2000-4000 Level Courses
On this page, you'll find our 3000-4000 level course offerings for the 2019-20 semesters, as well as specific topics for 2000-4000 level courses being offered in the upcoming semester. English courses at the 2000 level are accessible to all students who have completed six first year English course credits (or their equivalent). English courses at the 3000 and 4000 level are accessible to students who meet the prerequisite(s) for the courses. For more information about the Bachelor of Arts in English Major and Minor programs click here.
*New* Summer 2020 Upper-Level courses announced!
Summer 2020 (May-August)
*Please note: these courses are subject to change
ENGL 2316: English Literature: 14th to 18th Centuries - N.P. Kennedy
Students will study representative works of English literature from the 14th to the 18th centuries as literature within social, cultural, and historical contexts. They will respond to these works through written and oral work.
ENGL 2350: Critical Studies in Film - Greg Chan
Read any good films lately? Introducing students to film as a narrative art form, this course investigates how lighting, editing, camera angles, and costume/set/sound design drive cinematic storytelling. For formal analysis, the class will screen select films—including Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo and Jon M. Chu's Crazy Rich Asians—that represent cinema’s history and sociopolitical influence.
ENGL 3301: 19th-Century Canadian Literature in English - Jen Hardwick
Students will study Canadian literature in English from the nineteenth century. They will focus on work by aboriginal peoples, explorers, sojourners, early settlers, and writers of the Confederation period. Students will study the changes and developments in the literature and respond to works through discussion and written assignments. They will write at least one research paper that incorporates critical source material.
ENGL 3321: English Renaissance Drama, Excluding Shakespeare: Explorations of Renaissance Tragedy - Gavin Paul
Reading Renaissance Tragedy will allow us to probe matters of authorship, spectatorship, popular culture, as well as textual and theatrical production. Above all, we will attend to intractable questions raised by developments in the tragic form itself: How do the living remember the dead? What do tragic heroes suggest about human agency? What is the attraction of witnessing suffering and gore?
ENGL 3380: Popular Writing and Culture: Horror in Popular Culture from Poe to King - Kelly Doyle
Why is horror such a pervasive and compelling genre in the popular culture of the past as well as the present, despite the ongoing desire of many to dismiss it as 'low art'? Why do we consume narratives that elicit disgust, horror, and fear? We will examine literature and media from a variety of time periods by horror authors from Edgar Allan Poe to Stephen King to address this question. Learn how works of horror demonstrate a unique capacity to reinforce or criticize the social, political, and cultural norms of their times, how the narratives were/are produced and consumed by the public, and the potential productive role these works play or played in calling the ostracization and demonization of sexual, racial, and even animal 'others' into question via a number of theoretical frameworks.
ENGL 4409: Topics in Literature of the United States: Crossing Boundaries - Joakim Nilsson
A central myth of American society is the American Dream: the belief that America is a largely classless society, so with hard work and determination, anyone can become rich and successful. The flip side of this myth is that if you are not rich and successful, it is due to some personal flaw or lack of effort. The works we will discuss this semester challenge this myth by exploring the role of race, gender, and class discrimination in creating barriers to social mobility. Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925) and Chandler's The Big Sleep (1939) present, through the eyes of a middle class narrator, the moral corruption of the rich and their uncaring attitude to those "below" them. Larsen's Passing (1929) and Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun (1959) portray the struggles of African Americans seeking a better life within the context of a racist and segregated society. Ng's Everything I Never Told You (2014) explores the challenges faced by a mixed-race family, especially by the children, while a teenage boy's difficult decision to recognize the limitations of his Native American society, and accept the benefits and challenges of the white education system, is the central theme of Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007). The main characters in these works have bought into the American Dream, and while some face tragic consequences, most find ways to grow and adapt as individuals, as a family, and as part of a community.
Current Semester: Spring 2020 (January-April)
ENGL 2317: 18th - 20th Century Literature - Kim Larsen
Students will study representative works of English literature from the 18th to 20th centuries within their social, cultural, political, historical, aesthetic, and/or religious contexts. They will respond to these works of literature through written and oral work.
ENGL 2341: Science Fiction and Fantasy - Brian Swail
Students will study a range of representative Science Fiction and/or Fantasy texts written over a period of at least a century. Students will learn to identify and write about genre conventions from a variety of critical perspectives. The works may be drawn from several forms (novels, short stories, graphic novels, film, television, digital narratives, etc.) and historical periods.
ENGL 2355: Literary Classics on Film - Joakim Nilsson
We will look at how works from the past--Beowulf, Romeo and Juliet, Pride and Prejudice, Frankenstein--change when they are adapted from print to film and are made to appeal to contemporary society, often with very different social values and life experiences.
ENGL 3305: Film Theory - Paul Tyndall
In this course, we will read some of the major statements in film theory and apply their insights to a variety of films from the silent era to the present day. Readings will range from early statements on the unique characteristics of film as an art form to seminal essays on visual pleasure and narrative cinema, and recent writings on the growing importance of global cinema.
ENGL 3308: Literature of the US: 1910 to 1945 - Kegan Doyle
Paris, Manhattan, L.A. In this course, we will examine not only literature but also movies and songs from the tumultuous era between 1910 and 1945. Much of our focus will be on urban life--its joys and sorrows. Topics to be discussed include the rise and fall of the American gangster, the Harlem Renaissance and the Jazz Age, and "Californication." Throughout we will relate the works discussed to America in the age of Trump.
ENGL 3325: Eighteenth-Century British Literature (Group 1) - Andrew Bartlett
Masquerades and polished balls. Country boobies and city fops. Bluestockings and bravos. Imprisoning marriages, deadly duels. Withering satire and extravagant romance, rhyming couplets and praise of cats. The world of eighteenth-century literature is home to guardians of order and makers of revolution. Take this rambunctious survey to sample, taste, test, and exchange.
ENGL 3300: Children's Literature - Heather Cyr
Children's Fantasy: Have you ever been convinced that there is a magical land in the back of the wardrobe? Wondered whether a singing nanny might appear on the East Wind? In this course, we will focus on fantasy literature for children from the last century, asking why fantasy and the imagination are so closely associated with books for children, how fantastic stories can uniquely challenge children or give them solace, and why so many of these stories are cherished by readers again and again. ENGL2430 not required. Bring your own wands!
ENGL 3340: Cross-Cultural World Literature - Gillian Bright
In the colonial period, armed conflict against western powers was not the only strategy of opposition; resistance was also enacted in the pages of novels, in poems, and on stage. We will consider how revolutions are characterized in literary texts produced during and after struggles for national independence. Are rebels admired as heroes? Condemned as dissidents? By reading a range of narrative genres from diverse periods and geographies, we will consider the various ways postcolonial texts represent rebels and rebellion.
ENGL 3358: British Fiction since 1945 - Paul Ohler
English 3358 surveys the British novel from 1945 to the beginning of the 21st century. Early in the course we will read novels by Muriel Spark and Kingsley Amis and consider their depictions of post-war life and ways in which their work revalues realism in relation to modernism. We will then turn to the novels of John Fowles and Graham Swift to consider their development of postmodern fictional modes, and in the context of Fowles’s work, consider the influence of European experimentalism. Byatt’s Possession will present the class with the opportunity to consider British feminist literature and the author’s engagement with Victorianism. Zadie Smith’s White Teeth will plunge us into a world of varied forms of Britishness and contemporary voices in the context of the decline of empire and transformations to British society related to migration and globalization. Throughout the course, our reading of the fiction will focus on transformations to the genre of fiction, relevant critical issues, and social and historical contexts.
ENGL 4700: Special Topics in Literature - John Rupert
UNDER PARANORMAL SIEGE: Into the realm of the demon cleaner! Join me and your fellow students as amateur paranormal investigators examining cases of demonic attack, possession, and exorcism in selected works of prose fiction and non-fiction, poetry, and film.
NOTE: Students may take a 4000 level English topics course for credit more than once during their English degree if the topic is different.
