100 Level English

Courses in English at the 100 level offer an introduction to study in English while also satisfying degree requirements for writing-intensive courses in faculties across the ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥. ENGL 102 and 103, the courses most students will take, offer opportunities to engage with a diverse range of literary materials and to begin to learn and practice the interpretive skills, investigative approaches, and research methods focal to English Studies as a discipline. ENGL 125 offers comparable opportunities with specific reference to Indigenous literatures. ENGL 199, available only to Engineering students, concentrates on fostering skills in critical thinking and effective expression.

ENGL 103 topics and descriptions will be posted as instructors are assigned; due to budgetary timelines this may take until April 30 or beyond.

Important Registration Info

Please consult the University Calendar for , not all of which are offered in a given year. Our department also offers Film Studies and Creative Writing courses.

Below are our course offerings for the current and previous terms:

ENGL 102 - Introduction to Critical Analysis

How does critical analysis matter to reading and understanding literature, broadly conceived? In this course, we will explore methods of critical analysis through a wide range of texts from different historical periods and cultural locations. In studying language, literature, and culture, students may encounter a diversity of print texts and other media. Students will also develop their abilities to communicate original, evidence-based interpretations of texts in a variety of forms, including writing and oral discussions.
Note: ENGL 102 does not need to be taken before ENGL 103


ENGL 103 - Case Studies in Research

How does research matter to reading and understanding literature, broadly conceived? In this course, we will pursue literary research through one or more case studies in literature, print texts, and/or other media and their effects. Research helps us to understand texts in particular locations, histories, contexts, and debates. Students can expect to learn about, and put into practice, the stages in a research process, from identifying a research question or problem, to finding and evaluating useful supplementary materials, and learning about how to place their ideas in conversation with the knowledge they build from research. Note: Before registering, students should check Bear Tracks and the Department of English and Film Studies website for specific section subtitles/focus.

Note: ENGL 102 does not need to be taken before ENGL 103

Note: ENGL 103 is a variable content course. Please see below: 

ENGL 103 topics and descriptions will be posted as instructors are assigned; due to budgetary timelines this may take until April 30 or beyond.

ENGL 103 Spring 2025 Section Titles

ENGL 103 LEC A01: Fantasy and Reality: Conversations and Contestations
L. Robertson
The specific focus of this section will be on texts that explore and inhabit the complicated and shifting boundary between fantasy and reality. What are fantasy and myth for? What is the relationship between the realistic and the fantastical or the mythical? What are the moral and ethical issues at stake in the realistic and in the fantastical or the mythical? What purposes does each serve, in our lives and in the stories we tell? Through a variety of texts—including genres like the fairy tale, historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction, and horror—written across a wide period of time, from the sixteenth century to the present, we will examine how and to what purposes different writers have used fantasy and the mythic in their work.

ENGL 103 LEC A02: Technology, Utopia, and Dystopia
M. Snyder

ENGL 103 LEC A03: Witches and Witchcraft
J. Millard
In “The Witch as a Category and as a Person” from his book Critique of Identity Thinking Michael Jackson explains that the stereotypical witch encompasses “notions of deviance, resentment, wildness, and sickness”(43) such that they are the “dialectical inversion … moral personhood”(50). Thus representations of witches in literature inevitably focus on the relationship between the individual and structures of social order, particularly as they relate to religious order, moral justice, and prescriptive gendered behavior.
This course is thematically organized around texts that represent witches in ways that interrogate these aspects of social organization. Unlike RELIG 274, this course does not approach witchcraft within a specifically religious framework; rather the study of witches is merely employed as a focal point to study literary conventions and attendant cultural motifs across various genres and time periods.

ENGL 103 LEC A04: Twenty-First Century Fantasy Fiction
K. Pabst

ENGL 103 LEC A05: Graphic Literature: Representation Through Images and Texts
D. Woodman
Most people are aware of comics – from the comic strips to comic books sold in grocery stores and comic bookstores. However, there is so much more. The field of graphic literature encompasses a vast range of topics, themes, genres, and styles. In this course, we’ll explore a diverse array of contemporary graphic literature by North American/Turtle Island creators that participate in social and cultural discourses and challenge conventional ideas about representation and interpretation.
Course texts will include: Abdelrazaq’s Baddawi, Butler, Duffy, and Jennings’ Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel, King and Donovan’s Borders: A Graphic Novel, Martini and Martini’s Bitter Medicine, and Som’s Spellbound: A Graphic Memoir.

ENGL 103 LEC A06: Contemporary Adaptations of Classic Fairy Tales 
A. Daignault
In this course, we will explore how and why contemporary authors remain fascinated by the stories, structures, characters, and patterns inherent to classic fairy tales, adapting them into new texts of all genres, and lengths, and with myriad preoccupations, themes, and ideas. In the first part of the semester, we will use classic fairy tales as an anchor point to develop skills that are foundational to the research process, and a base of shared knowledge about the fairy tale genre. In this section of the course, students can expect to read a variety of short texts, and to complete focused assignments and workshops related to those texts. This part of the course will feature open exploration and discussion of fairy tales, and direct instruction on skills that are necessary to the research and writing process. In the second part of the semester, each student will design, research and write a research essay about a particular aspect of a contemporary adaptation of one of the fairy tales we have studied. During this period, there will be less direct instruction and more in-class writing and self-directed work on final projects.

ENGL 103 LEC A10: Heroes and Villains!
M. Kausman
Who gets to be a hero? More curiously, who gets to be a superhero? In this course we will investigate the social and political resonances of “heroes” and “villains” in Canadian and Western popular culture. In addition to thinking critically about what kinds of people get to be heroes and superheroes, students will develop their research skills in order to better understand how the Western superhero figure reproduces hierarchies of race, sex, ability, and class; what we understand to be the material conditions of villainy; and, ultimately, how despite opening up the category of the “hero” to previously marginalized subjects, villains continue to serve as a socially acceptable repository for oppressive discourses.

ENGL 103 LEC X01: Resistance Literature
O. Olutola
This section of ENGL 103 examines the themes of resistance in literature. Using relevant literary texts and essays, the course guides students to investigate a writer’s use of literature as a commentary on and a tool to challenge the status quo and an imposed identity, including class, gender, racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic oppression. In the end, students will develop a well-informed understanding of scholarly research and can identify, investigate, and critique the representations of resistance in a literary text.
To shape and enhance students’ understanding of resistance literature and library research, this course aims to focus on core literary titles such as:

  • Representations of resistance in literary texts
  • Forms/nature of resistance in literature
  • Literature as a form of protest
  • Historical/cultural/political context of resistance in literary texts
ENGL 103 Summer 2025 Section Titles

ENGL 103 LEC B01
C. Scott

ENGL 103 LEC B02: Habitat Studies
R. Costa
What is our relationship with the habitat and the lands we inhabit? Which species inhabit the same spaces and places as we do? What is our relationship with these species? In this course, you will learn about habitat studies: a framework of methods and field studies within Canadian ecocriticism and literary ecology, developed by Laurie Ricou and Sarah Krotz. Students will engage with texts and media related to the North Saskatchewan River Valley and its species, before choosing one of these species to pursue and research in the academic context of ecocritical studies. Due to time constraints and instructional limitations, this course will focus exclusively on bird species rather than the entire realm of the fauna and flora of the River Valley. Assignments will include five weekly field reports documenting the student’s research process (max. 500 words) and two full papers (max. 1500 words).

ENGL 103 LEC B03: Curious Cities: Researching Joyce’s Dubliners and Literary Histories
M. Kashani
In this section, we will explore James Joyce’s Dubliners as a politically significant literary text, delving into its historical, social, and urban contexts. We try to read and research urban spaces in the formation of political consciousness. This course aims to demonstrate how research into these areas enhances our understanding of the text and how research into literature reflects and shapes evolving cultural realities—especially those related to nation, culture, and history. Zora Neale Hurston once described “research” as “formalized curiosity… poking and prying with a purpose”; this course will harness that curiosity, developing skills to rigorously analyze and engage with texts creatively. Research aids in understanding texts within their specific locations, histories, contexts, and debates. Students will learn and practice each stage of the research process, from formulating a research question to finding and evaluating supplementary materials and integrating their insights with acquired knowledge from research.

ENGL 103 LEC B10: Case Studies in Detective Fiction
N. Barnholden
This course will introduce students to literary analysis at the university level through exploring a variety of fictional texts centering on the figure of the detective.

ENGL 103 Fall 2025 Section Titles

ENGL 103 LEC 800
Instructor TBA

ENGL 103 LEC 801: Graphic Literature: Representation Through Images and Texts
D. Woodman
Most people are aware of comics – from the comic strips to comic books sold in grocery stores and comic bookstores. However, there is so much more. The field of graphic literature encompasses a vast range of topics, themes, genres, and styles. In this course, we’ll explore a diverse array of contemporary graphic literature by North American/Turtle Island creators that participate in social and cultural discourses and challenge conventional ideas about representation and interpretation.
Course texts will include: Abdelrazaq’s Baddawi, Butler, Duffy, and Jennings’ Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel, King and Donovan’s Borders: A Graphic Novel, Martini and Martini’s Bitter Medicine, and Som’s Spellbound: A Graphic Memoir.

ENGL 103 LEC A01
Instructor TBA

ENGL 103 LEC A02
Instructor TBA

ENGL 103 LEC A03
W. DeFehr

ENGL 103 LEC A04: Human Creativity in Research
J. Quist
This class is focused on creativity and innovation in the research process, emphasizing the kinds of inquiry and inspiration of which only humans are capable. To techniques of Literary Studies such as library searches and critical reading and writing this course adds Cultural Studies and Creative Writing methods of in-person, in-public experiential learning and sharing. Texts related to the creative processes of writers and thinkers will be examined, interrogated, and experimented with as students conduct their own literary research and grow in creative competence and confidence.

ENGL 103 LEC A05: Doppelgangers and Alter Egos
L. Schechter
This section will explore textual treatments of doppelgangers, alter egos, and other relevant figures. Together, we will consider how a variety of genres and historical moments take up issues of sameness and difference, of desire and repulsion, of recognition and strangeness, asking what work the familiar stranger might perform in these works and why.

ENGL 103 LEC A06
W. DeFehr

ENGL 103 LEC A09
C. Scott

ENGL 103 LEC A10: Video Games and Game Studies
G. Blomquist
How does research matter to reading and understanding video games as “literary texts,” broadly conceived? In this course, we will pursue literary research through case studies in video games and their effects. This research helps us to understand video games in particular locations, histories, contexts, and debates. Students can expect to learn about, and put into practice, the stages in a research process, from identifying a research question or problem, to finding and evaluating useful supplementary materials, and learning about how to place their ideas in conversation with the knowledge they build from research.
ENGL 103 is intended to introduce students to university-level literary research; it is also focused on developing students’ skills in critical writing at the university level, with a particular emphasis on research essay writing. A minimum of 30% of class time will thus be devoted to writing instruction. This instruction can take many forms, including graded written assignments, informal writing exercises, writing workshops, stylistic analysis, and peer editing. During the course, students will write at least 3000 words.

ENGL 103 LEC A11
A. Van Essen

ENGL 103 LEC A12
A. Van Essen

ENGL 103 LEC A13: Video Games and Game Studies
G. Blomquist
How does research matter to reading and understanding video games as “literary texts,” broadly conceived? In this course, we will pursue literary research through case studies in video games and their effects. This research helps us to understand video games in particular locations, histories, contexts, and debates. Students can expect to learn about, and put into practice, the stages in a research process, from identifying a research question or problem, to finding and evaluating useful supplementary materials, and learning about how to place their ideas in conversation with the knowledge they build from research.
ENGL 103 is intended to introduce students to university-level literary research; it is also focused on developing students’ skills in critical writing at the university level, with a particular emphasis on research essay writing. A minimum of 30% of class time will thus be devoted to writing instruction. This instruction can take many forms, including graded written assignments, informal writing exercises, writing workshops, stylistic analysis, and peer editing. During the course, students will write at least 3000 words.

ENGL 103 LEC A14
Instructor TBA

ENGL 103 LEC A15: Monsters in Beowulf, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Peter Jackson
D. Bargen
J. R. R. Tolkien both had a profound influence on the interpretation of Beowulf and wrote fantasy novels that were influenced by his scholarship. We will be considering how monsters are represented by Beowulf, Tolkien, and Peter Jackson's films based on Tolkien's novels. You will have the opportunity to develop your own topic for research from the course texts.

ENGL 103 LEC A16: Fantasy and Reality: Conversations and Contestations
L. Robertson
The specific focus of this section will be on texts that explore and inhabit the complicated and shifting boundary between fantasy and reality. What are fantasy and myth for? What is the relationship between the realistic and the fantastical or the mythical? What are the moral and ethical issues at stake in the realistic and in the fantastical or the mythical? What purposes does each serve, in our lives and in the stories we tell? Through a variety of texts—including genres like the fairy tale, historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction, and horror—written across a wide period of time, from the sixteenth century to the present, we will examine how and to what purposes different writers have used fantasy and the mythic in their work.

ENGL 103 LEC A17
Instructor TBA

ENGL 103 LEC A18: Men and Masculinities in Literature and Media
W. Agorde
This section of English 103 critically investigates the construction, performance, and contestation of masculinity across various literary and cultural texts, including fiction, nonfiction, film, television, and digital media. Students will examine prevalent stereotypes of masculinity alongside alternative portrayals that disrupt traditional notions, employing intersectional analyses of race, class, and sexuality. Key themes explored include male authority and dominance, tensions between the male gaze and masculine vulnerability, and the influential role of media in either reinforcing or challenging gendered expectations. Using both fictional and nonfictional works, students will engage with gender theory and cultural studies methodologies to critically assess these representations. Through dynamic discussions and analytical writing, students will gain a sophisticated understanding of how masculinities are shaped by—and actively resist—dominant cultural narratives. This course is particularly suited to students interested in gender studies, media criticism, and exploring intersections of identity and representation.

ENGL 103 LEC A19: Men and Masculinities in Literature and Media
W. Agorde
This section of English 103 critically investigates the construction, performance, and contestation of masculinity across various literary and cultural texts, including fiction, nonfiction, film, television, and digital media. Students will examine prevalent stereotypes of masculinity alongside alternative portrayals that disrupt traditional notions, employing intersectional analyses of race, class, and sexuality. Key themes explored include male authority and dominance, tensions between the male gaze and masculine vulnerability, and the influential role of media in either reinforcing or challenging gendered expectations. Using both fictional and nonfictional works, students will engage with gender theory and cultural studies methodologies to critically assess these representations. Through dynamic discussions and analytical writing, students will gain a sophisticated understanding of how masculinities are shaped by—and actively resist—dominant cultural narratives. This course is particularly suited to students interested in gender studies, media criticism, and exploring intersections of identity and representation.

ENGL 103 LEC A20: Race in African Literature
O. Okome
This class focuses on the literary research around discourses of race. Defining race as a complex and intractable construction, students who take this class will be encouraged to read race from a broad spectrum of debates around its meaning and across time and space in modern African literature in the English language, encouraging larger questions which implicate histories of the making of race as a discursive category. Why, for example, is race still part of everyday lived-experiences in the 21st century when its core arguments have been questioned by genetic science? What role did literature play and is still playing in the dissemination of racial difference today? What, for example, does the Black Lives Matter Movement tell us about blackness as a racial category?

ENGL 103 LEC A21: The Victorian Gothic Novel
A. Khan
Students in this course will be introduced to the genre of the gothic novel from the Victorian era. We will focus on two popular novels from this epoch: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and Dracula by Bram Stoker. Through the study of these texts, students will explore critical ideas pertaining to the uncanny and the monstrous. They will also analyze how motifs and other tropes of gothic and horror are situated within the context of the time considering the industrial revolution, colonialism, emerging forms of feminism and underground queer cultures. Further, they will examine attendant anxieties over gender, sexuality, race and class through methodologies of close reading analysis and engagement with current scholarship.

ENGL 103 LEC A23: The Victorian Gothic Novel
A. Khan
Students in this course will be introduced to the genre of the gothic novel from the Victorian era. We will focus on two popular novels from this epoch: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and Dracula by Bram Stoker. Through the study of these texts, students will explore critical ideas pertaining to the uncanny and the monstrous. They will also analyze how motifs and other tropes of gothic and horror are situated within the context of the time considering the industrial revolution, colonialism, emerging forms of feminism and underground queer cultures. Further, they will examine attendant anxieties over gender, sexuality, race and class through methodologies of close reading analysis and engagement with current scholarship.

ENGL 103 LEC A24
Instructor TBA

ENGL 103 LEC A25
Instructor TBA

ENGL 103 LEC A26
L. Chen

ENGL 103 LEC A27
Instructor TBA

ENGL 103 LEC A28
Instructor TBA

ENGL 103 LEC A29: TOYS! Literary Representations and Sociopolitical Dimensions
E. Harris
“My friends are toys. I make them.” Sebastian, Bladerunner (Movie)
In his famous essay “The Philosophy of Toys” (1853), French poet and “enfant terrible” Charles Baudelaire proposed that our earliest play with toys signifies our earliest initiation “into art.” Together, we will study a wonderland of literary representations of toys across genres and cultures. We will encounter soldiers, puppets, dolls and robots in fiction, poetry, essays, fairy tales (and in visual and performing arts). We will explore the sociopolitical implications of these toys - ranging from instruments of socialization and normativity, to figures of play, queerness, transgression, Indigeneity, and alterity - to give you more experience analyzing language and contemporary culture(s). We will also work together to refine your research, writing, and public speaking skills. At the back of our minds, let us ask: Can research and interpretation also be forms of play (as Alan Levinovitz proposes)? You will be invited to bring your own interests to the choice of your topic for your Final Essay/Odyssey.
Course texts include: Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky (poetry), The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante (novel or film), and the children’s book William’s Doll (by Charlotte Zolotow) - among many others.

ENGL 103 LEC A30
Instructor TBA

ENGL 103 LEC A31
Instructor TBA

ENGL 103 LEC A32
Instructor TBA

ENGL 103 LEC A33: Literature and the Pursuit of Knowledge
C. Sale
This writing-intensive course guides students in building the research skills necessary for the study of literature at the university level, as well as the study of the humanities more broadly. Why do we conduct research, and how do we narrate our results? What does a well-researched and well-argued research paper entail? Students will engage questions about the purpose and ethics of research in relation to two films, Michael Verhoeven's 1990 film The Nasty Girl and Susan Saladoff's 2011 documentary Hot Coffee, before proceeding to developing research projects on Shakespeare's Hamlet. How and what does literature help us know?

ENGL 103 LEC A34: The Victorian Gothic Novel
A. Khan
Students in this course will be introduced to the genre of the gothic novel from the Victorian era. We will focus on two popular novels from this epoch: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and Dracula by Bram Stoker. Through the study of these texts, students will explore critical ideas pertaining to the uncanny and the monstrous. They will also analyze how motifs and other tropes of gothic and horror are situated within the context of the time considering the industrial revolution, colonialism, emerging forms of feminism and underground queer cultures. Further, they will examine attendant anxieties over gender, sexuality, race and class through methodologies of close reading analysis and engagement with current scholarship.

ENGL 103 LEC X01
Instructor TBA

ENGL 103 LEC X02
N. Beauchesne

ENGL 103 Winter 2026 Section Titles

ENGL 103 LEC 850
Instructor TBA

ENGL 103 LEC B01
Instructor TBA

ENGL 103 LEC B03
C. Scott

ENGL 103 LEC B04: Curious Cities: Researching Joyce’s Dubliners and Literary Histories
M. Kashani
In this section, we will explore James Joyce’s Dubliners as a politically significant literary text, delving into its historical, social, and urban contexts. We try to read and research urban spaces in the formation of political consciousness. This course aims to demonstrate how research into these areas enhances our understanding of the text and how research into literature reflects and shapes evolving cultural realities—especially those related to nation, culture, and history. Zora Neale Hurston once described “research” as “formalized curiosity… poking and prying with a purpose”; this course will harness that curiosity, developing skills to rigorously analyze and engage with texts creatively. Research aids in understanding texts within their specific locations, histories, contexts, and debates. Students will learn and practice each stage of the research process, from formulating a research question to finding and evaluating supplementary materials and integrating their insights with acquired knowledge from research.

ENGL 103 LEC B05: Curious Cities: Researching Joyce’s Dubliners and Literary Histories
M. Kashani
In this section, we will explore James Joyce’s Dubliners as a politically significant literary text, delving into its historical, social, and urban contexts. We try to read and research urban spaces in the formation of political consciousness. This course aims to demonstrate how research into these areas enhances our understanding of the text and how research into literature reflects and shapes evolving cultural realities—especially those related to nation, culture, and history. Zora Neale Hurston once described “research” as “formalized curiosity… poking and prying with a purpose”; this course will harness that curiosity, developing skills to rigorously analyze and engage with texts creatively. Research aids in understanding texts within their specific locations, histories, contexts, and debates. Students will learn and practice each stage of the research process, from formulating a research question to finding and evaluating supplementary materials and integrating their insights with acquired knowledge from research.

ENGL 103 LEC B06: The Victorian Gothic Novel
A. Khan
Students in this course will be introduced to the genre of the gothic novel from the Victorian era. We will focus on two popular novels from this epoch: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and Dracula by Bram Stoker. Through the study of these texts, students will explore critical ideas pertaining to the uncanny and the monstrous. They will also analyze how motifs and other tropes of gothic and horror are situated within the context of the time considering the industrial revolution, colonialism, emerging forms of feminism and underground queer cultures. Further, they will examine attendant anxieties over gender, sexuality, race and class through methodologies of close reading analysis and engagement with current scholarship.

ENGL 103 LEC B07: Curious Cities: Researching Joyce’s Dubliners and Literary Histories
M. Kashani
In this section, we will explore James Joyce’s Dubliners as a politically significant literary text, delving into its historical, social, and urban contexts. We try to read and research urban spaces in the formation of political consciousness. This course aims to demonstrate how research into these areas enhances our understanding of the text and how research into literature reflects and shapes evolving cultural realities—especially those related to nation, culture, and history. Zora Neale Hurston once described “research” as “formalized curiosity… poking and prying with a purpose”; this course will harness that curiosity, developing skills to rigorously analyze and engage with texts creatively. Research aids in understanding texts within their specific locations, histories, contexts, and debates. Students will learn and practice each stage of the research process, from formulating a research question to finding and evaluating supplementary materials and integrating their insights with acquired knowledge from research.

ENGL 103 LEC B08
L. Chen

ENGL 103 LEC B09: The Victorian Gothic Novel
A. Khan
Students in this course will be introduced to the genre of the gothic novel from the Victorian era. We will focus on two popular novels from this epoch: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and Dracula by Bram Stoker. Through the study of these texts, students will explore critical ideas pertaining to the uncanny and the monstrous. They will also analyze how motifs and other tropes of gothic and horror are situated within the context of the time considering the industrial revolution, colonialism, emerging forms of feminism and underground queer cultures. Further, they will examine attendant anxieties over gender, sexuality, race and class through methodologies of close reading analysis and engagement with current scholarship.

ENGL 103 LEC B10: Monsters, Consumption, and the Life/Death Divide
B. Kerfoot
This course explores cultural fears of consumption and the living dead through their embodiment in three monsters: vampires, zombies, and wheetagos. We will track their origins, adaptations, and appropriations to consider why these monsters endure in the popular imagination.
Course skills include how to find and evaluate credible sources and how to respond to them to develop an original argument. The sequenced assignments will gradually introduce these research skills and culminate in a substantial research paper.

ENGL 103 LEC B11
Instructor TBA

ENGL 103 LEC B12: The Victorian Gothic Novel
A. Khan
Students in this course will be introduced to the genre of the gothic novel from the Victorian era. We will focus on two popular novels from this epoch: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and Dracula by Bram Stoker. Through the study of these texts, students will explore critical ideas pertaining to the uncanny and the monstrous. They will also analyze how motifs and other tropes of gothic and horror are situated within the context of the time considering the industrial revolution, colonialism, emerging forms of feminism and underground queer cultures. Further, they will examine attendant anxieties over gender, sexuality, race and class through methodologies of close reading analysis and engagement with current scholarship.

ENGL 103 LEC B13: Human Creativity in Research
J. Quist
This class is focused on creativity and innovation in the research process, emphasizing the kinds of inquiry and inspiration of which only humans are capable. To techniques of Literary Studies such as library searches and critical reading and writing this course adds Cultural Studies and Creative Writing methods of in-person, in-public experiential learning and sharing. Texts related to the creative processes of writers and thinkers will be examined, interrogated, and experimented with as students conduct their own literary research and grow in creative competence and confidence.

ENGL 103 LEC B14: Monsters in Beowulf, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Peter Jackson
D. Bargen
J. R. R. Tolkien both had a profound influence on the interpretation of Beowulf and wrote fantasy novels that were influenced by his scholarship. We will be considering how monsters are represented by Beowulf, Tolkien, and Peter Jackson's films based on Tolkien's novels. You will have the opportunity to develop your own topic for research from the course texts.

ENGL 103 LEC B16: Monsters in Beowulf, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Peter Jackson
D. Bargen
J. R. R. Tolkien both had a profound influence on the interpretation of Beowulf and wrote fantasy novels that were influenced by his scholarship. We will be considering how monsters are represented by Beowulf, Tolkien, and Peter Jackson's films based on Tolkien's novels. You will have the opportunity to develop your own topic for research from the course texts.

ENGL 103 LEC B17: Fantasy and Reality: Conversations and Contestations
L. Robertson
The specific focus of this section will be on texts that explore and inhabit the complicated and shifting boundary between fantasy and reality. What are fantasy and myth for? What is the relationship between the realistic and the fantastical or the mythical? What are the moral and ethical issues at stake in the realistic and in the fantastical or the mythical? What purposes does each serve, in our lives and in the stories we tell? Through a variety of texts—including genres like the fairy tale, historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction, and horror—written across a wide period of time, from the sixteenth century to the present, we will examine how and to what purposes different writers have used fantasy and the mythic in their work.

ENGL 103 LEC B18
Instructor TBA

ENGL 103 LEC B19: Doppelgangers and Alter Egos
L. Schechter
This section will explore textual treatments of doppelgangers, alter egos, and other relevant figures. Together, we will consider how a variety of genres and historical moments take up issues of sameness and difference, of desire and repulsion, of recognition and strangeness, asking what work the familiar stranger might perform in these works and why.

ENGL 103 LEC B20: Men and Masculinities in Literature and Media
W. Agorde
This section of English 103 critically investigates the construction, performance, and contestation of masculinity across various literary and cultural texts, including fiction, nonfiction, film, television, and digital media. Students will examine prevalent stereotypes of masculinity alongside alternative portrayals that disrupt traditional notions, employing intersectional analyses of race, class, and sexuality. Key themes explored include male authority and dominance, tensions between the male gaze and masculine vulnerability, and the influential role of media in either reinforcing or challenging gendered expectations. Using both fictional and nonfictional works, students will engage with gender theory and cultural studies methodologies to critically assess these representations. Through dynamic discussions and analytical writing, students will gain a sophisticated understanding of how masculinities are shaped by—and actively resist—dominant cultural narratives. This course is particularly suited to students interested in gender studies, media criticism, and exploring intersections of identity and representation.

ENGL 103 LEC B21: Case Studies in Detective Fiction
N. Barnholden
This course will introduce students to literary analysis at the university level through exploring a variety of fictional texts centering on the figure of the detective.

ENGL 103 LEC B22: Men and Masculinities in Literature and Media
W. Agorde
This section of English 103 critically investigates the construction, performance, and contestation of masculinity across various literary and cultural texts, including fiction, nonfiction, film, television, and digital media. Students will examine prevalent stereotypes of masculinity alongside alternative portrayals that disrupt traditional notions, employing intersectional analyses of race, class, and sexuality. Key themes explored include male authority and dominance, tensions between the male gaze and masculine vulnerability, and the influential role of media in either reinforcing or challenging gendered expectations. Using both fictional and nonfictional works, students will engage with gender theory and cultural studies methodologies to critically assess these representations. Through dynamic discussions and analytical writing, students will gain a sophisticated understanding of how masculinities are shaped by—and actively resist—dominant cultural narratives. This course is particularly suited to students interested in gender studies, media criticism, and exploring intersections of identity and representation.

ENGL 103 LEC B23: Case Studies in Detective Fiction
N. Barnholden
This course will introduce students to literary analysis at the university level through exploring a variety of fictional texts centering on the figure of the detective.

ENGL 103 LEC B24
L. Chen

ENGL 103 LEC B25
Instructor TBA

ENGL 103 LEC B26: Case Studies in Detective Fiction
N. Barnholden
This course will introduce students to literary analysis at the university level through exploring a variety of fictional texts centering on the figure of the detective.

ENGL 103 LEC B27
L. Chen

ENGL 103 LEC B28: TOYS! Literary Representations and Sociopolitical Dimensions
E. Harris
“My friends are toys. I make them.” Sebastian, Bladerunner (Movie)
In his famous essay “The Philosophy of Toys” (1853), French poet and “enfant terrible” Charles Baudelaire proposed that our earliest play with toys signifies our earliest initiation “into art.” Together, we will study a wonderland of literary representations of toys across genres and cultures. We will encounter soldiers, puppets, dolls and robots in fiction, poetry, essays, fairy tales (and in visual and performing arts). We will explore the sociopolitical implications of these toys - ranging from instruments of socialization and normativity, to figures of play, queerness, transgression, Indigeneity, and alterity - to give you more experience analyzing language and contemporary culture(s). We will also work together to refine your research, writing, and public speaking skills. At the back of our minds, let us ask: Can research and interpretation also be forms of play (as Alan Levinovitz proposes)? You will be invited to bring your own interests to the choice of your topic for your Final Essay/Odyssey.
Course texts include: Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky (poetry), The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante (novel or film), and the children’s book William’s Doll (by Charlotte Zolotow) - among many others.

ENGL 103 LEC B29
R. Brazeau

ENGL 103 LEC B30: War and Nation in Irish Literature
L. Harrington
In this course we will learn the fundamentals of research skills through a focus on the topic of war and the concepts of nation and nationalism in Irish literature, as indeed in culture and society. This will mean examining the history, politics and literary responses to key events such as the colonization of Ireland by the British Empire, the fight for independence, the partition of the country and the ensuing conflict in Northern Ireland.

ENGL 103 LEC X52
Instructor TBA

ENGL 103 LEC X53
Instructor TBA


ENGL 125 - Indigenous Writing

An introduction to Indigenous literatures in North America, from their earliest oral forms to their contemporary variations. Not to be taken by students with *6 in approved junior English.
Note: Sections reserved for students in the TYP Program include a 3 hour seminar component in addition to the 3 hour lecture component.


ENGL 150: Introduction to English Studies

An introduction to studies in the discipline recommended for students considering a program in English. Students will be introduced to a variety of methodological approaches while learning about how current topics in literary, cultural and media studies relate to contemporary socio-political issues, with special attention to race, Indigeneity, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class.


ENGL 199 - English for Engineering Students

This course undertakes to develop and strengthen clear and effective writing for Engineering students whose disciplines require them to be familiar with the genres and formats of professional communication. It will focus on instruction in fundamental writing skills, including building effective sentences and paragraphs, and on learning to communicate clearly across a range of genres and media used in academic and professional contexts, including correspondence and presentations. It is not a course in technical writing. Students will be introduced to the principles of information gathering, analysis, and citation. In order to maximize time spent writing and reading with instructor support, the course may be organized along the lines of the flipped or blended classroom, in which students review short video and other prepared material, including assigned readings, in advance of class, and spend class time working in a practical way on assignments and required tasks. Those assignments and tasks will be organized week-by-week around the following units:

  • Writing sentences
  • Writing paragraphs
  • Writing email
  • Writing letters
  • Reports: basic form and format
  • Library session
  • Working with research materials and data
  • Incorporating research and data into your writing (including paraphrasing)
  • Citation
  • Effective presentations: powerpoints
  • Effective presentations: oral presentations
  • Knowing your audience
Students will be required to engage with other forms of writing, including creative writing and rhetoric; this engagement is understood to be necessary to their own development of effective communication. Every student will be required to complete a capping exercise, whose writing will be assessed by the ENGL 199 instructor. This exercise may involve research, analysis of information, paraphrasing, summarizing, or reporting, at the instructor's discretion. It may be tied to a library session. Students may anticipate in-class quizzes and exercises based on assigned readings and classroom preparation materials. Although students must complete written and/or presented assignments throughout the term, there are no formal analytical or expository essays. There is no final exam. Please also note that ENGL 199 has no essay component.

 

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