration of classical rhetoric at work. Ranging over the tragedies, histories, comedies, and romances, this course investigates how Shakespeare takes up and transforms—“figures and disfigures”—the classical rhetoric drubbed into him as a boy at the King’s New School in Stratford. At the level of practice, it explores how Shakespeare retools ancient rhetoric in the “quick forge” of his imagination, fashioning a new kind of vernacular English eloquence for the London commercial theatre stage. At the level of theory, it examines how Shakespeare rehearses the vexing ethical, political, and philosophical problems rhetoric posed for early modern culture. Over the course of the semester we shall see how Shakespeare dramatizes the arts of persuasion in all their comic and tragic ambivalence: rhetoric can be both toxic and intoxicating, poison the mind with “pestilent speeches” and “ravish like enchanting harmony.”

Texts

Love’s Labour’s Lost; The Winter’s Tale; Richard III; As You Like It; King Lear; A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Othello; Macbeth; The Tempest; Hamlet

ENGL 493 - Topics in Professional Writing and Communication Design (Section 001)
- held-with ENGL 432
Topic: Introduction to Publishing (Prof J. Harris)

ENGL 493 - Topics in Professional Writing and Communication Design (Section 002)
- held-with DAC 300
Topic: Generative AI in Communication and Design (Prof N. Randall)

This course explores the use of generative AI to produce various types of communication and design. By the end of the course, you will have (a) produced a small portfolio of text, graphic, sound, and video artifacts exclusively through readily available AI tools; (b) written an academic paper on the impact of AI tools in academic and work settings; (c) generated an AI version of your academic paper and written a short comparison between the two; (d) discussed the ramifications of AI for ethics, intellectual property, teaching, and environmental impact; (e) produced a semester-length AI project of your choice.

Note: No experience with generative AI is required, but I'm guessing you'll have some anyway.

Spring 2027