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Undergraduate English Courses 2024-25
For the most up-to-date information about courses, including classroom locations, check LORIS Browse Classes.
Online Learning Resources
Ask your instructors for recommended specialized web resources related to their courses.
Laurier Library
You have access to a large collection of research materials (books, articles, films, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and more) through the Laurier Library. Many of these materials are online.
For quick access, check out the English Guide.
Contact the English Librarian for more information: Meredith Fischer (mefischer@wlu.ca).
Sample Online Resources
Fall 2024
100-Level Courses
This course examines works in a variety of literary periods and genres (fiction, plays, poetry, graphic novels and others) on the topics of crime and criminality, with the intent of introducing students to literature addressing themes of surveillance, law-breaking, justice, suspense, villainy, violence, espionage, true crime, civil disobedience, and/or imprisonmen
This course examines works in a variety of literary periods and genres (that may include fiction, drama, poetry, graphic novels and others) on the topic of love in any of its forms. The course will introduce students to the basic practices of literary study at the university level while exploring various ways that this fundamental set of human emotions has been represented in literature.
In addition to the lecture, students are required to attend a tutorial. All tutorials begin in Week 2.
200- and 300-Level Courses
These courses are all available to students in Years 2, 3, and 4.
A study of the representation of the "African" child in Western and African literature, film and cultural production. Special emphasis will be placed on teen/young adult novels, and on topics related to education and pedagogy. This course fulfills the "multicultural" component needed for admission to most Ontario teacher's colleges.
Exclusion: EN209j
A study of representative tragedies and history plays, with an emphasis on their dramatic, theatrical and cultural contexts.
Exclusions: EN232, EN351
This course examines the development of the fairy tale genre from its origins to contemporary adaptations. It explores a range of representative texts in their social and historical contexts, and draws on a variety of critical approaches.
Exclusion: EN209r
An intensive exploration of the major fictional works of J.R.R. Tolkien. The works of other writers of fantasy, such as J.K. Rowling and C.S. Lewis, may also be considered.
Exclusion: EN309t
An introduction to the theory and practice of literary criticism, with a focus on practical experience in close reading, applying theoretical insights to a small group of texts, and developing skills that orient our critical minds beyond reading for content alone, and towards analysis and interpretation. Fulfills 0.5 credit theory requirement for BA Hon. English.
Exclusion: EN110
Introduces students to some of the significant literary works and the principal historical periods of British Literature, dating from the eighth century up to the Romantic Period (circa 1800). Students learn to situate literary works within their historical contexts and to trace patterns of influence and ideas across various periods. The course also introduces students to some of the important forms of literature, e.g., epic, lyric, tragedy, satire. Possible authors for study include Chaucer, Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, Pope, Defoe, and Austen.
Exclusions: EN122, EN244
This course will introduce students to the practice of creative writing and literary analysis by reading short fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction as models for students' creative writing. The course will include an ongoing discussion of how to read like a writer, and will explore literary genres and creative methods with opportunities for writing practice in short assignments designed to broaden students' skills and abilities. The dual guiding principles of the course will be examination of how language works in written forms and compositional experimentation with a variety of writing styles.
An introduction to the rapidly growing body of literature by Indigenous authors, in dialogue with their social, political and historical contexts. This course is designed to appeal to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students, and includes a range of genres such as songs, poems, novels, short stories, graphic novels, government legislation, and videogames.
An introduction to the history, development, and forms of graphic narratives (non-fiction and fiction) with close attention to the relationship between image and text. Students will learn basic terminology from comics studies and read examples of genres of long- form graphic novels, such as documentary, autobiographical, pathographic, Bildungsroman, queer memoirs, and YA lit.
An exploration of literature produced for young adults, with emphasis on texts since the 1960s. Students will attend to a range of cultural and literary topics, including genre, history, representations of adolescence and adulthood, central themes, social issues, and approaches to reading and interpretation. Other topics may include mass culture, film adaptation, seriality and censorship.
A study of prose, poetry, drama, and fiction-theory addressing matters of gender and sexuality, ethnicity, race and class in Canada, past and present.
Exclusion: EN309r
A study of British literature in the first half of the twentieth century with a focus on Modernist experimentation in poetry and prose. Authors to be discussed could include Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, W. B. Yeats, and T. S. Eliot.
This course will provide students with a solid foundation in narrative and adaptation theory, as well as an introduction to gaming theory.
Exclusion: EN309k
Critical study of significant literary interventions in the cultural formation of Victorian England (1830-1860). In particular we examine the responses of novelists, poets and other writers to emerging issues of social power and conformity, individual liberty, "progress," industrialism, imperialism, gender and class. The literary treatment of these concerns is explored in relation to developments in genre and narrative form, to emerging mass readerships, and to theories of literature as "a criticism of life." Authors often selected for study include Arnold, Alfred Tennyson, Charlotte and Emily Bronte, Elizabeth and Robert Browning, Elizabeth Gaskell, John Ruskin and Charles Dickens.
Exclusions: EN230, EN257
400-Level Seminars
These courses are available to Year 4 majors in Honours and Combined Honours English.
The ‘Caribbean’ evokes images of eternal sunshine, white sand beaches, and holiday dream-scapes. But look again, beyond the tourist’s camera, and you will find one of the most culturally diverse populations and vibrant literary traditions in the Americas. In our consideration of an innovative range of literatures from island-nations such as Jamaica and Trinidad, we will examine the Caribbean author’s unique ‘island’ sensibility against the backdrop of a simultaneously beautiful and haunted landscape linked to the history of slavery and indenture.
Popular culture has been theorized as a feminine and feminizing construct; Andreas Huyssen, for
example, in After the Great Divide, suggests that the division between “high” and “low” art was
always in fact a gendered one, with popular forms enacting an equation between femininity, mass
production, and “cheap and easy pleasure.” At the same time, the material conditions of popular
cultural production have meant that women have been both inadequately and under-represented, with
popular culture itself serving as an especially effective tool for the continuing oppression of women.
This course will explore such popular culture forms as pulp fiction, film, advertising and “mall
culture,” music videos, cyberculture, and toys for girls. While established feminist critiques of
popular culture texts and practice will provide our theoretical groundwork, we will also be engaged
with emergent studies which propose and plot sites of resistance within popular culture.
Winter 2025
100-Level Courses
This course examines works in a variety of literary periods and genres (fiction, plays, poetry, graphic novels and others) on the topic of catastrophe, with the intent of introducing students to literature addressing catastrophe in the forms of conflict, apocalypse, dystopia, disaster, and others.
In addition to the lecture, students are required to attend a tutorial. All tutorials begin in Week 2.
An intensive reading course that introduces students to the elements of literature and literary analysis through a variety of approaches and texts (fiction, poetry, drama and prose) from different historical periods and cultural contexts.
In addition to the lecture, students are required to attend a tutorial. All tutorials begin in Week 2.
200- and 300-Level Courses
These courses are all available to students in Years 2, 3, and 4.
A historical and/or critical study of children's literature in English from the Golden Age (1860-1910) to around 1960. Possible emphases include formal literary analysis, the social and cultural significance of works written for (or adopted by) children, and relationships between image and text in illustrated books
This course explores the literary movement and cultural practices of the relatively recent and still evolving genre of Steampunk. We begin with the foundational movement of punk music and fashion, both as an aesthetic and political ideal, and then consider the defining features, cultural origins, and popularity of steampunk as a literary genre. In particular, we will explore the meaning of counter-cultures which subsequently move to the mainstream and become popular genres for transmedial storytelling. Texts may include The Difference Engine (Bruce Sterling and William Gibson); Boneshaker (Cherie Priest); The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (graphic novel and/or film); The Golden Compass (Philip Pullman); Howl’s Moving Castle (Hayao Miyazaki); Full Metal Alchemist (TV series); Bioshock (video game); and Mortal Engines (Philip Reeve)
This course will explore a selection of vampire novels within their cultural contexts. We will pay particular attention to the ways in which representations of the vampire reflect specific anxieties and issues involving, as examples, race and empire, eschatology, social/political decay, gender roles, and sexuality. Some discussion of the literary genres of gothic fiction and horror literature will be included. Scenes from film versions of the texts will be shown and discussed. Students should be prepared for a significant reading load.
This course studies a variety of texts from various historical periods that deal with issues of law, justice, punishment, crime, and power.
Focuses on literature produced in the United States in the latter part of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Through a study of poems, plays, and fiction, the course will examine literary figures such as Toni Morrison, David Foster Wallace, Louise Erdrich, Lydia Davis, and Jhumpa Lahiri, and discusses recent trends in movements such as Postmodernism, Multiculturalism, the literature of 9/11, the graphic novel, and digital literature.
A study of the influences and relationships between written/printed/literary texts and other media. Topics may include analysis of stage and film adaptations; the re-imagining of literary works for television, video, and digital audiences; and the reworking of printed texts in paintings, photography, radio documentaries, music, and other popular forms.
An introduction to the theory and practice of literary criticism, with a focus on practical experience in close reading, applying theoretical insights to a small group of texts, and developing skills that orient our critical minds beyond reading for content alone, and towards analysis and interpretation. Fulfills 0.5 credit theory requirement for BA Hon. English.
Exclusion: EN110
A study of contemporary Canadian and American literature by and about ethnic/racial minority groups or migrant communities, in light of official policies and representations of multiculturalism and diversity. Focusing primarily on Caribbean, Latin American and Middle Eastern perspectives, the course will explore a range of genres (e.g., fiction, poetry, drama, memoir and essay) and topics pertaining to migration, citizenship, ethnicity and culture.
This course will introduce students to the practice of creative writing and literary analysis by reading short fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction as models for students' creative writing. The course will include an ongoing discussion of how to read like a writer, and will explore literary genres and creative methods with opportunities for writing practice in short assignments designed to broaden students' skills and abilities. The dual guiding principles of the course will be examination of how language works in written forms and compositional experimentation with a variety of writing styles.
A study of traditional and current issues in the theory of criticism and literary history. The theoretical approaches to be examined normally include historicism, formalism, structuralism, psychoanalytical criticism, feminism, deconstruction, post-colonialism, Marxism and cultural studies.
Exclusion: EN291
A study of influential 19th- and 20th-century dramatists, with an emphasis on tracing experiments in dramatic form such as realism, expressionism, and epic theatre. Playwrights include Ibsen, Brecht, Williams, and Beckett.
An examination of current human rights discourse through a variety of cultural forms (e.g., literature, film, visual arts, Webmedia, music, legal documents, etc.), in a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary perspective (e.g., religion, law, philosophy, media). Human rights addressed may include civil and political rights (imprisonment, torture, censorship), economic, social and cultural rights (women's, children's, refugee rights, modern slavery, environmental rights), genocide, conflict resolution, humanitarianism and activism. Note: Some works may be subtitled or read in translation.
- Exclusion: EN309z
A study of fictional and non-fictional narratives published in Britain in the 21st century with attention to their literary, historical, socio-political, and cultural contexts.
Exclusion: EN309s
The 18th century is the first era in which the novel becomes both a popular and professional practice. Many authors capitalized on commercially viable topics, such as sex, scandal, crime, and shopping. Many also wrestled with philosophical and political themes, and an apparent war of extremes – sense and sensibility, science and religion, order and revolution. The novel took many forms in this period, including "true history," memoir, travel fiction, adventure and survival, comic romance, and the gothic.
By the time the British Empire had reached its zenith in the late 19th century, the imperial enterprise also exerted a powerful hold on the British literary and cultural imagination. In this course, we will read a diverse range of narratives, mainly from the nineteenth century, from adventure stories to detective fiction, in an attempt to unearth the myths, ideologies and unfolding constructs of Empire. We will look at empire as it is imagined at home and abroad, from the female and male writer's perspective, as part of the unconscious workings of the literary imagination and as an extension of the critical apparatus of imperial rule.
Structure, plot, diction and characterization will be explored through writing and reading short stories.
Exclusion: EN331
400-Level Seminars
These courses are available to Year 4 majors in Honours and Combined Honours English.
Emerging from contemporary discussions of literature’s function in a planet in crisis, “hopepunk” is a new term for an old problem: how to resist stasis and embrace the movement of hope and rebellion. Coined by novelist Alexandra Rowland in 2017, hopepunk is upheld by the twin pillars of care and bravery, and powered by the punk spirit of defying ascendant inhumane power structures. Moving away from “grimdark” fiction where social connections are regulated and often forbidden, hopepunk takes up radical resistance, with an emphasis on ethical imperative and a refusal of what Lauren Berlant has called “cruel optimism.” This course will feature critical works by Berlant, Sara Ahmed, Rebecca Solnit, Donna Haraway, and Tricia Hersey as well as hopepunk texts by authors such as Nalo Hopkinson, Cherie Dimaline, Waubgeshig Rice, Ursula K. Leguin, and Laura Jean MacKay.
The course will examine selected poetry by Thomas Hardy and three of his novels: Far from the Madding Crowd, The Woodlanders, and Tess of the d’Urbervilles. The poems to be discussed are: “Hap,” “Nature’s Questioning,” “In Tenebris II,” “During Wind and Rain,” “At Castle Boterel,” “The Pine Planters (Mary South’s Reverie),” “The Ruined Maid,” “Tess’s Lament,” “Neutral Tones,” “Shelley’s Skylark,” “The Darkling Thrush,” “The Convergence of the Twain,” “Drummer Hodge,” “Channel Firing,” “In Time of ‘The Breaking of Nations’,” and “He Resolves to Say No More.” We will also briefly discuss Thomas Gray’s poem “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” and Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “To a Skylark.” Themes to be explored will include the Victorian crisis of faith, gender roles, Victorian ecology, Victorian realism and sensationalism, tragedy and the novel, and the transition to modernism.