English

The English Department at St Jerome’s teaches across the English curriculum, from first-year courses to upper-year supervision. We cultivate an intellectual and pedagogical environment dedicated to the exploration of the literary imagination, and to the development of clear written expression, informed by historical and cultural knowledge and tempered in reflection, analysis, and judgement. We contribute to the University of Waterloo English department's distinctive combination of literary and rhetorical studies, and we offer instruction in communications studies for students in other disciplines.

In our classes we foster inspiring discussion and individualized learning, and we welcome conversation beyond the classroom. We pride ourselves on being approachable and present to our students. To study English at St. Jerome's University is to exercise scholarly rigour and creativity; to develop practical skills in writing and critical thinking while cultivating intellectual adventurousness; to encounter beauty; and to glimpse truth.

St. Jerome's University's Department of English features excellent teaching in a range of undergraduate English courses in literature, rhetoric, and writing. Our academically registered students are co-registered in the Faculty of Arts and obtain their degree from the University of Waterloo.

The courses offered by the St. Jerome's University English department are listed below.

For information on academic plans please visit English Language and Literature on the Programs and Plans section of the Undergraduate Studies Academic Calendar.

St. Jerome’s English faculty participate in graduate teaching, supervision, and examination as part of Waterloo's English graduate program. For areas of graduate supervision please see our faculty's profile pages.

Find out more about our award-winning professors:

• Chad Wriglesworth received the Distinguished Teacher Award in 2025, the Arts Award - Excellence in Teaching in 2024, and the Feds (now WUSA) Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award in 2018 and 2014.
• Veronica Austen received the WUSA Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award in 2019.
• Norm Klassen received the Feds Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award in 2018. 
• Tristanne Connolly received the Distinguished Teacher Award in 2010.

Find out more about our research projects and publications:

• Tristanne Connolly has been co-editing a collection of essays on William Blake's visual art, entitled Blake Sees Jesus. Her edited essay collection Austen in Asia (Palgrave) appeared in August 2025, as did her online edition of Erasmus Darwin’sThe Loves of the Plants.
• Andrew Deman is beginning work on his SSHRC Insight Grant (2025-29) project, called “Sequential Scholars”. His monograph The Claremont Run: Subverting Gender in the X-Men won the 2024 Eisner Award for Best Academic/Scholarly Work.
• Alysia Kolentsis recently gave papers in New York, Austria, and Spain, and has been co-editing an essay collection entitled The Post-Pandemic University: Storying Possibilities. Her current internally funded project is called “Care Narrative, Care Futures”.
• Chad Wriglesworth has been finishing a monograph called Geographies of Reclamation: Literature, Art, and Lived Experience in the Columbia River Basin (University of Nevada Press), and editing The Selected Letters of Jane Kenyon and Alice Mattison (University of Michigan Press).
• David-Antoine Williams holds a SSHRC Insight Grant (2022-27) performing data enhancement and analysis of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). He recently published articles on women writers quoted in the OED, and on the OED’s treatment of World Englishes, and has an article forthcoming on the OED’s use of Twitter/X as a source of usage evidence.

The following students were recipients of the English departmental awards:

Departmental Award for Highest Average in the Major

Raquel Paredes

Departmental Award for Academic Achievement at St. Jerome's

Angus Cairns

Departmental Award for Academic Achievement at St. Jerome's

Andie Kaiser