2024-2025 English Courses and Descriptions

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*The Course Schedules below are subject to change pending enrolment changes. Detailed course descriptions by instructors are added when available and are also subject to change.

**Please consult the Registrar's Time Table for mode of delivery for courses.

First-Year Courses

Fall Term

Winter Term

Course Title: Effective Writing LEC0101

Course Code: ENG100H5F | Lecture MWF 9-10

Instructor: Ryan Stafford

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here.

Group n/a

Course Title: Effective Writing LEC0102

Course Code: ENG100H5F | Lecture T 9-10, R 9-11 (ONLINE)

Instructor: Tracey Obrien

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here.

Group n/a

Course Title: Effective Writing LEC0103

Course Code: ENG100H5F | Lecture W 6-9

Instructor: Chester Scoville

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here.

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: This course provides practical tools for writing in university and beyond, with a special focus on writing about literature. Students will gain experience in generating ideas, clarifying insights, structuring arguments, composing paragraphs and sentences, critiquing and revising their writing and communicating effectively to diverse audiences. This course does not count toward any English program, but does provide foundational tools for the writing of essays in any program in the humanities.

Selected Major Readings: The Broadview Pocket Guide to Writing, by Doug Babington et al. Other readings will be available on Quercus.

Method of Instruction: Interactive lecture/Workshop

Method of Evaluation: Scaffolded short writing assignments building to a final portfolio. No final exam.

Creative writing component: Yes

Course Title: Effective Writing LEC0101

Course Code: ENG100H5S | Lecture MWF 10-11

Instructor: Julia Boyd

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here.

Group n/a

Course Code: ENG100H5S LEC0102

Course Code: ENG100H5S | | Lecture M 6-9

Instructor: Chester Scoville

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here.

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: This course provides practical tools for writing in university and beyond, with a special focus on writing about literature. Students will gain experience in generating ideas, clarifying insights, structuring arguments, composing paragraphs and sentences, critiquing and revising their writing and communicating effectively to diverse audiences. This course does not count toward any English program, but does provide foundational tools for the writing of essays in any program in the humanities.

Selected Major Readings: The Broadview Pocket Guide to Writing, by Doug Babington et al. Other readings will be available on Quercus.

Method of Instruction: Interactive lecture/Workshop

Method of Evaluation: Scaffolded short writing assignments building to a final portfolio. No final exam.

Creative writing component: Yes

Course Title: Effective Writing LEC0103

Course Code: ENG100H5S | Lecture T 9-10, R 9-11 (ONLINE)

Instructor: Tracey O'Brien

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here.

Group n/a

 

Course Title: How to Read Critically

Course Code: ENG101H5F | Lecture MW 9-10 | Tutorials M 10-11, M 12-1, W 10-11, W 12-1

Instructor: Thomas Laughlin

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 1 Literary Theory/Methods

Detailed Description by Instructor: This foundational course serves as an introduction to literary analysis, giving students a set of interpretive tools they can use to analyze texts in English classes and beyond. Emphasis will be on developing close, attentive reading skills as ways of thinking not just about, but through texts, and on deploying these skills effectively in essays and discussions. In the process, students will read a selection of literary works that speak in various ways to themes and concerns that preoccupy us in the present.

Learning Outcomes: 

  1. understand the difference between literary and critical analysis and other ways of discussing and engaging works of literature; 
  1. acquire foundational skills in the literary and critical analysis of texts; 
  1. improve reading comprehension and appreciation of literary works and language;  
  1. heighten ability to identify and discuss poetic devices, symbolic language, and narrative strategies and techniques; 
  1. critically examine ways in which storytelling constructs and supports different worldviews; 
  1. refine oral communication skills by discussing works of literature weekly in small tutorial setting; 
  1. strengthen ability to bring context and social relevance to bear in analyses of literary works; 
  1. develop essay writing skills for the careful and rigorous presentation of literary analyses; 
  1. demonstrate knowledge of a selection of writers and genres alongside their thematic concerns. 

Selected Major Readings: 

Joanna Wolfe and Laura Wilder, Selections from Digging into Literature 
Sylvia Plath, “Morning Song” 
Leslie Marmon Silko, “The Man to Send Rain Clouds” 
William Blake, “The Tyger” 
William Wordsworth, “The World Is Too Much with Us” 
Tommy Pico, Selections from Nature Poem 
M. NourbeSe Philip, Zong! 
Christina Sharpe, Selections from In the Wake 
Hernan Diaz, Trust 
Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein, Selections from They Say/I Say (PDF) 

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: 

Sylvia Plath, “Morning Song” 
Leslie Marmon Silko, “The Man to Send Rain Clouds” 
William Blake, “The Tyger” 

Method of Instruction: Lecture and Tutorial 

Method of Evaluation: Essay x 3 and Exam 

Creative writing component: No

Course Title: How to Research Literature

Course Code: ENG102H5S | Lecture MW 9-10 | Tutorials M 10-11, W 12-1

Instructor:  Natasha Vashisht

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Course Title: Literature & Social Change

Course Code: ENG104H5F | Lecture MW10-11 | Tutorials M 11-12, M 2-3

Instructor: Julia Boyd

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: 
How can narratives inspire social justice and contribute to positive social change? How can literature and culture speak truth to power, make the unspoken speakable, envision viable futures, and offer solace in the face of social and environmental injustice? Why does literature matter to our collective work building sustainable, inclusive communities?

This course investigates these questions by introducing you to some foundational narratives, texts, and ideas about literature and social change from around the world, including memoirs, fiction, essays and speeches, poetry, documentary, film, and digital advocacy publications. We explore how literature contributes to some major social movements from the nineteenth century to the present, including movements for civil and human rights; decolonization and Indigenous resurgence; racial, gender, environmental and climate justice; and truth and reconciliation. Lectures and class discussions introduce you to a conceptual vocabulary for understanding how narrative shapes societal and environmental transformation across contexts and disciplines. Tutorials will give you opportunities to discuss our readings and sharpen your critical thinking with peers and your TA.

We begin in the nineteenth century with a bestselling autobiographical slave narrative that played a pivotal role in the abolitionist movement to end legal chattel slavery in the US. With this historical text as an introduction to narrative as a tool for successful nonviolent social change, we then expand into a wide selection of twentieth century and contemporary literature. Our readings include books and speeches by Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Frantz Fanon; the memoir of Wangari Maathai, the first African woman and first environmentalist to win the Nobel Peace Prize; essays by Arundhati Roy that helped define the global justice movement; landmark works by Indigenous artists, poets, and filmmakers from Turtle Island and Oceania; a genre-defying autobiographical novel composed through Farsi WhatsApp messages smuggled out of an infamous immigrant detention facility; and even the 10c comic book that helped transform King’s bond with Gandhi into a travelling template for nonviolent resistance. We also investigate the “double-edge” of advocacy writing, including how literature can manipulate and repress, and the difficult strategic choices writers confront when navigating race, class, gender, and geographic distance.

We study literature and social change with an eye to developing your own writing and communication skills. The major assignment in this course is a research project about a course-inspired topic your choice, culminating in a research paper, “public intellectual” essay, or multimedia communications materials (options include a scripted podcast or video essay, digital communications package, educational package, set of short articles for a public outlet, and more). If you choose, you’ll also have an opportunity to practice academic editorial skills through our class-organized publishing project: a “Literature and Social Change”-themed special issue of English & Drama’s student journal.

Selected Major Readings:
Most of our readings are posted on Quercus, and you only need to purchase three books. These books are available at the UTM bookstore and widely available at other used and new book retailers.  

Books to purchase:  

  • Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845). Broadview Press Critical Edition, ed. Celeste-Marie Bernier. ISBN: 9781554813421 / 1554813425 
  • Wangari Maathai, Unbowed: A Memoir (2006). Anchor Books, 2007. IBSN: 978-0307275202 
  • Patrisse Cullors, When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir (2017). St. Martin’s Press, 2018. ISBN: 978-1250171085 

Short Readings posted on Quercus:  

  • Eduardo Galeano, “In Defense of the Word” (1977)  
  • Audre Lorde “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action” (1977) and “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” (1979)  
  • Sojourner Truth, “Ain’t I A Woman” (1851)  
  • Mohandas K. Gandhi, selections, Hind Swaraj (1909/10)  
  • Frantz Fanon, “On Violence,” The Wretched of the Earth (1961) 
  • Martin Luther King, Jr., “Holt Street Address” (1955) and “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” (1963) 
  • Rosa Parks, “‘Tired of Giving In’: Launching the Montgomery Bus Boycott” (1992) and unpublished archival writings  
  • Viktor Frankl, excerpt, Man’s Search for Meaning (1946, trans. 1959) 
  • Behrouz Boochani, excerpt, No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison (2018) 
  • Duncan Campbell Scott, “Onondaga Madonna” (1898), “The Mission of the Trees” (1905), and “A Scene at Lake Manitou” (1935)  
  • Arundhati Roy, “The End of Imagination” (1998) and “Come September” (2002/3) 
  • Rachel Carson, excerpt, Silent Spring (1962) 
  • Edward Said, “Interiors,” from Under the Last Sky: Palestinian Lives (1986) 
  • Mahmoud Darwish, excerpt, In the Presence of Absence (2006; trans. Sinan Antoon, 2011) 
  • Vanessa Griffen, “Marama” (1973) 
  • Hone Tuwhare, “No Ordinary Sun” (1959) 
  • Women Working for a Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific, Pacific Women Speak: Why Haven’t You Known? (1987) 

Films and Multimedia (free online): Danis Goulet, Night Raiders (2021); Peter Bratt, Dolores (2017); Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner, select video poems. 

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: 

Lorde, “Transformation of Silence into Language and Action”; Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass; Gandhi, selections from Hind Swaraj. 

Method of Instruction: In-person, discussion-based lectures and tutorials. 

Method of Evaluation: Participation in class/tutorials and Welcome Survey (17%), Annotation and Close Reading (5%), Proposal and Annotated Bibliography (15%), Major Research Project (20%) Reading Reflection or Class Publishing Project (you pick one of two options, 10%), Final Exam (required by UTM, 33%). 

Creative writing component:  Yes 

This course features opportunities to gain hands-on editorial and publishing experience by editing and/or publishing your creative and academic writing in a “Literature and Social Change”-themed special issue of our department student journal, which we’ll be editing together as a class. If you choose this assignment option, you will develop your own role on our editorial team based on your interests, skills, and goals. For example, you might help with:  

  • submitting your own writing for publication (creative and/or academic) 
  • writing our Call for Papers (CFP) and/or a short introduction to the special issue 
  • typesetting, graphic design, and illustration 
  • selecting submissions for publication and providing authors with editorial feedback 
  • project managing to keep our team working efficiently and effectively. 

Course Title: Introduction to World Literatures

Course Code: ENG105H5S | Lecture TR 10-11 | Tutorials R 11-12, R 2-3

Instructor: Raji Soni

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Course Title: Narrative

Course Code: ENG110H5F | Lecture MW 11-12 | Tutorials W 12-1, W 2-3, W 3-4

Instructor: Chester Scoville

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: Thomas King says, “The truth about stories is that’s all we are.” This course will examine the phenomenon of the story both as an art form and as a tool that people use to make sense of their lives in the world. We will focus on literary narrative as a particularly rich variety, but our analyses will apply broadly, to narratives found in history, law, politics, and more. As an introductory English course, ENG110 will also focus on student writing and analytical techniques, so that students may begin to master the art of the scholarly essay. By the end of the course, students should be able to construct and present analytical arguments in forms appropriate to literary studies and other humanistic disciplines.

Selected Major Readings: Hemingway, “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”; James, The Turn of the Screw; Clarke, Piranesi; Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway.

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: Hemingway, James, Le Guin

Method of Instruction: Lecture with Tutorials

Method of Evaluation: Scaffolded short writing assignments capped by a final paper and final exam. Participation in tutorials will also be counted.

Creative writing component: No

Course Title: Narrative

Course Code: ENG110H5S | Lecture MW 1-2 | Tutorials W 2-3, W 4-5

Instructor: Chester Scoville

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: Thomas King says, “The truth about stories is that’s all we are.” This course will examine the phenomenon of the story both as an art form and as a tool that people use to make sense of their lives in the world. We will focus on literary narrative as a particularly rich variety, but our analyses will apply broadly, to narratives found in history, law, politics, and more. As an introductory English course, ENG110 will also focus on student writing and analytical techniques, so that students may begin to master the art of the scholarly essay. By the end of the course, students should be able to construct and present analytical arguments in forms appropriate to literary studies and other humanistic disciplines.

Selected Major Readings: Hemingway, “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”; James, The Turn of the Screw; Clarke, Piranesi; Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway.

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: Hemingway, James, Le Guin

Method of Instruction: Lecture with Tutorials

Method of Evaluation: Scaffolded short writing assignments capped by a final paper and final exam. Participation in tutorials will also be counted

Creative writing component: No

Course Title: Traditions of Theatre and Drama

Course Code: ENG121H5F | Lecture MW 11-12 | Tutorials W 12-1, W 2-3

Instructor: Holger Syme

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Course Title: Modern and Contemporary Theatre and Drama

Course Code: ENG122H5S | Lecture MW 11-12 | Tutorials W 12-1, W 2-3

Instructor: Caitlin Gowans

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Second-Year Courses

Fall Term

Winter Term

Course Title: British Literature in the World I: Medieval to Eighteenth-Century

Course Code: ENG202H5F | Lecture TR 10-11 | Tutorials R 11-12, R 1-2

Instructor: Sarah Star

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: “I had a great curiosity to talk to the books,” writes the abolitionist Olaudah Eqiuano in 1789 in his autobiographical Narrative, which we’ll read in week 13 of this course. “I have often taken up a book and talked to it; and then put my ears to it in hopes it would answer me.” Our course adapts the spirit of Equiano’s curiosity: we’ll take up a range of books written between the tenth and eighteenth century, discovering the literal and figurative ways in which readers continue to speak and listen to them. We’ll focus on books that have spoken to audiences across time and place—from Old English epic Beowulf and Middle English tales of Chaucer to the love sonnets of the Tudor court and the first novels of the eighteenth century. Our readings will guide group discussions that analyze the power of literary form; describe the intersections of race, class, gender, and global politics; and develop close reading skills needed in your future classes, including all your courses in English. I also hope these books will speak to you now. They’re beautiful and wacky and inspirational and unsettling—and they share stories that shaped their worlds and ours in ways I look forward to exploring together.

Selected Major Readings: 
Marie de France, lais 
Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus 
Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano 

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: 
The Wanderer, The Seafarer, Beowulf 

Method of Instruction: Short lectures, group discussions and activities, tutorials 

Method of Evaluation: 

Responses (5% each x4= 20%) 
Proposed Thesis and Essay Outline (10%) 
Draft Introduction and First Body Paragraph (15%) 
Essay-Final Version (25%) 
One-Word Essay (20%) 
Participation (10%)

Creative writing component: No

Course Title: British Literature in the World II: Romantic to Contemporary

Course Code: ENG203H5S | Lecture TR 10-11 | Tutorials R 11-12, R 1-2

Instructor: Chris Koenig-Woodyard

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Course Title: How to Read Poetry

Course Code: ENG204H5F | Lecture M 3-5, W 3-4

Instructor: Brent Wood

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 1 Literary Theory/Methods

Detailed Description by Instructor: 

This course provides a strong foundation for the study, practice, and enjoyment of poetry by focusing on the basic elements of rhythm, repetition, diction, image, and metaphor. Of benefit to those studying subjects other than English literature will be the historical overview of the evolving world and consideration of cultural and political issues through the prism of poetry, including the dawn of the Anthropocene era.  

Selected Major Readings: Various poems primarily from North America 

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: Poems by Stanley Kunitz, Grace Hajo, Billy Collins 

Method of Instruction: Lecture and discussion  

Method of Evaluation: Short assignments, essay, test, participation 

Creative writing component: No

Course Title: Introduction to the Novel

Course Code: ENG211H5F | Lecture M 1-3, W 2-3

Instructor: Thomas Laughlin

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: This course introduces students to the history of the English novel from the early-eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Course lectures explore how the novel became associated (for better or worse) with bourgeois society, middle-class values, political democracy, aesthetic realism, social satire, domesticity, individualism, and psychological interiority. Students will read examples of both classical and modernist novels. Throughout the course, students will be encouraged to examine the novel’s relationship to power and empire, and the social structures that configure experiences of class, gender, and race.  

Selected Major Readings: 

Daniel Defoe, Robinson Defoe (Penguin) 
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (Oxford) 
Charles Dickens, Hard Times (Penguin) 
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (Penguin) 
Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (Oxford) 
C. L. R. James, Minty Alley (Penguin) 

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: 

Daniel Defoe, Robinson Defoe (Penguin) 
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (Oxford) 
Charles Dickens, Hard Times (Penguin) 

Method of Instruction: Lecture 

Method of Evaluation: Essay x 2 and Exam

Creative writing component: No

Course Title: The Short Story Cycle

Course Code: ENG214H5F | Lecture MWF 9-10

Instructor: Daniela Janes

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Course Title: The Canadian Short Story

Course Code: ENG215H5S | Lecture MWF 12-1

Instructor: Daniela Janes

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 5 Canadian Literature

Course Title: Introduction to Shakespeare

Course Code: ENG223H5S | Lecture MW 10-11 | TUT W 11-12, W 1-2

Instructor: Holger Syme

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 3 Literature pre-1700

Course Title: Children's Literature

Course Code: ENG234H5S | Lecture MWF 9-10

Instructor:  Daniela Janes

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Course Title: Comics and the Graphic Novel

Course Code: ENG235H5S | Lecture M 3-4, W 3-5

Instructor: Chester Scoville

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: The graphic novel, comic books, sequential art — whatever its name, this popular but long-marginalized art form has been rapidly gaining cultural respectability. Over the past twenty years, artists and writers in this medium have departed from its traditional subject matter to create graphic autobiographies, journalism, political analyses, philosophical arguments and histories, as well as revisiting, critiquing and reinventing such familiar subjects as magic, science fiction and the superhero. This course will examine the range of the current graphic novel, focusing on the medium’s rhetoric, narration and socio-political range.

Selected Major Readings: We will be reading such literary graphic texts as Seth’s George Sprott; Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki’s This One Summer; and Zoe Maeve’s July Underwater; as well as some mainstream comics such as Moore and Gibbons’s Watchmen. We will also use such resources as Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics as theoretical and historical background.

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: Seth, Moore/Gibbons, Tamaki/Tamaki.

Method of Instruction: Lecture/discussion.

Method of Evaluation: There will be several short writing assignments, leading up to a substantial final essay. Final exam.

Creative writing component: Yes, as an option

Course Title: Detective Fiction

Course Code: ENG236H5F | Lecture MWF 10-11

Instructor:  Daniela Janes

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Course Title: Science Fiction

Course Code: ENG237H5S | Lecture T 3-4, R 3-5

Instructor: Ryan Stafford

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Course Title: Horror Literature

Course Code: ENG239H5F | Lecture T 3-4, R 3-5

Instructor: Chris Koenig-Woodyard

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: This course explores horror literature. In this year’s version of the course, we are interested monsters (vampires, in particular), but will explore numerous facets of horror: As we consider the aesthetics of terror, horror, the gothic, the uncanny, and fear, we will explore issues of gender, race, genre, science, and religion.

Course Texts—Note: I have ordered books through the UTM bookstore, but they are also available from Amazon and Google Play.

1] Stephen King, Misery ISBN Paper Copy 978-1501143106 https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Stephen_King_Misery?id=QbUACwAAQBAJ

2] Pichetshote and Campbell, Infidel ISBN Paper Copy 978-1534308367 https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Pornsak_Pichetshote_Infidel?id=K-ptDwAAQBAJ

3] Matheson, I am Legend ISBN Paper Copy 978-0-312-86504-7

https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Richard_Matheson_I_Am_Legend?id=scoqAAAAQBAJ

4] For reference: A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, 5th Edition. View at UT https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/doi/book/10.1002/9781118325988

Movies and TV shows (and scripts)

5] Movie: Cabin in the Woods UTM: https://streaming-acf-film-com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/audiocine/play/3fae2a05dd178c68?referrer=marc 6] Movie: Get Out UTM: https://streaming-acf-film-com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/audiocine/watch/479263B4E3B6BDBD?referrer=direct

7] TV Show: Stranger Things Season 1, Episode 1, on Netflix:

8] Movie: Shaun of the Dead, on Prime; Google Play Movies; Apple TV

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: The Cabin in the Woods, Cohen

Method of Instruction: Lecture and Discussion

Method of Evaluation: essays (with a creative writing option) and written assignments, final exam 

Website: Quercus

Creative writing component: Yes (optional)

Course Title: Introduction to American Literature

Course Code: ENG251H5S | Lecture T 12-3

Instructor: Melissa Gniadek

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 6 American Literature

Detailed Description by Instructor: In recent years we have again been reminded that the ideals espoused in the founding documents of the United States are not, in fact, realities. Inequalities and systemic racism surface again and again as America constantly reassesses its present in relation to its past. While protests have taken on new urgency recently, protest itself is not new. Since the beginnings of the U.S. as a nation, writers have used various genres to point to the limitations of practices of freedom and equality in the U.S. In this course we will examine examples of these writings, from Phillis Wheatley’s late 18th-century poems to Claudia Rankine’s 21st-century prose poem. Along the way we’ll think about how the experiment of the United States is constantly being revised and critiqued. As we investigate forms of protest, some overt and radical and others rather quiet, we’ll carefully close read texts to think about how authors position their readers to raise political and ethical questions. At the same time, we’ll develop a sense of major literary periods and movements that will provide a groundwork for future study of American literature.

Selected Major Readings:
Phillis Wheatley poems 
Hannah Foster, The Coquette
David Walker’s Appeal 
Herman Melville, Benito Cereno 
Charles Chesnutt short stories 
Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied:
Lemuel Haynes, “Liberty Further Extended: Or Free Thoughts on the Illegality of Slave-keeping” 
Phillis Wheatley poems 
Hannah Foster, The Coquette

Method of Instruction: Lecture and discussion

Method of Evaluation: online discussion forum, short writing assignments, essays (4-6 pages), active participation

Creative writing component: No

Course Title: Introduction to Canadian Literature

Course Code: ENG255H5F | Lecture T 11-12, R 11-1

Instructor: Colin Hill

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 5 Canadian Literature

Detailed Description by Instructor: This course is an introduction to some of Canada’s best writing from pre-confederation to the present. Our writers are from diverse backgrounds and engage the cultural conditions of their evolving country from various perspectives. Class topics will include (but are not limited to) exploration and immigration narratives, Canadian literary history and development, realism, modernism, urban / rural tensions, the artist figure, gender and sexuality, Canadian postmodernism and postcolonialism, multiculturalism, racism and anti-racism, psychological and spiritual self-discovery, and personal, social, cultural, and national identities.

Selected Major Readings: This course consists of short readings from An Anthology of Canadian Literature in English, ed. Bennett and Brown, 4th edition.

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: Saukamappee; Samuel Hearne; Susanna Moodie

Method of Instruction: Lecture and discussion

Method of Evaluation

Participation 10% 
Term Paper 35%
Mid-term Test 25%
Final exam 30%

Creative writing component: No

Course Title: Music and Literature

Course Code: ENG261H5S | Lecture M 1-3, W 1-2

Instructor: Brent Wood

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor:
This course introduces students to the musical literature of North America (aka Turtle Island). We will study how melody, harmony, rhythm and texture have interacted with language, story and performance in a historical context using examples from folk ballads and blues, art-songs, popular songs, theatre, and literature inspired by such music. 

Selected Major Readings: James Baldwin “Sonny’s Blues,” Hair: The American Tribal Love Rock Musical, Hamilton: An American Musical.  

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: Baldwin, Dylan, Hair 

Method of Instruction: Lecture and discussion 

Method of Evaluation: critical writing assignments, test 

Creative writing component: No

Course Title: Play and Games

Course Code: ENG263H5S | Lecture MW 3-4 | TUT F 2-3, F 3-4

Instructor: Christine Tran

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Course Title: Queer Writing

Course Code: ENG269H5F | Lecture T 1-3, R 2-3

Instructor: Cassandra Olsen

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Course Title: Toronto's Multicultural Literatures

Course Code: ENG271H5F | Lecture M 6-9

Instructor: Raji Soni

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 2 Race, Ethnicity, Diaspora, Indigeneity

Detailed Description by Instructor: There is no city that does not dream / from its foundations," writes Anne Michaels, Toronto's poet laureate from 2015-2019. Our study of Toronto's multicultural literatures will traverse this bridge between the city's material groundwork or historical formation and how it imagines or dreams itself into being. Yet one shouldn't ponder that bridge or that being in the singular; for Toronto, like all urban landscapes across the "new" world, is sedimented with histories of Indigenous origins, Euro-colonial settlement, and building upon that vast settler infrastructure, diasporas hailing from a multitude of postcolonial societies. Reading a literary cross-section of these histories, we will study plays and poems by Daniel David Moses, whose haunting works explore Indigenous experiences of Toronto from a Delaware/Six Nations background; a novel and poems by Anne Michaels, whose imagination draws on the deep time of landscapes to explore the impact of trauma across generations; a novel and a volume of poetry by Dionne Brand, who spirits us from a nineteenth-century Caribbean slave revolt to the production of diaspora; a novel by Shani Mootoo, which focuses on the relationship between transnationality and transgendered selfhood; and a very generous suite of poems by Michael Ondaatje, whose concern for place across planes and scales of perception bridges Canada and Sri Lanka. Our approaches to these signature Torontonian pieces will be collaborative, and we will attune ourselves to the minutiae of literary composition and to each work's sociohistorical contexts.

Selected Major Readings: Daniel David Moses's City Plays and selected poems from Delicate Bodies and The White Line; Anne Michaels's Fugitive Pieces and selected poems from The Weight of Oranges/Miner's Pond and Skin Divers; Dionne Brand's At the Full and Change of the Moon and Land to Light On; Shani Mootoo's Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab; Michael Ondaatje's The Cinnamon Peeler

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: Daniel David Moses's Coyote City, Big Buck City, and City of Shadows

Method of Instruction: Blended lecture and discussion

Method of Evaluation: participation, essay, close reading collaboration, final essay, final exam

Creative writing component: No

Course Title: Indigenous Literature and Storytelling

Course Code: ENG274H5S | Lecture MWF 10-11

Instructor: Daniela Janes

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 2 Race, Ethnicity, Diaspora, Indigeneity

Course Title: Feminist Approaches to Literature

Course Code: ENG275H5F | Lecture F 1-4

Instructor: Sarah Star

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 1 Literary Theory/Methods

Detailed Description by Instructor: In this course we will analyze ways that female-identified authors have theorized their positions in the literary canon, in intellectual culture, and in their societies more broadly over time. Reading a combination of literature, theory, and criticism by female-identified authors, we will work collectively toward a deeper understanding of feminist ideas and feminist hermeneutics. Questions we will consider together include: Why do we need feminist criticism? How have feminist ideas changed and evolved over time? In what ways have some feminist movements excluded women of colour? What does intersectionality look like in our academic work? How can we apply feminist ideas to literary analysis? What does feminism mean for us today? By actively seeking answers to these questions, and more, students will emerge from this course with a sophisticated, capacious understanding of the feminist history and ideas that continue to inform our current cultural moment.

Selected Major Readings: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, We Should All Be Feminists; Bernardine Evaristo, Girl, Woman, Other; Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own 

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: Roxanne Gay, “Bad Feminist”; bell hooks, from Feminism is for Everybody; Wanda Nanibush, “Anishinaabe-kwe and/or Indigenous Feminist?” 

Method of Instruction: Short lectures and class discussion 

Method of Evaluation: Short responses (10% eachx4= 40%), interview presentation (20%), song of the week nomination (10%), final assignment (15%), participation (15%) 

Creative writing component: No

Course Title: History of Video Games

Course Code: ENG279H5F | Lecture W 9-11 | Tutorials F 9-10, F 10-11

Instructor: Chris Young

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Course Title: Critical Approaches to Literature

Course Code: ENG280H5S | Lecture TR 11-12 | Tutorials R 12-1, R 2-3

Instructor: Karl Fritze

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Course Title: Creative Writing

Course Code: ENG289H5F | Lecture MW 1-2 | Tutorials W 2-3, W 4-5 

Instructor: Brent Wood

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: Students will work individually and co-operatively to develop a recitable poem, a theatrical dialogue, and a publishable work of prose fiction. Lecture time will be devoted to techniques, principles and examples of poetics, rhetoric, character, drama, narrative, description, and prose technique. Tutorials will be conducted as workshops focused on reading aloud and verbal critique.  

Selected Major Readings: Course instructional texts posted on Quercus 

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: N/A 

Method of Instruction: Lecture, discussion, workshop 

Method of Evaluation: Creative assignments and final portfolio 

Creative writing component: Yes

Course Title: Creative Writing

Course Code: ENG289H5S | Lecture TR 12-1 | Tutorials T 1-2, T 3-4 (ONLINE)

Instructor: Blair Hurley

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

 

Course Title: Reading for Creative Writing

Course Code: ENG291H5S | Lecture MW 12-1 | Tutorials W 1-2, W 3-4

Instructor: Brent Wood

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: Students will learn the crafts of narrative and poetry by studying contemporary and classic literary texts and responding to them creatively.  

Lecture time will be devoted to studying the principles and techniques of dramatic conflict, character, narration, description, rhetoric and poetics across a variety of texts.   

Tutorial sessions will consist of focused sharing of student writing as well as discussion of texts.  

Selected Major Readings: Various poems, short stories and a script for the stage 

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: Poems by Jimmy Santiago Baca, Sharon Olds, Agha Shahid Ali 

Method of Instruction: Lecture, discussion, tutorials 

Method of Evaluation: short assignments, tests, participation 

Creative writing component: Yes

Third-Year Courses

Fall Term

Winter Term

Course Title: Magical Realism

Course Code: ENG302H5F | Lecture T12-1, R 11-1

Instructor: Chris Koenig-Woodyard

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Course Title: Seventeenth-Century Poetry

Course Code: ENG304H5S | Lecture M 1-3, W 1-2

Instructor: Iona Lister

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 3 Literature pre-1700

Course Title: Modern South Asian Literature in English

Course Code: ENG310H5F | Lecture T 3-5, R 3-4

Instructor: Zain Mian

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 2 Race, Ethnicity, Diaspora, Indigeneity

Course Title: Drama of the Global South

Course Code: ENG317H5S | Lecture F 2-5 

Instructor: Natasha Vashisht

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 2 Race, Ethnicity, Diaspora, Indigeneity

Detailed Description by Instructor: This course examines the refashioning of theatre in the Global South from decolonial and subaltern perspectives to interrogate the binaries of the colonizer-colonized, ‘the west and the rest,’ the core and periphery. Selected plays from Palestine, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, South Africa, Algeria, Uganda, Jamaica & Venezuela will reveal cogent material realities of neo colonialism, cultural imperialism, racism, communal and ethnic fissures, armed conflicts, refugee crisis, human trafficking, and inequity and globalization. On the way we will discover traditions of resistance, orality, indigenous and folk styles, hybridity and transculturalism as constituting a unique syncretism of South-South theatre cultures. A study of relevant critical scholarship will further buttress our understanding of the Global South and its complex monikers.

Selected Major Readings: 
1. Ahmed Masoud, The Shroud Maker 
2. Shahid Nadeem, Barri (The Acquittal) 
3. Manjula Padmanabhan, Harvest 
4. Leila Sebbar, My Mother's Eyes 
5. Jane Taylor & the Handspring Puppet Company, Ubu and the Truth commission
6. WS Rendra, The Struggle of the Naga Tribe 
7. Gustavo Ott, Passport
8. Sistren Theatre Collective, Bellywoman Bangarang

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: 
1. Ahmed Masoud, The Shroud Maker 
2. Shahid Nadeem, Barri (The Acquittal) 
3. Manjula Padmanabhan, Harvest

Method of Instruction: Lectures and class discussions

Method of Evaluation: Weekly reading responses, group presentations, midterm essay, end term essay and class participation

Creative writing component: No

Course Title: Eighteenth Century Women Writers

Course Code: ENG318H5S | Lecture F 12-3 

Instructor: Terry Robinson

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 4 Literature 1700-1900

Course Title: Sexuality, Race, & Gender in VG & Gaming Culture

Course Code: ENG319H5S | Lecture M 10-11, W 9-11

Instructor: Christine Tran

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Course Title: Austen and Her Contemporaries

Course Code: ENG323H5S | Lecture T 1-3, R 1-2

Instructor: Kate Frank

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 4 Literature 1700-1900

Course Title: The Victorian Novel

Course Code: ENG325H5F | Lecture M 11-12, W 11-1

Instructor: Thomas Laughlin

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 4 Literature 1700-1900

Detailed Description by Instructor: This course introduces students to a selection of Victorian novels and one autobiography. Throughout the course we will examine the ways in which local and global transformations produced new social environments that reconfigured the ways in which race, class, gender, and sexuality were experienced and written about. Throughout the course we will be interested in how the Victorians used writing to make sense of such epochal changes.

Selected Major Readings: 

Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights  
Charles Dickens, Hard Times  
Mary Seacole, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands  
Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure  
Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: 

Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights  
Charles Dickens, Hard Times  
Mary Seacole, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands  

Method of Instruction: Lecture 

Method of Evaluation: Essay x 2 and Exam 

Creative writing component: No

Course Title: Chaucer Today

Course Code: ENG327H5S | Lecture W 6-9

Instructor: Michael Raby

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 3 Literature pre-1700

Course Title: Writing for Games and Narrative Design

Course Code: ENG328H5F | Lecture F 12-3

Instructor: Christine Tran

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: 

Who writes our games? Could it be you? This course offers an introduction to both applied and theoretical approaches in game writing, with a special emphasis on the voices and cultural practices of marginalized game writers. Through collaborative exercises--from flow charts and game design documents to character description and storyboard scripts-- students will engage and familiarize themselves with the key creative resources and standardized industry documents that are the building blocks of your favorite games.  

Additionally, students will critique diverse game narratives and situate game writing’s relationships to other forms of interactive fiction and multimedia storytelling.  Career discussions in game writing will be included, preparing students for future opportunities in this dynamic field. 

Method of Instruction:  In-person lecture & workshops + one on-campus field trip to the Syd Bolton Collection! 

Method of Evaluation: In-class participation; individual and group assignments; writing and creative media building assignments; No previous programming experience required. 

Creative writing component: Yes

Course Title: Spy Fiction

Course Code: ENG344H5S | Lecture T 3-5, R 3-4

Instructor: Richard Greene

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: This course will look at the sophisticated and popular genre of spy fiction as it was practiced in the past seventy years by Graham Greene, John le Carré (pseudonym of David Cornwell), and Viet Thanh Nguyen. All of the stories we will be studying are deeply connected to the history of the Cold War, during which the world hung precariously on the verge of nuclear annihilation, a time when information about the enemy's technical capabilities or order of battle could make the difference between life and death for millions. Both East and West devoted an enormous effort to obtaining that information. Intelligence agents sought to encourage well-placed persons on the other side to betray their country and were often enough guilty of their own betrayals. The course will spend a great deal of time considering the ideological confrontation between capitalism and communism, the aftermath of colonialism, the ethics of disguise and deep cover, and the suppression or fracturing of personal identity.

Selected Major Readings: 
Graham Greene, The Quiet American (1955). 
Graham Greene, Our Man in Havana (1958). 
Graham Greene, The Human Factor (1978). 
John le Carré, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963). 
John le Carré, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974). 
Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer (2015).

First three texts / authors to be studied:
Graham Greene, The Quiet American (1955). 
Graham Greene, Our Man in Havana (1958). 
Graham Greene, The Human Factor (1978).

Method of instruction: Lecture / discussion

Method of evaluation: Three short essays worth 25% each and six reading quizzes worth a total of 25%

Creative writing component: No

Course Title: Special Topic in Indigenous Storywork: "Indigenous Feminisms" 

Course Course: ENG348H5S | Lecture W 1-4

Instructor: Maria Hupfield

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 2 Race, Ethnicity, Diaspora, Indigeneity

Detailed Description by Instructor: Applying decolonial and Indigenous methodologies, students will explore Indigenous texts, media, and/or performances, spanning traditional and innovative forms, genres, and mediums engaged by Indigenous writers ranging from Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and Tanya Tagaq to Billy Ray Belcourt.

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: 
Primary texts:
  • Gina Starblanket, Making Way for Indigenous Feminism, 
  •  Jo-anne Archibald, Indigenous Storywork: Educating the Heart Mind Body and Spirit, and 
  • Maria Hupfield, Breaking Protocol, with additional selections of nonfiction writing, poetry, performance scores, plays and literary criticism. 
 
Method of Instruction: Seminar and discussion in the MST and at the Teaching Lodge, UTM.
 
Method of Evaluation: Participation, close reading, reflection assignments. 
 
Creative writing component: Yes, for in-class writing assignment and participation.

Course Title: Toni Morrison: Texts and Contexts

Course Code: ENG351H5S | Lecture T 11-1, R 11-12

Instructor: Anna Thomas

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 6 American Literature

Detailed Description by Instructor: In this advanced introduction to the work of Toni Morrison, we will encounter masterpieces such as Sula, Song of Solomon, and Beloved and pay particular attention to questions of literary tradition and inheritance, form and narrative voice, and ethics in contexts of oppression. We will read most of Morrison's novels, alongside major essays, in the chronological order in which they were published. Students will be introduced to major themes in African American literary criticsm and theory through close engagement with Morrison's oeuvre and its critical legacy.

Selected Major Readings: The Bluest Eye, Sula, Beloved, Song of Solomon

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: “Recitatif,” The Bluest Eye, Sula, selections of nonfiction writing and literary criticism

Method of Instruction: Lectures and seminar-style discussion

Method of Evaluation: 4 short (2 page) argumentative close readings + 2 revision and reflection assignments

Creative writing component: No

Course Title: Black British Literature

Course Code: ENG355H5F | Lecture T 1-3, R 2-3

Instructor: Natasha Vashisht

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 2 Race, Ethnicity, Diaspora, Indigeneity

Course Title: Spec. Topic in American Lit. (Melville and Hawthorne Rewritten)

Course Code: ENG366H5F | Lecture T 11-1, R 11-12

Instructor: Melissa Gniadek

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 6 American Literature

Detailed Description by Instructor: 
The friendship between Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of the most famous in American literature. While we have only eleven letters between the pair, all from a two-year period and all but one written by Melville to Hawthorne, that correspondence has fueled discussion of their relationship from the Melville revival of the 1920s through the present day. The letters are full of appreciation, desire, and an intense sense of communion. The first postscript of one letter from Melville reads: “P.S. I can't stop yet. If the world was entirely made up of Magians, I'll tell you what I should do. I should have a paper-mill established at one end of the house, and so have an endless riband of foolscap rolling in upon my desk; and upon that endless riband I should write a thousand—a million—billion thoughts, all under the form of a letter to you. The divine magnet is on you, and my magnet responds. Which is the biggest? A foolish question—they are One” (Melville to Hawthorne, November [17] 1851).

This course will introduce students to key texts by Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne, to scholarly conversations about the relationship between the two authors, and to recent creative engagements with this history and with the gaps in this archive. The course will include an artist residency with members of the ReWritten performance project. This ongoing project weaves together dance, music, visual art, projection, and text to reimagine a queer love story inspired by the lives and writings of these authors. Early in the course we will meet with members of the ReWritten creative team virtually, and then later in the semester we will have in-person, interactive, movement-based workshops with members of the team. At the end of that week-long artist residency the creative team will perform a version of their ReWritten stage play in the MIST Theatre and they will give an artist talk about the ReWritten project.

This course will appeal to students interested in American literature, gender, sexuality, and queer studies, archival studies, drama, dance, and performance, and more. We will close read texts, familiarize ourselves with scholarly conversations, and explore how theatre, dance, movement, and community-engaged projects can enhance the study of literature and vice versa. Students enrolling in this course should expect to hone their reading, writing, and critical thinking skills…and also to move, create, and engage with working artists and performers.

The artist residency and events tied to this course are supported by the UTM Office of the Vice-Principal, Research and Innovation; the JHI Program for the Arts; the Centre for the Study of the United States Bissell-Heyd Research Fellowship; and the tri-campus Departments of English.

Selected Major Readings: 

  • Herman Melville, Billy Budd, “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids,” “Hawthorne and His Mosses”
  •  Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied:
Letters between Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne (1851-1852) Excerpts from Moby-Dick
“The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids”

Method of Instruction: A combination of discussion, occasional brief lectures, and interactive workshops led by members of the ReWritten creative team.

Method of Evaluation: Short writing assignments, essays, active participation (including in workshops), possible research-creation component, attendance at ReWritten stage show and artist talk.

Course Title: Creative Writing: Poetry [Spoken Word]

Course Code: ENG373H5F LEC0101 | Lecture T 11-1

Instructor: Andrea Thompson

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Course Title: Creative Writing: Poetry

Course Code: ENG373H5F LEC0101 | Lecture R 1-3

Instructor: Richard Greene

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor:
This course will introduce students to the writing of poetry in strict forms, and then, later, explore some of the possibilities of free-verse. The course will work by a mixture of lecture, discussion, and group work. Students will be expected to write a poem each week, and there will be an opportunity to workshop those poems within small groups. By the end of the course, students should have a grasp of a range of basic forms and techniques.

Selected major readings: Carmine Starnino, ed. The New Canon: An Anthology of Canadian Poetry (Montreal: Signal Editions, 2005).

First three texts / authors to be studied: TBA

Method of instruction: Lecture and workshop

Method of evaluation: Portfolio of completed poems: 50%; journal: 20%; in-class essay: 20%; class participation: 10%

Creative writing component: Yes

Course Title: Creative Writing: Prose

Course Code: ENG374H5S LEC0101 | Lecture M 1-3

Instructor: Brent Wood

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: Students will work in groups in class, and individually outside class, to develop potentially publishable works of prose fiction. Lecture time will be devoted to techniques, principles and examples of story, narrative, character, dialogue, description, and rhetoric.

Selected Major Readings: Course instructional texts online 

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: N/A 

Method of Instruction: Lecture, workshop 

Method of Evaluation: Story drafts, final portfolio, participation 

Creative writing component: Yes

Course Title: Creative Writing: Prose

Course Code: ENG374H5S LEC0102 | Lecture W 3-5

Instructor: Brent Wood

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Course Title: Special Topic in Writing for Performance (TBA)

Course Code: ENG378H5F LEC0101 | F 11-1

Instructor: Justine Garrett

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Course Title: History of Literary Theory

Course Code: ENG380H5S | Lecture M 11-1, W 11-12

Instructor: Iona Lister

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 1 Literary Theory/Methods

Course Title: Digital Texts

Course Code: ENG381H5F | Lecture T 9-11

Instructor: Iona Lister

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Course Title: British Romanticism, 1770-1800

Course Code: ENG385H5F | Lecture T 6-9

Instructor: Chris Koenig-Woodyard

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 4 Literature 1700-1900

Detailed Description by Instructor: In surveying “early” Romanticism, which is typically comprised of the first generation of British Romantic writers such as Blake, Burney, Coleridge, Hemans, More, Robinson, and Wordsworth, we will explore intersections of literature and culture. Thus we will explore these and other writers’ roles in shaping (and being shaped by) a number of central themes, and political and cultural movements and events, that include revolution and reform (political and literary); legal and natural rights (age, gender, racial, natural/legal): Empire and Imperialism; The Slave Trade and Abolition—among others. In doing so, we are interested in investigating humanity and identity—along age, gender, race, national, and cultural lines—as we reflect on the very theory and practice of studying of English literature, periodization, and canonization

Selected Major Readings: Ordered through the UTM bookstore, but paper and e-copies are available through Amazon, Google Play and Broadview: 

3] Black et al., eds. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature Volume 4: The Age of  Romanticism. 3rd Ed. ISBN: 9781554813117 / 1554813115 (Print: $62.95; E: $43.95) GP: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=n9QvDwAAQBAJ&rdid=book-n9QvDwAAQBAJ&rdot=1&source=gbs_api 

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: Taylor Swift, Wordsworth  

Method of Instruction: Lecture and Discussion 

Method of Evaluation:  essays, written assignments, final exam; creative writing option 

Course Title: British Romanticism, 1800-1830

Course Code: ENG386H5S | Lecture T 6-9

Instructor: Chris Koenig-Woodyard

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 4 Literature 1700-1900

Course Title: Canadian Fiction

Course Code: ENG392HS | Lecture T 11-12, R 11-1

Instructor: Colin Hill

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 5 Canadian Literature

Detailed Description by Instructor: This course offers students an exploration of the development of the Canadian novel. We will discuss texts by novelists who engage the cultural conditions of Canada from the early 20th century to the present. Topics will include, but are not limited to, modernism, realism, urban/rural tensions, the Indigenous novel in Canada, the artist figure, gender and sexuality, Canadian postmodernism and postcolonialism, multiculturalism, racism and antiracism, psychological and spiritual self-discovery, various “schools” of Canadian literary theory, and personal, social, cultural, and national identities. Students will be expected to attend regularly and to complete readings thoughtfully and on time. Students are also strongly encouraged to participate in class discussions in a respectful and intellectually rigorous atmosphere. This course aims to build knowledge and appreciation of Canadian writing and to introduce students to a wide range of theoretical, critical, and literary-historical approaches relevant to the study of Canadian and other literatures. Engaged students should expect to come away from the course with a good understanding of the subjects and forms of the Canadian novel and many of its important literary, historical, cultural, and theoretical contexts.

Selected Major Readings:          

1. Sinclair Ross, As for Me and My House
2. Margaret Atwood, Surfacing
3. Michael Ondaatje, In the Skin of a Lion
4. Thomas King, Green Grass, Running Water
5. André Alexis, Fifteen Dogs
6. TBA

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: Ross, Atwood, Ondaatje

Method of Instruction:

Lecture / discussion

Method of Evaluation:

Participation 10% 
Term Paper 35%
Mid-term Test 25%
Final exam 30%

Course Title: Canadian Poetry in Context

Course Code: ENG393H5F | Lecture MWF 12-1

Instructor: Daniela Janes

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 5 Canadian Literature

Fourth-Year Courses

Fall Term

  • ENG410H5F Seminar: Critical Game Studies: Topic TBA
  • ENG463H5F Seminar: Literature 1700-1900: "Reading Frankenstein's Reading"
  • ENG472H5FSeminar: Modern/Cont.: "Canadian Comics & The Second World War"

Winter Term

  • ENG424H5S Seminar: Canadian Lit. (Suburban Literatures in Canada)
  • ENG464H5S Seminar: The Story of the Book: "Making, Book Science, and the History of the Book" 
  • ENG471H5S Sem: Literature 1700-1900: "Melodrama & More!"

Course Title: Seminar: Critical Game Studies: Topic TBA

Course Code: ENG410H5F | Lecture R 1-3

Instructor: Christine Tran

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: 

Digital games represent many media users’ first entry point to the realm of AI, with AI-driven non-playable characters (NPCs) and machine-generated adversaries shaping our creative perceptions of agency, challenge, and storytelling. Extending frameworks of literary and cultural studies approaches, students will explore AI through the lens of games studies.  

This course will equip students with the critical research and writing skills in games scholarship, with an emphasis on how artificial intelligence (AI) and its tools have shaped cultural conceptions of identity and social influences in games culture.  

Classes, readings, and assignments will explore games alongside the evolving capabilities of AI and its ongoing impact on public discourse surrounding creative and cultural work (games, film, writing, and music, etc.). We will read and critique perspectives about AI in games, as well as engage in in-class activities and critical media making assignments to explore the impact of machine-driven decision making and generative AI in game cultures. 

Method of Instruction:  In-person workshops + one on-campus field trip to the Syd Bolton Collection 

Method of Evaluation: In-class participation; literature review assignment; Writing assignments; groups assignment 

Creative writing component: Yes

Course Title: Seminar: Canadian Lit. (Suburban Literatures in Canada)

Course Code: ENG424H5S | Lecture T 2-4

Instructor: Colin Hill

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 5 Canadian Literature

Detailed Description by Instructor: This course invites students to read and interpret the remarkably diverse, global, contemporary, and often ignored literatures produced in and about Canadian suburbs (including, in our own region, Mississauga, Brampton, Scarborough, etc.). The course will consider both canonical literary representations of the suburban in Canada and an emergent body of writing about suburban space and experience produced largely by new Canadian writers of diverse origins and backgrounds whose histories, life stories, and geographies fit uncomfortably, or not at all, within established and exclusionary narratives of Canadian literature. Participants in the course will read a representative selection of short fiction, two or three novels, and selected short critical materials that offer an interdisciplinary approach to the subject of writing in and about Canadian suburbs; these critical materials are selected to combine innovatively some traditional literary approaches to the suburbs, contemporary cultural studies of suburban life, and recent Canadian and international geographical and sociological theories of suburban spaces. Seminar topics will include (but are certainly not limited to) literary representations of suburban experience, the creative problems and possibilities associated with writing about suburban spaces, the lives and stories of immigrants in the contemporary Canadian “ethnoburb,” various socio-political discussions of suburban life, suburban geographies in relation to the Indigenous land they occupy, urban/suburban tensions and inequalities, the material and real-life conditions that affect the production of suburban literature, and the problematic critical reception of suburban writing by a Canadian literary establishment centred in downtown Toronto. As students engage these topics and readings, they will be encouraged to reflect upon and share their own experiences of living, studying, working, and creating in suburban areas of the GTA.

Selected Readings: 
Primary sources (short stories and novels) will be drawn from the following list of authors: Margaret Laurence, Carrianne Leung, Douglas Coupland, David Chariandy, Mona Awad, David Bezmozgis, Derek Mascaranas, Souvankham Thammavongsa, Rohinton Mistry, and possibly others.

Secondary sources will include short readings by some or all of the following: Nishanthan Balasubramaniam, Christopher Cheung, Cheryl Cowdy, Judith De Jong, Richard Harris, Rupa Huq, Sunjay Mathuria, James Howard Kunstler, Wei Li, James Onusko, Lara Vaughan, and possibly others.

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: TBA

Method of Instruction: Discussion and lecture

Method of Evaluation:

Participation 20%
Short Presentation 20%
Term paper 40%
Midterm Writing Assignment 20%

Creative writing component: No

Course Title: Seminar: Literature 1700-1900: "Reading Frankenstein's Reading"

Course Code: ENG463H5F | Lecture W 1-3

Instructor:  Dan White

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 4 Literature 1700-1900

Detailed Description by Instructor: Anyone who reads Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and considers how the creature acquires language -- by reading books and by overhearing a book read out loud -- will immediately be struck by the sheer intertextual energy of the novel. In this course, we will first read Frankenstein. Then we will read everything the creature reads in Frankenstein, along with other works that Shelley weaves into her tale. Then we will read Frankenstein again. Along the way, we will also watch and discuss five awesome movies that “read” Frankenstein too!

Selected Major Readings: Selections from or the entirety of Milton's Paradise Lost, Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, Volney's The Ruins of Empires, Plutarch's Lives, Genesis, Coleridge's “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” Wollstonecraft's The Wrongs of Woman: or Maria, Percy Shelley's “Mont Blanc,” and Byron's Manfred; Films -- Ex Machina, Blade Runner, Get Out, Never Let Me Go, Her

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: Frankenstein, Genesis, Paradise Lost

Method of Instruction: Discussion-based seminar

Method of Evaluation: Three "Creature Features" (short, creative essays written in the voice of the creature about his reading, 15% each); one term paper (40%); class participation (15%)

Creative writing component: No

Course Title: Seminar: The Story of the Book: "Making, Book Science, and the History of the Book" 

Course Code: ENG464H5S | Lecture W 10-12

Instructor:  Alex Gillespie

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 1 Literary Theory/Methods

Course Title: Seminar: Literature 1700-1900: "Melodrama & More!"

Course Code: ENG471H5S| Lecture M 3-5

Instructor:  Terry Robinson

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group 4 Literature 1700-1900

Detailed Description by Instructor: This course offers an exciting opportunity to explore and learn about melodrama—one of the most popular and pervasive genres in Western theatre—from its origins in late eighteenth-century France to its flourishing in nineteenth-century England and America. We’ll read, discuss, and analyze an array of melodramas by authors such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Holcroft, Joanna Baillie, Dion Boucicault, and Henrietta Vinton Davis. Along the way, we’ll examine the forms, conventions, and techniques of melodrama; its sensational effects; and the often challenging concerns they raise around issues of class, race, gender, and sexuality. We’ll also investigate the changing contexts and modes of dramatic performance over the more than 100 years that melodrama dominated Western stages and ponder why it is that melodrama maintains its cultural hold on us even to this day.

Selected Major Readings: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Holcroft, Joanna Baillie, Dion Boucicault, and Henrietta Vinton Davis and other playwrights

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: 

  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  • Thomas Holcroft
  • Joanna Baillie

Method of Instruction: Lecture, Discussion, In-Class Activities

Method of Evaluation: Active Participation; In-Class Presentation; Critical Analysis Essay; Research Project

Creative writing component: No

Course Title: Seminar: Modern/Cont.: "Canadian Comics & The Second World War"

Course Code: ENG472H5F| Lecture M 3-5

Instructor:  Chester Scoville

For the UTM calendar description of this course, click here. 

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: During the Second World War, a home-grown comics industry sprang up in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, giving young readers the opportunity to read about Canadian heroes and adventurers fighting injustice overseas or at home. These new comic books, created largely by young artists and published by fledgling companies, forged a national audience by appealing to ideas of Canadianness tied to membership in Empire, rootedness in the Northern landscape, and a social imaginary that differed from that represented by American comic-book heroes. This course will take a critical and historical view of some of these Canadian comics, looking at their publication history, their reception, and their narrative and cultural techniques and purposes. We will make use of available reprints, of the extensive free comics archive held at Library and Archives Canada (much of which has been digitized for convenient use) and, where possible, of the Bell Comics archive at Toronto Metropolitan University. What did the characters in these comics represent to their young readers, and how can we use them to interpret the ideas about Canada that were developing during that time? How, furthermore, can we see the legacy of these ideas continuing today, long after most of these superheroes have been forgotten?

[N.B. Some of these comics contain depictions of race and gender that were common in the wartime environment and comics medium of the 1940s which would not be considered acceptable today.]

Selected Major Readings: We will be focusing on comics from Bell Publications, such as Triumph Comics, Dime Comics, and Wow Comics. We will also use such historical resources as Ivan Kocmarek’s Heroes of the Home Front and John Bell’s Invaders from the North.

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: Triumph, Kocmarek, Dime.

Method of Instruction: Seminar and discussion.

Method of Evaluation: Participation, Presentation, Short analyses, Final project

Creative writing component: Yes, as an option