100 Level English

Spring 2023

ENGL 103 LEC 800 (Online): Reading Resistance in Literature
O. Olutola
This section of ENGL 103 examines themes of resistance in literature. Through its reading of relevant literary texts and essays, the course guides students to read and research a writer’s use of literature as both a commentary on and a tool to challenge the status quo, meaning of identity, cultural consensus, racial and gender power, and socioeconomic oppression. In the end, students will develop a well-informed understanding of scholarly research and can identify, investigate, and critique the representation of resistance in a literary text.

ENGL 103 LEC A01

ENGL 103 LEC A02

ENGL 103 LEC A03

ENGL 103 LEC A04: Literary Explorations of Racism in North America
W. Agorde
The course analyses literary texts, essays and videos written by and about racialised groups in North America. Focussing on how various authors employ varied literary techniques to show how racism is presented as a hierarchical system of power and privilege, class readings and research will critically explore how racism is produced and manifested at the individual, institutional and societal levels. A key component will examine the different forms of racism: representational, ideological, discursive and interactional racism. The various literary texts and media will expose students to the intersectionality of racism through factors such as gender, sexual orientation, class, religion and race. Aside from examining the experiences of Indigenous peoples in Canada and the United States, this course will use black people’s experiences in both countries as its baseline for studying racial relations in North America. At the end of the course, students will comprehend how race is socially constructed and the persistent socio-political consequences of race.

ENGL 103 LEC A05

ENGL 103 LEC A06: Popular Adaptation
D. Buchanan
This section of Case Studies in Research investigates the popular adaptation of English literature. Students read and analyze the formal and thematic resources of a work of literature before researching the history of reinventions (e.g., in print, drama, painting, music, radio, comics, film, podcast). Literary works might include Robin Hood, Robinson Crusoe, Little Red Riding Hood, Frankenstein, A Christmas Carol, Little Women, Sherlock Holmes, or The Time Machine. Throughout the course, students are encouraged to explore reading practices and experiment with research methodologies while developing effective communication skills.

ENGL 103 LEC A07: Contemporary Adaptations of Classic Fairy Tales
A. Daignault
Journalist and author Zora Neale Hurston once described research as “formalized curiosity…poking and prying with a purpose.” In this course we will tap into our curiosity and develop skills that will let us poke and pry at texts in a way that is both rigorous and creative. We will start small, looking at one text or one skill at a time, and build towards a final research project based on independent inquiry and knowledge generation.

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 wide variety of short texts, and to complete focused weekly assignments 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 and complete an independent research project. There are two options for this project: the first is to select a contemporary adaptation of one of those classic fairy tales, and write a traditional research paper about a particular aspect of that work; the second is to develop expertise about one of the tales and use it to write a new adaptation. In this section of the course, there will be less direct instruction, and more collaboration and troubleshooting among students.

ENGL 103 LEC A08: Comparative Globalisms: Popular Genres Across the Centuries
S. Sucur

This course emphasizes the global and cross-cultural nature of literature and film, with focus placed on the international dissemination of ideas via selected texts ranging from satire of the late 17th century to cinema of the 1960s and 70s. Movements in thought such as the Enlightenment, Romanticism, etc., will also be given an important role in the global and comparative discussions that will form the basis of this class. The research process is foundational to this course, and students can expect an in-depth and focused approach to content and a multi-stage introduction to this process.

ENGL 103 LEC A09: Why Horror?
L. Rasmussen

Although it is often derided or thought to be ‘low-brow’, horror fiction is an excellent topic for new researchers in the academy who are interested in studying how social tensions and anxieties take shape in, and are navigated through, mainstream literature and popular culture. Examples of topics we may explore in this class include teen or gateway horror, final girls, techno-horror, cryptozoology, domestic horror, misogyny in horror, portrayals of children in horror, apocalyptic horror, and others.  

Our focus will primarily be on contemporary writers who use horror and horror adjacent work as social commentary, with a particular focus on the short story.  We will also discuss interdisciplinary approaches to the study of horror, and touch on the ways horror fiction is marketed to readers. 

ENGL 103 LEC A10

ENGL 103 LEC A11: Comparative Globalisms: Popular Genres Across the Centuries
S. Sucur
This course emphasizes the global and cross-cultural nature of literature and film, with focus placed on the international dissemination of ideas via selected texts ranging from satire of the late 17th century to cinema of the 1960s and 70s. Movements in thought such as the Enlightenment, Romanticism, etc., will also be given an important role in the global and comparative discussions that will form the basis of this class. The research process is foundational to this course, and students can expect an in-depth and focused approach to content and a multi-stage introduction to this process.

ENGL 103 LEC A12: Why Horror?
L. Rasmussen

Although it is often derided or thought to be ‘low-brow’, horror fiction is an excellent topic for new researchers in the academy who are interested in studying how social tensions and anxieties take shape in, and are navigated through, mainstream literature and popular culture. Examples of topics we may explore in this class include teen or gateway horror, final girls, techno-horror, cryptozoology, domestic horror, misogyny in horror, portrayals of children in horror, apocalyptic horror, and others.  

Our focus will primarily be on contemporary writers who use horror and horror adjacent work as social commentary, with a particular focus on the short story.  We will also discuss interdisciplinary approaches to the study of horror, and touch on the ways horror fiction is marketed to readers. 

ENGL 103 LEC A13

ENGL 103 LEC A14

ENGL 103 LEC A15

ENGL 103 LEC A16

ENGL 103 LEC A17

ENGL 103 LEC A18

ENGL 103 LEC A19

ENGL 103 LEC A20

ENGL 103 LEC A21

ENGL 103 LEC A22: War 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 conflict in Irish literature, as indeed in Irish culture and society. This will mean examining key events such as the colonization of Ireland by the British, the fight for independence, the partition of the country and the ensuing conflict in Northern Ireland. We will read some poetry, one novel, and one film in order to develop our academic research skills, i.e. using library resources to find information, how to cite these sources in your work and avoid plagiarism, how to annotate, how to begin a research project, forming thesis statements and integrating scholarly voices with our own.

ENGL 103 LEC A23: Cree and Métis Literature
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, and discuss Cree and Métis literature with care and respect? In this course, these questions will anchor our research through case studies in Cree and Métis literature. Research helps us to understand texts 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 LEC A24

ENGL 103 LEC A25

ENGL 103 LEC A26: Food in Literature and Culture
J. Lim

This section will examine and research on the cultures and philosophies of food in literature. We will also read some critical literature on food wastage, food insecurity, sustainability, clean eating, table manners.

ENGL 103 LEC A27: Graphic Literature: Pictures and Texts in Literary Representations
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.

ENGL 103 LEC A28

ENGL 103 LEC A29

ENGL 103 LEC A30: Graphic Literature: Pictures and Texts in Literary Representations
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.

ENGL 103 LEC X01

ENGL 103 LEC X02

ENGL 103 LEC A12

ENGL 103 LEC A13

ENGL 103 LEC A14: 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 Tolkien, Peter Jackson, and Beowulf. You will have the opportunity to develop your own topic for research from the course texts.

ENGL 103 LEC A15

ENGL 103 LEC A16

ENGL 103 LEC A17

ENGL 103 LEC A18

ENGL 103 LEC A19

ENGL 103 LEC A20

ENGL 103 LEC A21

ENGL 103 LEC A22

ENGL 103 LEC A23: Cree and Métis Literature
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, and discuss Cree and Métis literature with care and respect? In this course, these questions will anchor our research through case studies in Cree and Métis literature. Research helps us to understand texts 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 LEC A24

ENGL 103 LEC A25

ENGL 103 LEC A26

ENGL 103 LEC A27

ENGL 103 LEC A28: Introduction to Creative Research via Contemporary Speculative Fiction
G. Bechtel
This section of English 103 is an introductory course on Creative Research (also known as Research Creation) with a focus on Contemporary Speculative Fiction. The theme for the course is Engineers of Possibility. We will look at several texts of contemporary speculative fiction (e.g. science fiction, fantasy, horror, etc.) as well as several related nonfiction texts (essays, award acceptance speeches, news stories, etc.) related to contemporary developments and/or controversies in this field. All of these will serve as fuel and provocation for your own creative research projects in this course.

Engaging in writing exercises, discussion, and collaborative activities, students will respond creatively and critically to the course texts and learn the stages of academic research creation, including exploratory exercises; formulating an original research question; finding, evaluating, and using (primary and secondary) sources; generating an annotated bibliography including at least two credible sources; and developing this process of inquiry into a final creative project, plus a short critical introduction (or afterword) contextualizing that project.

Throughout the course, you will also be required to complete regular informal writing exercises (typically at least one per week) as well as keep an informal process journal (on assigned topics). Informal writing and process journals will be collected bi-weekly.

Note: This class is not an introduction to writing fiction or poetry, or to other forms of creative practice. That is not to say that you need to have an existing creative background or practice to take this course. Rather, it will be up to you to develop and define the creative practice emerging from your own particular research and explorations, while the research and exploration processes themselves will form the core of this course.

ENGL 103 LEC A29: Romantic Visions and Gothic Nightmare
S. Webb
How does literature reveal the hopes and anxieties that authors have for the future? During the Romantic period, Enlightenment Europe saw the French Revolution, Industrial Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars disrupt most all aspects of society. Literary writers in this period were by turns optimistic and troubled because of these monumental shifts, and their works reflected this. In this course students will first research the Romantic period and the distinct but connected genre of Gothic fiction that flourished throughout this time. Figures of the monstrous – from Frankenstein to Vampires to Witches to Ghosts – and their haunting legacy will be a focal point for analysis. Students will engage with the original texts from the period, while also using digital resources to enhance their understanding of this era based on primary documents. From this starting point, students will then be able to analyze the scholarly debates and literary theories that are situated in and applicable to this period, adding their own voices and staking their own claims as critics. Students will consider the lasting legacies of these Romantic and Gothic prophecies and reckonings as they feature in modern Gothic adaptations and media.

ENGL 103 LEC A30

ENGL 103 LEC X01

ENGL 103 LEC X02: Introduction to Creative Research via Contemporary Speculative Fiction
G. Bechtel
This section of English 103 is an introductory course on Creative Research (also known as Research Creation) with a focus on Contemporary Speculative Fiction. The theme for the course is Engineers of Possibility. We will look at several texts of contemporary speculative fiction (e.g. science fiction, fantasy, horror, etc.) as well as several related nonfiction texts (essays, award acceptance speeches, news stories, etc.) related to contemporary developments and/or controversies in this field. All of these will serve as fuel and provocation for your own creative research projects in this course.

Engaging in writing exercises, discussion, and collaborative activities, students will respond creatively and critically to the course texts and learn the stages of academic research creation, including exploratory exercises; formulating an original research question; finding, evaluating, and using (primary and secondary) sources; generating an annotated bibliography including at least two credible sources; and developing this process of inquiry into a final creative project, plus a short critical introduction (or afterword) contextualizing that project.

Throughout the course, you will also be required to complete regular informal writing exercises (typically at least one per week) as well as keep an informal process journal (on assigned topics). Informal writing and process journals will be collected bi-weekly.

Note: This class is not an introduction to writing fiction or poetry, or to other forms of creative practice. That is not to say that you need to have an existing creative background or practice to take this course. Rather, it will be up to you to develop and define the creative practice emerging from your own particular research and explorations, while the research and exploration processes themselves will form the core of this course.

ENGL 103 LEC B01: Public and Hidden Transcripts
R. Jackson

In his influential work, Domination and the Arts of Resistance (1990), James S. Scott suggests that political domination requires a set of “public transcripts” that construct and legitimize the rule of the powerful. These transcripts of power are produced and reproduced in and as the law, popular culture, religion, curriculum, and literature – any place where language consolidates power. But for Scott, this is only part of the story. Under the pressure of subjugation, subordinated communities develop creative strategies of resistance, using language against itself to produce “hidden transcripts” that challenge the inevitability of domination, generate modes of resistant communication, and imagine futures of liberation. This course will begin with a study of Scott’s work, using it as a frame in which to read literary texts such as Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno (1855), Nourbese Philip’s Zong! (2011), Franz Kafka’s “In The Penal Colony” (1941) Layli Long Soldier’s Whereas (2017), and Jordy Rosenberg's novel Confessions of the Fox. Comparing and contrasting narrative forms and experimental forms of poetry, our study will be guided by questions such as: How does literature represent the struggle between public scripts of domination and the hidden scripts of resistance? How do writers play with literary form in their attempt to challenge the language of domination? What methods are required to read for the “hidden transcripts” of resistance? What are the limits of literature’s relationship to freedom?

Each of our primary texts will also provide a “case study” through which to engage in the research process including critical analysis, engaging with secondary sources, developing research questions, academic writing strategies, and organizing the research process. 

ENGL 103 LEC B02

ENGL 103 LEC B03

ENGL 103 LEC B04: Technology, Utopia, and Dystopia
J. Quist
Ethical and existential panics over swift advancements in writing technology create an urgent demand for research offering thoughtful, tempered, well-informed consideration of the impact of machine composition. This course examines the history of cultural responses to new technologies as depicted in utopian and dystopian fiction in print, on film and television, and in video games. Students will approach these texts as research data, enhance their understanding with theoretical contexts, and practice expressing and documenting their insights in ways that contribute to discourses already in progress about imagined (and perhaps emergent) technological utopias and dystopias in literary and cultural studies.

ENGL 103 LEC B05: Contemporary Adaptations of Classic Fairy Tales
A. Daignault
Journalist and author Zora Neale Hurston once described research as “formalized curiosity…poking and prying with a purpose.” In this course we will tap into our curiosity and develop skills that will let us poke and pry at texts in a way that is both rigorous and creative. We will start small, looking at one text or one skill at a time, and build towards a final research project based on independent inquiry and knowledge generation.

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 wide variety of short texts, and to complete focused weekly assignments 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 and complete an independent research project. There are two options for this project: the first is to select a contemporary adaptation of one of those classic fairy tales, and write a traditional research paper about a particular aspect of that work; the second is to develop expertise about one of the tales and use it to write a new adaptation. In this section of the course, there will be less direct instruction, and more collaboration and troubleshooting among students.

ENGL 103 LEC B06: Byromania, Bibliomania, and Digital Scholarship
S. Webb

ENGL 103 LEC B07: Comparative Globalisms: Popular Genres Across the Centuries
S. Sucur
This course emphasizes the global and cross-cultural nature of literature and film, with focus placed on the international dissemination of ideas via selected texts ranging from satire of the late 17th century to cinema of the 1960s and 70s. Movements in thought such as the Enlightenment, Romanticism, etc., will also be given an important role in the global and comparative discussions that will form the basis of this class. The research process is foundational to this course, and students can expect an in-depth and focused approach to content and a multi-stage introduction to this process.

ENGL 103 LEC B08

ENGL 103 LEC B09

ENGL 103 LEC B10: The American dream
A. Chowdhury
This course will trace the theme of American dream through the close-readings of poems, short stories, and the classic novel The Great Gatsby (1925) 

ENGL 103 LEC B11: Comparative Globalisms: Popular Genres Across the Centuries
S. Sucur
This course emphasizes the global and cross-cultural nature of literature and film, with focus placed on the international dissemination of ideas via selected texts ranging from satire of the late 17th century to cinema of the 1960s and 70s. Movements in thought such as the Enlightenment, Romanticism, etc., will also be given an important role in the global and comparative discussions that will form the basis of this class. The research process is foundational to this course, and students can expect an in-depth and focused approach to content and a multi-stage introduction to this process.

ENGL 103 LEC B12

ENGL 103 LEC B13: Case Studies in Research: Popular Culture
D. Buchanan

This section of Case Studies in Research focuses on the production and reception of two popular and influential works of English literature: Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818). In each case, students analyze formal and thematic resources of the original novel before considering the longer history of multimedia adaptation. Throughout the course, students are encouraged to explore reading practices and experiment with research methodologies while developing effective communication skills.

ENGL 103 LEC B14: The American dream
A. Chowdhury
This course will trace the theme of American dream through the close-readings of poems, short stories, and the classic novel The Great Gatsby (1925) 

ENGL 103 LEC B15

ENGL 103 LEC B16: Hamlet on Film
C. Sale

This course guides students in developing writing and research skills vital to success in a university degree in relation to the study of three film versions of William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet and two radical adaptations. The first three films are by directors Grigori Kozintsev (1964), Franco Zeffirelli (1990), and Michael Almeredya (2000). The adaptations include Akira Kurosawa’s film noir Hamlet, The Bad Sleep Well (1964), and the Tibetan Prince of the Himalayas (2006), by the Chinese-American filmmaker Sherwood Hu. Students can expect about one-third of our class time (mostly early in the course) to be devoted to writing lessons from Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace, and for the course to culminate in the writing of a research-based argument of about 2,000 words

ENGL 103 LEC B17

ENGL 103 LEC B18: Cree and Métis Literature
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, and discuss Cree and Métis literature with care and respect? In this course, these questions will anchor our research through case studies in Cree and Métis literature. Research helps us to understand texts 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 LEC B19: Representations of History
K. Smitka
In this class, we will explore how literature helps us think about history. The literary works we will study focus on historical atrocities as a way to think about ongoing terrains of debate regarding colonialism, class, gender, identity, nationalism, and race. Students will be encouraged to think not only about historical events, but also the ways in which these events are studied, archived, and retold. As with every section of ENGL 103, this course introduces students to methods of literary research. 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 learn how to place their ideas in conversation with the knowledge they build from research.

ENGL 103 LEC B20

ENGL 103 LEC B21

ENGL 103 LEC B22: Literary Explorations of Racism in North America
W. Agorde
The course analyses literary texts, essays and videos written by and about racialised groups in North America. Focussing on how various authors employ varied literary techniques to show how racism is presented as a hierarchical system of power and privilege,  class readings and research will critically explore how racism is produced and manifested at the individual, institutional and societal levels. A key component will examine the different forms of racism: representational, ideological, discursive and interactional racism. The various literary texts and media will expose students to the intersectionality of racism through factors such as gender, sexual orientation, class, religion and race. Aside from examining the experiences of Indigenous peoples in Canada and the United States, this course will use black people’s experiences in both countries as its baseline for studying racial relations in North America. At the end of the course, students will comprehend how race is socially constructed and the persistent socio-political consequences of race.

ENGL 103 LEC B23

ENGL 103 LEC B24: Pop Culture History
N. Barnholden

ENGL 103 LEC B25

ENGL 103 LEC B26: Why Horror?
L. Rasmussen

Although it is often derided or thought to be ‘low-brow’, horror fiction is an excellent topic for new researchers in the academy who are interested in studying how social tensions and anxieties take shape in, and are navigated through, mainstream literature and popular culture. Examples of topics we may explore in this class include teen or gateway horror, final girls, techno-horror, cryptozoology, domestic horror, misogyny in horror, portrayals of children in horror, apocalyptic horror, and others.  

Our focus will primarily be on contemporary writers who use horror and horror adjacent work as social commentary, with a particular focus on the short story.  We will also discuss interdisciplinary approaches to the study of horror, and touch on the ways horror fiction is marketed to readers. 

ENGL 103 LEC B27

ENGL 103 LEC B28

ENGL 103 LEC X51: Modern World Literature as Socio-Political Commentary
J. Varsava
An introduction to methods of literary research through case studies focusing on modern world literature that directly engages important socio-political issues in a variety of historical and cultural contexts. The course will consider various literary genres including the short story, the novella, and the novel, as important narrative forms. There are no course prerequisites.

ENGL 103 LEC X52: 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 Tolkien, Peter Jackson, and Beowulf. You will have the opportunity to develop your own topic for research from the course texts.

ENGL 103 LEC X53