undergraduate brochure 2013-2014 - department of english
TRANSCRIPT
22-Nov-13
UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAMS 2013-2014
Important information for Faculty of Arts undergraduates is published on the following webpage: http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/eng/students/index2.html.
Recommended course of study
The Department recommends that all English students follow the progression of courses outlined on the links provided in the following table:
English Honours with specialization (Co-op option available)
(http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/eng/sequences/honours-eng.html)
Major in English (Co-op option available)
(http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/eng/sequences/major-eng.html)
Minor in English
(http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/eng/sequences/minor-eng.html)
Honours with specialization in Latin and English Studies
(http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/eng/sequences/honours-lat-eng.html)
Please use the following link for a description of the Department’s undergraduate programs:
http://www.english.uottawa.ca/program1.html.
Academic Regulations The most current Academic Regulations and Policies for Undergraduate Studies at uOttawa can be found at the following link: http://web5.uottawa.ca/admingov/regulations.html
1. During their stay at uOttawa, students must assume certain responsibilities concerning
academic affairs. http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/info/regist/crs/0305/home_4_ENG.htm) 2. No credit will be granted and no grade recorded for any course for which the student
has not been properly registered, in accordance with the registration deadlines published in the sessional dates. Students who wish to make a change to their course selection can do so by using Rabaska. Changes to the program of studies and the selection of courses may be made only up to the closing date published in the schedule of sessional dates (http://www.registrar.uottawa.ca/Default.aspx?tabid=3895#fall).
3. Students must obtain a Letter of permission (http://www.registrar.uottawa.ca/Portals/43/Registrar/regi3141.pdf) before taking courses at other universities for credit as part of the Honours English degree requirements at the University of Ottawa.
4. Attendance in courses of instruction and discussion groups is mandatory. The professor
will state the attendance policy on the course outline, and may exclude from the final examination any student who has not complied with this policy.
5. The professor will state the grading policy on the course outline, and may reduce grades
for assignments that are submitted late. 6. Absence from any examination or test due to illness must be justified; otherwise, a
penalty will be imposed. If you are sick and must miss an exam, consult a physician right away and contact your professor or the Department before your exam. Students may submit to their professor a medical certificate from their doctor or from Health Services. If the medical problem is foreseeable, the student must advise the professor before the examination date. If the medical problem is not foreseeable, the student must submit the certificate to the professor within five working days after the examination date.
Absence for any other reason must also be justified in writing no later than five working
days after the examination. General information about exam deferral for health reasons is available on the Health Services website: http://www.uottawa.ca/health/health-services/policies.html. The Department and the Faculty reserve the right to accept or reject the reason offered. Reasons such as travel, summer employment, and misreading the examination schedule are not usually accepted.
7. For an extension of the time limit to complete course requirements, a student must complete the “Request for a Deferred Mark” form (http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/documents/pdf/note_differee_arts5352.pdf). The student must attach the medical certificate, and hand the form to the professor of the course. The professor will, in agreement with the Chair, set a date for a special examination or for handing in the assignment.
8. The use in an essay of material taken from outside sources without proper
acknowledgment constitutes plagiarism, or academic fraud (http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/eng/students/fraud.html). An essay containing such unacknowledged indebtedness may automatically be assigned a grade of “0” and further rules and regulations of the Faculty of Arts may apply. Suspected cases of academic fraud will automatically be forwarded to the Dean of Arts for possible disciplinary action. Students should consult the Department’s Style Sheet and Working with Sources, available at the University Bookstore, to avoid committing academic fraud out of ignorance.
9. The University recognizes the right of all students to see any of their written tests,
assignments or examinations within six months after their final grade has been officially posted on Infoweb. Students who are not satisfied with a mark should first contact the professor in order to request a review. Students have the right to appeal their marks (http://sfuo.ca/services/appeals/en/index.html).
10. Appeals Procedure
A student who wishes to appeal a grade should, within two weeks of the professor’s decision, write to the Chair, setting out the facts and including any relevant documents. The appeal will be considered by the departmental Appeals Committee, which may solicit additional material or information from the professor concerned. The Appeals Committee may recommend a higher mark or a lower mark if, in their view, a grade assigned by the professor is unreasonable in light of the definition of grades as set forth in the Faculty of Arts Calendar, or if evidence provided or solicited suggests the assigned grade significantly deviates from the standards reflected in other grades assigned by the professor. The Chair will make the final decision on the action to be taken and will advise the student in writing of this decision. Students cannot withdraw their appeal once a revised mark has been assigned. The student or professor may appeal the department’s final decision to the Faculty of Arts by addressing such an appeal to the Dean.
11. The University reserves the right to destroy all documents contained in a student’s file
at the end of the two-year period following the student’s departure from the University. Therefore, no corrections can be made to the official transcript once this two-year period has expired.
ABSENCE FROM FINAL EXAMS: What happens if...? Foreseeable reasons:
1. Medical or psychological condition or a scheduled surgery.
- You must advise the professor, by submitting a Request for a deferred mark form, before the examination.
Before accepting the student’s justification, the professor or the Faculty Secretariat has the right to request a medical certificate from the attending physician or from a psychologist (including your name, the date of both the absence and return to studies, the consultation date, and the physician’s or psychologist’s signature), or a supporting letter issued by the University of Ottawa’s Counselling and Coaching Service.
The professor or the Faculty Secretariat may ask that the medical certificate issued by the student’s doctor be validated by the University of Ottawa’s Health Services.
*Students who need a medical certificate validated by uOttawa Health Services must obtain the ‘Form for validation of medical certificate by the University of Ottawa Health Services’ from their Faculty. They must have the form filled out by the attending physician and submit it to Health Services.
“If the student fits the criteria set by the University to defer an exam for medical reasons, Health Services will issue a certificate *and send it by fax to the student’s faculty] ... Only students with a SERIOUS illness will be granted a medical deferral for an exam ... It is possible an off-campus doctor may issue a medical certificate, yet it may be refused when reviewed by Health Services. (www.uottawa.ca/health/health-services/policies.html)
It is the student’s responsibility to ensure the medical certificate from Health Services arrives at the Faculty Secretariat, and to obtain a copy to submit along with the Request for deferred mark form to the professor, before the examination.
2. Religious reasons.
- You must advise the professor, by submitting a Request for a deferred mark form and a letter from your religious leader, before the examination.
3. Exceptional, documented circumstances.
- You must submit a Request for a deferred mark form and justify the circumstances to the professor, in writing and with appropriate documentation, before the examination.
Unforeseeable reasons on the exam date:
4. Serious illness.
- You must notify your professor or your faculty, by submitting a Request for a deferred mark form within five working days of the exam date, and a medical certificate* bearing the date of your absence.
*The professor or the Faculty Secretariat may ask for the medical certificate to be validated by the University of Ottawa’s Health Services. Please also refer to Answer 1*.
5. Death and/or funeral of a close relative.
- You must notify your professor or your faculty, by submitting a Request for a deferred mark form within five working days of the exam date, and a death certificate (e.g. from the funeral home).
6. Serious trauma and subsequent counselling.
- You must notify your professor or your faculty, by submitting a Request for a deferred mark form within five working days of the exam date; and a supporting letter issued by the University of Ottawa’s Counselling and Coaching Service.
7. Exceptional, documented circumstances. - You must notify your professor or your faculty, by submitting a Request for a deferred mark form, a letter of justification, and appropriate documentation, within five working days of the exam date. The Department and the Faculty reserve the right to accept or refuse the reason given. Reasons such as travel, work and misreading the exam schedule are not accepted. Health Services 100 Marie Curie - (300) 613-564-3950
Counselling and Coaching Services
100 Marie-Curie Private, 4th floor, right above the Campus Pharmacy (Health Services building). To make an appointment: call or leave a message at 613-562-5200, or come in person.
uOttawa Academic Regulation 9.5: Justification of absence from examinations: http://web5.uottawa.ca/admingov/regulations.html#r36
Request for a deferred mark form: http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/documents/pdf/note_differee_arts5352.pdf
Form for validation of medical certificate by the University of Ottawa Health Services: http://www.uottawa.ca/health/pdfs/Application%20to%20Defer%20Examinations.pdf
GRADING SYSTEM
Official grading system
The University of Ottawa’s official grading system is alphanumeric, and it must be applied to all courses except those formally exempt by the University Senate. Indeed, in some instances, the expected learning outcomes for a course require a « Satisfactory/Not satisfactory » or a « Pass/Fail » grading
scheme.
Letter grade Numerical value Percentage scale value
A+ 10 90-100
A 9 85-89
A- 8 80-84
B+ 7 75-79
B 6 70-74
C+ 5 65-69
C 4 60-64
D+ 3 55-59
D 2 50-54
E 1 40-49
F 0 0-39
ABS 0 Absent
EIN 0 Failure/Incomplete
Other non-numerical grades – do not affect the student’s average
P - Pass
S - Satisfactory
NS - Not satisfactory
Passing grades
At the undergraduate level, the passing grade is usually set at D.
“ABS” is used when a student has not attended the course and has not informed the University thereof in writing, within the time limits specified in the sessional dates section of the Web site. This symbol is equivalent to a failing grade (F). “EIN” is used when at least one of the compulsory course requirements has not been fulfilled. This symbol is equivalent to a failing grade (F). For more information on the evaluation of student learning, please refer to uOttawa’s Regulations and Policies for Undergraduate Studies at: http://web5.uottawa.ca/admingov/regulations.html#r40.
Year of study
For admission and registration in the Faculty of Arts:
Number of credits Year of study
0 to 23 credits 1st
24 to 53 credits 2nd
54 to 80 credits 3rd
81 and more 4th
COURSE DESCRIPTIONS Each course at the 1000, 2000, or 3000 level has a link to a sample syllabus from a past section of that course. Do remember that these are only SAMPLES: each section of a given course will have a different reading list as well as different assignments, due dates, grade distribution, and so forth. If you would like further information about a particular section of a course, please check the timetable for the name of the professor teaching that section, and contact the professor directly.
ENG1100: Workshop in Essay Writing 3 credits Timetable
Description: Intensive practice in academic essay writing. Emphasis on grammatical and well-reasoned expository writing, essay organization, preparation of research papers, and proper acknowledgment of sources. Frequent written exercises and development of composition skills. Use of Writing Centre resources required outside regular class hours. This course is not required for students in the Specialization, Major or Minor in English programs.
ENG1100 Sample Syllabus
ENG1112 : Technical Report Writing 3 credits Timetable
Description: Practice in the writing of technical reports. Topics include exposition, argumentation, presentation of technical data, and effective communication. Frequent written exercises and development of composition skills. Use of Writing Centre resources required outside regular class hours. This course is not required for students in the Specialization, Major or Minor in English programs.
ENG1112 Sample Syllabus
ENG1120: Literature and Composition I: Prose Fiction 3 credits Timetable
Description: Development of critical reading skills and coherent discourse. Study of the proper use and acknowledgement of sources. Works by English-language prose authors provide matter for frequent written exercises. This course is not required for students in the Specialization, Major or Minor in English programs.
ENG1120 Sample Syllabus
ENG1121: Literature and Composition II: Drama and Poetry 3 credits Timetable
Description: Development of critical reading skills and coherent discourse. Study of the proper use and acknowledgement of sources. Works by English-language dramatists and poets provide matter for frequent written exercises. This course is not required for students in the Specialization, Major or Minor in English programs.
ENG1121 Sample Syllabus
ENG1122: Literature and Composition III: English Literature Before 1700 3 credits Timetable
Description: Development of critical reading skills and coherent discourse, both written and spoken. Study of selected authors before 1700 will furnish subject matter for frequent written exercises. This course cannot be combined for credits with ENG2122.
ENG1122 Sample Syllabus
ENG1123: Literature and Composition IV: English Literature Since 1700 3 credits Timetable
Description: Development of critical reading skills and coherent discourse, both written and spoken. Study of selected authors since 1700 will furnish subject matter for frequent written exercises. This course cannot be combined for credits with ENG2123.
ENG1123 Sample Syllabus
ENG1131: Effective Business English 3 credits Timetable
Description: Development of skills in written communication. Review of grammatical usage and basic principles of composition. Analysis of samples of effective business prose. Reserved for students enrolled in a baccalaureate program of the Telfer School of Management.
ENG1131 Sample Syllabus
ENG2110: Children's Literature 3 credits Timetable
Description: Introduction to literature written primarily for children.
ENG2110 Sample Syllabus
ENG2120: Mystery Novel 3 credits Timetable
Description: Introduction to the genre from its beginnings to the present.
ENG2120 Sample Syllabus
ENG2130: Tradition of King Arthur 3 credits Timetable
Description: Survey of literature devoted to the Arthurian legends.
ENG2130 Sample Syllabus
ENG2131: Fantasy, Myth and Language 3 credits Timetable
Description: Introduction to writers such as Lewis Carroll and C. S. Lewis whose works explore the relationships between language, myth and the evolution of ideas.
ENG2131 Sample Syllabus
ENG2132: Utopian Fiction 3 credits Timetable
Description: Study of literary manifestations of the ideal society (and its nightmare inversion) from Plato's Republic to such twentieth-century visions as Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.
ENG2132 Sample Syllabus
ENG2133: Literature and Psychology 3 credits Timetable
Description: Study of the complex relationships between analytical psychology and literature through readings of selected texts.
ENG2133 Sample Syllabus
ENG2135: Science Fiction 3 credits Timetable
Description: Study of fiction founded on scientific theory or hypotheses and new or speculative technologies.
ENG2135 Sample Syllabus Section A: James Brooke-Smith
Introduction:
Perhaps more than any other genre, science fiction provides a fertile space for reflecting upon the radical changes in media and communications technology that occurred throughout the twentieth century. In The War of the Worlds (1898) H.G. Wells describes how news of a Martian attack spreads at different speeds to different audiences via word of mouth, electric telegraph, and newspaper. In Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) Steven Spielberg shows how humans communicate with an extra-terrestrial species through the universal language of music. In Neuromancer (1984) William Gibson coins the neologism “cyberspace” long before that term is used by computer programmers and engineers. Drawing on novels, films, radio broadcasts, television shows, videogames, and websites, the class will both introduce students to the history of science fiction and familiarize them with key terms and debates in media theory.
Method:
Lecture and Discussion
Grading:
In-Class Presentation (20%), Class Participation (10%), Final Project (35%), Final Exam (35%)
Texts:
Novels
H.G. Wells, War of the Worlds Ursula Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness Philip K. Dick, Ubik William Gibson, Neuromancer Films
Fritz Lang, Metropolis Byron Haskin, War of the Worlds Stanley Kubrik, 2001: A Space Odyssey Richard Linklater, A Scanner Darkly James Cameron, Avatar Christopher Nolan, Inception
ENG2136: Fiction of Horror 3 credits Timetable
Description: Fiction of the supernatural and horror fiction from the 18th century to the present.
ENG2136 Sample Syllabus
ENG2137: Literature and Ideology 3 credits Timetable
Description: Study of how ideologies are varyingly revealed and concealed in literary texts from various historical periods.
ENG2137 Sample Syllabus
ENG2140: Literature and Film 3 credits Timetable
Description: Analysis of the translation of literary texts into film/video, with a view to illuminating the distinctive strategies and properties of the two art forms.
ENG2140 Sample Syllabus
ENG2141: Literature and the Environment 3 credits Timetable
Description: Study of literary texts which reflect, and reflect upon, the physical world, and our complex relationships with it.
ENG2141 Sample Syllabus
ENG2142: World Literatures in English 3 credits Timetable
Description: Study of the works of writers from diverse English-speaking cultures, such as those of Africa, Australia, India, New Zealand, and the West Indies.
ENG2142 Sample Syllabus
ENG2171: Craft of Writing 3 credits Timetable
Description: The course is geared towards those who are motivated to develop their writing skills for personal, academic, or professional reasons. You are encouraged to broaden the scope of your writing and to experiment with new techniques.
ENG 2171 Sample Syllabus
ENG2212: Classical and Biblical Backgrounds in English Literature 6 credits Timetable
Description:
Introduction to classical and biblical texts that have influenced the development of English literature.
ENG2212 Sample Syllabus
* Section A: Dominic Manganiello
Introduction:
The aim of this course is to study some of the major classical and biblical works as a background to the study of English literature. The emphasis of the course will be both on the study of these works in themselves and on their relevance to the study of English literature, particularly that of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. We shall consider ways in which English writers imitated, borrowed, adapted and transformed ideas, themes, attitudes and genres that they inherited.
Method:
Lecture and Discussion
Grading:
Class exam (10%); Essay # 1 (20%); Essay # 2 (30%); Final Exam (40%)
Texts:
Heather James, ed. The Norton Anthology of Western Literature. Vol. 1. (Norton) Plato. The Timaeus. (Penguin) Aristotle. The Nicomachaen Ethics. (Oxford) St. Augustine. The Confessions. (Penguin) Boethius. The Consolation of Philosophy. (Oxford) Dante. Vita Nuova. (Oxford) Shakespeare. The Tempest. (Oxford)
ENG2235: Women in Literature 6 credits Timetable
Description: Introduction to questions of gender and genre, focusing on works by and about women.
ENG2235 Sample Syllabus
*
ENG2400: Introduction to Canadian Literature 6 credits Timetable
Description: Survey of major Canadian writers.
ENG2400 Sample Syllabus
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Section A: Jennifer Blair Introduction: This course offers an introduction to the most interesting and significant works of Canadian literature from the eighteenth century to the present day. The themes that we will address in this course, all key players in critical debates on Canadian literature, include: exploration, colonization and settlement; First Nations literatures; English-French relations; issues of race, class and gender; literature and the telling of history; modernity and postmodernity in Canadian literature; Canadian literary regionalism; and immigration and multiculturalism. This course will situate these literary materials in the context of art, music, film, social policy, and historical and contemporary events in Canadian culture. Method: Lecture and discussion Grading: Short Paper (10%), Mid-Term Exam (20%), Winter Term Test (10%), Final Essay (20%), Final Exam (25%), Class Participation (10%) Texts: Cynthia Sugars and Laura Moss, eds., Canadian Literature in English: Texts and Contexts vols. 1 & 2 (Pearson, 2008) James De Mille, A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder (McGill-Queen's, 2000) Martha Ostenso, Wild Geese (McClelland & Stewart, 2008) Hugh MacLennan, Barometer Rising (McClelland & Stewart, 2007) Michael Ondaatje, The Collected Works of Billy the Kid (Vintage, 2008) Thomas King, Green Grass, Running Water (HaperCollins 1999) Jeff Lemire, Essex County (Top Shelf, 2009) Dionne Brand, What We All Long For (McClelland & Stewart, 2005)
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Section B: Gerald Lynch
Introduction:
This course surveys Canadian literature from the late eighteenth century to the present, focusing on representative works and major authors in their historical and cultural contexts.
Method:
Lecture and Discussion
Grading:
First-term essay (4-6 pp.), 20%, Mid-course examination, 25%, Second-term essay (6-8 pp.), 25%, Final examination, 30%
Texts:
Bennett and Brown, A New Anthology of Canadian Literature in English, Third Edition (Oxford Canada) Leacock, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (Tecumseh) Richler, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (M&S) Atwood, Oryx and Crake (M&S)
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Section C & D: David Staines
Introduction:
A study of the development of Canadian literature in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries
Method:
Lecture and discussion
Grading:
Attendance and participation 10%; minor essays 20%; major essay 30%; in-class examinations 10%; final examination 30%
Texts:
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale (McClelland and Stewart) -------- The Journals of Susanna Moodie (Oxford University Press) Carole Gerson and Gwendolyn Davies, eds., Canadian Poetry from the Beginnings through 1914 (New Canadian Library) Stephen Leacock, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (New Canadian Library) Hugh MacLennan, Barometer Rising (New Canadian Library) Rohinton Mistry, Tales from Firozsha Baag (New Canadian Library) L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables (New Canadian Library) Alice Munro, Lives of Girls and Women (Penguin) Michael Ondaatje, The Cat's Table (Knopf) Martha Ostenso, Wild Geese (New Canadian Library) Mordecai Richler, Son of a Smaller Hero (New Canadian Library) Sinclair Ross, As for Me and My House (New Canadian Library) E.T. Seton, Wild Animals I Have Known (New Canadian Library) Brian Trehearne, ed., Canadian Poetry 1920-1960 (New Canadian Library)
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Section E: Cynthia Sugars
Introduction:
This course will survey the major writings and cultural-historical developments in Canadian literature, beginning in the 1500s, with the early explorers to North America, and concluding in the contemporary
period. We will be discussing representative works and major authors in their cultural and historical contexts.
Method:
Lecture and Discussion
Grading:
Two research essays (15%) and (20%); Christmas exam (25%); Final exam (30%); attendance and participation (5%); film questionnaires (5 %).
Texts:
Sugars and Moss, eds. Canadian Literature in English: Texts and Contexts Volumes I and II (Pearson-Penguin) [Both volumes] Susanna Moodie. Roughing It in the Bush (NCL) Jane Urquhart. Away (McClelland) John Gray and Eric Peterson. Billy Bishop Goes to War (Talonbooks) Joy Kogawa. Obasan (Penguin) Priscila Uppal. To Whom It May Concern (Doubleday) Thomas King. Green Grass, Running Water (HarperPerennial)
ENG2450: Introduction to American Literature 6 credits Timetable
Description: Survey of major American writers.
ENG2450 Sample Syllabus
* Section A: Tom Allen
Introduction:
This full-year course will explore major authors, movements, and problems in American literature, with an emphasis on the historical and cultural context of literary production and reception. The course will consider authors and works from the colonial period to the present. Rather than proceeding chronologically, however, the readings will be organized around two major themes. In the fall term, we will encounter a variety of works that contribute to “American mythology,” that is, the creation of America as an idea that exists in tension with historical reality. In the winter, we will look at “American territories,” the way that American writers created a sense of nation and culture within and beyond national borders. The works read in each semester will include major examples of American fiction, poetry, and drama. These readings will be supplemented with relevant films, music, and works of visual art.
Method:
Lecture and discussion
Grading:
Essays 40%; midterms 20%; final exams 40%
Texts:
Fall: American mythologies Tony Kushner, Angels in America (Theatre Communications Group) Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (Norton) Herman Melville, Moby Dick (Longman) Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Norton) Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon (Vintage) Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire (New Directions) Winter: American territories James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans (Broadview) Mark Twain, Roughing It (University of California Press) John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath (Penguin) Langston Hughes, Collected Poems (Vintage) David Henry Hwang, M. Butterfly (Plume) Louise Erdrich, Tracks (HarperCollins)
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Section B: Anne Raine
Introduction:
This course is designed to help you develop a working knowledge of some of the important events, literary movements, and social issues in American literary and cultural history. It is also designed to help you become a more thoughtful, skilled, and confident reader and writer— able to make complex arguments about seemingly simple texts such as a short story by Louisa May Alcott or a poem by Langston Hughes, and also able to enjoy tackling more challenging or experimental texts by writers like Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, William Carlos Williams, or Gertrude Stein. By the end of the year, you will be able to do the following: • to identify the key themes and characteristics of each literary-historical period (Puritan, 18th-century, Romantic, Gothic, sentimental, realist, modernist, and postmodernist); • to discuss how literary texts are shaped by social factors such as religion, race, gender, and class, and by historical factors such as political, technological, and environmental change; • to discuss how writers work within and against accepted literary forms to participate in the social, cultural, and environmental debates of their times;
• to develop specific, complex, arguable claims about a literary text, and support your claims by analyzing specific details in the text’s form and content. The course will be interesting and fun, but it will also be rigorous: requirements include a lot of careful reading, regular attendance, active participation in class discussions, and a substantial amount of writing. Though I will lecture at times, we’ll spend most of our class time on discussions, group work, and collaborative exploration of the readings. To make the class more personal and interactive, I will divide you into small groups of students who will work together throughout the year and will collaborate on a group presentation for your final assignment.
Method:
Primarily discussion and group work rather than formal lectures. Regular attendance and active participation in class is expected and required. Be prepared to work hard on your writing, and to collaborate on a group presentation at the end of the year.
Grading:
Three essays, 40%; group presentation, 15%; mid-term and final exams, 35%; homework and participation, 10%.
Required texts:
Belasco and Johnson, The Bedford Anthology of American Literature, Vols. 1 and 2 Ernest Hemingway, In Our Time Karen Tei Yamashita, Tropic of Orange Photocopied course packet
Texts will be available at the Agora Bookstore, 145 Besserer St. at Waller.
Section D & E: Bernhard Radloff
ENG3133: Elizabethan Shakespeare
3 credits Timetable
Description:
Survey of Shakespeare's work to c. 1603.
ENG3133 Sample Syllabus
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Section A: Irene Makaryk
Introduction:
This course examines six plays written before 1603, covering three dramatic genres of Shakespeare’s early career: comedy (Comedy of Errors, Twelfth Night), tragedy (Titus Andronicus; Hamlet), and history (Richard III; Henry IV, part I). We will explore the plays as literary texts, as theatre, and as glimpses into the culture of Elizabethan England.
Method:
Lecture and discussion
Grading:
Midterm (20%), Term Paper (25%), Final Exam (50%), Class Participation (5%)
Texts:
The Norton Shakespeare (second edition, gen. ed. Stephen Greenblatt, 2008) has been ordered for this course. However you may use any scholarly edition (i.e., with a detailed introduction and notes) of the collected works or of single plays.
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Section B: David Rampton
Introduction:
In this course we will examine some of Shakespeare's best known plays written before 1603: Richard III, Richard II, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, Henry V, Troilus and Cressida. We will discuss the plays as literary works and as scripts for theatrical performance.
Method:
Lecture and Discussion
Grading:
Term work (60%), Final Exam (40%)
Texts:
Any scholarly edition of the collected works or of single plays.
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Section C: Victoria Burke
Introduction:
In this course we will examine a selection of histories, comedies, and tragedies written by Shakespeare before 1603: Richard III, Richard II, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, and Hamlet. We will consider the plays as both literary and theatrical works, and their relation to the culture of the time.
Method:
Lecture and Discussion
Grading:
Take-home Midterm (20%), Essay (35%), Attendance and Participation (5%), Final Exam (40%)
Texts:
Greenblatt, Stephen, et al, eds. The Norton Shakespeare. 2nd edn. (Norton, 2008)
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Section D: Jennifer Panek
Introduction:
In this course, we will study the following works from the Elizabethan period of Shakespeare’s career: the history plays Richard II and Henry IV, part I, along with some contemporary texts on kingship; the comedies The Taming of the Shrew and The Merry Wives of Windsor, along with some excerpts from marriage manuals of the period; and the tragedies Titus Andronicus and Romeo and Juliet. The course’s focus will be on how the plays both shape and are shaped by the culture—including the theatrical culture—of their time.
Method:
Some lecturing, but mainly class discussion.
Grading:
Midterm (20%), Term Paper (25%), Final Exam (50%), Class Participation (5%)
Texts:
The Norton Shakespeare, volume 1 (second edition, gen. ed. Stephen Greenblatt, 2008). If you already own an edition of Shakespeare’s works or prefer to buy paperback editions of single plays, please check with me to make sure that these are suitable for the class.
ENG3134: Jacobean Shakespeare
3 credits Timetable
Description:
Survey of Shakespeare's work after c. 1603.
ENG3134 Sample Syllabus
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Section A: Jennifer Panek
Introduction:
In this course, we will study the following works from the Jacobean period of Shakespeare’s career: Measure for Measure, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, and The Winter’s Tale. The course’s focus will be on how the plays both shape and are shaped by the culture—including the theatrical culture—of their time.
Method:
Some lecturing, but mainly class discussion.
Grading:
Midterm 20%; term paper 25%; final exam 50%; class participation 5%.
Texts:
The Norton Shakespeare, volume 2 (second edition, gen. ed. Stephen Greenblatt, 2008). If you already own an edition of Shakespeare’s works or prefer to buy paperback editions of single plays, please check with me to make sure that these are suitable for the class.
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Section B: Irene Makaryk
Introduction:
This course examines plays written after 1603: Othello; King Lear; Macbeth; Antony and Cleopatra; Coriolanus; and The Tempest. We will explore the plays as literary texts, as theatre, and as glimpses into the culture of Jacobean England.
Method:
Lecture and discussion
Grading:
Midterm (20%), Term Paper (25%), Final Exam (50%), Class Participation (5%)
Texts:
The Norton Shakespeare (second edition, gen. ed. Stephen Greenblatt, 2008) will be used in class, but you may use any scholarly edition (i.e., with a detailed introduction and notes) of the collected works or of single plays.
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Section C: David Carlson
ENG3164: Workshop in Creative Writing
3 credits Timetable Description: This introductory workshop focuses on the writing of short fiction. As a preliminary to registration, applicants must submit a portfolio (up to 10 pages) of their writing to Creative Writing, Department of English. Students will be selected solely on the basis of aptitude as indicated by work submitted. Starting May 1, portfolios will be accepted and considered for admission to fall or winter courses in the upcoming academic year. Portfolios will continue to be accepted until the course is full. However, students are encouraged to submit their portfolios before July 2, as courses tend to fill up quickly. Students will be notified of their acceptance no later than one month before the start of classes. Repeatable for credit, with different content.
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Section A: Seymour Mayne
Introduction:
This introductory workshop focuses on the writing of short fiction. The professor’s written approval is required for registration in this course. As a preliminary to registration, applicants must submit a portfolio (up to 10 pages) of their writing to Creative Writing, Department of English, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5. Translated literary work from other languages will also be considered. Students will be selected solely on the basis of aptitude as indicated by work submitted. Starting May 1, portfolios will be accepted and considered for admission until the course is full.
However, students are encouraged to submit their portfolios before July 2, as courses tend to fill up quickly. Students will be notified of their acceptance no later than one month before the beginning of term. As acceptance is not guaranteed, students submitting portfolios are advised to register for an extra course to ensure against being left short of credits in case of non-acceptance. Repeatable for credit, with different content. Since all material presented in this course must be computer-generated, candidates should take this into consideration before making application.
Method:
Discussion, seminars, and examination of literary texts, magazines, and online resources.
Grading:
Written work, 60%; attendance, class participation, and in-class work, 40%. All assignments are compulsory.
Texts: No text required. A suggested reading list will be distributed at the beginning of the course.
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Section B: Mark Frutkin (for more information on this instructor, please see www.markfrutkin.com)
Introduction:
This introductory workshop focuses on the writing of short fiction. The professor’s written approval is required for registration in this course. As a preliminary to registration, applicants must submit a portfolio (up to 10 pages) of their writing to Creative Writing, Department of English, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5. Translated literary work from other languages will also be considered. Students will be selected solely on the basis of aptitude as indicated by work submitted. Starting May 1, portfolios will be accepted and considered for admission until the course is full.
However, students are encouraged to submit their portfolios before July 2, as courses tend to fill up quickly. Students will be notified of their acceptance no later than one month before the beginning of term. As acceptance is not guaranteed, students submitting portfolios are advised to register for an extra course to ensure against being left short of credits in case of non-acceptance. Repeatable for credit, with different content. Since all material presented in this course must be computer-generated, candidates should take this into consideration before making application.
Method:
Discussion, seminars, and examination of literary texts, magazines, and online resources.
Grading:
Written work, 60%; attendance, class participation, and in-class work, 40%. All assignments are compulsory.
ENG3300: Beowulf
3 credits Timetable Description: Detailed study of the Old English folk epic Beowulf. Students will work with the published text and the manuscript in facsimile. Section A: David Carlson
ENG3318: Romantic Literature 3 credits Timetable
Description: Study of major poets and prose writers of the Romantic period.
ENG3318 Sample Syllabus *
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Section A: Ina Ferris
Introduction:
The Romantic era was one of great cultural energy and innovation. This course traces some of the most important manifestations of this energy by focusing on the major literary “schools” identified in the period itself. Poetry remained the most prestigious genre, and we will study the major Romantic poets (Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Percy Shelley, Keats), along with some of the novelists and prose writers linked to the “schools” represented by the poets (e.g. Mary Shelley, James Hogg, De Quincey, Mikhail Lermontov).
Method:
Lecture and Discussion
Grading:
Midterm (25%), Poetry Project (25%), Class Participation (10%), Final Exam (40%)
Texts:
Longman Anthology of British Literature, Vol 2A: The Romantics and Their Contemporaries, 5th edition (2011)
Mary Shelley. Frankenstein (Longman Cultural Edition)
James Hogg. Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (Oxford)
Mikhail Lermontov. A Hero of Our Time (Penguin)
NOTE: Texts available from Benjamin Books
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Section B: Ian Dennis
Introduction:
This course offers an in-depth examination of one of the most important figures of British Romanticism, Lord Byron, and surveys other major texts from the period. We will devote about a month to Byron, as well as reading poetry and non-fiction prose by a range of other figures, including William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats.
Method:
Lecture and Discussion
Grading:
Final essay (40%), Term work (20%), Final examination (40%)
Texts:
Greenblatt, Stephen, ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Ninth Edition: Volume D, The Romantic Period (Norton, 2012). Lord Byron. The Major Works (Oxford 2008).
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Section C: Ian Dennis
Introduction:
This course offers an in-depth examination of one of the most important figures of British Romanticism, William Wordsworth, and surveys other major texts from the period. We will devote about a month to Wordsworth, as well as reading poetry and non-fiction prose by a range of other figures, including William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats and Lord Byron.
Method:
Lecture and Discussion
Grading:
Final essay (40%), Term work (20%), Final examination (40%)
Texts:
Greenblatt, Stephen, ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Ninth Edition: Volume D, The Romantic Period (Norton, 2012). William Wordsworth. The Major Works (Oxford 2008).
ENG3320: Modern British Literature 3 credits Timetable
Description: Selected prose and poetry of the 20th century.
ENG3320 Sample Syllabus
* Section A: TBA
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Section B: Dominic Manganiello
Introduction:
This course offers an introduction to selected works by some of the main British writers of the twentieth century. Emphasis will fall on the intellectual and literary forces which shaped the modern period.
Method:
Lecture and Discussion
Grading:
Class exam (20%); Essay (40%); Final Exam (40%)
Texts:
Stephen Greenblatt, ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature (The Twentieth Century and After), 9th edition, Vol. F Oscar Wilde. The Picture of Dorian Gray. (Oxford) Virginia Woolf. To the Lighthouse. (Oxford) J.R.R. Tolkien. The Lord of the Rings. (Harper Collins)
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Section C: Dominic Manganiello
Introduction:
This course offers an introduction to selected works by some of the main British writers of the twentieth century. Emphasis will fall on the intellectual and literary forces which shaped the modern period.
Method:
Lecture and Discussion
Grading:
Class exam (20%); Essay (40%); Final Exam (40%)
Texts:
Stephen Greenblatt, ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature (The Twentieth Century and After), (Norton). 9th edition, Vol. F, James Joyce. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. (Penguin) Virginia Woolf. To the Lighthouse. (Oxford) T.S. Eliot. The Cocktail Party. (Faber) J.R.R. Tolkien. Tree and Leaf. (Harper Collins)
ENG3321: Canadian Short Story
3 credits Timetable
Description:
Short story in Canada from the 19th century to the present.
ENG3321 Sample Syllabus
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Section A: Gerald Lynch
Introduction:
This course surveys the Canadian short story from the late nineteenth century to the present.
Method:
Lecture and Discussion
Grading:
Essay, 2-3 pp. (10%), Test (30%), Essay, 6-8 pp. (30%), Final Examination (30%)
Texts:
Atwood and Weaver, The Oxford Book of Canadian Short Stories in English (Oxford Canada UP) Scott, D.C., In the Village of Viger (Tecumseh) Munro, Who Do You Think You Are? (Penguin)
ENG3323: Medieval Literature I 3 credits Timetable
Description: Study of major works of the period, including Chaucer.
ENG3323 Sample Syllabus
* Section A: David Carlson
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Section B: Geoff Rector
Introduction:
This course offers a social and rhetorical introduction to Middle English literature, generally focusing on the Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer, the reputed ‘Father of English Poetry.’ Along with the tales of this, Chaucer’s great unfinished masterpiece, we will read other major literary works of the Middle English period (1200-1500), including two poems of the alliterative tradition (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and St. Erkenwald), the short 13th century romance ‘Sir Orfeo,’ as well as some Middle English lyrics. These other works will allow us perspective, not only on the nature of Chaucer’s achievements– his paternity of English literature– but also on the question of the tradition or traditions of Middle English literature. That is, given its wide variety of form, style, dialect– and even language– and its patent differences, even alterity, from modern English literary traditions, we will ask how Middle English fits in to the tradition and how (or whether) we can consider Chaucer its progenitor.
Method:
Lecture and discussion
Grading:
Participation (20%: recitation 5%, response 5%, class participation and attendance 10%); Essay #1 (20%); Essay #2 (30%); Final Exam (30%)
Texts:
- Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, Boenig and Taylor eds. (Broadview, 2008).
Available at Benjamin Books, 122 Osgoode.
- other texts and readings will be available via Virtual Campus.
ENG3339: Sixteenth-Century Literature 3 credits Timetable
Description:
Study of major works of the period.
ENG3339 Sample Syllabus
*
Sections A & C: Nicholas von Maltzahn
Introduction:
A study of English literature from Wyatt to Shakespeare, with special reference to the poetry of the period. This section of the course emphasizes the works of Edmund Spenser and focuses on his epic The Faerie Queene.
Method:
Lecture and discussion
Grading:
Optional midterm 20%; Final essay 40% (50%); Final examination 40% (50%)
Texts:
Richard Sylvester, ed., English Sixteenth-Century Verse (Norton) Philip Sidney, A Defence of Poetry, ed. J. A. Van Dorsten (Oxford) Edmund Spenser’s Poetry, ed. Hugh Maclean and Anne Lake Prescott (Norton) Shakespeare, Sonnets (any scholarly edition will do) Texts will be available at Benjamin Books, 122 Osgoode.
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Section B: TBA
ENG3340: Seventeenth-Century Literature 3 credits Timetable
Description:
Study of major works of the period.
ENG3340 Sample Syllabus
* Section A: TBA
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Section B: Sara Landreth
Introduction:
This course is organized into four units: Jacobean drama, “metaphysical” poetry, Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667), and speculative or “science” fiction. In all four units, we will discuss revolutionary changes in war, religion, government, science, the status of women and attitudes toward non-European cultures. The term “revolution” denotes both a radical change and a recurrence or repetition. In light of these apparently contradictory meanings—a complete
break with history and a repetition of past events—we will interrogate the notion of a revolution as a way of understanding literary and historical change. Some of the questions we will address are: what counted as a revolution in the seventeenth century? What kinds of literary-historical change might be considered “revolutionary” (i.e. new genres, new portrayals of previously under-represented groups, etc.)?
Method:
Lecture and discussion
Grading:
Participation (10%), Midterm Essay (20%), Final Essay (35%), Final Exam (35%)
Texts:
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. B (8th edition) Margaret Cavendish, Paper Bodies (Broadview)
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Sections C & D: Nicholas von Maltzahn
Introduction:
A study of English literature from Donne to Dryden, with special reference to the poetry of the period. This section emphasizes the achievement of John Milton by focusing on his epic Paradise Lost.
Method:
Lecture and discussion
Grading:
Midterm 20%; Final essay 40%; Final examination 40%
Texts:
John Rumrich and Gregory Chaplin, ed., Seventeenth-Century British Poetry, 1603-1660 (New York: Norton, 2006) John Milton, Paradise Lost, ed. David Kastan (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2005)
Texts will be available at Benjamin Books, 122 Osgoode.
ENG3341: Eighteenth-Century Literature
3 credits Timetable Description: Study of major works of the period. (Formerly: ENG3350).
ENG3341 Sample Syllabus
*
Section A: Sara Landreth
Introduction:
This is a survey of English literature from 1688-1789. Eighteenth-century readers and writers witnessed revolutionary changes to their literary landscape. These transformations stemmed not only from a sharp increase in the number and kind of printed texts, but also from the shifting divide between what counted as “fact” and “fiction.” Our readings are organized under three generic headings: prose, drama and poetry. In all three units, we will discuss the cultural contexts of religion, science, government, war and attitudes toward non-European cultures. We will address the major genres and modes of the period, including proto-novelistic fiction, the epistolary novel, travel writing, mock-epic, satire, pastoral and georgic conventions, ballad opera and comedy of manners.
Method:
Lecture and Discussion
Grading:
Participation (10%), Midterm Essay (20%), Final Essay (35%), Final Exam (35%)
Texts:
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. C (8th edition) Frances Burney, Evelina (Broadview)
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Section B: April London
Introduction:
This course examines the interrelations of genre and culture through study of the period’s poetry and prose.
Method:
Lecture and Discussion
Grading:
Mid-term text (25%), one paper (40%), final take-home examination (35%)
Texts:
Broadview Anthology of British Literature Volume 3: The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century (2nd edn.)
ENG3362: Victorian Literature 3 credits Timetable
Description: Study of major poets and prose writers of the Victorian period.
ENG3362 Sample Syllabus
* Section A & B: Keith Wilson
Introduction:
This course studies major prose writers and poets of the Victorian period. We shall concentrate primarily, though far from exclusively, on the works of Matthew Arnold, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Rudyard Kipling, Christina Rossetti, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson in poetry, and of Matthew Arnold, Thomas Carlyle, Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, John Stuart Mill, and John Ruskin in prose. We shall be setting these writers against the wider intellectual and social movements of which they were part, and considering their anticipation of many of the issues explored by twentieth-century writers.
Method:
Lecture and Discussion
Grading:
Essay 40%; Midterm 20%; Final Examination 40%
Texts:
The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Victorian Age (Volume E) 9th edition.
Charles Dickens, Hard Times (Broadview)
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Section C: Lauren Gillingham
Introduction:
In this course we will study a selection of poetry, criticism, and narrative of the Victorian period in order to examine the language and forms in which the Victorians articulated some of the key
social, cultural, and political issues of their age. The issues that we will explore in the course include: the role of culture in an industrial society; religious doubt and scientific development; gender, sexuality, and identity; poverty, wealth, work, and class politics; and race, empire, and civilization. In addition to introducing important aspects of Victorian literature and culture, the course will invite us to consider the ways in which the formal properties of our texts shape the expression of social-historical concerns, and the ways in which we, as contemporary readers, engage with those concerns.
Method:
Lecture with discussion
Grading:
Midterm test (20%); Essay (35%); Final exam (35%); Class participation (10%)
Texts:
The Broadview Anthology of British Literature, Vol 5: The Victorian Era** H. Rider Haggard, She (Broadview, 2006)**
**These texts will be bundled together for a publisher's discount.
Texts will be available at Benjamin Books.
ENG3364: Victorian Fiction 3 credits Timetable
Description:
Study of major Victorian novelists.
ENG3364 Sample Syllabus
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Section A: Ian Dennis
Introduction:
This course will read a range of significant Victorian novels, surveying their formal qualities and the issues they raise. In particular, we will look at the different ways they treat the drama of individual sexual desire in tension with other imperatives, especially those involving the family and children. How, by their account, did the social structures and moral ideology with which Victorian society attempted to stabilize and sustain itself interact with steadily widening economic, religious and above all romantic choice?
Method:
Lecture and Discussion
Grading:
Final essay (40%), Term work (20%), Final examination (40%)
Texts:
Charlotte Brontë. Jane Eyre (Oxford 2008) Emily Brontë. Wuthering Heights (Oxford 2009) Charles Dickens. David Copperfield (Oxford 2008) George Eliot. The Mill on the Floss (Oxford 2008) Thomas Hardy. The Return of the Native (Oxford 2008) William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity Fair (Oxford 2008)
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Introduction:
In this course we will examine works by a series of major Victorian novelists. The emphasis will be on their importance as literary texts and as depictions of the social upheavals that characterized the era.
Method:
Lecture and Discussion
Grading:
Term Work (60%), Final Exam (40%)
Texts:
C. Brontë, Jane Eyre E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights C. Dickens, Hard Times G. Eliot, Middlemarch E. Gaskell, North and South T. Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles O. Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Grey
Available at Benjamin Books, 122 Osgoode St.
ENG3371: Modern Drama 3 credits Timetable
Description: Study of dramatic literature produced in Britain over the course of the twentieth century. Section A: Craig Gordon
Introduction:
This course will focus on a range of dramatic literature produced in Britain over the course of the twentieth century. Beginning with early-century responses to the theatrical forms (melodrama, the well-made play, and the drawing-room comedy) that dominate the Victorian stage, we will consider the influences of realist and naturalist theatre before moving on to examine the more experimental, avant-garde theatre that becomes increasingly important in the later half of the century. We will be especially interested in exploring the ways in which the theatre functions as a powerful means of registering and responding to a range of important social and political changes that shape British culture across the twentieth century. In considering the plays on the syllabus, we will examine the limitations of treating them as examples of dramatic literature by attending to the institutional contexts and performance practices that shape their cultural significance.
Method:
Lecture and Discussion
Grading:
Paper #1 (20%); Paper #2 (35%); Participation (10%); Final Exam (35%)
Texts:
Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest G. B. Shaw: Heartbreak House Cicely Hamilton: Diana of Dobson’s John Osborne: Look Back in Anger Harold Pinter: The Caretaker Edward Bond: Saved Samuel Beckett: Krapp’s Last Tape and Not I Caryl Churchill: Top Girls David Hare: The Secret Rapture Tom Stoppard: Arcadia Sarah Kane: Blasted Mark Ravenhill: Shopping and Fucking Michael Frayn: Democracy
*Please Note*: This reading list is tentative (the final version of the syllabus will consist of 9 or 10 of the plays listed). Students wishing to get a head start on the reading for the course should consult the professor to receive a final version of the syllabus.
ENG3375: Critical Theory
3 credits Timetable
Description:
Advanced study and practice of contemporary critical methodologies. (Formerly: ENG2325).
ENG3375 Sample Syllabus
* - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Section A: Craig Gordon
Introduction:
This course will provide an introduction to a range of influential literary and critical theories that have been articulated since, roughly, the turn of the 20th century. The goal of this course will not be to supplant our “naïve” reading practices with ostensibly more “scientific” approaches to the interpretation of literature, but to explore the history of recent theoretical models (including feminism, formalism, historicism, Marxism, postcolonialism, psychoanalysis, post-structuralism, and structuralism) as a means of developing a series of theoretical vocabularies and frameworks within which we can reflect more rigorously and self-consciously upon what it is that we do when we read and interpret literary texts. The basic supposition of the course, that is, will be that even our most “naïve,” pre-critical acts of reading are predicated upon a number of important but often unexamined assumptions about the nature of literary texts and the process of reading; it will be our goal to use various recent theoretical models as a means of critically reflecting upon and examining the implications of those assumptions. In that light, our investigations will be guided by a few key questions: How do we understand language, the medium in which all literary works are produced? How do we understand specifically literary language (including questions of form), as opposed to the other sorts of language with which we interact on a day-to-day basis? How do we understand human subjectivity (either as the object of literary representation, or as it is affected by the act of reading)? And, how do we situate literary texts (and our interactions therewith) in relation to the broader social, cultural, historical, and political contexts within which they are produced and received? Though the bulk of our attention will be devoted to reading, understanding, and responding to a variety of theoretical texts, we will also test the usefulness of our theoretical models in relation to the practical criticism of a small selection of literary texts.
Method:
Lecture
Grading:
Midterm (25%), Term Paper (35%), Participation (10%), Final Exam (30%)
Texts:
*Please Note:* The main textbook for the course has just gone out of print, and the publisher has yet to describe whether or not to reprint. Consequently, this reading list should be considered “tentative”. Students wishing to get ahead on the reading should consult the instructor for a finalized syllabus.
Modern Literary Theory, 4th ed. (Philip Rice and Patricia Waugh eds.) Mary Shelley Frankenstein (Broadview Press) Joseph Conrad. Heart of Darkness (Beford/St. Martin’s Press)
ENG3383: Jewish Canadian Writers 3 credits Timetable
Description:
A study of the works of Jewish Canadian writers in English. (Also offered as CDN3383).
ENG3383 Sample Syllabus
* - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Section A: Seymour Mayne
Introduction:
This course will focus mainly on the work of the major Jewish Canadian writers who have emerged in the past seventy-five years. We will examine Klein's poetry and prose, then turn to the work of Irving Layton, Miriam Waddington, Adele Wiseman, Mordecai Richler, Leonard Cohen and other contemporary figures. Attention will also be paid to the work in translation of Yiddish Canadian writers of the same period. We will consider how Jewish Canadian writers have influenced and shaped the development of Canadian literature, and how they have contributed to the recent multicultural renaissance in Canadian writing.
Method:
Lectures, class discussion, seminars; use of archival and audio-visual material.
Grading:
Seminar assignments including paper, class participation and attendance 60%; tests and mid-term examination 40%.
Texts:
The following texts are either in print and/or on reserve at Morrisset Library. Many are also available from book dealers specializing in Canadiana. Students need not purchase all of them and should consult the instructor before acquiring texts:
Klein, A.M., The Second Scroll (McClelland & Stewart, New Canadian Library; University of Toronto Press) ___________, Selected Poems, Z.Pollock, S. Mayne and U. Caplan, eds. (University of Toronto Press) Layton, Irving, A Wild Peculiar Joy: The Selected Poems (McClelland & Stewart) Waddington, Miriam, Collected Poems (Oxford University Press) ___________, Apartment Seven: Essays Selected and New (Oxford University Press) Levine, Norman, Champagne Barn (Penguin Books) Wiseman, Adele, The Sacrifice (McClelland & Stewart, New Canadian Library) Richler, Mordecai, The Street (McClelland & Stewart, New Canadian Library) Cohen, Leonard, Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs (McClelland & Stewart) ___________, The Favourite Game (McClelland & Stewart, New Canadian Library) Michaels, Anne, Fugitive Pieces (McClelland & Stewart) Rotchin, B. Glen, Halbman Steals Home (Dundurn) Mayne, S. and B. G. Rotchin, eds., A Rich Garland: Poems for A.M. Klein (Véhicule) Telushkin, Joseph, Jewish Literacy (HarperCollins)
ENG3385: Canadian Literature of the Confederation Period
3 credits Timetable
Description: A study of the poetry and fiction of the major writers of the period 1867-1912. .
ENG3385 Sample Syllabus
*
Section A: Gerald Lynch
Introduction:
This course studies the poetry and fiction of the major writers of the period 1867-1912.
Method:
Lecture and Discussion
Grading:
Essay (2-3 pp.), 10%; mid-term test, 30%; essay (5-6 pp.), 30%; final examination 30%
Texts:
Duncan, S.J. The Imperialist (Tecumseh) Leacock, S. Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich (Tecumseh) Robert, C., Selected Animal Stories (Tecumseh) Ware, T., ed., A Northern Romanticism (Tecumseh)
ENG3387: Canadian Fiction Since 1950
3 credits Timetable
Description:
Study of selected fiction writers.
*
Section A: Janice Fiamengo
Introduction:
This course introduces students to the canonical writers of prose fiction since 1950--Mordecai Richler, Robertson Davies, Margaret Laurence, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Alistair MacLeod—and to some significant yet lesser known voices. We will examine the works in their social and historical contexts.
Method:
Lecture and Discussion
Grading:
Mid-Term (20%), Term Paper (30%), Quizzes and Exercises (20%), Final Exam (30%)
Texts:
Ernest Buckler, The Mountain and the Valley (M & S) Mordecai Richler, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (M & S) Margaret Laurence, The Stone Angel (M & S) Robertson Davies, Fifth Business (Penguin) Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye (Random House)
ENG3388: Canadian Poetry of the Twentieth Century
3 credits Timetable
Description:
Study of writings of the key figures in the development of modern poetry in Canada.
* Section A: Seymour Mayne
Introduction:
This course will focus on the writings of the key figures in the development of modern poetry in Canada. Close attention will be paid to the poetics and signature poems of F.R. Scott, A.M. Klein, Dorothy Livesay, Earle Birney, P.K. Page, Irving Layton, Miriam Waddington, Al Purdy, Leonard Cohen, Margaret Atwood, Gwendolyn MacEwen and others. Little magazines and literary presses of the period will also be discussed.
Method:
Lectures, class discussion, seminars, and the use of audio-visual and archival material.
Grading:
TBA
Texts:
Trehearne, Brian, ed. Canadian Poetry: 1920-1960 (McClelland & Stewart, New Canadian Library)
Cohen, Leonard, Let Us Compare Mythologies (McClelland & Stewart) ____________, The Spice-Box of Earth (McClelland & Stewart)
ENG3389: Postcolonial Literatures 3 credits Timetable
Description: Study of fiction, poetry, memoir, drama, and critical literature written from postcolonial, transnational, and diasporic perspectives .
ENG3389 Sample Syllabus *
Section A: Jennifer Blair
Introduction:
This course considers fiction, poetry, memoir, drama, and critical literature written from postcolonial, transnational, and diasporic perspectives. Course readings address South Asian, African, Caribbean, American and Canadian cultural contexts. Lectures and class discussion will cover the key concepts in postcolonial theory: orientalism, mimicry, national cultures, the subaltern, cosmopolitanism, and globalization. We will also consider how postcolonial concerns come to be paired with other social issues in the literature in question such as disability, sexuality, health, and the environment.
Method:
Lecture and Discussion
Grading:
Mid-term (25%), Presentation and Short Paper (10%), Final Essay (20%), Final Exam (30%), Class Participation (15%)
Texts:
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (Anchor, 1994) Ama Ata Aidoo, Anowa (Longman, 1995) J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace (Random, 2000) Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Riverhead, 2008) Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide (Penguin, 2005) Jamaica Kincaid, My Brother (Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 1997) Thomas King, Green Grass, Running Water (HarperCollins, 1999)
Information on 4000-level courses The English department offers two kinds of courses at the 4000 level: seminars and special topics courses. Both kinds of courses provide an opportunity to read and discuss literature with a small group of advanced undergraduate students (no more than 15 in a seminar, and up to 25 in a special topics course) and a professor working within his or her particular area of interest. 4000-level courses, as you can see from the descriptions, are focussed on a specific topic, allowing you to explore a small, interrelated body of literary works with a level of depth and interaction not possible in large lecture classes. They are an excellent way to pursue further study of an author, genre, period, or theme which you enjoyed in one of your earlier courses. That said, you are certainly not expected to be an expert in the course topic, or to have any special preparation beyond what you’ve already gained from the classes you’ve taken so far. In a seminar, you will be required to give one or more oral presentations, and, typically, to lead a period of class discussion afterwards. Your professor will provide detailed instructions on what these presentations should involve, and will be more than happy to discuss his or her expectations. You will also be expected to be an active participant in class discussion throughout the term. Most seminars do not have a final exam (although some do), so your grade will typically be based on oral presentations, class participation, and a major essay submitted at the end of term. There may also be other required components, such as submitting brief written responses to readings, or posting on an online discussion forum. If you are planning to continue on to graduate school, seminars are invaluable preparation for the kind of work required in graduate courses. Special topics courses, organized for a somewhat larger group of students, are similar to seminars in many ways but may involve more lecturing and fewer student presentations. Some may require a final exam. While, like seminars, they provide intensive study of a specific literary topic, they are more geared towards the needs of students who do not intend to continue on to a Master’s program in English literature. This difference is reflected in the program requirements stipulating that all English Specialization students must take at least one seminar, while Major students may opt to take two special topics courses. How to get the most out of your 4000-level courses:
Read the course descriptions carefully and choose a course that genuinely interests you. This is your chance to take a class on a subject you enjoy, with other students who are similarly interested in the material. Besides, it’s much easier to participate in a class where people are talking about something you care about!
Attend every class. The work of a seminar or special topics course is done in class, through engaging with your classmates and your professor in discussion of the text for that class.
Do your reading. Keeping up with the reading is important for any class, but especially for a small 4000-level class. It’s hard (not to mention risky) to talk about something you haven’t read. On the other hand, when you’ve done your reading, you’ll have the chance to direct the class conversation—which is largely student-driven—towards aspects of the text that interest you.
Talk to your professor. Even if you don’t think you have questions about your presentations or final paper, it is always helpful to go and discuss what you’re working on before you present or submit it.
Don’t be intimidated. Professors understand that speaking up in class comes more naturally to some students than to others, but they also expect you to make an effort. Don’t sit there in awe of your more vocal classmates: they don’t necessarily have any more insight into the text than you do. When in doubt, ask questions: good questions are even more welcome in class discussion than good answers!
Special Topic Courses Course Area: Medieval Term: Winter 2014 Timetable
ENG 4130 A (3 credits – Special Topic)
Title: New things: the idea of a medieval avant-garde.
Professor: Geoff Rector
Introduction:
No period seems more inimical to the idea of an avant-garde than the middle ages. Yet, the term ‘avant-garde,’ sometimes thought of as a literary and artistic movement of the early twentieth century, is also used in critical theory as a code-word for the problem of the new: of self-conscious experimentation, of departure from classical models and traditions, of new forms of expression, new styles and new media. When detemporalized in this manner as a set of critical problems concerning ‘the new,’ the avant-garde is an important topic of analysis in medieval literature. Despite our sense of the Middle Ages as a tradition-bound, culturally conservative, even stagnant period, distinct from modernity precisely in its lack of progress and innovation, the Middle Ages did in fact see a series of literary movements that were characterized by self-conscious cultivation of the new: new genres, new literary languages and forms, and radical reconsideration of and parodic renovation of tradition. This class proposes to explore a series of medieval literary avantgardiste moments, to consider how the ‘new’ is imagined, authorized and produced in each case. The class starts with the twelfth-century emergence of new literary languages (the vernacular) and new genres, in this case, romance and troubadour lyric. As we will see, both genres emerged parodically imitating and rejecting the classical, just as they were both preoccupied with what were imagined as new orders of event and experience. With a set of terms now developed, the class then moves to consider the innovations brought about by two great avantgardiste authors, Dante Alighieri and Geoffrey Chaucer; and ends with Cervantes’ Don Quixote, a work long thought of as having engendered the novel through self-conscious rejection and parody of the medieval– a kind of avant-garde innovation that will allow us to reconsider the larger historical issues involved in the idea of the avant-garde.
Method:
Seminar and Discussion
Grading:
Participation and attendance (20%), 1 seminar presentation (20%) two short reading response presentations (10% each, 20% total), final paper (40%)
Texts:
– Floire et Blancheflor – Dante Vita Nuova – Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde – Cervantes, Don Quixote
Available from Benjamin Books (122 Osgoode Street) and online from the Virtual Campus website.
Course Area: Shakespeare Term: Fall 2013 Timetable
ENG 4133 A (3 credits – Special Topic)
Title: Shakespeare and the Theatre of War
Professor: Irene Makaryk
Introduction:
From the earliest comedies, through the histories and tragedies to the late romances, Shakespeare’s works are peppered with references to, as well as representations of, war -- both a reflection of England’s almost continuous military engagements in this period (in Ireland, France, the Low Countries, on the high seas, and in the “New World”) and of the long-lasting consequences of the War of Roses. Focussing on the history plays, this course will study the imaginative energy, the “Muse of fire,” that war released in Shakespeare. Among the possible topics of close study will be the relationship between war and gender; genre; sport; character; honour; nation and national identity. In addition to examining the work of classical war theorists such as Machiavelli, von Clausewitz, and Sun Tzu, we will explore some theories of the sociology and psychology of war, violence, and trauma that might be helpful in illuminating Shakespeare’s plays. While the course primarily seeks to examine the representation of war (and thus is focused on the question of “construction” or the design of the plays), it is also interested in inquiring how Shakespeare’s deep engagement with this topic might, in turn, make it possible to use his plays in later (including World) wars. Nota bene: This course assumes some knowledge of Shakespeare’s plays (ideally provided by a previously taken undergraduate Shakespeare course).
Method:
Lecture, discussion, seminar presentation
Grading:
Seminar presentation and leading discussion (25%), Term Paper (30%), Final (45%)
Texts:
Any good scholarly edition (that is, with an introduction and notes) of Henry VI (Parts I, II, III); Richard III; Henry IV (Part I); Henry V; Troilus and Cressida; Coriolanus. A Course Reader of theoretical texts will be available at Reprography.
Course Area: Eighteenth Century Term: Winter 2014 Timetable
ENG 4135 A (3 credits – Special Topic)
Title: Science Fact and Science Fiction 1640-1799
Professor: Sara Landreth
Introduction:
This course explores Enlightenment intersections between science and fiction: how did natural philosophical debates influence imaginative writing (and vice-versa)? Inspired by discoveries in physics, astronomy, medicine and botany, Restoration and eighteenth-century authors wrote early examples of what we now call science fiction. For many Enlightenment writers, the boundaries between science fiction and science fact were not clear-cut. In his “factual” History of the Royal Society (1667), for example, Thomas Sprat describes an experiment that tested whether exposure to powdered unicorn horn caused spiders to become “enchanted”. The texts on our syllabus both celebrate and debate marvellous machines, human-plant hybrids and advanced extraterrestrial civilizations. We will address the problematics of empiricism and the difficulty of recording experience in writing. Our readings exemplify a wide range of genres, including the moon voyage, plague narrative, philosophical poetry, the Gothic, utopian and dystopian tales and ballooning narratives.
Method:
Lecture and seminar
Grading:
Participation 30%; Presentation 35%; Final essay 35%
Texts:
Francis Godwin, Man in the Moone (Broadview) Margaret Cavendish, Paper Bodies: A Margaret Cavendish Reader (Broadview) Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year (Oxford) William Beckford, Vathek (Oxford) Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Huntly: Memoirs of a Sleep-walker (Hackett) Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (Norton) Michael Murphy, A Description of the Blazing World (Freenhand)
- Texts are available at Benjamin Books
*Course Reader (at Laurier Office Mart)
Course Area: Romantics Term: Fall 2013 Timetable
ENG 4136 A (3 credits – Special Topic)
Title: Exploring Romantic Poetry and Prose
Professor: Ian Dennis
Introduction:
This Special Topics course offers an opportunity to study unfamiliar Romantic poems and shorter prose works in English. We will begin by surveying our previous academic experience, and then construct a reading list new to all students. This will feature less-often studied masterpieces by major figures like Wordsworth, Byron and Keats, including letters, as well as estimable works by such poets as Charlotte Smith, Robert Burns, Thomas Hood, George Crabbe and Letitia Landon. We will sample some of the great essay writers of the day, such as Thomas DeQuincey, Charles Lamb and William Hazlitt, and read a few short fictions by Sir Walter Scott. As we do, we will also sample the critical methods that have been used to study this extraordinary literary era.
Method:
Small Class Discussion
Grading:
Short papers and tests (30%), Final Essay (40%), Final Exam (30%)
Texts:
Greenblatt, Stephen, ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Ninth Edition: Volume D, The Romantic Period (Norton, 2012).
Course Area: Victorian Literature Term: Fall 2013 Timetable
ENG 4137 A (3 credits – Special Topic)
Title: Crime, Criminals, and Detection in Nineteenth-Century British Fiction
Professor: Lauren Gillingham
Introduction:
In this course, we will read a selection of nineteenth-century British fiction to examine the ways in which our authors represent crime, criminals, and detective-work, and to consider the literary and cultural stakes of representing crime, vice, detection, and punishment in fictional form. We will frame our analysis around a range of fiction that deals with crime: the Newgate novel with its romping criminal heroes; the detective novel and the rise of the detective as hero; the legal novel and the politics of crime; the sensation novel, or crime on the home front; forensic fiction, or the science of crime; and narratives of criminal psychology. We will investigate why fiction about crime was so intensely popular in the period, considering, among other factors, contemporary cultural anxieties about transgression and social reform; urbanization and imperialism; political reform and shifting class relations; prisons and penal reform; individual subjectivity and agency among the lower orders; women’s relationship to the public sphere; the modernity of urban life; and the emergence of popular genres and mass culture. We will also read a selection of non-fictional nineteenth-century texts on criminality, poverty, policing, political reform, and the novel.
Method:
Seminar and discussion
Grading:
Seminar presentation (20%); Final paper (35%); Final exam (30%); Class participation (15%)
Texts:
William Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard (Broadview, 2007) Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley’s Secret (Broadview, 2003) Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone (Oxford, 2008) Charles Dickens, Bleak House (Broadview, 2011) Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four (Broadview, 2010) William Godwin, Caleb Williams (Broadview, 2000)
Plus: additional stories and non-fictional readings to be available online
Seminar Courses
Course Area: Romantics Term: Fall 2013 Timetable
ENG 4152 A (3 credits – Seminar)
Title: Jane Austen's Major Fiction
Professor: April London
Introduction:
Jane Austen’s treatment of her period’s material culture appears both directly in her sceptical renderings of contemporary property relations and more obliquely in her adjustments to the linked courtship and inheritance plots of her predecessors. In this course, Frances Burney’s Evelina will provide a starting point for considering not only Austen’s distinctive version of possessive individualism, but also the extent to which it may offer grounds for reconciling the conflicting modern interpretations of her writing as reactionary, loyalist, liberal, or proto-feminist. Through close analysis of Austen’s fiction, we will investigate her representation of family and community, history and politics, genre and gender, readers and reading audiences as aspects of her engagement with questions of ownership, virtual and actual.
Method:
Seminars and discussion
Grading:
One brief presentation followed by a 2-3 pp. paper (20%). One longer presentation and one final paper (60%) Participation (20%)
Texts: (all Broadview editions)
Frances Burney, Evelina Jane Austen, Jane Austen’s Manuscript Works Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen, Mansfield Park Jane Austen, Emma Jane Austen, Persuasion
Course Area: Victorian Literature Term: Fall 2013 Timetable
ENG 4165 A (3 credits – Seminar)
Title: The Pre-Raphaelite Movement
Professor: Mary Arseneau
Introduction:
This seminar will chart the evolution of the Pre-Raphaelite movement in art and poetry, beginning with the moral aesthetic embraced by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (1848-1853), and tracing Pre-Raphaelitism through its diverse later expressions. Our study will focus on the poetry and prose of three central Pre-Raphaelite figures—Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, and William Morris—and will also take into account Pre-Raphaelite painting as well as the various nineteenth-century statements on Pre-Raphaelite aesthetics. A wide variety of critical approaches will be embraced. Themes and issues to be considered include Pre-Raphaelite medievalism, the Pre-Raphaelite interest in the “fallen woman” as subject and object, the place of the woman poet in the brotherhood, Tractarian poetics, the Rossettis and Dante, the Rossettis’ role in the Victorian revival of the sonnet sequence, and all three poets’ place in the evolution of the dramatic monologue. In the final stage of the course we will consider the later trajectories of our three main figures: Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s turn toward aestheticism; William Morris’s politicized views on art; and Christina Rossetti’s late-life devotional writing. Although the original impulse of Pre-Raphaelitism was diffused, to the end the movement retained an opposition to convention and to mainstream bourgeois Victorian culture.
Method:
Seminar and Discussion
Grading:
Seminar presentations and participation (50%), Final paper (50%)
Texts:
Rossetti, Christina. Christina Rossetti: The Complete Poems. Text by R.W. Crump, notes and introduction by Betty S. Flowers. London: Penguin, 2001. Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Collected Poetry and Prose. Ed. Jerome McGann. New Haven: Yale UP, 2003. Course Package
Course Area: Victorian Literature Term: Winter 2014 Timetable
ENG 4165 B (3 credits – Seminar)
Title: Tennyson, Browning, and Arnold
Professor: David Staines
Introduction:
A close reading of the three major poets of the Victorian period. Through a young Tennyson's devotion to Keats and a young Browning's devotion to Shelley, the seminar examines the ways in which Victorian poetry came to be a distinct world of its own. Particular attention will be paid to these three poets and their aesthetic and religious views, from the low Church of England Tennyson through the more spiritual vision of Browning to the nihilistic views of Arnold. Attention will focus on the poetry of the three poets, with some focus on Arnold's prose.
Method:
Seminar and discussion
Grading:
Classroom work 20%; short papers 30%; research essays 50%.
Texts:
Any representative selection of the poetry and prose of the three poets. In addition, students may purchase Idylls of the King, edited by J.M. Gray.
Course Area: Modern British Literature Term: Fall 2013 Timetable
ENG 4175 B (3 credits – Seminar)
Title: "Man Alive": Modern Literature and the New Humanisms
Professor: Dominic Manganiello
Introduction:
Ever since its beginnings in Homer, Western literature has always possessed the insight, wrote Erich Auerbach, that “man is an indivisible unity of body (appearance and physical strength) and spirit (reason and will).” By the annus mirabilis of 1910, however, human character, Virginia Woolf famously claimed, appeared to change, triggering a crisis in the philosophical concept of Man that in turn prompted artists to refigure the human in an anti-realist mode. Ironically, the implementation of this modernist narrative strategy, a process that involved, in Ortega ‘s words, “a progressive elimination of the human, all too human, elements” of the person, eventually led Foucault to announce, in Nietzschean fashion, “the death of man.” In spite of the dehumanizing impulse cultural critics detected at work behind much modern art, D. H. Lawrence could still dream in 1936 of bringing back “man alive,” that is, “the wholeness of a man, the wholeness of a woman,” in his fictions. The seminar will accordingly examine the valiant attempts of a significant group of twentieth-century writers to resuscitate the dead art of humanistic representation. The new quest for human integrity prepared the ground for various types of humanism, whether anthropocentric or Christian, to flourish in the same hedgerow. Questions relating to the roots of these competing visions of humanism and their aesthetic impact will provide a springboard for seminar discussions. Sessions will focus primarily on literary depictions of human nature that are grounded either in an “ethical realism” (Levinas) or in a “transcendental realism (Maritain).
Method:
Seminar and Discussion
Grading:
Seminar Paper (25%); Seminar Work (25%); Research Paper (50%)
Texts:
James Joyce. Ulysses (selections). (Penguin) Virginia Woolf. To the Lighthouse. (Oxford) T.S. Eliot. Selected Poems. (Faber) T.S. Eliot. The Cocktail Party. (Faber) G.K. Chesterton. Manalive. (Dover) Flannery O'Connor. "The Enduring Chill," "Parker's Back" (in The Complete Stories) [Douglas &McIntyre] C.S. Lewis. That Hideous Strength. (Harper Collins) J.R.R. Tolkien. The Lord of the Rings. (HarperCollins) Dorothy L. Sayers. Are Women Human?. (Eerdmans) Dorothy L. Sayers. Gaudy Night. (New English Library) A. Solzhenitsyn. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. (Penguin) Wendell Berry. Remembering. (North Point Press) Michael O'Brien. Strangers and Sojourners. (Ignatius)
Course Area: Modern British Literature Term: Winter 2014 Timetable
ENG 4175 C (3 credits – Seminar)
Title: Romancing Books in Postmodern Fiction
Professor: Ina Ferris
Introduction:
Printed books and manuscripts are strangely prominent in postmodern novels: portals into strange worlds; triggers of romance; catalysts of metamorphosis. Why do they keep appearing in an age moving ever more fully into a digital environment? What might account for the way in which the tangible book-object seems to hold increasing fascination? This course will consider questions such as these, as we read a selection of a selection of contemporary novels (British, Canadian, American, Spanish) in which books set things in motion, transporting readers into some very peculiar places. Our particular concern will be the way in which the book has become a speculative object in literary fictions, allowing writers to probe important questions about imagination, technology, subjectivity, history, reading. Alongside the novels themselves we will look at their reception in reviews, as well as three autobiographical accounts of what books have meant to three different kinds of avid readers/book collectors (Benjamin, Hanff, Manguel). To help stimulate our own thinking about books over the course of the term we will also read Andrew Piper’s recent reflection on reading, Book Was There.
Method:
Seminar
Grading:
Seminar presentation (15%), Short paper (15%); Class participation (20%), Discussion board (10%), Term Essay (40%)
Texts:
A.S. Byatt. Possession (Vintage) Helene Hanff. 84, Charing Cross Road (Penguin) Walter Benjamin. "Unpacking my Library" Walter Benjamin. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" Alberto Manguel. "The Library as Home" Alberto Manguel. All Men Are Liars (Riverhead Books) Thomas Warton. Salamander (Washington Square) C.S. Richardson. The Emperor of Paris (Doubleday Canada) Robin Sloan. Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (Farrar Straus) Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Shadow of the Wind (Penguin) Andrew Piper. Book Was There (U of Chicago)
NOTE: Texts available from Benjamin Books; other readings on Virtual Campus
Course Area: Canadian Literature Term: Winter 2014 Timetable
ENG 4182 A (3 credits – Seminar)
Title: Animals in the Canadian Literary Imagination
Professor: Janice Fiamengo
Introduction:
This seminar explores the tradition of writing about animals in English-Canadian fiction. In the 1890s, Charles G.D. Roberts and Ernest Thompson Seton were credited with creating and refining the realistic animal tale with their sketches of wild creatures. Marshall Saunders wrote the first Canadian bestseller in 1894 with Beautiful Joe, a story of animal abuse narrated by a rescued mongrel dog. Memorable Canadian controversies have been sparked by animal advocates Archibald Belaney (Grey Owl) and Farley Mowat, self-created “wild” men who wrote movingly of the human debt to animal life. Since 1970, Marian Engel, Margaret Atwood, and Timothy Findley have used animal stories as vehicles for satire and social criticism; more recently, there has been a renewed interest in the otherness of animals and their tragic plight in work by Barbara Gowdy, Kim Echlin, Brenda Cox, and Charlie Russell, to name only a few. This seminar will explore the many uses to which animals have been put in the past century in English-Canadian writing, focusing especially on humanitarian concerns and the vexed question of authenticity. Readings in animal rights and environmental criticism by Carol J. Adams, Les Brown, Leo Bustad, Josephine Donovan, Mark Gold, Peter Singer, and others will provide a conceptual framework for our discussions.
Method:
Seminar and Discussion
Grading:
Seminar presentation (20%), Seminar Responses (30%); Final Paper (20%), Final Exam (30%)
Texts:
Ernest Thompson Seton, Wild Animals I Have Known Charles G.D. Roberts, Selected Animal Stories - - - . The Heart of the Ancient Wood. Grey Owl, Pilgrims of the Wild (selections) Fred Bodsworth, The Last of the Curlews Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf Margaret Atwood, Surfacing Barbara Gowdy, The White Bone Charlie Russell, Grizzly Heart Yann Martel, Life of Pi
Course Area: Creative Writing Term: Winter 2014 Timetable
ENG 4397 A (3 credits – Workshop)
Title: Advanced Workshop in Creative Writing
Professor: Seymour Mayne
Introduction:
This advanced workshop focuses on both poetry and short fiction, and includes a survey of literary magazines and other avenues for publication of finished work. Students may choose to write in either genre – or both. The professor’s written approval is required for registration in this course. As a preliminary to registration, applicants must submit a portfolio (up to 10 pages) of their writing to Creative Writing, Department of English, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5. Translated literary work from other languages will also be considered. Students will be selected solely on the basis of aptitude as indicated by work submitted. Starting May 1, portfolios will be accepted and considered for admission until the course is full. However, students are encouraged to submit their portfolios before July 2, as courses tend to fill up quickly. Students will be notified of their acceptance no later than one month before the beginning of term. As acceptance is not guaranteed, students submitting portfolios are advised to register for an extra course to ensure against being left short of credits in case of non-acceptance. Repeatable for credit, with different content. Since all material presented in this course must be computer-generated, candidates should take this into consideration before making application.
Method:
Discussion, seminars, and examination of literary texts, magazines, and online resources
Grading:
Written work, 60%; attendance, class participation and in-class work, 40%. All assignments are compulsory.
Texts:
No text required. A suggested reading list will be distributed at the beginning of the course.
