Academic Calendar 2023-2024

English Language and Literature (ENGL)

Full courses  (6.0 credit units) designated as Studies and half courses  (3.0 credit units) designated as Topics offer the study of a single work, a group of related works, an author or authors within the period or grouping indicated. The content of these offerings will vary from year to year. Not all the courses listed below will be offered in any one year, and a few are offered infrequently. A list of expected offerings with detailed descriptions of course content will be sent to applicants as soon as it can be drawn up.  

ENGL 800 Introduction to Professional and Pedagogical Skills I 
This course introduces M.A. and M.Phil. students to the scholarly study and teaching of English literature. The emphasis will be on training Teaching Assistants. There will be practical training in research skills, essay-marking, the academic counselling of students, and first-time teaching. There will also be some consideration of academic and non-academic careers for M.A.s and MPhils. Three term-hours; fall.  A. Vardharajan

ENGL 802 Practical Criticism
This course will provide students with the necessary tools to practice and to teach "close reading" in a broad range of genres from different historical and national contexts.  Students will engage in textual analysis through a series of practical exercises combined with readings of critical essays representing different approaches to the reading of literature.  Not offered 2023-24. 

ENGL 803 Research Forum I  
A regularly scheduled forum in which faculty, advanced doctoral students, and visiting scholars present model research problems and methodologies for discussion. Attendance is required. Graded on a Pass/Fail basis.  Various speakers.

ENGL 810 Literary Criticism
Representative critical approaches from Aristotle to the moderns will be considered with particular attention to those, which have most influenced contemporary attitudes. Not offered 2023-24. 

ENGL 811 Literary Theory I 
Not offered 2023-24.    

ENGL 813 Literary Theory III 
Topic:  Writing the Body 
This advanced interdisciplinary seminar course introduces students to contemporary readings in Black studies, Indigenous Studies, colonialism, queer and trans studies in relation to the body. We might think about the body as a physical manifestation, a material being, one in relation, one that takes up space, or not. How might we orientate ourselves as we bear witness to those whose presence clamors for attention in the social and political periphery? In this course we’ll be thinking about what it is to write the body (both as an act of legibility, and as political practice of inclusion or exclusion) first through Franz Fanon and Audre Lorde, but branching out to think with other thinkers, artists, poets, and novelists to ask: how is a body--or how are we—articulated, or not? What are the limits of legibility, of opacity? What are the archives of those whose presences remain unwritten, or unrecognized, in practices of knowledge and power? As we consider these questions collectively through the critical reading, discussion, and reflection, we hope to expand the idea of the body beyond the material form to think alongside conceptions of containment, power, and resistance. Three term-hours; winter. J. Okot Bitek.

ENGL 815 Topics in Literary Study I
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 816 Topics in Literary Study II
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 817 Topics in Literary Studies III 
Topic: Publishing Practicum
Description: This seminar takes students through revision and submission stages from draft essay to article publication. The first section of the course will be devoted to discussion of the differences between coursework papers and published articles, and to a presentation and peer revision cycle of each student’s work. The second section of the course will discuss how to decide where to send article submissions, how to present them, and what to expect of the process. If there is time, we will build in a conference proposal/presentation stage. Students must have a complete draft essay to bring to the start of the course and be ready to welcome reading and response from peers. Success in the course requires regular attendance, constructive participation, revision responsive to instructor and peer review, and submission to an appropriate scholarly venue for publication. Note: Doctoral students are strongly urged to enroll in this course, and while the course is open to all students, doctoral students will have enrolment priority. Three term-hours; winter.  M. Straznicky.

ENGL 818 Topics in Literary Study IV
Not offered 2023-24.
ENGL 819 Introduction to Bibliography  
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 820 Anglo-Saxon and Beowulf 
Not offered 2022-23.

ENGL 821 Topics in Anglo-Saxon Literature I
Not offered 2022-23.

ENGL 822 Old Norse
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 823 Studies in Medieval Literature
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 824 Topics in Medieval Literature I
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 825 Topics in Medieval Literature II
Topic: Medieval and Tudor Morality Plays: Allegories of the Self
Description: Morality Plays of the late medieval and Tudor periods are among the most ribald and entertaining material of their day. Major influences on early modern drama, including Marlowe’s Faustus and Shakespeare’s Tempest, the plays focus on the construction of the self, the monarch, and the body politic. In doing so, they demonstrate the movement from religious to political allegory in the context of the Reformation and the beginning of the early modern state.  The class will read a selection of morality plays from 15th and 16th century England and Scotland, including MankindEverymanThe Castle of Perseverance, John Skelton’s Magnificence and selections from Sir David Lyndsay’s A Satire of the Three Estates, as well as an additional five plays chosen by the class. When possible we will view videos of modern day stagings of the plays. All plays will be read in the original Middle English (or Middle Scots), but students will receive help and instruction in acquiring the skills needed to read and pronounce the language. As the plays were written for performance, the class will contain some experiments in reading and staging the plays as well as a performance component. Three term-hours; winter. R. Wehlau.

ENGL 826 Topics in Medieval Literature III
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 827 Topics in Medieval Literature IV
Not offered 2023-24. 

ENGL 828 Chaucer 
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 830 Studies in Early Modern Literature and Culture
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 831 Topics in Early Modern Literature and Culture I 
Topic: Merchant of Venice in Context
Description: This course will focus on The Merchant of Venice, one of Shakespeare's most controversial plays.  While public controversy centers around the question of the play's anti-Semitism, early modern scholars tend to approach the play in terms of other determinants: contemporary economic preoccupations, religious questions and generic expectations.  This course will explore the ways in which the play's fascination and capacity to produce discomfort arises from the "over-determination" of its action, the fact that there are too many interpretive frameworks that are pertinent to the play and with which the play engages.  In probing play's effects, we will read a wide range of material: other "Jew" and "usury" plays, Italian comedies and novellae, economic history, the Bible, and a wide range of criticism and theory. The goals of this course include developing an historical and theoretical understanding of topics such as the emergence of capitalism, the intersection of literary genre and material history, and ethics.   Students will be expected to deliver an in-class seminar to be handed in as a short paper, and to write a final critical paper of 15-20 pages. Three term-hours; fall. E. Hanson.
ENGL 832 Topics in Early Modern Literature and Culture II
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 833 Topics in Early Modern Literature and Culture III 
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 834 Topics in Early Modern Literature and Culture IV 
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 835 Topics in Early Modern Literature and Culture V
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 836 Topics in Early Modern Literature and Culture VI 
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 840 Studies in Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Literature
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 841 Topics in Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Literature I
Not offered 2023-24.   

ENGL 842 Topics in Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Literature II
Topic: Comedy in the 18th Century
Description: This course considers comedy, both as a dramatic genre and more broadly, as the expression of something amusing or satirical in nature, in Britain during the Restoration and eighteenth century. Readings will range widely over several literary forms, and will include plays, farces, essays, caricatures, verse, jestbooks, and novels. Secondary readings in genre theory and modern literary criticism will complement our primary source readings. Three term-hours; winter. L. Ritchie. 

ENGL 843 Topics in Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Literature III
Not offered 2023-24. 

ENGL 844 Topics in Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Literature IV
Not offered 2023-24. 
ENGL 850 Studies in Romantic Literature 
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 851 Topics in Romanticism I
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 852 Topics in Romanticism II 
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 853 Topics in Romanticism III
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 854 Topics in Romanticism IV
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 855 Studies in Victorian Literature 
Not offered 2023-24. 

ENGL 856 Topics in Victorian Literature I
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 857 Topics in Victorian Literature II
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 858 Topics in Victorian Literature III
Topic: Victorian Deviant Bodies
Description: The course will examine the representation of the differently- abled and neuro-diverse in Victorian literature and culture. At a time when British society linked “normal” bodies to the health of the nation, literary texts explore anxieties around non-normative or “deviant” bodies. We will read a selection of literary texts and historical documents as well as current theories regarding (dis)ability. In an attempt to understand the Victorians’ fascination with “freak” shows including the “Hottentot Venus,” we will also consider visual images.  Novels may include: Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843); George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss (1860); Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton (1848); Wilkie Collins, Hide and Seek (1854); R.L. Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886).  Contemporary theoretical texts will include: Lennard Davis, ed. The Disability Studies Reader and Enforcing Normalcy; Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Staring: How We Look and Extraordinary Bodies; Robert McRuer Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability. Assessment will be based on a seminar presentation; a presentation of a visual image; and a final paper. Three term-hours; spring. M. Berg.

ENGL 859 Topics in Victorian Literature IV
Topic: The Victorian Music Hall
Description: “Here we are again!” – Dan Leno, in Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem
"God bless the music halls." — Sir Edward Elgar to Francis Colvin, letter of 14 March 1912.
This course will take you deep into the wonderful world of the late-Victorian Music Hall, a world of popular entertainment often mixed with subversive class and sexual critique. This is the world wherein drag performances and comic musicals use ribaldry and gallows humour to poke fun at – if not outright challenge – the stuffy conventions of dominant middle-class morality. In this course, we will also consider how those middle-class values (via investors and managers) do eventually make their way into, and perhaps foretell the decline, of this once immensely popular form of entertainment.  The course will approach the Victorian Music Hall from a variety of angles or avenues, so to speak. In order to learn about the different venues as well as the class and social dynamics within this culture, we will begin by introducing ourselves to some of the legendary actors within this history, including Arthur Lloyd, Harry Champion, Marie Lloyd, Vesta Tilly, and Dan Leno. Some of the scripts we will read and compare concern figures who continue to be popular today (such as Sweeney Todd ; Aladdin; Beauty and the Beast ; and Christmas Carol) while others will be new and Victorian-specific (including The Phantom ; Jesse Brown ;  Animal Magnetism or Barnby Rudge). We will also spend time listening to and unpacking original recordings of Victorian Music Hall songs, such as “Boiled Beef and Carrots” performed by Champion, “The Tower of London” performed by Leno, and “Burlington Bertie from Bow” performed by Ella Shield, etc. We will also consider the legacy of the Victorian Music Hall, from its transformation into more vanilla-ish variety acts, as well as its visible presence in inheritors like modern drag shows and pantomime theatre. Three term-hours; winter. S. B. Cameron.

ENGL 860 Studies in Modern and Contemporary Literature and Culture 
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 861 Topics in Modernism I
Topic: Modernism and the Anthropocene: Nature, Ecology, Crisis
Description: In our present age of climate change, ecological crisis, worsening air, water, and land pollution, and the lingering effects of the global catastrophe of Covid-19, literature has an increasingly urgent role to play. We are grappling more than ever with how we write about and represent the stories of our permeable relation with a beautiful and sustaining natural world whose ecological balance is under threat. Centered on British and American writing from roughly 1880-1945, this course will seek to foster insight about the ways in which modernist literatures imagined and portrayed the effects of the post-industrial world on the “natural.” We will focus on poetry and fiction by writers such as Virginia Woolf, W.B. Yeats, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Robert Frost, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Matthew Arnold, and Rainer Maria Rilke as we engage with how they render landscapes, waterscapes, cityscapes, natural environments, and both human and non-human animals. We will also read contemporary eco-critical theory and familiarize ourselves with 21st-century ecological organizations, all the while addressing the crucial role literary studies has to play within these struggles. Three term-hours; fall. G. McIntire.

ENGL 862 Topics in Modernism II 
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 863 Topics in Modernism III
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 864 Topics in Modernism IV
Not offered 2023-24.
ENGL 865 Topics in Contemporary Literature and Culture I 
Topic: The (Un)Making of Little Britain: Black British Literature and Culture
Description: The Windrush scandal, the fallout of Brexit, the toppling of the statue of Edward Colston, the release of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology and Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You, and the ascension of King Charles and Rishi Sunak have made it impossible to ignore the fissures and sutures in post-imperial Britain, demanding, instead, a long awaited postcolonial and anti-racist reckoning with the past and a reclamation of the future of Britain.  To this end, our seminar will explore a range of cultural production that traces the histories of migration, the simultaneously inclusive and undecidable signifiers “Black” and “Asian” to denote and connote “the empire within,” the legacy of Stuart Hall and Paul Gilroy, the significance of the publication of The Satanic Verses and the altered landscape of Muslim identity, key moments of “riot” and resistance following Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech, and recent culture wars reflecting the consolidation of “anti-woke” and anti-migrant sentiment.  We will bear in mind that “British” is equally contested from within—Scottish, Irish, and Welsh do not necessarily belong comfortably within its confines. The aim of our seminar is to reconfigure the colonial and national archive by highlighting its silences and erasures and engaging systematically and imaginatively with its rich and complex content.  The seminar will feature fiction, poetry, cinema/TV, theatre, music, and performance.  Assignments that transgress boundaries between genres, mediums, and registers will be encouraged. Grading will be based on a selection from the following: discussion forum posts or reading responses, group seminar presentations or final colloquium, public-facing and/or creative writing, multi-media final project or research paper, final exam. Three term-hours; winter. A. Varadharajan.

ENGL 866 Topics in Contemporary Literature and Culture II
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 867 Topics in Contemporary Literature and Culture III
Topic: Literature in the Anthropocene: Anthropocene Aesthetics
Description: This course examines the rise of “the Anthropocene,” a critical concept used to describe the epoch wherein human beings have become the predominant geological force. We will spend the first part of the course on the ways the term has appeared in literary and cultural criticism, pointing to its descriptive power as well as to its elisions and blind spots. We will then turn to the Anthropocene’s impact on literary and artistic production. Three term-hours; spring. M. Wallace.

ENGL 868 Topics in Contemporary Literature and Culture IV
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 870 Studies in Canadian Literature 
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 871 Topics in Canadian Literature I
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 872 Topics in Canadian Literature II
Topic: Reconfigurations of Vancouver’s Urban Imaginary
Description: This seminar will explore the representation of Vancouver in contemporary literature. Vancouver, situated on unceded Musqueam, Squamish, Sto:lo, and Tsleil-Waututh territory, has been ranked among the world’s most livable cities. We will focus on texts that contest this assessment by drawing attention to continuing colonization and gentrification and by imagining alternative communities and new forms of solidarity against systemic racism and oppression. We will include narratives concerned with the theft of Indigenous lands, Vancouver’s missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, the racist history of Chinatown, the incident of the Komagata Maru, the forced evacuation of Japantown, and the demolition of Hogan’s Alley. The seminar will be informed by various theoretical approaches including critical race theory, theories of decolonization, Indigenous literary criticism, and urban scholarship. Three term-hours; winter. P. Fachinger.

ENGL 873 Topics in Canadian Literature III

Topic: Damage and Desire in Canada

Description: Unangax̂ scholar Eve Tuck’s seminal article “Suspending Damage” promotes a “desire-based” rather than a “damage-based” framework for studying Indigenous literatures. In response to her call for broader engagement with the complexities of Indigenous experience, this course extends her methodology to examine multiple literatures written in Canada by Indigenous, settler and diaspora populations in order to show the potential of literature to create hope from damage. Three term-hours; fall. H. Macfarlane

ENGL 874 Topics in Canadian Literature IV
Topic:  Literary Place and Space in Canada
Description: This graduate course examines narratives from diaspora, Indigenous and settler populations in Canada that highlight claims to physical place and ideological space, whether it be in rural or urban environments, and in forms as varied as traditional Indigenous stories or hip hop’s practice of “reppin’ ”. In the landmark 1997 land claim Delgamuukw vs. British Columbia, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that traditional Indigenous story was admissible in court as evidence of land ownership, legitimizing a kind of literary land claim. How do the narratives in question claim land—either physically or ideologically--and what does that say about the various communities? What are the politics of claiming stolen land, and how do class, race, cultural practice, gender and sexuality play into questions of territorial belonging, nationhood and connection to place? Three term-hours; fall. H. Macfarlane.

ENGL 875 Studies in Postcolonial Literatures 
Not offered 2023-24. 

ENGL 876 Topics in Postcolonial Literatures I 
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 877 Topics in Postcolonial Literatures II
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 878 Topics in Postcolonial Literatures III
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 879 Topics in Postcolonial Literatures IV
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 880 Studies in American Literature
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 881 Topics in American Literature I
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 882 Topics in American Literature II
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 883 Topics in American Literature III 
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 884 Topics in American Literature IV
Topic: Race, Sound, and African American Literature
Description: This course serves as an introduction to the field of Sound Studies and an overview of recent works of African American cultural criticism. Sound Studies methodologies provide a way to chip away at privileged discourses of knowledge. Indeed, Josh Kun argues that “studying sound helps us put an ear to ‘the audio-racial imagination,’ which refers to the aurality of racial meanings, and to sound’s role in systems and institutions of racialization and racial formation within and across the borders of the United States.” Following Kun, we will investigate various recourses to sound throughout the African American literary tradition. We will read the work of scholars and cultural critics like Jennifer Stoever, Alexander Weheliye, and Tina Campt. We will listen to everything. Traversing the sonic colour line, we will develop new understandings of black aesthetics, literature, and politics. Three term-hours; fall. K. Moriah.

ENGL 890 Directed Cross-Disciplinary Research 
This course is designed to allow M.A. students to undertake a program of graduate-level directed reading under the supervision of faculty in departments outside English Language and Literature. Permission of the external supervisor is required in advance of registration, and workload and evaluation for the course must be approved by the graduate coordinator in English to ensure consistency with English graduate course norms.

ENGL 892 Literary Internship
This course is a pass/fail credit course which offers MA students placements in research, literacy, language, and arts-related community organizations, with the aim of providing those students with job experience that is directly related to literary studies. Sample placements may include such organizations as Kingston WritersFest or the Strathy Language Unit at Queen’s University. To achieve a pass in ENGL 892, the student shall submit to the Graduate Chair a time sheet (signed by his/her placement supervisor) stating that 50 hours of work have been completed satisfactorily, and hand in a brief written summary report (1200 words) on the experience to the Graduate Chair.  M. Pappano. Various. 

ENGL 895 Directed Reading
Directed study under the guidance of a faculty member in an area of the instructor’s expertise. Permission of instructor and graduate coordinator in English is required in advance of registration and is granted only under special circumstances. Workload and evaluation for the course must be approved by the graduate coordinator in English to ensure consistency with English graduate course norms. (Available only to students enrolled in the English MA program or year 1 of the MPhil program.)

ENGL 896 MPhil Field Preparation
This course is graded on a Pass/Fail basis.

ENGL 899 Master's Thesis Research 

ENGL 900 Introduction to Professional and Pedagogical Skills II
This course is designed to acquaint doctoral students with some aspects of the teaching and scholarly skills and responsibilities of university faculty in order to prepare them for an academic career. In addition to practical training in essay marking, lecturing techniques and other teaching methods, the course will offer training in bibliographical and archival research, grant application, the academic job market, and other practical aspects of the professional study of literature. The course will consist of a number of seminars and workshops geared to the particular stage of the student’s progress over three years in the program. Three term-hours; fall.  M. Pappano

ENGL 903 Research Forum I
A regularly scheduled forum in which faculty, advanced doctoral students, and visiting scholars present model research problems and methodologies for discussion. Attendance is required. Graded on a Pass/Fail basis. Various speakers.

ENGL 950 Comparative Literature I
An introduction to comparative literary studies as currently practised, with particular emphasis on the relevance to such studies of contemporary theories of literature and criticism. This course will be given jointly with CLAS-850.
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 951 Comparative Literature II 
Specialized study in a comparative context of particular authors, themes, movements, periods, genres, literary forms, or some combination of these elements. This course will be given jointly with CLAS-851.
Not offered 2023-24.

ENGL 990 Directed Cross-Disciplinary Research
This course is designed to allow doctoral students to undertake a program of graduate-level directed reading under the supervision of faculty in departments outside English Language and Literature. Permission of the external supervisor is required in advance of registration, and workload and evaluation for the course must be approved by the graduate coordinator in English to ensure consistency with English graduate course norms.

ENGL 995 Directed Reading 
Directed study under the guidance of a faculty member in an area of the instructor’s expertise. Permission of instructor and graduate coordinator in English is required in advance of registration and is granted only under special circumstances. Workload and evaluation for the course must be approved by the graduate coordinator in English to ensure consistency with English graduate course norms. (Available only to students enrolled in the English PhD program or year 2 or the MPhil program.)

ENGL 999 PhD Thesis Research