2026-2027 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 (Online)

Instructor: TBD

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

Group n/a

Course Title: Effective Writing LEC0102

Course Code: ENG100H5F | Lecture MWF 1-2 (Online)

Instructor: TBD

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

Group n/a

Course Title: Effective Writing LEC0103

Course Code: ENG100H5F | Lecture TR 9-11, 10-11

Instructor: Natasha Vashisht

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

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: 
 

Course Title: Effective Writing LEC0104

Course Code: ENG100H5F | Lecture R 6-9 (Online)

Instructor: TBD

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

Group n/a

Course Code: ENG100H5S LEC0101

Course Code: ENG100H5S | | Lecture MWF 9-10 (Online)

Instructor: TBD

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

Group n/a

Course Title: Effective Writing LEC0102 

Course Code: ENG100H5S | Lecture M 6-9 (Online)

Instructor: TBD

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

Group n/a

Course Title: Effective Writing LEC0103

Course Code: ENG100H5S | Lecture T1-2, R1-3

Instructor:  Natasha Vashisht

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

Group n/a

Course Title: Effective Writing LEC0104 

Course Code: ENG100H5S | Lecture R 6-9 (Online) 

Instructor: TBD

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

Group n/a

 

Course Title: How to Read Critically

Course Code: ENG101H5F | Lecture T 9-11 | Tutorials T 11-12, T 12-1, T 1-2, T2-3, T 3-4,

Instructor: Michael Raby

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

Group 1 Literary Theory/Methods

Detailed Description by Instructor: This course is intended for anyone who wants to deepen their critical engagement with literature. You will learn how to read for more than just plot, how to interpret without overinterpreting, how to listen to a poem, how to articulate the pleasure that books inspire, and how to connect a work to the era that created it. Among the questions you’ll debate: why is so much “good” literature difficult? Is the book always better than the movie? How has AI changed the way we write and read? Course readings span a range of forms and genres, including fairy tales, Shakespeare, science fiction, manga, and Gothic horror. To help analyze these texts more deeply, you’ll use writing as a tool for discovery, with assignments ranging from low-stakes free writing to more structured, reflective projects.

Selected Major Readings:
First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: Charles Perrault, Rita Dove, Ken Liu

Method of Instruction: Lecture and tutorials

Method of Evaluation: TBD

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component? Yes

Course Title: How to Research Literature

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

Instructor:  Daniela Janes

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

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: ENG102 is a foundational course that will prepare students to conduct research in their undergraduate English courses. By focusing on the process of developing arguments about literature, and supporting these arguments with scholarly research, this course will help students learn the skills needed to find their own voice within the scholarly conversation. We will focus on locating and evaluating secondary sources, reading and engaging with arguments about literature, and incorporating the arguments of others into our own writing.

Our readings will focus on three texts published in 1925: The Great Gatsby, Mrs. Dalloway, and In Our Time. The focused reading list will allow us to develop a detailed knowledge of a literary and historical period, as well as build our knowledge of three important modernist writers: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Virginia Woolf, and Ernest Hemingway. Lectures will unpack our three core literary texts and the critical conversations that they have generated. Building a framework of relevant scholarly sources will enhance our understanding of our texts and will help students recognize strategies and approaches to build and support their own arguments about literature. Writing-intensive tutorials will provide students with opportunities to analyze course material in an environment that is both collegial and critically rigorous. In written work for the course, students will demonstrate their understanding of how to research literature and why research matters.

Selected Major Readings: Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby; Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway; Hemingway, In Our Time

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: Fitzgerald, Woolf, Hemingway

Method of Instruction: lecture/discussion

Method of Evaluation: low-stakes writing, test, final exam, project, informed participation.

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component?  No

Course Title: Literature & Medicine

Course Code: ENG103H5F | Lecture MW 12-1 | Tutorials W 1-2, W3-4

Instructor: Sara Star

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

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: 

What does it mean to be human? Literature and medicine share a common concern with this question. Both fields seek to understand the suffering, vulnerability, health, and growth of humanity. This common interest is often obscured by arbitrary disciplinary divides, and so our course aims to put literature and medicine in conversation with each other to interrogate larger questions involving how to give voice to pain and illness. We will examine literary texts representing a wide array of experiences, including but not limited to texts that:

· record experiences with chronic illnesses, mental illnesses, and physical disabilities;
· represent the ethical dilemmas faced by medical practitioners and researchers;
· articulate suspicion toward doctors;
· reveal disproportionate access and treatment based on race;
· reflect on gendered experience;
· consider the meaning and value of life when faced with mortality.

Collectively, the texts we study engage with medical practice and patient experience to grapple with other social issues that contribute to our understanding of humanity. We will analyze these texts to collaboratively arrive at a more nuanced understanding of the ways literature and medicine benefit from conversation with each other and of what we think it means to experience human life.

Selected Major Readings:

Rita Charon, Narrative Medicine
Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals
Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied:

Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor
Siddartha Mukherjee, “Soon We’ll Cure Diseases with a Cell, Not a Pill”
Rita Charon, Narrative Medicine

Method of Instruction: Lecture, discussion, tutorial

Method of Evaluation:

Written responses
Podcast
Essay
Exam
Participation

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component? No

Course Title: Introduction to World Literatures

Course Code: ENG105H5S | Lecture MW 10-11 | Tutorials M 11-12, W 12-1

Instructor: TBD

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

Group n/a

Course Title: Literature & AI

Course Code: ENG107H5S | Lecture T 3-5 | Tutorials R 3-4, R 4-5

Instructor: Avery Slater

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

Group n/a

Course Title: Narrative

Course Code: ENG110H5F | Lecture TR 1-2 | Tutorials R 2-3, R 5-6

Instructor: TBD

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

Group n/a

Course Title: Narrative

Course Code: ENG110H5S | Lecture TR 9-10 | Tutorials R 10-11, R 11-12, R 12-1

Instructor: TBD

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

Group n/a 

Course Title: Traditions of Theatre and Drama

Course Code: ENG121H5F | Lecture MW 11-12 | Tutorials W 12-1, W 2-3, W3-4

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: Signy Lynch

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 MW 11-12 | Tutorials W 12-1, W 2-3, W 3-4, W 4-5

Instructor: Sara 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 Equiano 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 English 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:

Old English elegies
Beowulf
Marie de France, Lais

Method of Instruction: Lecture, discussion, tutorial

Method of Evaluation: 
Written responses
Scaffolded essay assignment
One-word essay
Participation

Does your course feature an assessed 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, R 2-3, R 4-5

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 3-4, W 3-5

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, Joy Harjo, Billy Collins

Method of Instruction: Lecture and discussion

Method of Evaluation: Short assignments, tests, participation

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component? No

Course Title: Rhetoric

Course Code: ENG205H5S | Lecture MWF 1-2

Instructor: Chester Scoville

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

Group 1 Literary Theory/Methods

Detailed Description by Instructor: An introduction to the major concepts and theories of rhetoric from the ancient world to the present day. We will explore the roots of rhetoric in Athenian political culture, trace its development through Roman law and medieval religion and literature, and consider some of its modern and postmodern varieties. Along the way, we will see the centrality of the study and practice of persuasive speech and writing, and its relationship to politics, science, history, literature, and more. We will consider the art and effect of persuasion not only in literary texts, but also in political speeches, digital media, advertising, and everyday life. Our goal will be to unearth and understand the hidden arguments and assumptions that permeate our daily experiences.

Selected major readings: Readings will be a combination of coursepack material, internet sources, and texts available from the UTM bookstore.

First three texts / authors to be studied: Dissoi Logoi, Plato, Aristotle

Method of instruction: Group discussion, with a focus on in-person interpretation

Method of evaluation: Weekly short exercises based on traditional rhetorical exercises; midterm test; final paper.

Does this course feature an assessed creative writing component? Yes

Course Title: Introduction to the Novel

Course Code: ENG211H5F | Lecture MWF 2-3

Instructor: Chester Scoville

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

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: How and why did the novel replace the narrative poem as the predominant literary form in English, and how has it changed over the past three centuries? This course will focus on these questions, using a selection of novels across time and around the Anglophone world to explore the novel's relationship to form, realism, politics, and more.

Selected major readings: 
Behn, Oroonoko Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Dickens, Hard Times Tutuola, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 MacKay, The Cambridge Introduction to the Novel (selections)

First three texts / authors to be studied: Kay, Behn, Austen

Method of instruction: Lecture and discussion

Method of evaluation: Three short reflections, final essay

Does this course feature an assessed creative writing component? No

Course Title: The Short Story

Course Code: ENG213H5S | Lecture MWF 10-11

Instructor: Daniela Janes

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: This course examines the development of the short story from the nineteenth century to the present. We will explore stories drawn from a range of national literatures, including several works that will be studied in translation. The goal of the course is to develop your knowledge of the literary short story by examining major writers, and to build a sense of historical and theoretical context. We will consider the short story in terms of the formal features of the genre and will seek to define some of the essential characteristics of the short story as more than, simply, a story that is short.

Selected Major Readings: The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction (Shorter 8th edition), edited by Richard Bausch and R.V. Cassill

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: Hawthorne, Poe, Melville

Method of Instruction: Lecture/discussion

Method of Evaluation: low-stakes writing, tests, project, informed participation.

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component? Yes (optional)

Course Title: The Canadian Short Story

Course Code: ENG215H5F | Lecture MWF 12-1

Instructor: Daniela Janes

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

Group 5 Canadian Literature

Detailed Description by Instructor: This course examines the development of the short story in Canada from the nineteenth century to the present. We will explore the formal features of the short story and its critical contexts as we move through nearly two hundred years of Canadian short fiction. Readings will cover a range of styles and forms including the sketch, the realist short story, and the various formal experiments of the twentieth and twenty-first century. Through our readings, we will build a sense of historical and theoretical context and chart the shifting themes and techniques of the short story form in Canada. Through readings, lecture, and discussion, students in this course will build a foundational knowledge of the history and form of the short story in Canada, and of related short story theory and criticism. This course will reinforce disciplinary skills in close reading and literary analysis, and hone critical reading and writing skills.

Selected Major Readings: 

Most of our readings will be drawn from two anthologies:
· Early Canadian Stories: Short Stories in English before World War I (ed. Misao Dean). ISBN. 9781896133157.
 

· The New Oxford Book of Canadian Short Stories in English (ed. Margaret Atwood and Robert Weaver). ISBN. 9780195412208.

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: Moodie, Pickthall, Johnson

Method of Instruction: lecture/discussion

Method of Evaluation: low-stakes writing, tests, project, informed participation.

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component? Yes (optional)

Course Title: Interactive Storytelling & Worldmaking

Course Code: ENG218H5S | Lecture W3-5 , F3-4

Instructor: Bruno R. Véras

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

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: This course examines the deep history and extraordinary diversity of interactive storytelling, with a focus on narrative art in digital games, transmedia/cross-platform projects, alternate reality and pervasive games, theme parks, and immersive performances, as well as literary texts and films. We will consider forms (e.g., riddles, parables, metafiction, branching narratives) that require participatory agency, choice-based and emergent storytelling, as well as genres (e.g., creation myths, planetary romances, travelogues, adventure fiction, Expressionist cinema) that discover or assemble a narrative by traversing a world. We will also explore the contexts and theoretical grounds of reader- and player-centric approaches.

Selected Major Readings:
Boni, M. (2017). World Building: Transmedia, Fans, Industries. Amsterdam University Press.

Freeman, M., & Gambarato, R. R. (2018). The Routledge Companion to Transmedia Studies. (1st ed.).

Smed, J., Suovuo, T., Skult, N., & Skult, P. H. E. (2021). Handbook on interactive storytelling. John Wiley & Sons.

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied:

Ryan, M.-L. (2017). The aesthetics of proliferation. In M. Boni (Ed.), World building: Transmedia, fans, industries (pp. 31–46). Amsterdam University Press.

Smed, J., Suovuo, T., Skult, N., & Skult, P. (2021). Introduction. In Handbook on interactive storytelling (pp. 1–24). Wiley.

Bertetti, P. (2017). Building science-fiction worlds. In M. Boni (Ed.), World building: Transmedia, fans, industries (pp. 47–61). Amsterdam University Press

Method of Instruction: In-person lecture, Seminars and workshops;

Method of Evaluation: In-class participation; individual and group assignments;

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component? No

Course Title: Introduction to Shakespeare

Course Code: ENG223H5S | Lecture MW 12-1 | TUT W 1-2, W 3-4

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: ENG234H5F | Lecture MWF 10-11

Instructor:  Daniela Janes

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

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: Students in this class will study a broad range of texts written for (or appropriated by) children. Our readings will begin with songs and verse for pre-literate infants and young children and texts for emerging readers. However, the bulk of the course will be devoted to texts written for independent older readers. Exploring a variety of forms and genres, we will map the history of children’s literature through our readings of poetry, songs, picture books, short stories, novels, and graphic novels. Topics for analysis will include the historical contexts of the development of children’s literature; shifting representations of childhood in fiction; the “Golden Age” of children’s literature; the recurrence of archetypal characters and motifs; and the relationship between words and images.

Selected Major Readings:

· Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) (Norton [4th edition], ISBN. 9781324059608)

· L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables (1908) (Norton, ISBN. 9780393926958)

· C.S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (1950) (HarperCollins, ISBN. 9780064471046)

· Jerry Craft, New Kid (2019) (HarperCollins, ISBN. 9780062691194)

· Ivy Noelle Weir, Anne of West Philly (2022) (Little, Brown, ISBN. 9780316459778)

***Additional short readings will be shared via Quercus.

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: Isaac Watts, A Little Pretty Pocket-book, Anna Laetitia Barbauld.

Method of Instruction: lecture/discussion

Method of Evaluation: low-stakes writing, tests, project, informed participation.

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component? Yes (optional)

Course Title: Comics and the Graphic Novel

Course Code: ENG235H5S | Lecture MWF 2-3

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 It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken and Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki’s This One Summer; as well as some mainstream comics such as Moore and Gibbons’s Watchmen.

First three texts / authors to be studied: Seth, Tamaki/Tamaki, Moore/Gibbon

Method of instruction: interactive lecture/discussion, with much close reading done in class.

Method of evaluation: Short tests, final essay, exam.

Does this course feature an assessed creative writing component? Yes

Course Title: Detective Fiction

Course Code: ENG236H5S | Lecture MWF 12-1

Instructor:  Daniela Janes

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

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: This course introduces students to the British and American form of the detective story. With a dual focus on close reading of primary texts and theoretical approaches to the genre of the detective narrative, students will build their familiarity with the conventions that characterize the form and the innovations that challenge it. Students will develop their understanding of periods and styles of detective fiction and will be able to pose informed arguments in their coursework. As we examine narrative constructions of criminality and detection, we will also consider how the genre of the detective story positions its protagonist as a reader. Students will build their knowledge of detective fiction as they work their way through our course texts, and lecture periods will build connections to a range of additional authors and theorists. By the end of the course, students will be able to reflect on the emergence of the genre of the detective narrative, the development of its formal features, and the ways that writers have sought to challenge their detectives and the genre itself through subversion and reinvention.

Selected Major Readings:

· Edgar Allan Poe, The Murders in the Rue Morgue: The Dupin Stories
· Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles and “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”
· Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep
· Agatha Christie, A Murder is Announced
· Alfred Hitchock, Vertigo
· Steph Cha, Follow Her Home

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: Stories by Poe (“The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt,” “The Purloined Letter”)

Method of Instruction: lecture/discussion

Method of Evaluation: low-stakes writing, tests, project, informed participation.

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component? Yes (optional)

Course Title: Science Fiction

Course Code: ENG237H5F | Lecture T 11-12, R 11-1

Instructor: Stanka Radovic

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

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: Contemporary science/speculative/dystopian fiction re-imagines our social landscapes. Our course will explore how this genre offers alternative perspectives on the existing social order, envisions the consequences of environmental degradation, revises the norms of individual and communal identity, and re-conceptualizes categories of race and gender. Challenging readers’ expectations about the meaning of history, community, and identity, the assigned texts propose radically different, yet strangely familiar, visions of our world. What alternative social environments will we find in these readings and how will they affect our relationship to the world we actually live in?

Selected Major Readings: Fredric Brown “Knock”; Douglas Adams The Hitchhikers Guide Through the Galaxy; Philip K. Dick Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?; Martin L. Shoemaker “Today I am Paul”; J. G. Ballard “The Subliminal Man”; Ursula Le Guin “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”; Octavia Butler “Bloodchild”; Omar El Akkad “Factory Air.”

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied:

Fredric Brown “Knock”; Douglas Adams The Hitchhikers Guide Through the Galaxy; Philip K. Dick Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Method of Instruction: Lectures and class discussions

Method of Evaluation: Class participation (15%), Creative/Critical Writing Assignment (25%), Assignment 2 (25%), Assignment 3 (35%).

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component? 
Yes, Assignment 1 for this course will be a blend of creative writing and critical engagment with a short story from the syllabus.

Course Title: Fantasy Literature

Course Code: ENG238H5F | Lecture MWF 1-2

Instructor: Chester Scoville

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

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: Fantasy literature is, as Brian Attebery puts it, the literature of making the oldest stories say new things. Or, to look at it from Seo-Young Chu’s perspective, it is the art of making literary techniques themselves into the story. These two critical perspectives will begin our reading of fantasy fiction, which will range from early modern fairy and folk tales through some classics of 19th and 20th-century literary fantasy, to contemporary tales of the fantastic in modern settings. Along the way, we will focus on how fantasy transforms the concrete realities of place, space, and everyday life into something unfamiliar, and how readers experience and interact with its complex rhetorical modes. We will also consider fantasy as a popular and cultural phenomenon, asking why it has become so important to so many people in our modern, technological, apparently disenchanted age.

Selected major readings: We will read a number of fantasies old and new, including fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Tolkien’s The Hobbit, and LeGuin’s The Tombs of Atuan, as well as locally-situated texts such as Hopkinson’s Brown Girl in the Ring. Our focus will be on how fantasy narratives shape and are shaped by their imagined environments. We will end with a text – Chambers’s Monk and Robot – that might more conventionally be thought of as science fiction rather than fantasy, to interrogate whether the distinction between those two genres can really hold.

First three texts / authors to be studied: Andersen, Tolkien, LeGuin

Method of instruction: Interactive lecture/discussion, with much close reading done in class.

Method of evaluation: Short tests, final essay, exam.

Does this course feature an assessed creative writing component? Yes

Course Title: Horror Literature

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

Instructor: Chris Koenig-Woodyard

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

Group n/a

Course Title: Introduction to American Literature

Course Code: ENG251H5F | Lecture M 3-4, W 3-5

Instructor: TBD

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

Group 6 American Literature

Course Title: Introduction to Canadian Literature

Course Code: ENG255H5S | Lecture T 2-3, R 1-3

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:

1. Participation 10%
2. Term Paper 30%
3. Mid-term Test 30%
4. Final exam 30%

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component? No

Course Title: Music and Literature

Course Code: ENG261H5S | Lecture M 3-5, W 3-4

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

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component? No

Course Title: Play and Games

Course Code: ENG263H5F | Lecture M 11-12 | TUT W 12-1, W 2-3

Instructor: Bruno R. Véras

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

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: Why do we play? Game designers, philosophers, sociologists, and performance theorists have long argued that play can tell us about our development as children and adults, our search for freedom, our relationship to animals, and the values and problems of our societies. This course introduces students to Play Studies and Game Studies in the humanities by considering the reasons we play in relationship to the objects we play with, including things that are more normally thought of as games—card and board games, sports, toys, video games—as well as other sites of playful thought and action, like paintings, films, and short stories. Students in this course will encounter major scholars of play and games and key terms and concepts in the analysis of play and games. We will play and design story-rich games and we will discuss effective narrative design primarily in digital games. Students will also consider problems in play and games like cheating, addiction, and gamification.

Selected Major Readings:
Huizinga, J. (1973). Homo ludens : a study of the play-element in culture. Beacon Press. Sylvester, T. (2013). Designing games : a guide to engineering experiences (First edition.). O’Reilly.
Nguyen, C. T. (2021). Games : agency as art. Oxford University Press.
Wolf, M. J. P., & Perron, B. (Eds.). (2023). The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies Mortensen, T. E. (2018). Anger, Fear, and Games: The Long Event of #GamerGate. Games and Culture, 13(8), 787–806.

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied:
Wraige, H. (2001, June 27). Dream machines. Professional Engineering, 14(12), 49–49. Ebert, R. (2010, April 16). Video games can never be art. RogerEbert.com. Deardorff, N. (2015, October 13). An argument that video games are, indeed, high art. Forbes.

Method of Instruction: In-person lecture, Seminars and 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.

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component? Yes

Course Title: Play and Games

Course Code: ENG263H5S | Lecture MF 11-12 | TUT F 12-1, F 2-3

Instructor: Bruno R. Véras

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

Group n/a

Course Title: Queer Writing

Course Code: ENG269H5S | Lecture T 6-9

Instructor: TBD

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

Group 1 Literary Theory/Methods

Course Title: Toronto's Multicultural Literatures

Course Code: ENG271H5F | Lecture T 2-3, R 1-3

Instructor: Colin Hill

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

Group 2 Race, Ethnicity, Diaspora, Indigeneity

Detailed Description by Instructor: This course explores contemporary writing by authors with strong connections to the Greater Toronto Area, one of the world’s most dynamic and multicultural regions. With an emphasis upon the diversity of voices and perspectives in literature from Canada’s most populous city and its suburbs, we will read works of fiction and poetry that explore the imaginative, creative, geographical, and personal possibilities and problems associated with life in the GTA. Our topics will include (but are not limited to) the geographic and cultural spaces comprising the GTA, the challenges facing writers who represent the region, urbanism and suburbanism, multiculturalism and diasporic experience, psychological and spiritual self-discovery, and how individual, social, cultural, regional, and national identities coexist in the place many of us consider our home.

Selected Major Readings:

Fiction and poetry by authors such as André Alexis, Margaret Atwood, Mona Awad, David Bezmozgis, Dionne Brand, Morley Callaghan, David Chariandy, Carianne Leung, Derek Mascarenhas, Rohinton Mistry, Sadi Muktadir, Téa Mutonji, Pratap Reddy, Zalika Reid-Benta, Souvankham Thammavongsa, Senna Yee, and others.

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: TBA

Method of Instruction: Lecture and discussion

Method of Evaluation:
Participation 10%
Term paper 30%
Midterm test 30%
Final exam 30%

Course Title: Literatures of Immigration & Exile

Course Code: ENG273H5S | 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: In its 2026 Global Trends report on forced displacement --an annual study that tracks the number of refugees, internally displaced persons, asylum seekers, and stateless populations worldwide --the UN Refugee Agency determined that more than 1 in every 67 people on our planet have been displaced from their homes, regions, and countries. If we include those displaced before 2024, we arrive at a total of 123.2 million people displaced by the year's end: “the largest ever increase between years according to UNHCR's statistics on forced displacement.” By comparison, 60 million people were displaced during WWII. Causes of forced displacement are often interrelated: war, civil unrest, persecution, ethnic cleansing and genocide, human trafficking and enslavement, land grabs, natural disasters, the accelerating violence of climate change, and extreme poverty from collapsing economies. Generally, political responses to contemporary crises of displacement, migration, and exile have been alarming: the mainstreaming of xenophobic nationalism, efforts to criminalize asylum seekers, “zero tolerance” policies of family separation and child incarceration, collective punishment, indefinite and/or offshore detention, and the weaponizing of humanitarian aid. Our aims in this course are: (1) to understand these crises and the political responses to them by way of their sociohistorical, literary, cinematic, documentary, and journalistic contexts and (2) to explore multiple tensions between political and literary perspectives on displacement, statelessness, immigration, and exile. If literary responses to dire circumstances of immigration and exile are frequently more solicitous than their political counterparts, what might politics learn from literature and the arts? Why are politics and literature at such loggerheads over immigration and exile? As groundwork for responding to these and other questions, our case studies will include the decrepit state of citizenship and human rights after WWII; genocidal state-sponsored pogroms in postcolonial India; brutal barriers to French citizenship for Africans; legacies of forced migration and slavery in the United States; Haiti in an era of dictatorships; violence and survival throughout the history of Canada's residential schools; and questions of citizenship and belonging arising from the Caribbean diaspora. In our discussions of these case studies and their interconnections, finer points of genre, style, and literary form will be as crucial as sociohistorical contexts and thematic content.

Selected major readings:
(1) Arendt, Hannah. “Preface to the First Edition,” “Preface to Part Two: Imperialism,” and “The Decline of the Nation-State and the End of the Rights of Man” from The Origins of Totalitarianism (Penguin Modern Classics, 2017 [1951]). 
(2) Singh, Jaspreet. Helium (Bloomsbury, 2013). We'll also read Singh's article, “Thomas Bernhard in New Delhi,” and study news clips about November 1984. 
(3) Haneke, Michael, dir. Caché (Sony, 2006). We'll also read an article on Caché and selections from works by Frantz Fanon. 
(4) Morrison, Toni. Beloved (Vintage, 2004 [1987]). 
(5) Danticat, Edwidge. The Dew Breaker (Vintage, 2002). For a deeper historical understanding of Haiti and its diaspora, we will also read journalism. 
(6) Highway, Tomson. Kiss of the Fur Queen (Anchor Canada, 2005 [1998]). We will also discuss a documentary on Canada's residential schools. 
(7) Brand, Dionne. Land to Light On in Nomenclature: New and Collected Poems (Duke University Press, 2022) and related poems. 
(8) Walcott, Derek. From Midsummer in Collected Poems, 1948-1984 (FSG, 1986).

First three texts / authors to be studied:

Arendt, "The Decline of the Nation-State and the End of the Rights of Man" from The Origins of Totalitarianism; Singh, Helium; Haneke, dir., Caché.

Method of instruction: Blended lecture and seminar discussion

Method of evaluation: Method of evaluation

Does this course feature an assessed creative writing component? No

Course Title: Bad Romance

Course Code: ENG277H5F | Lecture R 6-9

Instructor: Chris Koenig-Woodyard

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

Group n/a

Course Title: Critical Approaches to Literature

Course Code: ENG280H5S | Lecture M 11-1 | Tutorials M 1-2, M 2-3, M4-5

Instructor: Danny Wright

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

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: What does it mean to take a “critical approach” to literature, and why is it any better than just reading and thinking deeply about what you read? This question has long animated debates over the role of “theory” in the study and interpretation of literature in universities. In this course, we’ll keep these skeptical questions in mind as we undertake a survey of a variety of theoretical schools and movements that have shaped the history of literary criticism from the early twentieth century to the present, including the New Criticism; poststructuralism; Marxist theory; psychoanalytic theory; feminist, queer, and trans theory; postcolonial theory; Black studies; the New Historicism; critical AI studies; and postcritique.

Selected Major Readings: Selections drawn from the Northon Anthology of Theory and Criticism.

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: TBD

Method of Instruction: Lecture and tutorial discussion

Method of Evaluation: Writing assignments; active, engaged tutorial participation; final exam

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component? No

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 performable 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.

Selected Major Readings:
Course instructional texts and creative 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

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component? Yes

Course Title: Creative Writing

Course Code: ENG289H5S | Lecture TR 9-10 | Tutorials R 10-11, R 12-1 (ONLINE)

Instructor: TBD

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

Group n/a

Course Title: Reading for Creative Writing

Course Code: ENG291H5S | Lecture MW 1-2 | Tutorials M 2-3, M 4-5

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:
“Lend Me Your Light” (Rohinton Mistry)
“Bloodchild” (Octavia Butler)
“The Prospectors” (Karen Russell)

Method of Instruction: Lecture, discussion, tutorials

Method of Evaluation: short assignments, tests, participation

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component? Yes

Third-Year Courses

Fall Term

Winter Term

Course Title: Magical Realism

Course Code: ENG302H5F | Lecture T1-3, R 2-3

Instructor: Stanka Radovic

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

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: Magical realism is a visual and literary style that seamlessly incorporates fantastical or magical elements into realist fiction. In this way, magical realism challenges our usual expectations about reality and its representation. This course will explore the origins of magical realism in visual arts and its exciting revisions in diverse historical and cultural settings. Issues of individual and communal identity, social justice, revenge and haunting, traumatic past and collective memory, power struggles and political upheaval are all part of this literary style. We will look at paintings, read fiction and non-fiction, and consider film as productive contexts to examine the uneasy marriage between plausible reality and magical imagination. In addition, magical realism reveals the tension between the canonical and marginalized aspects of storytelling, offering a unique opportunity to explore power dynamics between western and non-western literary traditions and their articulation in postmodern and postcolonial literary contexts.

Selected Major Readings: Jorge Luis Borges “The Secret Miracle,” Maggie Ann Bowers Magic(al) Realism, Sigmund Freud “The Uncanny,” Rosario Ferré, “The Youngest Doll,” China Mieville Un Lun Dun, Ben Okri, “In the Shadow of War,” Witi Ihimaera The Whale Rider, Bessie Head Maru

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied:
Jorge Luis Borges “The Secret Miracle,” Maggie Ann Bowers Magic(al) Realism, Sigmund Freud “The Uncanny.”

Method of Instruction: Lectures and class discussions

Method of Evaluation: Class participation (15%), Assignment 1 (25%), Assignment 2 (25%), Assignment 3 (35%).

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component? No

Course Title: Modern South Asian Literature in English

Course Code: ENG310H5F | Lecture T 3-6

Instructor: Zain Mian

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

Group 2 Race, Ethnicity, Diaspora, Indigeneity

Detailed Description by Instructor: Where is home? What is home? Where does the house end and a home begin? This course explores how South Asian literature and film have answered such questions over the last century. “Home” can signify intimacy, safety, and belonging, but also desire and a lack of privacy. We will consider the entire range of meanings and emotions associated with being at home. We will also examine how the house, as a physical structure, comes to matter in narrative. What kinds of homes abide in South Asian literature, and what do they signify? How do the various components of the house, such as the courtyard, the attic, or one’s room, shape the lives of our characters? Finally, we will explore how “home” exists not as an abstract idea but has often become a politically loaded category at key moments in the history of modern South Asia.

Selected Major Readings:

1. The Country Without a Post Office by Agha Shahid Ali
2. Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag
3. Garm Hava by M. S. Sathyu
4. The Women’s Courtyard by Khadija Mastur
5. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
6. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
7. Brick Lane by Monica Ali
8. Homebound by Neeraj Ghaywan

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied:

1. The Country Without a Post Office by Agha Shahid Ali
2. “Toba Tek Singh” by Sa‘adat Hasan Manto
3. “Imaginary Homelands” by Salman Rushdie

Method of Instruction: Lectures, discussion, and in-class activities

Method of Evaluation: 
Class Engagement: 25% 
Quizzes: 20% 
Creative Assignment: 25% 
Final Exam: 30%

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component?
Optional. There is a creative assignment that can be completed by writing fiction or poetry, but this is not necessary.

Course Title: Medieval Literature

Course Code: ENG311H5S | Lecture MWF 11-12

 Instructor: Chester Scoville

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

Group 3 Literature pre-1700

Detailed Description by Instructor: The literature of the late Middle Ages is a rich field, whose best works speak across the centuries. Stories of honour, loss, isolation, friendship, hope, tragedy – all familiar human experiences come to us in medieval literature, yet framed in a series of assumptions that are not those of our modern world. Understanding how people with a very different view of the world asked and answered vital questions can help us understand our own experiences and reframe our understanding of them; the literature of the Middle Ages, though powerful in its own right, speaks to us vitally today. This course will constitute an in-depth critical selection of Middle English literature, focusing first on aspects of the language and some short textual examples, and then moving to analysis of three major texts of the 14th and 15th centuries. Previous knowledge of Middle English (such as a Chaucer course) is recommended but not required.

Selected major readings: We will consider a number of short poems and selections of longer ones, in Fulk’s textbook and anthology An Introduction to Middle English. This book will also serve as a reference guide to the language itself. We will then work in-depth with three major late-medieval texts: Pearl: Text and Translation, ed. Beal; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ed. Winny; and Malory, Le Morte DArthur: Selections, ed. Okrun

First three texts / authors to be studied: Fulk, Pearl, Sir Gawain

Method of instruction: Group discussion, with focus on in-person close reading

Method of evaluation: There will be several short writing assignments, leading up to a substantial final essay

Does this course feature an assessed creative writing component? No

Course Title: Spec. Topic in 19th Century British Literature (Oscar Wilde) 

Course Code: ENG315H5F | Lecture M12-3

 Instructor: Daniel Wright

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

Group 4 Literature 1700-1900

Detailed Description by Instructor: 
Oscar Wilde was a poet, an essayist, a lifestyle guru, a novelist, a fabulist, a playwright, an aesthete, and a celebrity whose public persona helped to shape the modern conception of gay identity. In this course, well immerse ourselves in Wilde’s wide-ranging work to understand how and why he intervened so boldly and definitively in the history of literature, culture, and sexual identity.

Wilde’s career spans the period we call the fin-de-siècle (roughly 1880-1900), the late-Victorian moment dominated by the rebellious Aesthetic Movement and its credo of “art for art’s sake.” We’ll situate Wilde’s work and public image in relation to this vibrant era and its shifting aesthetic and cultural values. While Wilde is a product of his own historical moment, his work remains immensely popular today, and so our discussion of Wilde will also attend to those aspects of his work and life that make him endlessly relevant: his epigrammatic wit; his critique of superficial norms and conventions; his avant-garde experimentalism; and his lasting position as an icon of gay history.

Selected Major Readings:

Oscar Wilde, selected poems and essays
“The Decay of Lying”
“The Portrait of Mr. W. H.”
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Lady Windermere’s Fan
Salomé
An Ideal Husband
The Importance of Being Earnest
De Profundis
“The Ballad of Reading Gaol”
Walter Pater, selections from The Renaissance
John Ruskin, “The Nature of Gothic”
William Morris, “The Lesser Arts”
Selected poems by Amy Levy and Alfred Douglas
Moisés Kaufman, Gross Indecency

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied:
Wilde, “Impression du Matin”
Wilde, “Hélas!”
Walter Pater, preface and conclusion to The Renaissance

Method of Instruction: Lecture and extensive class discussion

Method of Evaluation: Writing assignments and active, engaged participation

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component? No

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

Course Code: ENG319H5F | Lecture M 3-5, W 4-5

Instructor: Bruno R. Véras

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

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: This course investigates representation and identity in and through digital games. Students will primarily consider gender, race, sexuality, and the non-human world in relation to the complex circuits of desire, projection, and disguise that exist among players, avatars, non-player characters, and other gamers. Students will interpret and critique both blockbuster AAA games with large development budgets and production teams, as well as small-scale indie and experimental games, and will learn about expressive, critical, and avant-garde design and play practices. The class will also discuss games as instruments of persuasion, protest, social change, and community formation.

Selected Major Readings:
Egenfeldt-Nielsen, S., Tosca, S. P., & Smith, J. H. (2024). Understanding video games : the essential introduction (Fifth edition.). Routledge.
Cote, A. C. (2022). Gaming sexism : gender and identity in the era of casual video games. New York University Press.
Huntemann, N., & Payne, M. T. (Eds.). (2020). How to Play Video Games. New York University Press. https://doi.org/10.18574/9781479830404

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied:
Sefton-Green, J. (1999). Playing the Game: The Critical Study of Computer Games. Convergence (London, England), 5(4), 114–120.
Shaw, A. (2018). Are We There Yet? The Politics and Practice of Intersectional Game Studies. The Velvet Light Trap, (81), 76.
Gordon, K., & Stang, S. (2025). Weak Men and Strong Women: Portrayals of Gender-Based Violence in Tomb Raider and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Studies in the Fantastic, 19(1), 15–35.

Method of Instruction: In-person lecture, Seminars and workshops.

Method of Evaluation: In-class participation; individual and group assignments;

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component? No

Course Title: Austen and Her Contemporaries

Course Code: ENG323H5S | Lecture W 12-3

Instructor: Terry Robinson

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

Group 4 Literature 1700-1900

Detailed Description by Instructor: Austen’s novels have long been valued for their ability to offer readers respite from the tension and weight of worldly cares. With their focus on the rural and the domestic, they can seem to provide a buffer against cultural and socio-political turbulence. As a result, they are often read apart from their historical context. This class challenges such an approach. By reading a selection of Austen’s novels alongside the publications of other contemporary authors, such as Edmund Burke, Ann Radcliffe, Mary Wollstonecraft, Hannah More, Charlotte Smith, and Mary Robinson, we will situate her work within the complex literary, social, and political realities of her time.

Selected Major Readings: 
Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice + additional novels / texts

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

Method of Evaluation: TBD

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component? No

Course Title: Writing for Games and Narrative Design

Course Code: ENG328H5S | Lecture T 3-6

Instructor:  TBD

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

Group n/a

 

Course Title: Medieval Drama

Course Code: ENG330H5F | Lecture MWF 11-12

Instructor: Chester Scoville

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

Group 3 Literature pre-1700

Detailed Description by Instructor: The drama of the late Middle Ages in England is among the most sophisticated forms of pre-modern cultural expression. Drawing from the common religious culture of the medieval period as well as from the localized conditions of its production, medieval drama gives us a rare glimpse of the full range of lived experiences of its time and place. Its study is endlessly shifting and surprising, as modern scholars, actors, and audiences interpret and reinterpret the few remaining fragments of what was once a much more populated field. This course will give students an introduction to the some of its major texts and to the scholarly and dramaturgical issues that surround them.

Selected major readings: All readings will be taken from The Broadview Anthology of Medieval Drama.

First three texts / authors to be studied: Quem Quaeritis tropes; Hrotsvitha; The Play of Adam

Method of instruction: Lecture/discussion

Method of evaluation: Short written reflections; midterm test; final essay; production proposal.

Course Title: Restoration and 18th Century Literature

Course Code: ENG332H5S | Lecture T 6-9

Instructor: TBD

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

Group 4 Literature 1700-1900

Course Title: Global Indigenous Literatures

Course Code: ENG334H5S | Lecture M3-5, W3-4

Instructor: TBD

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

Group 2 Race, Ethnicity, Diaspora, Indigeneity

Course Title: Creative Writing: Spoken Word Poetry

Course Code: ENG338H5F | Lecture T1-3

Instructor: Andrea Thompson

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

Group n/a

Course Code: ENG339H5S | Early Modern Women Writers

Course Code: ENG339H5S | Lecture MWF10-11

Instructor: Sarah Star

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

Group 3 Literature pre-1700

Detailed Description by Instructor: “By God,” hopes Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, “if women had written stories, / As men have within their studies, / They would have written of men more wickedness / Than all the sex of Adam may redress.” This course demonstrates the reality behind the Wife’s fantasy, reading the stories that medieval women did write and examining their engagement with misogynistic stereotypes. We’ll read texts written by women throughout the 11th-15th centuries, encompassing genres such as chivalric romance, mystical vision, utopian allegory, and autobiography—perhaps the first autobiography written in English. These women writers transcend the themes prescribed by a masculine context, addressing topics including but not limited to consent, love, and marriage; social organization and political governance; gender and devotion; desire, animality, and humanity; institutional authority and individual resistance.

Selected Major Readings:
Marie de France, Lais
Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies
The Trial of Joan of Arc

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied:

Julian of Norwich, A Revelation of Divine Love
The Book of Margery Kempe
Hildegard of Bingen, selected writings

Method of Instruction: Lecture and discussion

Method of Evaluation: 
Written Responses
Translation Assignment
Presentation
Essay
Participation

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component? No

Course Title: Modern Drama

Course Code: ENG340H5S | Lecture MWF9-10

Instructor: Natasha Vashisht

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

Group n/a

Course Title: The Nineteenth-Century American Novel

Course Code: ENG347H5F | Lecture M 6-9

Instructor: Melissa Gniadek

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

Group 6 American Literature 

Detailed Description by Instructor: What forms did the novel take in nineteenth-century America? How did non-fictional texts intersect with evolving novelistic sub-genres and narrative expectations? In this course we’ll think about how traditions of the Gothic, the domestic, the sentimental and the sensational were deployed in novels of this period. And we’ll think about how issues of race, histories of enslavement, and the violence of settler colonialism shaped this literary and cultural production. Over the course of the semester we’ll focus on selected novels, but we’ll also read some other texts that will help to provide context for these novels. The authors that we’ll read may include Charles Brockden Brown, William Apess, Fanny Fern, Harriet Jacobs, Charles Chesnutt and Edith Wharton.

This course will provide a foundation in 19th-century American literature and history as it encourages students to think about the form of the novel across periods and nations.

Selected Major Readings: (tentative)

Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Huntly (1799) 
Fanny Fern, Ruth Hall (1854) 
Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) 
Henry James, Daisy Miller (1878) 
Charles Chesnutt, The Marrow of Tradition (1901) 
Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth (1905)

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied:

Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Huntly (1799) 
William Apess, “An Indian's Looking-Glass for the White Man” (1833) 
Fanny Fern, Ruth Hall (1854)

Method of Instruction: Lecture and discussion

Method of Evaluation: Essays; In-class writing activities; Term test; Participation and Engagement

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component? No

Course Title: Contemporary Poetry ("Ecopoetry")

Course Code: ENG349H5F | Lecture R 3-6

Instructor: Avery Slater

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

Group n/a

Course Title: Toni Morrison: Texts and Contexts

Course Code: ENG351H5S | Lecture T 9-11, R 10-11

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: The Bluest Eye, Sula, Beloved

Method of Instruction: Lectures and seminar-style discussion

Method of Evaluation: 4 in class essays and 2 revision assignments, participation

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component? No

Course Title: Canadian Drama

Course Code: ENG352H5F | Lecture MWF 9-10

Instructor: Daniela Janes

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

Group 5 Canadian Literature

Detailed Description by Instructor: : Students in this course will read a selection of Canadian drama across its history, paying attention to the material conditions of production as well as formal developments and stylistic innovations. Through our reading of an eclectic group of texts—including closet dramas, radio plays, musicals, comedies, dramas, tragedies, and tragicomedies—we will build our understanding of the shape and development of Canadian theatre. This course will reinforce disciplinary skills in close reading and literary analysis, and hone critical reading and writing skills.

Selected Major Readings:

· Most of our readings will be drawn from Jerry Wasserman, ed. Modern Canadian Plays. Vol. I. 5th Edition
· Len Peterson, Burlap Bags
· Andrea Scott, Controlled Damage
· Additional stand-alone plays will be accessed via the UTM Library and will be shared via Quercus.

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: Curzon, Denison, Ryan et al.

Method of Instruction: lecture/discussion

Method of Evaluation: low-stakes writing, tests, project, informed participation.

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component? Yes (optional)

Course Title: Caribbean Literature

Course Code: ENG356H5S | Lecture T 11-1, R 12-1

Instructor: Anna Thomas

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

Group 2 Race, Ethnicity, Diaspora, Indigeneity

Detailed Description by Instructor: A multi-lingual and multi-racial archipelago, the Caribbean has a rich literary and theoretical tradition: this course will introduce students to major figures in Caribbean Anglophone literature (including Jean Rhys, Kamau Brathwaite, George Lamming, Erna Brodber, V.S. Naipaul, Jamaica Kincaid, in addition to some texts read in English translation (including Aimé Cesaire, Alejo Carpentier, Maryse Condé, Marie Vieux Chauvet)

Selected Major Readings: V.S Naipaul A House for Mr Biswas, Jamaica Kincaid The Autobiography of My Mother, Tiffanie Yanique Land of Love and Drowning.

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: “History of Mary Prince,” Sylvia Wynter “Novel and History: Plot and Plantation,”selection V.S. Naipaul Miguel Street

Method of Instruction: Lecture, group discussion

Method of Evaluation: In class essays, take home revision assignment, creative project.

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component? No

Course Title: Spec. Top. Lit. Theory (AI)

Course Code: ENG372H5F | Lecture R 9-12

Instructor: Avery Slater

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

Group 1 Literary Theory/Methods

Course Title: Creative Writing: Poetry 

Course Code: ENG373H5F LEC0101 | Lecture F 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: ENG373H5S LEC0101 | Lecture T 1-3 (Online)

Instructor: TBD

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

Group n/a

Course Title: Creative Writing: Prose 

Course Code: ENG374H5F LEC0101 | Lecture M 5-7 (Online)

Instructor: TBD

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

Group n/a

Course Title: Creative Writing: Prose

Course Code: ENG374H5S | Lecture W 5-7 

Instructor: TBD

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

Group n/a

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

Course Code: ENG378H5S | M 3-5

Instructor: TBD

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

Group n/a

Course Title: Digital Texts

Course Code: ENG381HS | Lecture R 3-5

Instructor: TBD

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

Group n/a

Course Title: British Romanticism, 1770-1800

Course Code: ENG385HF | Lecture W 6-9

Instructor: Dan White

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

Group 4 Literature 1700-1900

Detailed Description by Instructor: This course provides a general survey of the poetry and prose of the early part of the Romantic period. You will thus become familiar with the astonishing literary output of William Cowper, Anna Barbauld, Ottobah Cugoano, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Jane Austen, among others. Subjects to be explored will include new ideas about the imagination and creativity, the revolutions that gave birth to our modern political order, slavery and the transatlantic movement to abolish the slave trade, the expansion of the British Empire, the advent of feminist thought and the emergence of women writers as a major cultural force, and the radical experiments with literary form through which writers responded to and shaped the cultural, social, and political developments of their age.

Selected major readings: Poetry and prose by J. Austen, A.L. Barbauld, W. Blake, E. Burke, S.T. Coleridge, W. Cowper, O. Cugoano, F. Jeffrey, H. More, T. Paine, C. Smith, H.M. Williams, M. Wollstonecraft, and W. Wordsworth

First three texts / authors to be studied: Selections by John Locke, Edmund Burke, William Gilpin, to be followed by poems of sensibility (by Hannah More, Helen Maria Williams, William Cowper)

Method of instruction: Lecture and discussion

Method of evaluation: TBD

Does this course feature an assessed creative writing component? No

Course Title: British Romanticism, 1800-1830

Course Code: ENG386HS | Lecture T 1-3, R 2-3

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 11-1, R 11-12

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, psychological and spiritual self-discovery, various “schools” of Canadian literary theory, the future of Canada, 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. Hugh MacLennan, Two Solitudes
2. Margaret Atwood, Surfacing
3. Michael Ondaatje, In the Skin of a Lion
4. André Alexis, Days by Moonlight
5. Emily St. John Mandel, Sea of Tranquility
6. Souvankham Thammavongsa, Pick a Colour

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

Method of Instruction: Lecture / discussion

Method of Evaluation:
1. Participation 10%
2. Term Paper 30%
3. Mid-term Test 30%
4. Final exam 30%

Course Title: American Literature 1900 to the Present

Course Code: ENG395HS | Lecture W 6-9

Instructor: TBD

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

Group 6 American Literature

Fourth-Year Courses

Fall Term

  • ENG411H5F Internship in Game Studies
  • ENG424H5F Seminar: Canadian Literature: "Suburban Literatures in Canada"
  • ENG435H5F Seminar: American Literature: "Quilting Bee: African American Literature & Textile Art"
  • ENG489H5Y Creative Writing Workshop

Winter Term

  • ENG471H5S Seminar: Literature 1700-1900: "Melodrama & More!"
  • ENG472H5S Seminar: Modern and Contmporary Lit: "Doubles & Dopplegangers"

Course Title: Internship in Game Studies

Course Code: ENG411H5F | Lecture W 1-3

Instructor: Lawrence Switzky

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

Group n/a

Course Title: Sem: Can. Lit. ("Suburban Literatures in Canada")

Course Code: ENG424H5F | Lecture T 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 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:

Mona Awad, Michelle Berry, David Bezmozgis, David Chariandy, Douglas Coupland, Kelli Deeth, Barbara Gowdy, Andrea Gunraj, Catherine Hernandez, Uzma Jallaluddin, Carrianne Leung, Derek Mascaranas, Rohinton Mistry, Tea Mutonji, Kenneth Radu, Sarah Selecky, Souvankham Thammavongsa, Halli Villegas, and possibly others.

Secondary sources include short readings by some or all of the following:

Nishanthan Balasubramaniam, Christopher Cheung, Cheryl Cowdy, Judith De Jong, Richard Harris, Rupa Huq, 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 15%
Short Presentation 20%
Term paper 40%
Midterm Writing Assignment 25%

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component? No.

Course Title: Sem: American Lit. ("Quilting Bee: African American Literature & Textile Art") 

Course Code: ENG435H5F | Lecture R 9-11

Instructor: Anna Thomas

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

Group 6 American Literature

Detailed Description by Instructor: When is a quilt a story? What narrative threads can we read in textiles? Throughout African American history, stories have been told through patchwork, from communicating plans for escape to recording family histories. From this history, in both literature and textile art, authors and artists have engaged with quilts as a rich and narrative art form. Simultaneously, the making of quilts has been a community and activist practice. This seminar will both study and enact some of the practices of textile arts, incorporating experiential components of quilting as a collective mode of study while surveying the presence of textiles in African American literature from the 19th-21st centuries.

Selected Major Readings: The Color Purple, Alice Walker; Home, Toni Morrison

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied: the initial classes will focus on reading the language of quilts and acquiring basic skills of quilting alongside short readings, tbd. No previous experience necessary!

Method of Instruction: Seminar discussion around a quilting frame

Method of Evaluation: Participation, including participation in group quilting project, seminar facilitation, creative project, research paper

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component? No

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

Course Code: ENG471H5S | Lecture F 1-3

Instructor:  Terry Robinson

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

Group 4 Literature 1700-1900

Detailed Description by Instructor: Melodrama dominated Western stages for over 100 years. This offers an exciting opportunity to learn about this popular and influential theatrical genre—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 major authors such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Holcroft, and Ira Aldridge. 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 and consider why it is that melodrama maintains its cultural hold on us even to this day.

Selected Major Readings: A Tale of Mystery!, The Captive, The Miller & His Men, Bluebeard, Presumption; or, the Fate of Frankenstein, The Black Doctor, and more!

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied:

· Jean-Jacques Rousseau
· Thomas Holcroft
· Isaac Pocock

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

Method of Evaluation: TBD

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component? No

Course Title: Sem: Modern and Contemporary Lit: "Brontë and Ishiguro" 

Course Code: ENG472H5S| Lecture T 11-1

Instructor:  Stanka Radovic

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

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: In horror literature, feelings of fear and dread serve to raise important questions about the nature of our reality and how we tend to perceive it. Most significantly, horror fiction introduces supernatural, monstrous, mysterious, and uncanny narrative elements to challenge the readers’ aesthetic expectations and intellectual certainties. In this course, we will explore the story of the double, or the “doppelgänger,” to confront and ultimately question what it means to have an identity and what happens if that identity falls apart by being replicated or doubled. From the canonical 19th century gothic narrative to the more contemporary neo-gothic alternatives, we will follow the evolution of one of the most enduring horror devices – the self that becomes the other.

Selected Major Readings:
“William Wilson” (1839), Edgar Allan Poe
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), Robert Louis Stevenson
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), Oscar Wilde
“Charles” (1948), Shirley Jackson
“Zone of Terror” (1960), J.G. Ballard
“The Continuity of Parks” (1964), Julio Cortázar
Coraline (2002), Neil Gaiman
“Rest Stop” (2003), Stephen King
Us (2019) directed by Jordan Peele

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied:

“William Wilson” (1839), Edgar Allan Poe
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), Robert Louis Stevenson
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), Oscar Wilde

Method of Instruction: Lectures and class discussions

Method of Evaluation: 
Class participation (15%), Note-taking (5%), Essay 1 (20%), Essay 2 (25%), Essay 3 (35%)

Does your course feature an assessed creative writing component? No

Course Title: Creative Writing Workshop

Course Code: ENG489H5Y| Lecture T 6-8

Instructor:  Richard Greene

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

Group n/a

Detailed Description by Instructor: A workshop in writing fiction and poetry. Students will be expected to write poetry (in strict forms and free verse) and narrative prose. They will submit their work on a regular basis for group discussion. Admission to the course is limited. Students should submit a portfolio of their best creative writing (not academic essays) in advance of registration, and the professor will choose those most likely to benefit from the work-shop.

Selected Major Readings:
William Strunk and E.B White, The Elements of Style.
David Lodge, The Art of Fiction.

First Three Texts/Authors to be Studied:
William Strunk and E.B White, The Elements of Style.
David Lodge, The Art of Fiction.

Method of Instruction: 
Seminar and discussion.

Method of Evaluation:
Tests and small assignments 20%
Journal 20% 
Class participation 10% 
Portfolio submitted at the end of the course 50%.

Does this course feature an assessed creative writing component? Yes