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 racism in local contexts and communities.
This course will introduce students to key interventions in Composition theory and support students in exploring the implications of those interventions for the teaching of writing. We will place at the centre of our study contributions by scholars from and representing historically marginalized and excluded subject positions, many of whom we will be able to speak with as we engage with their work. Students will have the opportunity over the course of the term to trace genealogically the historical imaginaries and epistemologies that have shaped theory and practice in the field, as well...
In this course, we’ll read and discuss all seven of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels with the aim of deepening our understanding of the genre of the novel, in general, and of the young adult novel, in particular. We will also study at least in an introductory way the practice of literary criticism. Finally, we’ll begin to explore cultural studies and critical theory as they are engaged in the field of English Studies. None of these areas of study should preclude having fun together. If you’re worried that you don’t know anything about literary or critical theory or cultural studies,...
In this course we will study essays, speeches, and articles written by Black, Indigenous, and other writers of colour as well as a few white anti-racist writers about race and racism in both Canada and the U.S. We will examine the array of rhetorical moves made in such writing and how writers shift and adapt rhetorically to speak to particular historical moments in the long duree of racism in both nations. You will have the opportunity to draft, workshop, revise, and finalize a significant writing project as an integral part of this course. However, we will not be composing in...
In this course, we examine the social, historical, and rhetorical dimensions of collective action. We will study the manufacture of consent and conformity in order to understand why, how, and to what effect dissent is enacted. We will explore the complex relationships between power and domination, coercion and consent, resistance and transformation, as well as the philosophical, social, organizational, and rhetorical features of effective dissent.
English 109 is designed to get you comfortable writing in an academic context. You will learn about differences between forms of academic writing as well as more widely shared ideas about what makes writing good across disciplines. Together, we will study the choices great writers make as they write and the processes they engage in order to create their best work. We will study a variety of texts to learn more about how they were written and how to improve the writing each of you produces.
This course will examine the modern rhetorical antecedents of the discourses of dissent emerging from contemporary social justice movements, including those associated with racism, classism, homophobia, and nationalism in Canada and the United States. From the American Indian Movement to Idle No More, from Black Liberation to Black Lives Matter, from socialist labour to the New Left, from Stonewall to Queer Liberation, from the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to Quebec’s Values Charter Legislation, from nationalist rhetorics of the Cold War to contemporary debates on immigration, this...
Many years ago, when I was a graduate student, I was persuaded by my dissertation advisor to submit my work to the editor of a book series: a man who was at the time very well known in the field of composition and rhetoric. My dissertation dealt with the writing classroom as a site of institutional and symbolic violence and with the possibilities, given that context, for performative nonviolent pedagogies – that is for teaching that both critiques and resists violence and teaches for a more peaceful world. The editor responded that the term “violence” is so overused that it...
