English Language and Literature
Course descriptions
1100 Composition
3.0 credit hours
Students develop the essential elements of university-level writing valuable in almost every field. Engaging in a range of writing assignments, individual tutorials, and textual analysis (from a wide variety of genres), students apply proper citation practices, to engage with the ideas of others, and to craft effective arguments.
1205 Introduction to Literature
3.0 credit hours
This course introduces students to works of literature in English representing a variety of historical and cultural contexts. It develops the student’s ability to interpret written texts and to write about them in an informed and organized manner.
NOTE: A PASSING GRADE IN A 1000-LEVEL ENGLISH COURSE IS NORMALLY REQUIRED FOR ENTRANCE INTO 2000-LEVEL ENGLISH COURSES.
1210 Literature and Travel
3.0 credit hours
Students encounter the many genres of travel writing in English, ranging from early explorer’s journals to contemporary guidebooks and blogs. Students examine the techniques used to turn the experiences of travel into literary form in relation to topics such as globalization, migration and colonialism.
1220 Literature and Science
3.0 credit hours
Students study the relationship between literature and scientific thought and discovery. Topics include works of various genres – fiction, drama, prose, poetry, and film – that interact with the scientific and technological developments of their time, from the beginning of the scientific revolution to the present day.
1230 Literature and the Environment
3.0 credit hours
Students explore the way the environment has been imagined in creative works. Surveying representative texts ranging from nature writing to ecocriticism, students consider how the literary representation of the environment has, and continues to, evolve with changes in the environment.
1250 Literature and Law
3.0 credit hours
Students study the relationship between legal and literary texts. Special emphasis is placed on the literary invocation of legal phenomena, the regulation of criminality, and the ways in which legal texts deploy literary conventions to advance the cause of justice.
1260 What Not to Wear: Reading Dress
3.0 credit hours
Students examine the various ways clothing rhetorically projects symbolism and power. Reading from a range of historical periods and genres, students focus on the ways texts use fashion to signal such fundamental issues as national identity, social distinction, religion, politics, and gender and the body.
1270 Reading Monsters
3.0 credit hours
Students examine the monstrous in literary imaginations and the marginal spaces – cultural, religious, political, racial, gendered – monsters inhabit. Students read texts in a range of historical contexts and genres in order to consider fundamental questions about the monstrous and the human, desire and horror, and image and text.
1280 Literature & the Arts
3.0 credit hours
Students consider the relation between literature and other art forms with a view to developing active habits of reading, watching, and listening. What does the translation of a poem or play into music or film teach us about how to practice creative interpretation in our own thinking and writing?
1284 Literature and Resistance
3.0 credit hours
Students examine literatures from around the world that enact forms of resistance. From political revolutions to protest movements, students explore the ways in which a range of texts (fiction, poetry, drama and film) creatively engage with issues of oppression, struggle and corruption.
1290 Literature and Violence
3.0 credit hours
Students are introduced to works of literature from a variety of cultural contexts and genres that engage with the dilemma of representing violence. The texts in the course explore how ethics and aesthetics interact to comment upon the capacity of literature to depict various forms of violence in often controversial ways.
1300 Word, Image and Power
3.0 credit hours
Students examine the power of words and images, and will improve their own communicative and analytic ability in writing and speaking. Topics include: memorable speeches delivered by leaders worldwide, examples from contemporary visual culture and the advertising industry, and ideas communicated across various media platforms.
2205 Practical Criticism
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
This course provides an introduction to the discipline of literary criticism through extensive exercises in the practical criticism of selected literary works. It is aimed at developing essential skills in close reading and a critical vocabulary with which to analyze and discuss literature, while sharpening students’ attentiveness to the way in which form and content contribute to meaning in a literary work.
2261 Postcolonial Literature: Africa, the Caribbean, and South Asia
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
This course introduces students to postcolonial writing in English from Africa, the Caribbean and South Asia. Authors to be studied may include Chinua Achebe, Buchi Emecheta, Shyam Selvadurai, Samuel Selvon, Jamaica Kincaid, Kamala Das and Anita Desai.
2262 Postcolonial Literature: America, Australia, and New Zealand
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
This course introduces students to postcolonial writing in English from America, Australia and New Zealand. Authors to be studied may include Eden Robinson, Sky Lee, Rudy Wiebe, Gerry Bostock, Jack Davis and Witi Ihimaera.
2301 Nineteenth Century Crime and Detective Fiction
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
This course considers the development of fiction of crime, mystery, and detection during the nineteenth century, a period in which this genre flourished. Authors to be studied include Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Wilkie Collins, Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens, Henry James, E. A. Poe, and R. L. Stevenson. Attention may also be given to relevant social developments, such as the rise of the police force, advances in criminology and detection, the typology and psychology of the criminal, the “lady detective,” white-collar crime and criminal networks, and the Victorian Underworld.
2302 Twentieth Century Crime and Detective Fiction
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
A study of major 20th Century stories of crime, mystery, and detection. Authors may include Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Sue Grafton.
2303 Fictions of Finance
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
This course examines the representation of money and finance in a range of genres – including fiction, drama, poetry, and film – and from a range of literary periods. Authors to be considered include William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Theodore Dreiser, George Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Arthur Miller, and Martin Amis. Topics to be addressed include narratives of financial success and failure, gambling and risk, the expansion of capitalism and the stock market, lotteries and auctions, fraud and financial crime, and hoarding and expenditure.
2307 Literary Traditions in English
6.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
This course examines literature written in English from Old English to the present with the goals of developing awareness of literary history and of exploring relationships between literature and its social and cultural contexts.
2308 Development of English Prose Style [LING 2308]
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
The course offers a close study of the lexical, syntactic and rhetorical choices in very short selections of prose writing from 1500 to the present. The passages will be studied in chronological order, with a view to observing developments in prose style in each period.
2310 Rethinking Rural America [ACST 2310/HIST 2310]
3.0 credit hours
Students assess the significance of America’s rural landscapes by developing an understanding of their complex representations and histories. By using materials and approaches from both history and literature, students explore the value of interdisciplinary research for generating new thinking about how the past can inform the future.
2311 Modern English Language [LING 2311]
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
The course will examine the nature of modern English semantics (meaning), syntax (‘wordings’), and morphology (word formation). Some attention is also paid to intonation (soundings). The course is presented using contemporary grammatical theories.
2312 Varieties of English
3.0 credit hours
Students investigate English regional and social dialects, and functional varieties adapted to different contexts and genres. Ideas about 'standard English', attitudes to English varieties, attention to their historical origins, and sources of stability and change in English will also be addressed.
2313 Narrative in Fiction and Film
6.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
A study of a number of important works of fiction that have been successfully adapted to film. Students consider the specific properties that are unique to each medium and the implications (formal, thematic, social and political) involved in translating from page to screen.
2314 Literary Legends: Don Juan
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisites: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
Students examine the mythical figure of Don Juan, the notorious seducer and trickster of Seville. Students track the complex evolution of this character through a rich medium of literary and cultural forms: drama, poetry, fiction, and philosophy, music, and film. The centerpiece of the course is Mozart’s magnificent opera Don Giovanni.
2315 Masterpieces of Western Literature (Pre-Renaissance)
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
An historical survey of the major works of Western civilization from classical Greece to the Renaissance.
2316 Masterpieces of Western Literature (Post-Renaissance)
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
An historical survey of the major works of Western civilization from the Renaissance to the 20th century.
2317 Literary Legends: Faust
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisites: Three (3) credit hours in English at the 1000-level
Students examine the mythical figure of Faust, the disgruntled professor who sells his soul to the Devil (Mephistopheles) in exchange for absolute power and knowledge. The history of Faust will be explored through a variety of representations in drama, poetry, fiction, music, opera, and film.
2318 The Writer and Nature
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
Ranging from 18th century meticulous observers of the natural world through the Romantic poets to modern writers who envision an apocalyptically threatened environment, this course seeks to trace the shifts in literary approaches to nature within different English-speaking traditions and to follow the changing perceptions of the place of the human being within the natural landscape.
2320 Writing by Women I [WMST 2320]
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
This course focuses on women’s literature from the middle ages to the end of the eighteenth century. It covers a variety of literary genres and examines some of the theoretical, historical, and practical concerns pertaining to women’s writing.
2321 Writing by Women II [WMST 2321]
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
This course focuses on literature from the nineteenth century to the present day. It covers a variety of literary genres and examines some of the theoretical, historical, and practical concerns pertaining to women’s writing.
2325 The Media in Everyday Life
3.0 credit hours
Students analyze media texts, environments, and practices encountered in everyday life, guided by longstanding debates about how media affects and reflects our imaginative conceptions of the world.
2326 Language and Gender [LING 2326]
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
This course examines the role of language in forming popular perceptions about the position of women and men in society. The topics include a comparison between English and other languages in matters of grammar, vocabulary, and semantics; a comparison between modern English and earlier stages; and an enquiry into the origin of authoritarian notions of correctness. The historical role of women as users and teachers of language is also considered. Present-day attitudes, implementation of non-sexist language guidelines, and the struggle to establish non-discriminatory language practices are also included in the study.
2327 The Bible and English Literature
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
A study of the influence of the Bible on English literature from Anglo-Saxon times to the present. Particular emphasis will be given to the King James Bible (1611). Some attention will be paid to the ancient context and literary forms of the Jewish and Christian scriptures and to recent theoretical approaches to the relationship of the Bible and literature.
2328 The Catholic Tradition in Modern British Literature
3.0 credit hours
This course begins with the nineteenth-century Catholic revival, with some attention to John Henry Newman and Gerard Manley Hopkins. The main focus is the twentieth-century Catholic novel, including Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, Muriel Spark, and David Lodge.
2341 Introduction to Drama I
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
This course is a survey of representative plays from ancient Greece to 1700.
2342 Introduction to Drama II
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
This course is a survey of representative plays from 1700 to the present.
2356 The Development of Science Fiction to the New Wave
3.0 credit hours
The course will explore visionary and speculative literature ranging from early nineteenth century speculative fictions up to and including the New Wave. Topics such as the following will be discussed: the influence of the classical writers M. Shelley, J. Verne, and H.G. Wells; the importance of the “pulp” magazines of the 1920s and 1930s and 1940s; Golden Age writers and writing; and the development of the New Wave movement.
2360 The Fantastic
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
This course will trace the rise of fantastic literature into a variety of modern cultural forms (novel, short story, graphic novel, film, gaming) and explore the ideologies it encodes. Examining how the fantastic filters the mythic, medieval and romantic, we will be in a position to speculate on how fantasy’s various manifestations both tie us to the past and reconstruct identity and society in the postmodern era.
2364 The Modern Novella
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
A course designed to introduce the student to a wide range of short novels which illustrate both the rich diversity and the fundamental unity of concern which characterize the modern imagination and cultural consciousness.
2380 Literature of Atlantic America [ACST 2380]
6.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level.
An examination of the literature and literary background of Atlantic America. Emphasis in the first semester is on the 19th and early 20th centuries; in the second semester it is on contemporary writing.
2391 The Study of Short Fiction
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
This course is designed to introduce students to short fiction as well as to the analytical concepts necessary for its critical appreciation and judgment.
2392 The Study of the Narrative
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
This course is designed to introduce students to the novel in English as well as to the analytical concepts necessary for its critical appreciation and judgment.
2393 The Study of Poetry
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
Students are introduced to methods and problems in poetics and the reading and analysis of English poetry for the purpose of preparing students for advanced work.
2461 Storytelling and Literature
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
Students are introduced to literature and oral storytelling tradition in order to examine how people and culture have endured, adapted and flourished. As the original inhabitants of the lands now known as America’s Maritime provinces, the peoples are the holders of a wealth of Indigenous knowledge. These stories, both oral and written, give evidence to the deep connections the have with this coastal land base, and exhibit their intimate knowledge of all creatures native to the area.
2463 Imagining the North in American Literature
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
Students engage in an interdisciplinary exploration of the representation of America as “true north” in literature and media. Beginning with Glenn Gould’s “The Idea of North” with emphasis on the mutual influence of the various genres through which Americans imagine the north, including drama, fiction, historiography, and poetry. The course includes selections of Inuit literature written in English.
2511 Reading Film
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level.
Students are introduced to the techniques, critical approaches and fundamentals of film language (sounc, mis-en-scène, cinematography, editing and narrative), used in the discipline of film studies to read, analyze, and interpret narrative films.
Classes 2 hours and Lab/Screening 2 hours.
2513 Introduction to Indigenous Literature
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
Students are introduced to contemporary Indigenous literatures of Turtle Island, in English, through writing by Indigenous peoples in America (First Nations, Inuit, and Métis) and Native Americans in the U.S. Through the lens of Indigenous worldview and intellectual ways of knowing, class discussion and analysis centers on social, political, historical, spiritual, and environmental issues with an eye towards decolonization.
2520 Irish Folklore [IRST 2520]
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
A comprehensive study of folklore in Ireland. All aspects of folklore will be examined, with special emphasis on the storytelling, song, and folk drama traditions.
2537 Ireland in Revolution, 1890-1922 [IRST 2537]
3.0 credit hours
Students study Irish literature and culture as a case study in anti-colonial revolution. Drawing on the works of Ireland’s major revolutionaries and writers, including Patrick Pearse, James Connolly, Constance Marklevicz, Lady Gregory, W.B. Yeats and James Joyce. Students examine how and why colonized peoples resist, and what the long-term effects of colonialsim, and its overthrow, might be.
2538 Postcolonial Ireland – 1922 – Present [IRST 2538]
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: ENGL 1205
Students study Irish literature and culture as a case study in the pitfalls of postcolonial independence. Students examine issues arising from the legacy of English colonial domination as well as the pre-eminence of Irish life, before and after independence, of the Catholic Church.
2800 - 2825 Special Author, Special Subject
6.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
The subject matter of particular courses will be announced from time to time. These courses are designed to examine authors and topics not dealt with in other 2000-level courses.
2826 - 2849 Special Author, Special Subject
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
The subject matter of particular courses will be announced from time to time. These special half-credit courses provide the opportunity to study a particular author or subject in depth and detail. They are designed to examine authors and topics not dealt with in other 2000-level courses or to allow for a different approach to the study of authors and/or topics already covered in other courses.
3302 Literary Theory I
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
This course provides an introduction to the major issues, figures, and theoretical approaches in the discipline of literary criticism. This section covers the ancients through to nineteenth-century writers.
3303 Literary Theory II
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
This course provides an introduction to the major issues, figures, and theoretical approaches in the discipline of literary criticism. This section covers twentieth century through to contemporary writers.
3310 Classical Literature [CLAS 3310]
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: 6 credit hours of CLAS or ENGL courses.
This course is a survey of the literature of ancient Greece and/or Rome in English translation. Course content will be organized either thematically, for example on women in Classical literature or metamorphosis, or by genre, for example on epic, tragedy, or comedy. The course is intended for students who have some background in Classics and/or Classical literature.
3330 Irish Shame [IRST 3330]
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: ENGL 1205
The history of Irish independence has been marked by endemic abuse of vulnerable communities, especially Irish women and children, but also travellers and, more recently, immigrants and asylum seekers. What has Irish literature had to say about these issues? How might we use literature to understand Ireland’s legacy of abuse?
3331 History of Children’s Literature
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
A survey of children’s literature to the end of the nineteenth century. The literature will be read and understood in its historical context. The emphasis will be on the works generally considered classics of children’s literature.
3343 Cultural Studies
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
This is an interdisciplinary course that explores culture and contexts within which culture is produced, disseminated, and consumed. The course introduces students to some of the basic cultural studies theories and methodologies, like psychoanalysis, economics, sociology, but also film and media studies, gay and lesbian theories, feminist, ethnic, and popular-culture studies.
3344 American Literature to 1920
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
An introduction to the drama, fiction, prose and poetry written in early American literary history emphasizing the colonial and post-Confederation periods.
3345 American Literature After 1920
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
An introduction to the drama, fiction, prose and poetry written in America since 1920 studied in critical and historical context.
3347 American Literature 1820-1865
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
A survey of major works of American literature from 1820 to the end of the Civil War. Authors may include Dickinson, Douglass, Emerson, Hawthorne, Melville, Thoreau, and Whitman. This course, along with American Literature 1865-1914, provides students with a sound historical understanding of this most formative period in American literature.
3348 American Literature 1865-1914
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
A survey of major works of American literature from 1865 to the eve of World War I. Authors may include Cather, Chopin, Crane, DuBois, Dreiser, James, London, Twain and Wharton. This course, along with American Literature 1865-1914, provides students with a sound historical understanding of this most formative period in American literature.
3349 Literature in English 1350-1500
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
This course provides an in-depth study of various aspects of late medieval English literature, excluding Chaucer. Readings may cover genres such as medieval romance, drama, hagiography and devotional prose as well as works by Langland, the Gawain poet, Lydgate, Malory, the Wakefield dramatist, and Julian of Norwich.
3351 American Fiction from 1950 to the Present
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
A study of American fiction since World War II. Authors to be studied are chosen partly because they interpret some important aspects of the American national experience during this period and partly because they raise basic questions about the aesthetics of fiction.
3361 World Literature in English: Selected Focus
3.0 credit hours
3367 Canlit: the 60s and 70s
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
A study of the emergence of “Canlit” in the 1960s and 1970s with emphasis on the development of cultural institutions. In addition to the literature produced in the period, including representative poems, plays, short stories and novels, the course will examine the influence of thematic criticism, regionalism, and nationalism on the creation of American canons.
3375 Writing Fiction I
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
Additional prerequisite: submission of samples of writing prior to registration and permission of Creative Writing Coordinator.
A course in the many techniques, skills, goals and problems in writing fiction. The emphasis is on analyzing student stories in workshops, but lectures and writing exercises may also be included.
3376 Writing Fiction II
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
Additional prerequisite: submission of samples of writing prior to registration and permission of Creative Writing Coordinator.
This course encourages students to experiment with literary techniques and to develop their own writing style. Students will participate in workshops, read widely in the genre of the short story and be encouraged to rethink and revise their own fiction.
3381 Writing Poetry
6.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
Additional prerequisite: submission of samples of writing prior to registration and permission of Creative Writing Coordinator.
This course provides students with an opportunity to write and workshop their own poetry. The great range of choices available to poets in terms of form, rhythm, voice and diction will be explored. The emphasis will be on student submissions, but the work of published poets will also be discussed.
3382 Writing Plays
6.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
Additional prerequisite: submission of samples of writing prior to registration and permission of Creative Writing Coordinator.
This course provides students with the opportunity to write and workshop their own plays. The literary aspects of drama, as well as its practical and production aspects, will be explored. Though the course focuses on student efforts, the works of classic and contemporary playwrights may also be discussed.
3383 Writing Prose - Non-Fiction
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
Additional prerequisite: submission of samples of writing prior to registration and permission of Creative Writing Coordinator.
A creative writing course dealing with such forms of prose as travel literature, essays, reviews, memoirs, biographies, and journals. Students will experiment with various forms and critique each other’s efforts in a workshop format. Published examples of non-fiction prose will be read and discussed.
3402 History of the English Language [LING 3402]
6.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
A survey of the development of the English language from its earliest stages to the present. Representative texts are used from each period so that students can acquire first-hand knowledge of the successive changes in grammar (syntax, morphology, and phonology) and vocabulary.
3404 The Canterbury Tales
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: 6 credits of ENGL
This course is an introduction to the poet Geoffrey Chaucer with a detailed study of The Canterbury Tales. The focus will be on reading Chaucer’s work in Middle English and on the literary, social and historical context in which it was produced. Students are not required to have any prior knowledge of Middle English.
3405 Chaucer: Troilus and Criseyde
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisites: Six (6) credit hours of ENGL
This course is an introduction to the poet Geoffrey Chaucer with a detailed studyof Troilus and Criseyde. The focus will be on reading Chaucer's poetry in Middle English and on the literary, social and historical context in which it was produced.
Note: This course will be offered in rotation with ENGL 3404; please see the department handbook for offerings year-to-year. Students are not required to have any prior knowledge of Middle English.
3406 Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisites: Six (6) credit hours of ENGL
Students examines the tradition of Arthurian literature and its pervasiveness during the middle ages in Western Europe, including themes such as chivalry, courtly love, imperialism and the grail quest. The focus is on medieval versions of Arthurian legends but will also take up their adaptability to revisionist viewpoints of different periods and genres. Students are not required to have any prior knowledge of Middle English.
3408 Drama and Society - Restoration to 18th Century
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
This course gives particular attention to the comedy of manners and its principal exponents such as Etherege, Wycherley, Congreve and Sheridan. Also studied are sentimental comedy, heroic and domestic tragedy, and the ballad opera, as well as the way social and political development affected the theatre.
3409 Drama and Society in the 19th Century
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000 level
Students study drama and theatre in the Romantic era in relation to changing political and social conditions. Topics covered include, melodrama, the influence of the actormanagers and the move towards realism, and the impact of European drama, particularly by Ibsen, on Shaw, Pinero and other British dramatists.
3410 Early 18th-Century Literature
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisites: Three (3) credit hours in English at the 1000-level
Students examine English literature written during the Restoration period and early eighteenth century, with a focus on poetry and prose. Works by authors such as John Dryden, Anne Finch, Samuel Pepys, Alexander Pope, and Jonathan Swift are studied.
3411 Late 18th-Century Literature
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisites: Three (3) credit hours in English at the 1000-level
Students examine English literature written during the late eighteenth century, with a focus on poetry and prose. Works by authors such as Edmund Burke, Frances Burney, William Cowper, Thomas Gray, and Samuel Johnson are studied.
3412 Restoration and 18th Century Literature
6.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
This course focuses on the various forms of English poetry and prose between 1660 and 1800. It includes poets such as Dryden, Finch, Pope, and Gray, and writers of prose such as Swift, Johnson, Burney and Boswell.
3415 The Eighteenth-Century Novel
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisites: Three (3) credit hours in English at the 1000-level
Students examine the development of the English novel in the eighteenth century. Works by authors such as Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, Ann Radcliffe, and Jane Austen are studied.
3416 The Romantic Movement
6.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
This course studies the origins and development of the English Romantic movement. Major emphasis will be placed on the works of Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats and Byron.
3419 English Poetry and Prose of the 16th Century
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: twelve (12) credit hours in ENGL at the 2000-level or above.
The course focuses on English poetry and prose written in the 16th century, and on the cultural and social context within which this literature was produced. Some writers that may be studied include More, Wyatt, Surrey, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Lyly, Sidney, Spenser, Nashe, Whitney, Layer, Stuart and Queen Elizabeth I.
3421 English Poetry and Prose of the 17th Century
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: twelve (12) credit hours in ENGL at the 2000-level or above.
The course focuses on English poetry and prose written in the 17th century, and on the cultural and social context within which this literature was produced. Some of the writers that may be studied include Donne, Jonson, Marvell, Milton, Traherne, Herbert, Dryden, Florio, Bacon, Burton, Browne, Speght and Wroth.
3428 20th Century Poetry
6.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
A study of 20th century poetry in English. British, American and American poetry of the Modernist period and the post-World War II period is given special emphasis.
3429 American Literature 1914-1950
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
A study of American literature from the turn of the twentieth century until just after the Second World War. Writers studied may include Willa Cather, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Wallace Stevens and Langston Hughes. Topics covered include the First World War and its aftermath, the Harlem Renaissance, and the Great Depression.
3435 20th Century European Drama
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
A study of the principal European dramatists and theatre movements in the present century with emphasis on the ones that have most influenced drama written in English. Reference is made to works by such dramatists as Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, Pirandello, Brecht, Beckett and Ionesco.
3437 American Drama
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
A course in American drama and theatre history with an emphasis on audience and performance using collaborative and collective study methods. The course covers published plays, radio and television drama, and live performance.
3444 Shakespeare I
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
The subject of this course is Shakespeare’s comedies and romances.
3445 Shakespeare II
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
The subject of this course is Shakespeare’s history plays and problem plays.
3446 Shakespeare III
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
The subject of this course is Shakespeare’s tragedies.
3447 Shakespeare’s Contemporaries
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
This course studies selected plays by such writers as Kyd, Marlowe, Dekker, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Webster, Middleton, Marston, and Heywood.
3448 Irish Poetry and the Problem of Sex, 1890 – Present [IRST 3448]
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: ENGL 1205
Drawing on the theoretical work of Michel Foucault, as well as queer theory and psychoanalysis, students use Irish poetry, from W.B. Yeats to Paula Meehan, as a lens to study the ways Irish writers have resisted and reframed offical discourses about Irish sex and sexualities.
3451 British Drama since 1956
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
The “overnight revolution” in British Theatre in 1956 produced successive waves of outstanding dramatists who will be studied in the course, including Osborne, Pinter, Arden, Bond, Stoppard, Ayckbourn and Shaffer. The work of three major companies which helped to promote them, the Royal Court Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre Company, will also be featured.
3453 Irish Drama in the 20th Century [IRST 3453]
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
This course studies Irish drama from the founding of the Irish National Theatre society in 1903 up to the present time, including the works of Yeats, Hyde, Lady Gregory, Synge, Shaw, O’Casey, and Beckett.
3458 History and Theory of the Novel I
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
This course will serve as an introduction to the critical reading of the novel. We will study the historical, cultural, and philosophical climate that allowed for the emergence of the novel in the eighteenth century and will track the changes in narrative style, and the implications of these changes, from realism to modernism to postmodernism to post-colonialism. History and Theory of the Novel I will consider the novel in the eighteenth and nineteenth century.
3459 History and Theory of the Novel II
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
This course will serve as an introduction to the critical reading of the novel. We will study the historical, cultural, and philosophical climate that allowed for the emergence of the novel in the eighteenth century and will track the changes in narrative style, and the implications of these changes, from realism to modernism to postmodernism to post-colonialism. History and Theory of the Novel II will consider the novel from the twentieth century to the contemporary period.
3460 British Literature, 1900 - 1945
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
The course surveys British literature from the beginning of the twentieth century to the end of the Second World War, and includes works of poetry, prose, fiction, and drama. Attention will be paid to the social, cultural, and historical contexts of the literature, with reference to such major events as the two world wars and the depression. Authors studied may include George Bernard Shaw, Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, T.S. Eliot, Graham Greene, and W.H. Auden.
3461 British Literature, 1945 - 2000
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
The course surveys British literature from the end of the second world war to the conclusion of the twentieth century, and includes works of poetry, prose, fiction, and drama. Attention will be paid to the social, cultural, and historical contexts of the literature, with reference to topics such as the end of the British empire, the cold war and its aftermath, and the increasing importance of the electronic media. Authors studied may include Doris Lessing, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes, Harold Pinter, Margaret Drabble, and Ian McEwan.
3462 Post-1945 Black British Writing
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000 level
Students are introduced to post-1945 black British and Caribbean literatures. Through the work of key thinkers read alongside a selection of generically diverse texts (fiction, film, poetry), students will examine the historical, political, and aesthetic debates that have shaped the field of Black British studies. Writers and filmmakers investigated may include: Sam Selvon, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Hanif Kureishi, Bernardine Evaristo, Caryl Phillips, Zadie Smith, John Akomfrah, and the Black Audio Film Collective.
3463 Contemporary British Writing
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000 level
Students examine a range of literary production (fiction, poetry, drama and film), and explore the political and aesthetic debates that shape twenty-first-century British literature and culture. Critical debates and issues investigated might include: transnational and cosmopolitan identities; national identities in the context of devolution and the European Union; realism and its aesthetic limits; technology, science and ecological futures; religious fundamentalism and terrorism; reinventions of historical, speculative and crime genres.
3470 The Contemporary Novel
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisites: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
From apocalyptic preoccupations, to environmental catastrophe, to mobile populations, to late capitalism and neo-liberalism, to questions of the non-human rights discourse, to the impact of globalization on literature and the understanding of the literary, this course will track the concerns and form of twentieth-first century novel in the first decades. Novelists might include: Chan Koonchung; Cormac McCarthy; Kazuo Ishiguro, Chika Unigwe, Aravind Adiga, Margaret Atwood, Amitav Ghosh.
3471 Contemporary American Fiction
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
An advanced course in American fiction produced in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s that gives students an opportunity to consider selected novels and short stories in some depth. Texts are considered within the context of American literary criticism, history, and theory.
3472 Contemporary American Poetry
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
An advanced course that considers questions of genre and form in American poetry after 1965. Selected collections of poetry are studied within the context of American literary criticism, history, and theory. Specific topics covered include the long poem, the lyric and visual poetry.
3481 The Nineteenth Century British Novel I
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
Students study the British novel in the first half of the nineteenth century, focusing on writers such as Jane Austen, Emily Brontë, Charlotte Brontë, William Makepeace Thackeray, Eliabeth Gaskell, the early Charles Dickens and George Eliot. Attention will be paid to the style and narrative technique of the novels studied, to their place in the cultural history of the period, and to their relationship to their social and historical contexts.
3482 The Nineteenth Century British Novel II
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
Students study the British novel from the mid-Victorian period to the fin-de-siècle, focusing on writers such as the later Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Arthur Conan Doyle, R.L. Stevenson, Oscar Wilde and Henry James. Attention will be paid to the style and narrative technique of the novels studied, to their place in the cultural history of the period, and to their relationship to their social and historical contexts.
3483 Victorian Poetry and Prose I
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
This course focuses on the poetry and prose of the early Victorian period, including poets such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and prose writers such as Thomas Carlyle and John Stuart Mill. Attention will be paid to the way that Victorian poetry develops out of the Romantic Movement, and to the relationship between literature and the political and social context, focusing on topics like reform and the industrial revolution.
3484 Victorian Poetry and Prose II
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
This course focuses on the poetry and prose of the later Victorian period, including poets such as Matthew Arnold, Christina Rossetti, and Gerard Manley Hopkins, and prose writers such as John Henry Newman, Charles Darwin, Matthew Arnold, Walter Pater, and Oscar Wilde. Attention will be paid to the aesthetic movement, the definition of culture, and the crisis of religious faith.
3500 Contemporary American Irish Prose [IRST 3500]
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: six (6) credit hours in ENGL, IRST or HIST
This course examines the work of American authors who have drawn on Ireland, Irish themes or the Irish in America in their writings, and the work of Irish-born authors living in America whose works contain significant American content. Following an overview of the range of earlier American Irish writings, students will read and discuss a selection of recent fiction and non-fiction texts by authors such as Charles Foran, Jane Urquhart, Brian Moore, Emma Donoghue, Peter Behrens and John Moss.
3511 Film and the City
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 2000-level
Students will explore material and conceptual connections between film and the city–two of the most pervasive influences on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Guided by key theorists of city space and cinema, students will pursue textual analysis of films that articulate social, cultural, spatial, and temporal concerns representative of urban lived experiences.
Classes 2 hours and Lab/Screening 2 hours.
3512 Contemporary American Film and Television
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 2000-level
Students will critique foundational concepts, policies, and practices considered important to contemporary American film and television since 1980, through the discussion and analysis of film and television texts.
Classes 2 hours and Lab/Screening 2 hours.
3518 American Nature Writing
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: 9 credit hours in English at the 2000-level or above.
A course in the wide variety of "nature writing" by American authors, including poetry, narrative and descriptive non-fiction (wilderness writings, agricultural accounts, naturalists’ essays), and prose of environmental and ecological concern. Authors studied could range from Mi'kmaw story-tellers, Harry Thurston, and Don McKay to Mina Hubbard, Don Gayton, and Sharon Butala.
3521 North American Indigenous Literature: United States
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000 level
Students are introduced to the literature of the Indigenous peoples of North America. Beginning with the oral creationary stories and moving into written works from the 19th–21st centuries, students examine the distinct styles and central themes found in contemporary writing by Native authors in the United States. Students are expected to identify the unique complexities that emerge in the literature, such as issues of voice, gender, experience, critical theory, racism, Indigenous intellectualism, and identity.
3522 North American Indigenous Literature: America
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000 level
Students study the works by First Nation, Inuit and Metis writers in America, and examine the issues of colonialism, voice, resistance and empowerment, as well as culture, spirituality and intellectual tradition as key themes. Along with exploring the familiar genres of Western writing – autobiography, poetry, short stories, drama, and the novel students address unique approaches to literature as developed by the authors, as well as critical approaches that originate from Indigenous communities.
3791 Literatures of the Black Atlantic [ACST 3791]
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisites: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000 level
Students examine transnational literatures from African, Caribbean, European and North American contexts with a focus on the multidirectional networks and the distinctive poetics of water that constitute the historical and literary formation of the black Atlantic. Writers examined may include; Olaudah Equiano, Phillis Wheatley, Claude McKay, James Baldwin, Derek Walcott, Dionne Brand, Lawrence Hill, Bernardine Evaristo and Caryl Phillips.
3800 - 3825 Special Author, Special Subject
6.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
The subject matter of particular courses will be announced from time to time. These courses are designed to examine at an advanced level authors and topics not dealt with in other 3000-level courses.
3826 - 3849 Special Author, Special Subject
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
The subject matter of particular courses will be announced from time to time. These special half-credit courses provide the opportunity to study a particular author or subject in depth and detail. They are designed to examine at an advanced level authors and topics not dealt with in other 3000-level courses or to allow for a different approach to the study of authors and/or topics already covered in other courses.
STUDENTS SHOULD NORMALLY HAVE COMPLETED NINE (9) CREDIT HOURS IN ENGLISH AT THE 2000 OR 3000 LEVEL BEFORE TAKING 4000 LEVEL ENGLISH COURSES.
4405 Advanced Studies in Medieval Literature
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: One of ENGL 3404, 3405, 3406, or permission of the instructor.
The emphasis in this course may include Theories of Authorship and Reading, Urban Literature, or the Heroic and the Monstrous. Readings may cover genres such as medieval romance, drama, or hagiography as well as works by Langland, Gower, Lydgate, Hoccleve, the Wakefield dramatist, and Julian of Norwich.
4417 Feminist Literary Theory [WMST 4417]
3.0 credit hours
This course will engage students in a study of feminist literary theory. Some of the most influential theorists in this area will be analyzed as well as the dominant cultural systems to which they have responded. Students will not be required to have any prior knowledge of the field.
4422 Studies in Renaissance Love Poetry
3.0 credit hours
The course focuses on a representative selection of Renaissance love poetry in its cultural, social and philosophical contexts. It examines the poetic strategies used to explore the meaning and value of love in its relation to sexuality and gender. Special attention will be given to the sonnet form, its relationship to the courtly love tradition and the cult of the "Virgin Queen," Elizabeth I, but other poetic genres will be studied as well. Intellectual and thematic contexts will be constructed from various classical and Italian texts, such as Plato's -Symposium-, the poems of Catullus and Sappho and Petrarch's sonnets. Writers studied may include Wyatt, Sidney, Spenser, Marlowe, Cavendish, Wroth, and Marvell.
4423 John Donne and the Literary Traditions of the Renaissance
3.0 credit hours
This course will focus on the work of John Donne, an influential early 17th c. English writer, the founder of the so-called "metaphysical" school of style. Through his work, students will become acquainted with various social and cultural contexts of the Renaissance. Readings will include selections from Donne's devotional and love poems, elegies, verse epistles, sermons and other prose. Also, Donne's work will be compared to the work of other Renaissance writers, and placed within the context of the European Baroque, as represented in visual art and literature.
4424 Renaissance Literature: Advanced Study
3.0 credit hours
The subject of the course will vary from year to year. It allows the opportunity to explore an aspect of Renaissance literature in more depth than is possible in other courses. The following are some examples of possible topics: a single major author or group of authors from the period (e.g. Spenser, Bacon, More); a literary movement or form (e.g. the Metaphysical school of poetry; the Cavalier school of poetry; the epic; the sermon; a social or cultural issue (e.g. "the woman issue"; literature and the institution of the Elizabethan or Jacobean Court); or a close study of one of the major literary works of Renaissance era (The Faerie Queene ,Paradise Lost,The Anatomy of Melancholy).
4425 Advanced Studies in 18th - Century and Romantic Literature
3.0 credit hours
This course explores an aspect of Eighteenth-Century or Romantic literature in more depth than is possible in other courses. The following are examples of possible topics: a single major author or group of authors from either or both periods (e.g. Dryden, Pope, Blake, Hemans); a literary movement or form (e.g. verse satire or the literature of sensibility); a social or cultural issue (e.g. Romanticism as a reaction to Enlightenment, secularization); or close study of a major work (e.g. "The Prelude") or of work in a narrowly-defined historical period (e.g. the 1790s poetry of rebellion).
4426 Advanced Studies in American Literature
3.0 credit hours
Students study a particular author, genre, theme, and/or movement in American Literature intensively. While the topics will vary, the course highlights the literature, cultural, and material conditions in which American literature is produced and received.
4427 Language, Gender and Power [LING 3427; WMST 4427]
3.0 credit hours
This course examines the role of language and its use in constructing and negotiating social positions of men and women and by men and women. It compares discourse strategies used by powerful/powerless speakers and gender-associated discourse strategies. It examines dialect and generic features used in constructing and maintaining social identities and differences.
4431 The Modern Irish Novel [IRST 4431]
3.0 credit hours
This course will involve a study of the modern Irish novel, placing each work in its social and cultural context. It may include works by James Joyce, Elizabeth Bowen and/or Samuel Beckett, as well as a selection of contemporary novels by writers like Anne Enright and John Banville.
4441 The Irish Short Story [IRST 4441]
3.0 credit hours
This course will examine the short story as a major form in the fiction (in English) of Ireland, tracing its development from the Irish folktale to the sophisticated modern stories of internationally read practitioners such as Joyce, O’Connor, O’Faolain and Lavin.
4455 The Modern Novel
3.0 credit hours
A close critical analysis of representative works of a number of prominent late 19th and 20th century novelists in the light of certain literary, cultural, socio-political and philosophic tendencies which have exercised a decisive influence in the formation of the modern imagination.
4456 The Postmodern Novel
3.0 credit hours
This course focuses on some of the major novelists of the second half of the twentieth century in the context of the cultural and political climate that has given rise to this fiction and the term postmodernism.
4457 Advanced Studies in American Literature
3.0 credit hours
This advanced course in American literature offers intensive treatment of authors, genres, and themes addressed at the intermediate level. Possible topics in the course may include: (1) intensive study of single authors in relation to historical trends in literary criticism (‘reception history’); (2) intensive exploration of particular currents in the development of a specific genres; (3) concept-based courses; or (4) broad-based ‘cultural studies’ approaches to American literature.
4464 Postcolonial Literature: Special Topics
3.0 credit hours
This course examines the literatures of specific postcolonial regions. These regions may include America, the Caribbean, Africa, New Zealand, Australia and South Asia.
4465 Indigenous Literature Seminar
3.0 credit hours
In addition to studying theories of race and indigeneity, students explore representative works by Indigenous authors in depth and to conduct original research on Indigenous literatures. Students explore the continuity of oral and written traditions in the literary, cultural, and material contexts in which the literature is written, spoken, and read.
4466 Representations of Indigenous Womanhood
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisites: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level
Students explore writings and cultural productions (including biography, fiction, poetry, theater, media, and film) by and about Indigenous women of North America. This group has experienced oppression and dislocation from land, communities, spirituality, and traditional roles as a result of European colonization. Students examine how such dislocations and acts of oppression arose from creation and perpetuation within colonizer literature and media productions of inaccurate and stereotypical images.
4470 The Rise and Fall of the Printed Book
3.0 credit hours
This course focuses on the history of the printed book and examines the phenomenon of mass literacy and its implications in the development of different types of literature.
4475 Writing Fiction – Advanced
6.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: written permission of Creative Writing Coordinator.
A course designed for students with some experience in writing fiction. Many aspects of the writer’s craft, from the germination of a story to the polishing of a final draft, will be explored in workshops. Students who have not completed either ENGL 3375 or 3376 will be asked to submit a sample portfolio of their work before registration.
4477 Writing Poetry (Advanced)
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: ENGL 3381 or, prior to registration, submission of portfolio to creative writing coordinator.
An advanced creative writing course, which provides students with opportunities to develop their craft beyond its beginning stages and to have their poems discussed in workshops. The course may include emphasis on poem sequences, long poems, and poets’ poetics, including their prose commentaries on subjects ranging from sources of inspiration to arguments about technique.
4485 Victorian Literature – Advanced Study
3.0 credit hours
The subject of the course will vary from year to year. It allows the opportunity to explore an aspect of Victorian literature in more depth than is possible in other courses. The following are some examples of possible topics: a single major author or group of authors from the period (e.g., Charles Dickens or the Brontës); a literary movement or form (e.g., the aesthetic movement or the sensation novel); a social or cultural issue (e.g., the “woman question” or industrialism in literature); or the literature of a narrowly defined historical period (e.g., the novel in the 1840’s or the literature of the fin de siècle).
4488 The Post-1945 British Novel
3.0 credit hours
Students examine the British novel from the end of the Second World War to the late twentieth century. Topics covered include realism, postmodernism, and the emergence of new female and postcolonial voices. Writers studied may include Muriel Spark, John Fowles, David Lodge, and V.S. Naipaul.
4493 Doing Discourse Analysis [LING 4493]
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: At least twelve (12) credit hours in English or Linguistics (or permission of the instructor)
The focus is on learning how to do discourse analysis. We will focus on developing skills in the analysis of talk and text using models drawn from linguistics, structuralism and semiotics. The course will explicitly develop skills in analyzing discourse functions as configurations of interaction, experience and organization meaning.
4494 Approaches to Discourse Analysis [LING 4494]
3.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: At least twelve (12) credit hours in English or Linguistics (or permission of the instructor)
Linguistic, structural, post-structural, and semiotic perspectives on discourse analysis are addressed through reading and discussion of key works by authors of “landmark” texts such as R. Jakobsen, J. L. Austen, H. P. Grice, etc. The goals of the course are to (a) familiarize students with some of the “landmark” texts and perspectives on discourse analysis and (b) to develop abilities to develop abilities to relate analyses to cultural and situationally relevant contexts.
4511 Collective Memory and Visual Culture
3.0 credit hours
This advanced seminar examines how visual artifacts record, organize, and build narratives and cultures of collective memory (for example, that of nations, regions, and identities). The seminar will include field trips to local places of memory (memorials, museums, and archives), city walks of Halifax in the tradition of the Surrealists and Situationists, the study of home movies and documentary film, national television, and digital image memory archives such as blogs, YouTube, and Flickr.
4552 Honours Seminar
6.0 credit hours
Topics chosen will be of a general nature in order to permit the representation of a diversity of historical periods, genres, and the various literary traditions of the English-speaking world. Students will be required to present papers on aspects of the chosen topic and members of the Department of English Language and Literature will conduct seminars in their areas of expertise.
4555 – 4556 Honours Seminar
3.0 credit hours
Topics chosen will be of a general nature in order to permit the representation of a diversity of historical periods, genres, and the various literary traditions of the English-speaking world. Students will be required to present papers on aspects of the chosen topic and members of the Department of English Language and Literature will conduct seminars in their areas of expertise.
4800 – 4825 Special Author, Special Subject
6.0 credit hours
Prerequisite: enrolment in the English honours program or special recommendation of the Department.
These courses provide the opportunity to study a particular author in considerable depth and detail, and requires some measure of independence and initiative in the student.
Tutorials by arrangement with supervisor. 2 semesters.
4826 - 4849 Special Author, Special Subject
3.0 credit hours
These courses provide the opportunity to study a particular author, subject, or period in considerable depth and detail and will require some measure of independence and initiative in the student.