100 Level English

ENGL 103 LEC 800: Graphic Literature: Representation Through Images and Texts
D. Woodman
Most people are aware of comics – from the comic strips to comic books sold in grocery stores and comic bookstores. However, there is so much more. The field of graphic literature encompasses a vast range of topics, themes, genres, and styles. In this course, we’ll explore a diverse array of contemporary graphic literature by North American/Turtle Island creators that participate in social and cultural discourses and challenge conventional ideas about representation and interpretation.Course texts will include: Abdelrazaq’s Baddawi, Butler, Duffy, and Jennings’ Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel, King and Donovan’s Borders: A Graphic Novel, Martini and Martini’s Bitter Medicine, and Som’s Spellbound: A Graphic Memoir.

ENGL 103 LEC 801: Graphic Literature: Representation Through Images and Texts
D. Woodman
Most people are aware of comics – from the comic strips to comic books sold in grocery stores and comic bookstores. However, there is so much more. The field of graphic literature encompasses a vast range of topics, themes, genres, and styles. In this course, we’ll explore a diverse array of contemporary graphic literature by North American/Turtle Island creators that participate in social and cultural discourses and challenge conventional ideas about representation and interpretation.
Course texts will include: Abdelrazaq’s Baddawi, Butler, Duffy, and Jennings’ Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel, King and Donovan’s Borders: A Graphic Novel, Martini and Martini’s Bitter Medicine, and Som’s Spellbound: A Graphic Memoir.

ENGL 103 LEC A01: Literary Ecology
R. Costa
What is our relationship with the ecosystems, habitats, and the lands we inhabit? Which species inhabit the same spaces and places as we do? What is our relationship with these species? In this course, students will engage with texts and media related to birds and other species, researching them in the academic context of ecocritical studies. The coursework will include two full papers, one abstract, and five field notes. Students will be expected to present their research in panels at the end of the course.

ENGL 103 LEC A02: The 80s in Context
M. Rea
This course introduces students to research methods that put literature in historical context. We will study a diverse range of works produced in the 1980s, from Toni Morrison to Frank Miller, and consider the ways they operate in discourse with the social, political, and cultural conditions of that time. Students should expect to engage with traditional literary works, as well as pop culture, political writing, newspaper articles, advertisements and other cultural artifacts from the 1980s.

ENGL 103 LEC A03
W. DeFehr

ENGL 103 LEC A04: Human Creativity in Research
J. Quist
This class is focused on creativity and innovation in the research process, emphasizing the kinds of inquiry and inspiration of which only humans are capable. To techniques of Literary Studies such as library searches and critical reading and writing this course adds Cultural Studies and Creative Writing methods of in-person, in-public experiential learning and sharing. Texts related to the creative processes of writers and thinkers will be examined, interrogated, and experimented with as students conduct their own literary research and grow in creative competence and confidence.

ENGL 103 LEC A05: Doppelgangers and Alter Egos
L. Schechter
This section will explore textual treatments of doppelgangers, alter egos, and other relevant figures. Together, we will consider how a variety of genres and historical moments take up issues of sameness and difference, of desire and repulsion, of recognition and strangeness, asking what work the familiar stranger might perform in these works and why.

ENGL 103 LEC A06
W. DeFehr

ENGL 103 LEC A09: Environmental Change to Place in Literature
C. Scott
This course, “Environmental Change to Place in Literature,” is invested in thinking about human society and culture in relation to environmental changes as stressors become exacerbated in near-future settings—and then mapping these issues as seen through speculative fictions about the future written by various writers considering how and where humanity will choose to live. These scenarios are seen through the lens of fiction as we examine how authors speculate about the future, but also through the lenses of scientific, cultural, and other contributions from the present day that inflect the storyworlds of the impacted characters. What is lost, gained, or altered for human populations as the world that we know adapts or fails to adapt to elements like climate change, resource scarcity, ecological unknowns, pandemics, and/or evolution, etc.? Over the semester, we will consider a variety of speculative living situations for our descendants, and perhaps even our near-future selves, alongside how writers imagine problems, changes, and adaptations that will be important. In part, some of these imaginings about the future are disturbing and, even, dystopian, but we will also consider various “Futurisms”—terms suggesting the imperative and opportunity of forward, generative, and healing cultural movements as conceived by writers speculating about more positive outcomes despite what are currently troubling urban and rural as well as local, regional, and global issues.

N.B. Content Warning: This course contains potentially distressing themes of various kinds.

ENGL 103 LEC A10: Video Games and Game Studies
G. Blomquist
How does research matter to reading and understanding video games as “literary texts,” broadly conceived? In this course, we will pursue literary research through case studies in video games and their effects. This research helps us to understand video games in particular locations, histories, contexts, and debates. Students can expect to learn about, and put into practice, the stages in a research process, from identifying a research question or problem, to finding and evaluating useful supplementary materials, and learning about how to place their ideas in conversation with the knowledge they build from research.
ENGL 103 is intended to introduce students to university-level literary research; it is also focused on developing students’ skills in critical writing at the university level, with a particular emphasis on research essay writing. A minimum of 30% of class time will thus be devoted to writing instruction. This instruction can take many forms, including graded written assignments, informal writing exercises, writing workshops, stylistic analysis, and peer editing. During the course, students will write at least 3000 words.

ENGL 103 LEC A11: Watching the Detectives: Detective Stories and Academic Research
K. Pabst
ENGL 103 A11 uses as its case study detective stories, a sub-genre of crime fiction, to explore important literary themes and philosophical questions related to crime and criminality, law and order, and justice and morality. As a way of introducing students to the principles of Humanities-based academic research, particular focus will be on the moments of overlap between academic research and detective work which include: practicing a healthy skepticism, asking the right kinds of questions, weighing and evaluating evidence, and using logical reasoning to make valid inferences. As well, students of ENGL 103 A11 will have the opportunity to put their research skills into practice by undertaking an independent research project on a topic of their choosing.

ENGL 103 LEC A12: The 80s in Context
M. Rea
This course introduces students to research methods that put literature in historical context. We will study a diverse range of works produced in the 1980s, from Toni Morrison to Frank Miller, and consider the ways they operate in discourse with the social, political, and cultural conditions of that time. Students should expect to engage with traditional literary works, as well as pop culture, political writing, newspaper articles, advertisements and other cultural artifacts from the 1980s.

ENGL 103 LEC A13: Video Games and Game Studies
G. Blomquist
How does research matter to reading and understanding video games as “literary texts,” broadly conceived? In this course, we will pursue literary research through case studies in video games and their effects. This research helps us to understand video games in particular locations, histories, contexts, and debates. Students can expect to learn about, and put into practice, the stages in a research process, from identifying a research question or problem, to finding and evaluating useful supplementary materials, and learning about how to place their ideas in conversation with the knowledge they build from research.

ENGL 103 is intended to introduce students to university-level literary research; it is also focused on developing students’ skills in critical writing at the university level, with a particular emphasis on research essay writing. A minimum of 30% of class time will thus be devoted to writing instruction. This instruction can take many forms, including graded written assignments, informal writing exercises, writing workshops, stylistic analysis, and peer editing. During the course, students will write at least 3000 words.

ENGL 103 LEC A14
M. Kosman

ENGL 103 LEC A15: Monsters in Beowulf, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Peter Jackson
D. Bargen
J. R. R. Tolkien both had a profound influence on the interpretation of Beowulf and wrote fantasy novels that were influenced by his scholarship. We will be considering how monsters are represented by Beowulf, Tolkien, and Peter Jackson's films based on Tolkien's novels. You will have the opportunity to develop your own topic for research from the course texts.

ENGL 103 LEC A16: Fantasy and Reality: Conversations and Contestations
L. Robertson
The specific focus of this section will be on texts that explore and inhabit the complicated and shifting boundary between fantasy and reality. What are fantasy and myth for? What is the relationship between the realistic and the fantastical or the mythical? What are the moral and ethical issues at stake in the realistic and in the fantastical or the mythical? What purposes does each serve, in our lives and in the stories we tell? Through a variety of texts—including genres like the fairy tale, historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction, and horror—written across a wide period of time, from the sixteenth century to the present, we will examine how and to what purposes different writers have used fantasy and the mythic in their work.

ENGL 103 LEC A17
M. Farnel

ENGL 103 LEC A18: Men and Masculinities in Literature and Media
W. Agorde
This section of English 103 critically investigates the construction, performance, and contestation of masculinity across various literary and cultural texts, including fiction, nonfiction, film, television, and digital media. Students will examine prevalent stereotypes of masculinity alongside alternative portrayals that disrupt traditional notions, employing intersectional analyses of race, class, and sexuality. Key themes explored include male authority and dominance, tensions between the male gaze and masculine vulnerability, and the influential role of media in either reinforcing or challenging gendered expectations. Using both fictional and nonfictional works, students will engage with gender theory and cultural studies methodologies to critically assess these representations. Through dynamic discussions and analytical writing, students will gain a sophisticated understanding of how masculinities are shaped by—and actively resist—dominant cultural narratives. This course is particularly suited to students interested in gender studies, media criticism, and exploring intersections of identity and representation.

ENGL 103 LEC A19: Men and Masculinities in Literature and Media
W. Agorde
This section of English 103 critically investigates the construction, performance, and contestation of masculinity across various literary and cultural texts, including fiction, nonfiction, film, television, and digital media. Students will examine prevalent stereotypes of masculinity alongside alternative portrayals that disrupt traditional notions, employing intersectional analyses of race, class, and sexuality. Key themes explored include male authority and dominance, tensions between the male gaze and masculine vulnerability, and the influential role of media in either reinforcing or challenging gendered expectations. Using both fictional and nonfictional works, students will engage with gender theory and cultural studies methodologies to critically assess these representations. Through dynamic discussions and analytical writing, students will gain a sophisticated understanding of how masculinities are shaped by—and actively resist—dominant cultural narratives. This course is particularly suited to students interested in gender studies, media criticism, and exploring intersections of identity and representation.

ENGL 103 LEC A20: Race in African Literature
O. Okome
This class focuses on the literary research around discourses of race. Defining race as a complex and intractable construction, students who take this class will be encouraged to read race from a broad spectrum of debates around its meaning and across time and space in modern African literature in the English language, encouraging larger questions which implicate histories of the making of race as a discursive category. Why, for example, is race still part of everyday lived-experiences in the 21st century when its core arguments have been questioned by genetic science? What role did literature play and is still playing in the dissemination of racial difference today? What, for example, does the Black Lives Matter Movement tell us about blackness as a racial category?

ENGL 103 LEC A21: The Victorian Gothic Novel
A. Khan
Students in this course will be introduced to the genre of the gothic novel from the Victorian era. We will focus on two popular novels from this epoch: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and Dracula by Bram Stoker. Through the study of these texts, students will explore critical ideas pertaining to the uncanny and the monstrous. They will also analyze how motifs and other tropes of gothic and horror are situated within the context of the time considering the industrial revolution, colonialism, emerging forms of feminism and underground queer cultures. Further, they will examine attendant anxieties over gender, sexuality, race and class through methodologies of close reading analysis and engagement with current scholarship.

ENGL 103 LEC A23: The Victorian Gothic Novel
A. Khan
Students in this course will be introduced to the genre of the gothic novel from the Victorian era. We will focus on two popular novels from this epoch: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and Dracula by Bram Stoker. Through the study of these texts, students will explore critical ideas pertaining to the uncanny and the monstrous. They will also analyze how motifs and other tropes of gothic and horror are situated within the context of the time considering the industrial revolution, colonialism, emerging forms of feminism and underground queer cultures. Further, they will examine attendant anxieties over gender, sexuality, race and class through methodologies of close reading analysis and engagement with current scholarship.

ENGL 103 LEC A24: Cree and Métis Poetry
A. Van Essen
According to Indigenous scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith, “research” “is probably one of the dirtiest words in the Indigenous world’s vocabulary” (Decolonizing Methodologies 30). Given the context of historical and ongoing colonialism in Canada, what does it mean to do research respectfully? How do we read, write about, research, and discuss Cree and Métis literature with care? In this course, these questions will anchor our research through case studies in Cree and Métis poetry. Students can expect to read a variety of poems by authors such as Marilyn Dumont, Duncan Mercredi, Naomi McIlwraith, Rosanna Deerchild, Gregory Scofield, and Louise Halfe.

ENGL 103 LEC A25
W. DeFehr

ENGL 103 LEC A26
L. Chen

ENGL 103 LEC A27
S. Webb

ENGL 103 LEC A28
Instructor TBA

ENGL 103 LEC A29: TOYS! Literary Representations and Sociopolitical Dimensions
E. Harris
“My friends are toys. I make them.” Sebastian, Bladerunner (Movie)
In his famous essay “The Philosophy of Toys” (1853), French poet and “enfant terrible” Charles Baudelaire proposed that our earliest play with toys signifies our earliest initiation “into art.” Together, we will study a wonderland of literary representations of toys across genres and cultures. We will encounter soldiers, puppets, dolls and robots in fiction, poetry, essays, fairy tales (and in visual and performing arts). We will explore the sociopolitical implications of these toys - ranging from instruments of socialization and normativity, to figures of play, queerness, transgression, Indigeneity, and alterity - to give you more experience analyzing language and contemporary culture(s). We will also work together to refine your research, writing, and public speaking skills. At the back of our minds, let us ask: Can research and interpretation also be forms of play (as Alan Levinovitz proposes)? You will be invited to bring your own interests to the choice of your topic for your Final Essay/Odyssey.
Course texts include: Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky (poetry), The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante (novel or film), and the children’s book William’s Doll (by Charlotte Zolotow) - among many others.

ENGL 103 LEC A30
Instructor TBA

ENGL 103 LEC 31: The City in Afro-Canadian Narratives
O. Salawu
In this course, we will examine how the city in Afro-Canadian narratives contributes to our understanding of issues such as belonging, class, identity, sexuality, gender, history, and anti-Black racism in Canada. The course broadly conceives Afro-Canadian narratives to include film, short story, poems, and narrative fiction. We will pay attention to how different depictions of the city and urban events shape our knowledge of Afro-Canadian life. This course encourages students to think critically about how the city is imagined in Afro-Canadian narratives and how it can be studied. A common goal in ENGL 103 Sections like this one is to introduce students to research methods in literary/cultural studies. In the class, students can expect to learn about and put into practice stages of research from locating the problem to drafting a thesis, evaluating primary sources, joining scholarly conversations, and filling gaps in Afro-Canadian urban studies. The primary goal of this course is to build your knowledge of research methods. We will study the city in Afro-Canadian narratives to fulfill that.

ENGL 103 LEC 32: Adventures in Magical Literature
N. Beauchesne
ENGL 103: Adventures in Magical Literature introduces the skills of literary research through an exploration of what magic is and what it means across different time periods and cultural contexts. Case studies comprise poetry, fiction, essays, and a play. Whether or not one believes in “magic,” students will learn that magic is a touchstone across all cultures, and has indelibly shaped Western culture. As students develop strong, independent research and writing skills, they will see how some of the finest writers in the English language have been fascinated with the concept of magic

ENGL 103 LEC A33: Hamlet on Film
C. Sale
This This course guides students in developing writing and research skills vital to success in a university degree in relation to close-reading of Shakespeare’s most famous play and the study of four film versions, two of them quite radical adaptations: Grigori Kozintsev's Russian Hamlet (1964), Michael Almeredya's turn-of-the-millenium Hamlet (2000), Akira Kurosawa’s film noir adaptation The Bad Sleep Well (1960) and the Tibetan Prince of the Himalayas (2006), by the Chinese-American filmmaker Sherwood Hu.

ENGL 103 LEC A34: The Victorian Gothic Novel
A. Khan
Students in this course will be introduced to the genre of the gothic novel from the Victorian era. We will focus on two popular novels from this epoch: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and Dracula by Bram Stoker. Through the study of these texts, students will explore critical ideas pertaining to the uncanny and the monstrous. They will also analyze how motifs and other tropes of gothic and horror are situated within the context of the time considering the industrial revolution, colonialism, emerging forms of feminism and underground queer cultures. Further, they will examine attendant anxieties over gender, sexuality, race and class through methodologies of close reading analysis and engagement with current scholarship.

ENGL 103 LEC X01: Resistance in Literature
O. Olutola
This section of ENGL 103 examines the themes of resistance in literature. Using relevant literary texts and essays, the course guides students to investigate a writer’s use of literature as a commentary on and a tool to challenge the status quo and an imposed identity, including class, gender, racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic oppression. In the end, students will develop a well- informed understanding of scholarly research and can identify, investigate, and critique the representations of resistance in a literary text. To shape and enhance students’ understanding of resistance literature and library research, this course aims to focus on core literary titles such as: representations of resistance in literary texts; forms/nature of resistance in literature; literature as a form of protest; and historical/cultural/political context of resistance in literary texts.

ENGL 103 LEC X02
N. Beauchesne

ENGL 103 LEC 850
M. Kosman

ENGL 103 LEC B01: The 80s in Context
M. Rea
This course introduces students to research methods that put literature in historical context. We will study a diverse range of works produced in the 1980s, from Toni Morrison to Frank Miller, and consider the ways they operate in discourse with the social, political, and cultural conditions of that time. Students should expect to engage with traditional literary works, as well as pop culture, political writing, newspaper articles, advertisements and other cultural artifacts from the 1980s.

ENGL 103 LEC B03: Environmental Change to Place in Literature
C. Scott
This course, “Environmental Change to Place in Literature,” is invested in thinking about human society and culture in relation to environmental changes as stressors become exacerbated in near-future settings—and then mapping these issues as seen through speculative fictions about the future written by various writers considering how and where humanity will choose to live. These scenarios are seen through the lens of fiction as we examine how authors speculate about the future, but also through the lenses of scientific, cultural, and other contributions from the present day that inflect the storyworlds of the impacted characters. What is lost, gained, or altered for human populations as the world that we know adapts or fails to adapt to elements like climate change, resource scarcity, ecological unknowns, pandemics, and/or evolution, etc.? Over the semester, we will consider a variety of speculative living situations for our descendants, and perhaps even our near-future selves, alongside how writers imagine problems, changes, and adaptations that will be important. In part, some of these imaginings about the future are disturbing and, even, dystopian, but we will also consider various “Futurisms”—terms suggesting the imperative and opportunity of forward, generative, and healing cultural movements as conceived by writers speculating about more positive outcomes despite what are currently troubling urban and rural as well as local, regional, and global issues.

N.B. Content Warning: This course contains potentially distressing themes of various kinds.

ENGL 103 LEC B04: Curious Cities: Researching Joyce’s Dubliners and Literary Histories
M. Kashani
In this section, we will explore James Joyce’s Dubliners as a politically significant literary text, delving into its historical, social, and urban contexts. We try to read and research urban spaces in the formation of political consciousness. This course aims to demonstrate how research into these areas enhances our understanding of the text and how research into literature reflects and shapes evolving cultural realities—especially those related to nation, culture, and history. Zora Neale Hurston once described “research” as “formalized curiosity… poking and prying with a purpose”; this course will harness that curiosity, developing skills to rigorously analyze and engage with texts creatively. Research aids in understanding texts within their specific locations, histories, contexts, and debates. Students will learn and practice each stage of the research process, from formulating a research question to finding and evaluating supplementary materials and integrating their insights with acquired knowledge from research.

ENGL 103 LEC B05: Curious Cities: Researching Joyce’s Dubliners and Literary Histories
M. Kashani
In this section, we will explore James Joyce’s Dubliners as a politically significant literary text, delving into its historical, social, and urban contexts. We try to read and research urban spaces in the formation of political consciousness. This course aims to demonstrate how research into these areas enhances our understanding of the text and how research into literature reflects and shapes evolving cultural realities—especially those related to nation, culture, and history. Zora Neale Hurston once described “research” as “formalized curiosity… poking and prying with a purpose”; this course will harness that curiosity, developing skills to rigorously analyze and engage with texts creatively. Research aids in understanding texts within their specific locations, histories, contexts, and debates. Students will learn and practice each stage of the research process, from formulating a research question to finding and evaluating supplementary materials and integrating their insights with acquired knowledge from research.

ENGL 103 LEC B06: The Victorian Gothic Novel
A. Khan
Students in this course will be introduced to the genre of the gothic novel from the Victorian era. We will focus on two popular novels from this epoch: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and Dracula by Bram Stoker. Through the study of these texts, students will explore critical ideas pertaining to the uncanny and the monstrous. They will also analyze how motifs and other tropes of gothic and horror are situated within the context of the time considering the industrial revolution, colonialism, emerging forms of feminism and underground queer cultures. Further, they will examine attendant anxieties over gender, sexuality, race and class through methodologies of close reading analysis and engagement with current scholarship.

ENGL 103 LEC B07: Curious Cities: Researching Joyce’s Dubliners and Literary Histories
M. Kashani
In this section, we will explore James Joyce’s Dubliners as a politically significant literary text, delving into its historical, social, and urban contexts. We try to read and research urban spaces in the formation of political consciousness. This course aims to demonstrate how research into these areas enhances our understanding of the text and how research into literature reflects and shapes evolving cultural realities—especially those related to nation, culture, and history. Zora Neale Hurston once described “research” as “formalized curiosity… poking and prying with a purpose”; this course will harness that curiosity, developing skills to rigorously analyze and engage with texts creatively. Research aids in understanding texts within their specific locations, histories, contexts, and debates. Students will learn and practice each stage of the research process, from formulating a research question to finding and evaluating supplementary materials and integrating their insights with acquired knowledge from research.

ENGL 103 LEC B08
L. Chen

ENGL 103 LEC B09: The Victorian Gothic Novel
A. Khan
Students in this course will be introduced to the genre of the gothic novel from the Victorian era. We will focus on two popular novels from this epoch: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and Dracula by Bram Stoker. Through the study of these texts, students will explore critical ideas pertaining to the uncanny and the monstrous. They will also analyze how motifs and other tropes of gothic and horror are situated within the context of the time considering the industrial revolution, colonialism, emerging forms of feminism and underground queer cultures. Further, they will examine attendant anxieties over gender, sexuality, race and class through methodologies of close reading analysis and engagement with current scholarship.

ENGL 103 LEC B10: Monsters, Consumption, and the Life/Death Divide
B. Kerfoot
This course explores cultural fears of consumption and the living dead through their embodiment in three monsters: vampires, zombies, and wheetagos. We will track their origins, adaptations, and appropriations to consider why these monsters endure in the popular imagination.
Course skills include how to find and evaluate credible sources and how to respond to them to develop an original argument. The sequenced assignments will gradually introduce these research skills and culminate in a substantial research paper.

ENGL 103 LEC B11
Instructor TBA

ENGL 103 LEC B12: The Victorian Gothic Novel
A. Khan
Students in this course will be introduced to the genre of the gothic novel from the Victorian era. We will focus on two popular novels from this epoch: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and Dracula by Bram Stoker. Through the study of these texts, students will explore critical ideas pertaining to the uncanny and the monstrous. They will also analyze how motifs and other tropes of gothic and horror are situated within the context of the time considering the industrial revolution, colonialism, emerging forms of feminism and underground queer cultures. Further, they will examine attendant anxieties over gender, sexuality, race and class through methodologies of close reading analysis and engagement with current scholarship.

ENGL 103 LEC B13: Human Creativity in Research
J. Quist
This class is focused on creativity and innovation in the research process, emphasizing the kinds of inquiry and inspiration of which only humans are capable. To techniques of Literary Studies such as library searches and critical reading and writing this course adds Cultural Studies and Creative Writing methods of in-person, in-public experiential learning and sharing. Texts related to the creative processes of writers and thinkers will be examined, interrogated, and experimented with as students conduct their own literary research and grow in creative competence and confidence.

ENGL 103 LEC B14: Monsters in Beowulf, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Peter Jackson
D. Bargen
J. R. R. Tolkien both had a profound influence on the interpretation of Beowulf and wrote fantasy novels that were influenced by his scholarship. We will be considering how monsters are represented by Beowulf, Tolkien, and Peter Jackson's films based on Tolkien's novels. You will have the opportunity to develop your own topic for research from the course texts.

ENGL 103 LEC B16: Monsters in Beowulf, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Peter Jackson
D. Bargen
J. R. R. Tolkien both had a profound influence on the interpretation of Beowulf and wrote fantasy novels that were influenced by his scholarship. We will be considering how monsters are represented by Beowulf, Tolkien, and Peter Jackson's films based on Tolkien's novels. You will have the opportunity to develop your own topic for research from the course texts.

ENGL 103 LEC B17: Fantasy and Reality: Conversations and Contestations
L. Robertson
The specific focus of this section will be on texts that explore and inhabit the complicated and shifting boundary between fantasy and reality. What are fantasy and myth for? What is the relationship between the realistic and the fantastical or the mythical? What are the moral and ethical issues at stake in the realistic and in the fantastical or the mythical? What purposes does each serve, in our lives and in the stories we tell? Through a variety of texts—including genres like the fairy tale, historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction, and horror—written across a wide period of time, from the sixteenth century to the present, we will examine how and to what purposes different writers have used fantasy and the mythic in their work.

ENGL 103 LEC B18: Cree and Métis Poetry
A. Van Essen
According to Indigenous scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith, “research” “is probably one of the dirtiest words in the Indigenous world’s vocabulary” (Decolonizing Methodologies 30). Given the context of historical and ongoing colonialism in Canada, what does it mean to do research respectfully? How do we read, write about, research, and discuss Cree and Métis literature with care? In this course, these questions will anchor our research through case studies in Cree and Métis poetry. Students can expect to read a variety of poems by authors such as Marilyn Dumont, Duncan Mercredi, Naomi McIlwraith, Rosanna Deerchild, Gregory Scofield, and Louise Halfe.

ENGL 103 LEC B19: Doppelgangers and Alter Egos
L. Schechter
This section will explore textual treatments of doppelgangers, alter egos, and other relevant figures. Together, we will consider how a variety of genres and historical moments take up issues of sameness and difference, of desire and repulsion, of recognition and strangeness, asking what work the familiar stranger might perform in these works and why.

ENGL 103 LEC B20: Men and Masculinities in Literature and Media
W. Agorde
This section of English 103 critically investigates the construction, performance, and contestation of masculinity across various literary and cultural texts, including fiction, nonfiction, film, television, and digital media. Students will examine prevalent stereotypes of masculinity alongside alternative portrayals that disrupt traditional notions, employing intersectional analyses of race, class, and sexuality. Key themes explored include male authority and dominance, tensions between the male gaze and masculine vulnerability, and the influential role of media in either reinforcing or challenging gendered expectations. Using both fictional and nonfictional works, students will engage with gender theory and cultural studies methodologies to critically assess these representations. Through dynamic discussions and analytical writing, students will gain a sophisticated understanding of how masculinities are shaped by—and actively resist—dominant cultural narratives. This course is particularly suited to students interested in gender studies, media criticism, and exploring intersections of identity and representation.

ENGL 103 LEC B21: Case Studies in Detective Fiction
N. Barnholden
This course will introduce students to literary analysis at the university level through exploring a variety of fictional texts centering on the figure of the detective.

ENGL 103 LEC B22: Men and Masculinities in Literature and Media
W. Agorde
This section of English 103 critically investigates the construction, performance, and contestation of masculinity across various literary and cultural texts, including fiction, nonfiction, film, television, and digital media. Students will examine prevalent stereotypes of masculinity alongside alternative portrayals that disrupt traditional notions, employing intersectional analyses of race, class, and sexuality. Key themes explored include male authority and dominance, tensions between the male gaze and masculine vulnerability, and the influential role of media in either reinforcing or challenging gendered expectations. Using both fictional and nonfictional works, students will engage with gender theory and cultural studies methodologies to critically assess these representations. Through dynamic discussions and analytical writing, students will gain a sophisticated understanding of how masculinities are shaped by—and actively resist—dominant cultural narratives. This course is particularly suited to students interested in gender studies, media criticism, and exploring intersections of identity and representation.

ENGL 103 LEC B23: Case Studies in Detective Fiction
N. Barnholden
This course will introduce students to literary analysis at the university level through exploring a variety of fictional texts centering on the figure of the detective.

ENGL 103 LEC B24
L. Chen

ENGL 103 LEC B25: Case Studies in Detective Fiction
N. Barnholden
This course will introduce students to literary analysis at the university level through exploring a variety of fictional texts centering on the figure of the detective.

ENGL 103 LEC B26: Cree and Métis Poetry
A. Van Essen
According to Indigenous scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith, “research” “is probably one of the dirtiest words in the Indigenous world’s vocabulary” (Decolonizing Methodologies 30). Given the context of historical and ongoing colonialism in Canada, what does it mean to do research respectfully? How do we read, write about, research, and discuss Cree and Métis literature with care? In this course, these questions will anchor our research through case studies in Cree and Métis poetry. Students can expect to read a variety of poems by authors such as Marilyn Dumont, Duncan Mercredi, Naomi McIlwraith, Rosanna Deerchild, Gregory Scofield, and Louise Halfe.

ENGL 103 LEC B27
L. Chen

ENGL 103 LEC B28: TOYS! Literary Representations and Sociopolitical Dimensions
E. Harris
“My friends are toys. I make them.” Sebastian, Bladerunner (Movie)
In his famous essay “The Philosophy of Toys” (1853), French poet and “enfant terrible” Charles Baudelaire proposed that our earliest play with toys signifies our earliest initiation “into art.” Together, we will study a wonderland of literary representations of toys across genres and cultures. We will encounter soldiers, puppets, dolls and robots in fiction, poetry, essays, fairy tales (and in visual and performing arts). We will explore the sociopolitical implications of these toys - ranging from instruments of socialization and normativity, to figures of play, queerness, transgression, Indigeneity, and alterity - to give you more experience analyzing language and contemporary culture(s). We will also work together to refine your research, writing, and public speaking skills. At the back of our minds, let us ask: Can research and interpretation also be forms of play (as Alan Levinovitz proposes)? You will be invited to bring your own interests to the choice of your topic for your Final Essay/Odyssey.
Course texts include: Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky (poetry), The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante (novel or film), and the children’s book William’s Doll (by Charlotte Zolotow) - among many others.

ENGL 103 LEC B29
R. Brazeau

ENGL 103 LEC B30: War and Nation in Irish Literature
L. Harrington
In this course we will learn the fundamentals of research skills through a focus on the topic of war and the concepts of nation and nationalism in Irish literature, as indeed in culture and society. This will mean examining the history, politics and literary responses to key events such as the colonization of Ireland by the British Empire, the fight for independence, the partition of the country and the ensuing conflict in Northern Ireland.

ENGL 103 LEC X52
L. Gerber

ENGL 103 LEC X53
A. Ventimilla Sanchez

ENGL 103 LEC B01
C. Scott

ENGL 103 LEC B02: Habitat Studies
R. Costa
What is our relationship with the habitat and the lands we inhabit? Which species inhabit the same spaces and places as we do? What is our relationship with these species? In this course, you will learn about habitat studies: a framework of methods and field studies within Canadian ecocriticism and literary ecology, developed by Laurie Ricou and Sarah Krotz. Students will engage with texts and media related to the North Saskatchewan River Valley and its species, before choosing one of these species to pursue and research in the academic context of ecocritical studies. Due to time constraints and instructional limitations, this course will focus exclusively on bird species rather than the entire realm of the fauna and flora of the River Valley. Assignments will include five weekly field reports documenting the student’s research process (max. 500 words) and two full papers (max. 1500 words).

ENGL 103 LEC B03: Curious Cities: Researching Joyce’s Dubliners and Literary Histories
M. Kashani
In this section, we will explore James Joyce’s Dubliners as a politically significant literary text, delving into its historical, social, and urban contexts. We try to read and research urban spaces in the formation of political consciousness. This course aims to demonstrate how research into these areas enhances our understanding of the text and how research into literature reflects and shapes evolving cultural realities—especially those related to nation, culture, and history. Zora Neale Hurston once described “research” as “formalized curiosity… poking and prying with a purpose”; this course will harness that curiosity, developing skills to rigorously analyze and engage with texts creatively. Research aids in understanding texts within their specific locations, histories, contexts, and debates. Students will learn and practice each stage of the research process, from formulating a research question to finding and evaluating supplementary materials and integrating their insights with acquired knowledge from research.

ENGL 103 LEC B10: Case Studies in Detective Fiction
N. Barnholden
This course will introduce students to literary analysis at the university level through exploring a variety of fictional texts centering on the figure of the detective.

ENGL 103 LEC A01: Fantasy and Reality: Conversations and Contestations
L. Robertson
The specific focus of this section will be on texts that explore and inhabit the complicated and shifting boundary between fantasy and reality. What are fantasy and myth for? What is the relationship between the realistic and the fantastical or the mythical? What are the moral and ethical issues at stake in the realistic and in the fantastical or the mythical? What purposes does each serve, in our lives and in the stories we tell? Through a variety of texts—including genres like the fairy tale, historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction, and horror—written across a wide period of time, from the sixteenth century to the present, we will examine how and to what purposes different writers have used fantasy and the mythic in their work.

ENGL 103 LEC A02: Technology, Utopia, and Dystopia
M. Snyder

ENGL 103 LEC A03: Witches and Witchcraft
J. Millard
In “The Witch as a Category and as a Person” from his book Critique of Identity Thinking Michael Jackson explains that the stereotypical witch encompasses “notions of deviance, resentment, wildness, and sickness”(43) such that they are the “dialectical inversion … moral personhood”(50). Thus representations of witches in literature inevitably focus on the relationship between the individual and structures of social order, particularly as they relate to religious order, moral justice, and prescriptive gendered behavior.
This course is thematically organized around texts that represent witches in ways that interrogate these aspects of social organization. Unlike RELIG 274, this course does not approach witchcraft within a specifically religious framework; rather the study of witches is merely employed as a focal point to study literary conventions and attendant cultural motifs across various genres and time periods.

ENGL 103 LEC A04: Twenty-First Century Fantasy Fiction
K. Pabst

ENGL 103 LEC A05: Graphic Literature: Representation Through Images and Texts
D. Woodman
Most people are aware of comics – from the comic strips to comic books sold in grocery stores and comic bookstores. However, there is so much more. The field of graphic literature encompasses a vast range of topics, themes, genres, and styles. In this course, we’ll explore a diverse array of contemporary graphic literature by North American/Turtle Island creators that participate in social and cultural discourses and challenge conventional ideas about representation and interpretation.
Course texts will include: Abdelrazaq’s Baddawi, Butler, Duffy, and Jennings’ Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel, King and Donovan’s Borders: A Graphic Novel, Martini and Martini’s Bitter Medicine, and Som’s Spellbound: A Graphic Memoir.

ENGL 103 LEC A06: Contemporary Adaptations of Classic Fairy Tales 
A. Daignault
In this course, we will explore how and why contemporary authors remain fascinated by the stories, structures, characters, and patterns inherent to classic fairy tales, adapting them into new texts of all genres, and lengths, and with myriad preoccupations, themes, and ideas. In the first part of the semester, we will use classic fairy tales as an anchor point to develop skills that are foundational to the research process, and a base of shared knowledge about the fairy tale genre. In this section of the course, students can expect to read a variety of short texts, and to complete focused assignments and workshops related to those texts. This part of the course will feature open exploration and discussion of fairy tales, and direct instruction on skills that are necessary to the research and writing process. In the second part of the semester, each student will design, research and write a research essay about a particular aspect of a contemporary adaptation of one of the fairy tales we have studied. During this period, there will be less direct instruction and more in-class writing and self-directed work on final projects.

ENGL 103 LEC A10: Heroes and Villains!
M. Kausman
Who gets to be a hero? More curiously, who gets to be a superhero? In this course we will investigate the social and political resonances of “heroes” and “villains” in Canadian and Western popular culture. In addition to thinking critically about what kinds of people get to be heroes and superheroes, students will develop their research skills in order to better understand how the Western superhero figure reproduces hierarchies of race, sex, ability, and class; what we understand to be the material conditions of villainy; and, ultimately, how despite opening up the category of the “hero” to previously marginalized subjects, villains continue to serve as a socially acceptable repository for oppressive discourses.

ENGL 103 LEC X01: Resistance Literature
O. Olutola
This section of ENGL 103 examines the themes of resistance in literature. Using relevant literary texts and essays, the course guides students to investigate a writer’s use of literature as a commentary on and a tool to challenge the status quo and an imposed identity, including class, gender, racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic oppression. In the end, students will develop a well-informed understanding of scholarly research and can identify, investigate, and critique the representations of resistance in a literary text.
To shape and enhance students’ understanding of resistance literature and library research, this course aims to focus on core literary titles such as:

• Representations of resistance in literary texts
• Forms/nature of resistance in literature
• Literature as a form of protest
• Historical/cultural/political context of resistance in literary texts