EnglishFaculty List
Chair: C. Bolus-Reichert (416-287-7162) English ProgramsSPECIALIST PROGRAM IN ENGLISH (ARTS)Program Supervisor: K. Larson (416-287-7169) Email:
english-program-supervisor@utsc.utoronto.ca
Note: Students may count no more than one of the
following courses towards the Specialist requirements: Program Supervisor: K. Larson (416-287-7169) Email:
english-program-supervisor@utsc.utoronto.ca
Note: Students may count no more than one of the
following courses towards the Major requirements: Program Supervisor: K. Larson (416-287-7169) Email:
english-program-supervisor@utsc.utoronto.ca
Students may count no more than one full credit of D-level independent
study [ENGD26Y3, ENGD27H3,
ENGD28H3, (ENGD97H3), ENGD98Y3,
(ENGD99H3)] towards an English program. Program Supervisor: K. Larson (416-287-7169) Email: english-program-supervisor@utsc.utoronto.ca Program Requirements 1. 1.5 credit as follows: 2. 0.5 credits as follows: 3. 1.0 credits at the C-or D-level, from the following: 4. 1.0 additional credits in English Note: Film courses selected from other departments and discipline will be approved for the Minor in Literature and Film Studies on a case-by-case basis. English CoursesENGA10H3 Introduction to Twentieth-Century Literature and Film: 1890 to World War II An exploration of how literature reflects the artistic and cultural
concerns that shaped the first part of the twentieth century. An introduction
to university-level critical reading and interpretation, this course
will analyse the writing of early twentieth-century men and women. An exploration of how literature reflects the artistic and cultural
concerns that shaped the world after the Second World War. An introduction
to university-level critical reading and interpretation, this course
will analyse the writing of late twentieth-century men and women from
a range of backgrounds and nationalities. Poetry is often seen as distant from daily life. We will instead
see how poetry is crucial in popular culture, which in turn impacts
poetry. We will read such popular poets as Ginsberg and Plath, look
at poetry in film, and consider song lyrics as a form of popular poetry. An introduction to the literary analysis of narrative. This course
will study closely a small number of narratives and narrative genres
from different periods in order to develop the critical skills to
analyse narratives. An introduction to the literary analysis of poetry. This course will
study closely poems and poetic forms from different periods in order
to develop the critical skills to analyse poetry. Intensive training in critical writing about literature. Students
learn essay-writing skills (explication; organization and argumentation;
research techniques; bibliographies and MLA-style citation) necessary
for the study of English at the university level through group workshops,
multiple short papers, and a major research-based paper. This is not
a grammar course; students are expected to enter with solid English
literacy skills. An examination of large issues and themes that have shaped Canadian
literature. Focusing on the development and emergence of a Canadian
literary tradition, this course examines the problems of writing in
a New World nation, the emergence and definition of an indigenous
tradition, and the challenges such a tradition faces. An examination of the formation of identity, of a sense of belonging,
and of the problematics of nationhood in Canadian writing. An examination of Early American literature in historical context
from colonization to the Civil War. This introductory survey places
a wide variety of genres including conquest and captivity narratives,
theological tracts, sermons, and diaries, as well as classic novels
and poems in relation to the multiple subcultures of the period. An introductory survey of major novels, short fiction, poetry, and
drama. An introductory survey of major novels, short fiction, poetry,
and drama from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to Rita Dove's
Thomas and Beulah, with an emphasis on themes of immigration,
ethnicity, modernization, individualism, class, and community. Life-writing, whether formal biography, chatty memoir, postmodern
biotext, or published personal journal, is popular with writers and
readers alike. This course introduces students to life-writing as
a literary genre and explores major issues such as life-writing and
fiction, life-writing and history, the contract between writer and
reader, and gender and life-writing. A study of major plays and playwrights of the twentieth century.
This international survey might include turn-of-the-century works
by Wilde or Shaw; mid-century drama by Beckett, O'Neill, Albee, or
Miller; and later twentieth-century plays by Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard,
Caryl Churchill, Peter Shaffer, August Wilson, Tomson Highway, David
Hwang, or Athol Fugard. A study of fiction, drama, and poetry from the West Indies. The course
will examine the relation of standard English to the spoken language;
the problem of narrating a history of slavery and colonialism; the
issues of race, gender, and nation; and the task of making West Indian
literary forms. A study of literature in English from South Asia, with emphasis on
fiction from India. The course will examine the relation of English-language
writing to indigenous South Asian traditions, the problem of narrating
a history of colonialism and Partition, and the task of making the
novel South Asian. A study of the Canadian short story. The Canadian short story has
been vital to the Canadian literary tradition and has produced writers
of international stature, including Munro, Atwood, Laurence, and Gallant. An analysis of the relationship between classical myth and literature.
This course examines classical Greek and Roman myth in relation to
English literary works. A study of the romance as genre. The romance as episodic tale of
marvellous adventures and questing heroes has been both criticized
and celebrated. This course looks at the range of a form stretching
from Malory and Spenser through Scott and Tennyson to contemporary
forms such as fantasy, science fiction, postmodern romance, and the
romance novel. An introduction to the poetry and plays of William Shakespeare, this
course situates his works in the literary, social and political contexts
of early modern England. The main emphasis will be on close readings
of Shakespeare's sonnets and plays, to be supplemented by classical,
medieval, and renaissance prose and poetry upon which Shakespeare
drew. A continuation of ENGB32H3, this
course introduces students to selected dramatic comedies, tragedies
and romances and situates Shakespeare's works in the literary, social
and political contexts of early modern England. Our readings will
be supplemented by studies of Shakespeare's sources and influences,
short theoretical writings, and film excerpts. An introduction to the short story as a literary form. This course
examines the origins and recent development of the short story, its
special appeal for writers and readers, and the particular effects
it is able to produce. An introduction to children's literature. This course will locate
children's literature within the history of social attitudes to children
and in terms of such topics as authorial creativity, race, class,
gender, and nationhood. This course considers the creation, marketing, and consumption of
popular film and fiction. Genres studied might include bestsellers;
detective fiction; mysteries, romance, and horror; fantasy and science
fiction; "chick lit"; popular song; pulp fiction and fanzines. A study of extended narratives in the comic book form. Emphasis on
formal analysis of narrative artwork combined with an interrogation
of social, political, and cultural issues in this popular literary
form. Works to be studied may include graphic novels, comic book series,
and comic book short story or poetry collections. An introduction to the poetry and non-fiction prose of the Victorian
period, 1837-1901. Representative authors will be studied in the context
of a culture in transition, in which questions about democracy, the
rights of women, national identity, imperialism, science and religion,
and the place of the arts in everyday life were prominent. An examination of the development of a women's tradition of writing.
This course considers the legacy and impact of writers such as Mary
Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte and Virginia
Woolf. An analysis of the role of gender in fiction, poetry, and drama.
This course will examine such things as the genres women have gravitated
toward and excelled at in the light of Woolf's claim that the
novel was the genre most accessible to women because it was not entirely
formed. An introduction to the writing of poetry. This course will provide
an introduction to the writing of poetry through workshop sessions.
Admission by portfolio. Portfolios for students seeking admission
should be left with the English departmental assistant in H331A no
later than the first Tuesday of August. They should contain a selected
sample (5-15 pp.) of your strongest writing, which could include fiction,
poems or essays. Do not include originals. An introduction to the writing of fiction. This course will provide
an introduction to the writing of short fiction through workshop sessions.
Admission by portfolio. Portfolios for students seeking admission
should be left with the English departmental assistant in H331A no
later than the first Monday of October. They should contain a selected
sample (5-15 pp.) of your strongest writing, which could include fiction,
poems or essays. Do not include originals. An introduction to the critical study of cinema, including films
from a broad range of genres, countries, and eras, as well as readings
representing the major critical approaches to cinema that have developed
over the past century. An investigation of film genres such as melodrama, film noir,
and the western from 1895 to the present. We will look at the creation
of an ideological space and of new mythologies that helped organize
the experience of modern life. Works of twentieth-century prose and
poetry will also be studied. An investigation of film genres such as romance, gothic, and science
fiction from 1895 to the present. We will look at the way cinema developed
and created new mythologies that helped people organize the experience
of modern life. Works of twentieth-century prose and poetry will also
be studied. An examination of three or more Canadian writers. This course will
draw together selected major writers of Canadian fiction or of other
forms. An analysis of Canadian fiction with regard to the problems of representation.
Topics considered may include how Canadian fiction writers have responded
to and documented the local; social rupture and historical trauma;
and the problematics of representation for marginalized societies,
groups, and identities. A study of major Canadian playwrights with an emphasis on the creation
of a national theatre, distinctive themes that emerge, and their relation
to regional and national concerns. This course explores the perspectives
of Québécois, feminist, Native, queer, ethnic, and Black
playwrights who have shaped Canadian theatre. A study of contemporary Canadian poetry in English, with a changing
emphasis on the poetry of particular time-periods, regions, and communities.
Discussion focuses on the ways poetic form achieves meaning and opens
up new strategies for thinking critically about the important social
and political issues of our world. A study of the plays of Shakespeare. An in-depth study of select
plays from Shakespeare's dramatic corpus combined with an introduction
to the critical debates within Shakespeare studies. Students will
gain a richer understanding of Shakespeare's texts and their critical
reception. An exploration of the tension in American literature between two
conflicting concepts of self. We will examine the influence on American
literature of the opposition between an abstract, "rights-based,"
liberal-individualist conception of the self and a more traditional,
communitarian sense of the self as determined by inherited regional,
familial, and social bonds. A survey of the literature of Native Peoples, Africans, Irish, Jews,
Italians, Latinos, and East Asians in the U.S, focusing on one or
two groups each term. We will look at how writers of each group register
the affective costs of the transition from "old-world" communalism
to "new-world" individualism. A study of selected topics in literary criticism. Literary analysis of the Hebrew Bible (Christian Old Testament) and
its profound influence on literature. This course considers both the
literary nature of and the influence on literature of such narratives
as the fall of Adam and Eve, Noah's flood, Abraham's binding
of Isaac, and the story of Moses, The Song of Solomon, Job, Jonah,
Jeremiah. Literary analysis of the narratives and other literary forms in the
New Testament, and extended consideration of selected literary texts
that the New Testament has influenced. A study of major works of Victorian fiction, 1830-1860. This course
focuses on the development of the realist novel in its social context.
Authors studied might include Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray,
the Bronte sisters, Anthony Trollope and Elizabeth Gaskell. A study of major works of Victorian fiction, 1860-1901. This course
examines the emergence of the sensation novel, fantasy and science
fiction, and high Victorian realism. Authors studied might include
George Eliot, Wilkie Collins, George MacDonald, Thomas Hardy, Robert
Louis Stevenson, H.G. Wells, Joseph Conrad, or Rudyard Kipling. A study of fantasy and the fantastic from 1800 to the present. Students
will consider various theories of the fantastic in order to chart
the complex genealogy of modern fantasy across a wide array of literary
genres (fairy tales, poems, short stories, romances, and novels) and
visual arts (painting, architecture, comics, and film). An exploration of major dramatic tragedies in the classic and English
tradition. Tragedy has been thought of as one of the earliest and
most profound literary forms, having ritual and philosophical implications
and inspiring theoretical treatises beginning with Aristotle's
Poetics. An historical exploration of comedy as a major form of dramatic expression.
Theatrical comedy has been thought of as having social as well as
literary dimensions (healing rifts; providing carnivalesque escape;
mocking folly). Selections from The Canterbury Tales and other works by the
greatest English writer before Shakespeare. In studying Chaucer's
medieval masterpiece, students will encounter a variety of tales and
tellers, with subject matter that ranges from broad and bawdy humour
through subtle social satire to moral fable. A study of selected medieval texts by one or more authors. A study of the poetry, prose, and drama written in England between
the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603 and the Restoration of the monarchy
in 1660. This course will examine the innovative literature of these
politically tumultuous years alongside debates concerning personal
and political sovereignty, religion, censorship, ethnicity, courtship
and marriage, and women's authorship. A focused exploration of women's writing in the early modern
period. This course considers the variety of texts produced by women
(including closet drama, religious and secular poetry, diaries, letters,
prose romance, translations, polemical tracts, and confessions), the
contexts that shaped those writings, and the theoretical questions
with which they engage. A study of the real and imagined multiculturalism of early modern
English life. How did English encounters and exchanges with people,
products, languages, and material culture from around the globe redefine
ideas of national, ethnic, and racial community? In exploring this
question, we will consider drama, poetry, travel journals, autobiography,
letters, cookbooks, costume books, and maps. Studies in literature and literary culture during a turbulent era
that was marked by extraordinary cultural ferment and literary experimentation.
During this period satire and polemic flourished, Milton wrote his
great epic, Behn her brilliant comedies, Swift his bitter attacks,
and Pope his technically balanced but often viciously biased poetry. An exploration of literature and literary culture during the end
of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries. We will
trace the development of a consciously national culture, and birth
of the concepts of high, middle, and low cultures. Authors may include
Johnson, Boswell, Burney, Sheridan, Yearsley, Blake, and Wordsworth. An examination of generic experimentation that began during the English
Civil Wars and led to the novel. We will address such authors as Aphra
Behn and Daniel Defoe, alongside news, ballads, and scandal sheets;
and look at the book trade, censorship, and the growth of the popular
press. A contextual study of the first fictions that contemporaries recognized
as being the novel. We will examine the novel in the context of its
readers; of neighbouring genres such as letters, non-fiction travel
writing, conduct manuals; and of culture more generally. Authors might
include Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Burney, Austen and others. A study of the Romantic Movement in European literature, 1750-1850.
This course investigates the cultural and historical origins of the
Romantic Movement, its complex definitions and varieties of expression,
and the responses it provoked in the wider culture. Examination of
representative authors such as Goethe, Rousseau, Wollstonecraft, Wordsworth,
Coleridge, Blake, P. B. Shelley, Keats, Byron and M. Shelley will
be combined with study of the philosophical and historical backgrounds
of Romanticism. A study of the relation between self and other in narrative fiction.
This course will examine three approaches to the self-other relation:
the moral relation, the epistemological relation, and the functional
relation. Examples will be chosen to reflect engagements with gendered
others, with historical others, with generational others, with cultural
and national others. A study of poetry written roughly between the World Wars. Poets from
several nations may be considered. Topics to be treated include Modernist
difficulty, formal experimentation, and the politics of verse. Literary
traditions from which Modernist poets drew will be discussed, as will
the influence of Modernism on postmodern writing. An investigation of the literatures and theories of the unthinkable,
the reformist, the iconoclastic, and the provocative. Satire can be
conservative or subversive, corrective or anarchic. This course will
address a range of satire and its theories. Writers may range from
Juvenal, Horace, Lucian, Erasmus, Donne, Jonson, Rochester, Dryden,
Swift, Pope, Gay, Haywood, and Behn to Pynchon, Nabokov and Atwood. Developments in American fiction from the end of the 1950s to the
present. A study of fiction from the period that produced James Baldwin,
Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, John Updike, Norman Mailer, Ann Beatty,
Raymond Carver, Don DeLillo, Toni Morrison, Maxine Hong Kingston,
and Leslie Marmon Silko. The course may be organized around themes
or movements. A study of Arab women writers from the late nineteenth century to
the present. Their novels, short stories, essays, poems, and memoirs
invite us to rethink western perceptions of Arab women; therefore,
issues of gender, religion, class, nationalism, and colonialism will
be examined from Arab women's perspectives, from both the Arab
world and North America. Written literature and film and television. What happens when literature
influences film and vice versa, and when literary works are recast
as visual media (including the effects of rewriting, reproduction,
adaptation, serialization and sequelization). Analysis of space and place in literature. This course studies representations
of space in literature - whether geographical, regional, or topographical
- that offer conceptual alternatives to the nation, state, or tribe.
Geographical or regional focus may change depending on instructor. A study of the Gothic tradition in literature since 1760. "Gothic"
is a dark style in the arts, a language of terror, recognizable by
allusions to ruined castles, graveyards, sublime landscapes, religious
superstition, and plots involving imprisonment and torture, nightmares
of the unconscious mind, and monstrous deformities of the human body. An examination of twentieth-century literature, especially fiction,
written out of the experience of people who leave one society to come
to another already made by others. We will compare the literatures
of several ethnic communities in at least three nations, the United
States, Britain, and Canada. A continuation of ENGC70H3, focusing
on texts written since 1980. A study of fiction, drama, and poetry from English-speaking Africa.
The course will examine the relation of English-language writing to
indigenous languages, to orality, and to audience, as well as the
issues of creating art in a world of suffering and of de-colonizing
the narrative of history. An intensive study of form and rhetoric in rap lyrics. We will consider
the quarter-century recorded history of this sub-set of African-American
poetry in rough chronological order. We will also look for the pre-history
of rap in such traditions as minstrelsy, blues, political speech,
comic monologues, and lyric poetry proper. An interdisciplinary course about the body in art, film, photography,
narrative and popular culture. How bodies are written or visualized
as "feminine" or "masculine", as heroic, as representing normality
or perversity, beauty or monstrosity, legitimacy or illegitimacy,
nature or culture. A course focusing on the experience of the body in the public spaces
of the modern city and in cyberspace. Of special interest will be
the viewpoints of artists, writers, and filmmakers who explore how
the "other" is constructed in terms of class, culture, and ethnicity. Negative utopias and post-apocalyptic worlds. The course will draw
from novels such as 1984, Brave New World, Clockwork
Orange, and Oryx and Crake, and films such as Metropolis,
Mad Max, Brazil, and The Matrix. Why do we find
stories about the world gone wrong so compelling? Advanced study of a crucial period for the development of new forms
of narrative and the beginnings of formal narrative theory, in the
context of accelerating modernity. A variable theme course that will feature different theoretical approaches
to Cinema: feminist, Marxist, psychoanalytic, postcolonial, and semiotic.
Thematic clusters include "Madness in Cinema", and "Films on Films". Organizes a series of films that are non-Western: African, Asian,
Middle Eastern and analyzes them both on their own terms and against
the backdrop of issues of colonialism and globalization. An intensive study of the writing of poetry through a selected theme,
topic, or author. The course will undertake its study through discussion
and workshop sessions. Admission by portfolio. Portfolios should be
left with the English departmental assistant in H331A no later than
the first Tuesday of August. They should contain a selected sample
(5-15 pp.) of your strongest writing, which must include poetry and
may include fiction. Do not include originals. An intensive study of the writing of fiction through a selected theme,
topic, or author. The course will undertake its study through discussion
and workshop sessions. Admission by portfolio. Portfolios should be
left with the English departmental assistant in H331A no later than
the first Monday of October. They should contain a selected sample
(5-15 pp.) of your strongest writing, which must include fiction and
may include poetry. Do not include originals. An introduction to the writing of creative non-fiction through discussion
and workshop sessions. Admission is by portfolio. The portfolio should
be left with the English departmental assistant in H331A no later
than the first Monday of October. It should contain 5-10pp. of your
strongest fiction or non-fiction writing. A study of selected topics in recent literary theory. The study of a poet or poets writing in English after 1950. Topics
may include the use and abuse of tradition, the art and politics of
form, the transformations of an oeuvre, and the relationship of poetry
to the individual person and to the culture at large. This advanced seminar will provide intensive study of a selected
topic in African literature written in English; for example, a single
national literature, one or more authors, or a literary movement. A detailed study of some aspect or aspects of life-writing. Topics
may include life-writing and fiction, theory, criticism, self, and/or
gender. An advanced inquiry into critical questions relating to the development
of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English literature and culture.
Focus may include the intensive study of an author, genre, or body
of work. Topics in the literature and culture of the long eighteenth century.
Topics vary from year to year and might include a study of one or
more authors, or the study of a specific literary or theatrical phenomenon. An in-depth study of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century literature
together with intensive study of the theoretical and critical perspectives
that have transformed our understanding of this literature.
Advanced study of creative writing for students who have excelled
at the introductory and intermediate levels. Admission by portfolio.
Portfolios should be left with the English departmental assistant
in H331A no later than the first Tuesday of April for Summer courses,
no later than the first Tuesday of August for Fall and Fall/Winter
courses and no later than the first Monday of October for Winter courses.
They should contain a selected sample (10-20 pp.) of your strongest
writing and a five-hundred word proposal stating your goals for the
independent study Do not include originals. Topics in the literature and culture of the medieval period. Topics
vary from year to year and might include a study of one or more authors. Advanced study of a selected Modernist writer or small group of writers.
The course will pursue the development of a single author's work
over the course of his or her entire career or it may focus on a small
group of thematically or historically related writers. Topics in the literature and culture of the Romantic movement. Topics
vary from year to year and may include Romantic nationalism, the Romantic
novel, the British 1790s, or American or Canadian Romanticism. Advanced study of a selected Victorian writer or small group of writers.
The course will pursue the development of a single author's work
over the course of his or her entire career or it may focus on a small
group of thematically or historically related writers. An exploration of the genesis of auteur theory. By focusing on a
particular director such as Jane Campion, Kubrick, John Ford, Cronenberg,
Chaplin, Egoyan, Bergman, Godard, Kurosawa, Sembene, or Bertolucci,
we will trace the extent to which a director's vision can be
traced through their body of work. Advanced study of a selected Canadian writer or small group of writers.
The course will pursue the development of a single author's work
over the course of his or her entire career or it may focus on a small
group of thematically or historically related writers. Topics in the literature and culture of Canada. Topics vary from
year to year and may include advanced study of ethics, haunting, madness,
or myth; a particular city or region. This seminar will usually provide advanced intensive study of a selected
American poet each term, following the development of the author's
work over the course of his or her entire career. It may also focus
on a small group of thematically or historically related poets. This seminar course will usually provide advanced intensive study
of a selected American prose-writer each term, following the development
of the author's work over the course of his or her entire career.
It may also focus on a small group of thematically or historically
related prose-writers. An exploration of multicultural perspectives on issues of power,
perception, and identity as revealed in representations of imperialism
and colonialism from the early twentieth century to the present. Topics might explore the representation of religion in literature,
the way religious beliefs might inform the production of literature
and literary values, or literature written by members of a particular
religious group. A study of Arab North-American writers from the twentieth century
to the present. Surveying one hundred years of Arab North-American
literature, this course will examine issues of gender, identity, assimilation,
and diaspora in poetry, novels, short stories, autobiographies and
nonfiction. A study of the remarkable contribution of women writers to the development
of Canadian writing. Drawing from a variety of authors and genres
(including novels, essays, poems, autobiographies, biographies, plays,
and travel writing), this course will look at topics in women and
Canadian literature in the context of theoretical questions about
women's writing. An analysis of features of Canadian writing at the end of the twentieth
and the beginning of the twenty-first century. This course will consider
such topics as changing themes and sensibilities, canonical challenges,
and millennial and apocalyptic themes associated with the end of the
twentieth century. Topics vary from year to year and might include Victorian children's
literature; city and country in Victorian literature; science and
nature in Victorian writing; aestheticism and decadence; or steampunk. An exploration of Avant-Garde cinema from the earliest experiments
of German Expressionism and Surrealism to our own time. The emphasis
will be on cinema as an art form aware of its own uniqueness, and
determined to discover new ways to exploit the full potential of the
"cinematic". Advanced study of theories and critical questions that inform current
directions in cinema studies. The study of films from major movements in the documentary tradition,
including ethnography, cinema vérité, social documentary,
the video diary, and "reality television". The course will examine
the tensions between reality and representation, art and politics,
technology and narrative, film and audience. An intensive year-long seminar that supports students in the development
of a major independent scholarly project. Drawing on workshops and
peer review, bi-weekly seminar meetings will introduce students to
advanced research methodologies in English and will provide an important
framework for students as they develop their individual senior essays.
Depending on the subject area of the senior essay, this course can
be counted towards the pre-1900 requirement. |
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