Undergraduate Courses
Undergraduate Courses 2013-2014
First Year | Second Year | Third and Fourth Year | Honours Seminars | Drama Projects
Proposed Courses 2014-2015
First-Year Courses
The following courses (except Honours seminars) are not restricted to students specializing in English. Students specializing in other departments or faculties are always welcome in our other English courses as well. If you have any questions about the suitability of a particular course for your interests please feel free to call either the Director of First and Second Year, the Co-Directors of Majors and Honours, or the Department Chair for more information.
1000 Introduction to Modern Literature in English
6 Credit Hours
Full Year: MWF 9:30/11:30/1:30; TTh 10:00-11:20/2:30-3:50
Instructors: J. Andrews, M. Rimmer, R. Martin, D. Tryphonopoulos
Co-ordinator: M. Rimmer
This course introduces students to the imaginatively diverse and fascinating range of literary works written in English, primarily from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including short stories, essays, poems, plays, and novels. Being closest in time to our present-day reality, these works demonstrate most directly how literature helps us to deepen and clarify aspects of our lives which we have never been able to recognize fully or articulate consciously. It opens up new understandings about societies and histories beyond our own local time and place, thereby allowing us to explore the relationships and differences among them. It teaches us what it means to be human, and possibly the ways to become wise. As well, this course provides students with an opportunity to improve their practical skills in critical reading and written analysis; a substantial portion of the course is devoted to improving writing skills. All undergraduates will find the course useful, and it is particularly recommended for potential Majors and Honours students. The selection of texts will vary according to section. Students will write a minimum of two essays a term amounting to 4000-5000 words in total for the year. Additional writing exercises may be assigned. The final grade is calculated on term work and written assignments, a December test (two hours), and a final examination (three hours).
1103 Fundamentals of Clear Writing
3 Credit Hours
1st Term: T/W: 6:00-8:50
2nd Term: T: 6:00-8:50 Instructor: TBA
A study of the basic principles of clear prose writing, focusing on essay structure and organization, paragraph structure, sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, and word choice, as well as revising and proofreading. Students will submit numerous written assignments.
1144 Reading and Writing Non-Fiction Prose
3 Credit Hours
2nd Term: MW 8:30 & one tutorial (Th 2:30 or F 8:30) Instructor: TBA
This course studies contemporary and earlier non-fiction prose models, looking at various techniques that make these essays effective. By examining essays and writing their own, students will work to improve their critical, analytical, and writing skills. The course will have two lectures and one tutorial per week. There will be some emphasis on basic mechanics, but as part of larger rhetorical issues and argumentative strategies, not by themselves. Tutorials use exercises and discussions to assist this development. Students will write three 500-600 word essays, to be marked by the tutorial instructor. The term mark of 50% will depend largely on a student’s performance in these essays, but contributions to tutorial discussion may be taken into account. Attendance is mandatory at all tutorials. A final examination (50%) will deal with the material covered in the lectures, although considerable emphasis will be placed on the ability to write effectively and to analyse prose.
1145 An Introduction to Prose Fiction
3 Credit Hours
1st Term: MW 8:30 & one tutorial (Th 2:30 or F 8:30) Instructor: TBA
This course offers an introduction to fiction through a general analysis of the theories and conventions of narrative and discussions of relevant thematic, historical, and cultural topics. Each section will study a range of short stories, and perhaps one or two novels, written from the nineteenth century to the present. There will be two lectures and one tutorial per week, with the tutorial devoted to improving writing skills. Students will write three 500-600 word essays, to be marked by the tutorial instructor. The term mark of 50% will depend largely on a student’s performance in these essays, but contributions to tutorial discussion may also be taken into account. Attendance is mandatory at all tutorials. A final examination (50%) will deal with the material covered in the lectures, although considerable emphasis will be placed on the ability to write effectively.
1173 Introduction to Acting and Performance
3 Credit Hours
1st Term: TTh 1:00-2:20 Instructor: TBA
This is a half-year course in the fundamentals of acting suitable for actors at all skill levels, from beginners to experienced performers. The course is also designed to be of value to anyone who wishes to become more poised at public speaking and in presentations.
Instruction will cover the basics of voice, movement, improvisation, script analysis, and monologue and scene work. Students will complete a number of performance assignments individually and in groups, culminating in a final performance project. The emphasis throughout the course will be on enjoyable, participatory, and active learning designed to make students better and more confident stage performers.
Written work for the class will consist of journal assignments. In lieu of written exams, students will be graded primarily on their performance pieces. Because of the participation-centred nature of the course, attendance at all classes is mandatory and some rehearsal time will be required outside of regular class hours.
Cross-listed as DRAM 1173.
Second-Year Courses
The following courses are not restricted to students specializing in English. Students specializing in other departments or faculties are always welcome in our other English courses as well. If you have any questions about the suitability of a particular course for your interests please feel free to call either the Director of First and Second Year, the Co-Directors of Majors and Honours, or the Department Chair for more information.
2170 Principles of Drama Production
6 Credit Hours
Full Year: MW 2:30-3:50 Instructor: J. Ball/L. Falkenstein
This course offers a hands-on opportunity to learn the many different aspects of theatrical production. Along with instruction in the fundamentals of voice, movement, acting, and technical theatre, the company formed by course members mounts two productions (one at the end of each term) under the direction of the instructor. Students are encouraged to develop a well-rounded repertoire of theatrical skills, including acting, stage management, publicity, design, set and props building, painting, audio, makeup and costumes.
Like any theatrical activity, this course is collaborative and makes special demands while offering unique rewards to students. It insists on the full and enthusiastic participation of all students. Time demands can be heavy (two ninety-minute classes per week, plus extra rehearsals and workshops outside class time), and attendance at all class sessions is mandatory. Students will be evaluated primarily on their participation in class and contributions to the course as a whole, as well as on written work consisting of journal writing, play reviews, and two mid-terms. There is no final exam for the course. The reward for hard work is the thrill and fun of collective accomplishment. The textbooks will be announced on the first day of classes.
Cross-listed as DRAM 2170.
2195 Introduction to Creative Writing: Poetry and Drama
3 Credit Hours
1st Term: M 2:30-5:30 Instructor: T. Finlay
This course offers an introduction to the writing of poetry and drama, with a focus on basic technique, style, and form. The course combines writing exercises and lectures on the elements of writing, but also introduces the workshop method, by which students provide critiques of each other’s work and develop editorial skills. Starting with the writing of drama, we will develop skills in metaphor, imagery, stanzaic pattern, sound and diction. There will be some assigned readings. Students will hand in an original monologue, a dialogue, a one-act play, and six original poems. Students will also do an in-class presentation, keep a reading journal throughout the term, and pass in a writing portfolio (containing the term’s work) in the last class. There is no final exam.
2196 Introduction to Creative Writing: Fiction and Screenwriting
3 Credit Hours
2nd Term: M 2:30-5:30 Instructor: M. Jarman
This course gives students the opportunity to develop their story-writing skills, as well as to apply techniques of narrative to the writing of screenplays. At times students will bring their own work to be read and discussed by classmates and the instructor. The instructor will provide guidance and some background on literary concerns relevant to the students’ work. This should provide skills in editing and revising, and an openness to different kinds of writing. The course involves assigned readings. Texts include The Seagull Reader (short fiction), On Directing Film, and American Beauty (The Shooting Script). The method of instruction includes class discussion of texts (fiction and a screenplay) and workshopping. Students will write one short story and one short screenplay. There are two quizzes. There is no final examination.
2608 Introduction to Contemporary Canadian Literature
3 Credit Hours
2nd Term: MWF 10:30 Instructor: T. Finlay
In this course, we will examine Canadian literature—in multiple genres—from the past two decades. Beginning with Dionne Brand’s ground-breaking poetry, we will study representative works by such diverse authors as Ken Babstock, Lori Lansens, Eden Robinson, and Shyam Selvadurai. For each text under discussion, we will combine close reading strategies with a consideration of social, political, and cultural contexts.
We will also grapple with issues of national identity and the Canadian “canon” while exploring the difficulty of defining what is Canadian Literature. Students in the course will hone their critical thinking and writing skills while gaining a deeper knowledge of, and appreciation for, Canadian literature in many of its permutations. Assignments for the course include an in-class test, a presentation, two essays, and a final exam.
2901 A Survey of English Literature to 1660
3 Credit Hours
1st Term: MWF 9:30 Instructor: TBA
1st Term: MWF 11:30 Instructor: C. Canitz
This course provides an overview of English literature from the early Middle Ages to the end of the Renaissance. In addition to studying selected works by authors such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton, you will also get a taste of other writers active during the earlier periods of the English literary tradition. The chronological organization of the course will enable you to gain insight into the development of some of the central traditions and conventions of English literature as well as the relationship of each work to its cultural, intellectual, and historical context. The course usually includes poetry, drama, and prose. This course is required for the English Major and Honours programmes. A grade of C or higher in ENGL 1000 (or equivalent) is a prerequisite.
The required primary texts for this course will be The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 9th edition, vol. 1; additional texts may be announced at the beginning of classes. The final grade will be based on two essays and a three-hour final exam, along with any other elements required in a specific section.
2902 A Survey of English Literature from 1660-1900
3 Credit Hours
2nd Term: MWF 9:30 Instructor: TBA
2nd Term: MWF 11:30 Instructor: D. Austin
This course examines a wide range of texts in English literature written between 1660 and the end of the Victorian period. Religious, political, economic, and social turbulence is the backdrop for various forms of literary expression and experiment, so looking at the works in their historical contexts offers fascinating insights into the texts and their times. This course provides a survey of English literary traditions crucial to potential Honours and Major students and is required for the English major and Honours programmes. Much of the literature studied is poetry, but the course may also include representative samples of essays, prose fiction, and drama from the periods under consideration. A grade of C or higher in ENGL 1000 (or equivalent) is a prerequisite.
The required primary text for this course is The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 9th edition (vols. 1 and 2); in addition, a novel may be assigned by the instructor. The final grade will be based on two essays and a three-hour final examination, along with any other elements required in a specific section.
2909 International Film History
3 Credit Hours
2nd Term: TTh 2:30-3:45 w/ screenings T 6:00-8:00
Instructor: R. Gray
This class is designed as a survey of film history. Due to time constraints, however, we will have a chance to explore only certain film styles, historical periods, film auteurs, and national cinemas. Here the emphasis is not on a single (hi)story, but rather a range of historical frameworks (aesthetic, technological, economic, social, cultural) which inevitably privilege certain film practices and exclude others. Each of these discourses is bound to tell a different “story” for the development of film as an art form and as a medium. It is the purpose of this class to introduce you to major phases in the development of film as an international art: we will watch and discuss films from all over the world and consider how various national cinemas have imitated, resisted, appropriated, or transformed Hollywood’s cinematic codes.
Cross-listed as FILM 2909.
Third- and Fourth-Year Courses
The following courses are not restricted to students specializing in English. Students specializing in other departments or faculties are always welcome in our other English courses as well. If you have any questions about the suitability of a particular course for your interests please feel free to call either the Director of First and Second Year, the Co-Directors of Majors and Honours, or the Department Chair for more information.
3083 Literary Theory and Critical Practice
3 Credit Hours
2nd Term: MWF 1:30 Instructor: S. Schryer
This course introduces students to a range of critical approaches used by literary and cultural critics to make sense of the world in which we live and the books that we read. Some of the literary and cultural theorists we will discuss include: Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Ferdinand de Saussure, Mikhail Bakhtin, Jacques Lacan, Roland Barthes, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Edward Said, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and Judith Butler. Throughout, we will explore how these theorists’ ideas might be relevant to practical interpretation. To this end, we will apply various critical perspectives to a single novel. We will also consider the limitations of each theory and explore how these approaches complement or contest one another. The course is intended to equip students with a critical vocabulary for discussing literature; a large part of the class will therefore be devoted to student debate and discussions.
Note: This course is compulsory for students doing Honours in English.
3123 Creative Writing: Poetry
3 Credit Hours
2nd Term: W 2:30-5:30 Instructor: R. Leckie
This is an advanced course in the writing of poetry. Students learn the craft of poetry, working on imagery and metaphor, rhythm and sound pattern, the sentence and the line, the line break, speaking voice, and structure and form. The class will run as a workshop, developing a friendly, engaging and trusting environment in which students provide constructive criticism and editing of each other’s writing. There will be class discussions on the formal elements of poetry and the traditions from which various kinds of poetry emerge. Poetry texts are assigned to learn technique from established poets. Reading of poetry books of particular interest to individual students will be assigned for the keeping of a writing journal. Students will be expected to attend some poetry readings. Classes will include workshops, writing exercises, and lectures. The final grade will be based on a portfolio of creative writing and revisions, a writer’s reading journal on assigned texts, and written critiques of other students’ writing when assigned. There is no final examination.
3143 Creative Writing: Short Fiction
3 Credit Hours
1st Term: W 2:30-5:30 Instructor: M. Jarman
This workshop allows students to advance their skills in writing, editing, and revising fiction. Students can refine stories they’ve already started and worked on. Students should be writing before the class begins.
Most of our time will be spent workshopping writing by members of the class. There is no final examination for this course.
3170 Advanced Drama Production
6 Credit Hours
Full Year: TTh 2:30-3:50 Instructor: L. Falkenstein w/Tech: TBA
This course builds on the work completed in DRAM/ENGL 2170 “Drama Production” and entry into it is normally restricted to students who have credit for DRAM/ENGL 2170, an equivalent course at another institution, or other advanced drama production experience. DRAM/ENGL 3170 is a project-based course that offers students advanced instruction and practice in improvisation, script analysis, performance, and technical theatre, along with an introduction to the fundamentals of directing for the stage. Students will participate in the staging of one or two mainstage productions for the Theatre UNB season and one smaller, self-directed, collectively created production; they will also complete two or three technical theatre projects that will enhance their skills in areas such as lighting and sound design, costume design, props rendering, carpentry and set construction, and scenic painting.
Like DRAM/ENGL 2170, this course demands the full and enthusiastic participation of all students. Time demands are heavy at times and attendance at all class sessions and rehearsals is mandatory. Students will be evaluated based on class participation and written work in the form of play reviews, journals, and technical projects. There is no final exam for this course. Required textbooks will be announced on the first day of class.
Cross-listed as DRAM 3170.
3183 Creative Writing: Screenwriting for Short Formats
3 Credit Hours
1st Term: TTh 10:00-11:15 Instructor: R. Gray
Web series, short films, commercials, music videos, and sketch shorts are all short formats that have emerged as viable ways for screenwriters to break into the film industry. Short formats can be an affordable and achievable way for a filmmaker or a screenwriter to develop a calling card and to be considered for larger projects. As artists developing their craft, short formats are also less costly and more versatile forms in which to play and experiment; they provide an essential opportunity to develop a voice as a film artist. This intensive course guides writers through the basics of short format screenplay structure, character principles, writing and rewriting strategies. Students will be exposed to a wide range of short films in a variety of genres so they can explore the limits and possibilities of briefer forms of cinematic storytelling. Students do not need previous writing experience but first timers should be prepared to spend extra time developing/working on their process.
Cross-listed as FILM 3183.
3186 Creative Writing: Feature Screenplay
3 Credit Hours
2nd Term: TTh 10:00-11:15 Instructor: R. Gray
This intensive course will guide writers through the essentials of screenplay structure, character principles, writing and rewriting strategies and the biz. The purpose of this class is to understand what makes a story cinematic. To this end, we will read several screenplays, watch the films based on them, discuss storytelling styles, openings and endings, plot points, dialogue, characterization, genre, and screenplay format. Classes will be a combination of lectures, discussions, and workshops. Students do not need previous writing experience but first timers should be prepared to spend extra time developing/working on their process.
Prerequisite: Students should either have completed ENGL/FILM 3183: Screenwriting for Short Formats, have the equivalent writing experience, or should seek the permission of the instructor.
Cross-listed as FILM 3186.
3260 Shakespeare
6 Credit Hours
Full Year: T 6:00-9:00 Instructor: R. Martin
After 400 years, Shakespeare’s ability to thrill audiences, inspire writers, and challenge actors is undiminished, and in this course we shall learn why by studying a selection of his comedies, histories, and tragedies. We shall consider the current range of critical and theoretical approaches of textual interpretation as well as notable performances in the history of Shakespeare on stage and in film.
3263 Shakespeare’s Predecessors and Contemporaries
3 Credit Hours
1st Term: MW 2:30-3:45 Instructor: E. Snook
Though Shakespeare has transcended his own time and place to become recognized as the world’s greatest playwright, he did not work in a vacuum. Both in quality and quantity, the theatrical production of the English Renaissance (even setting Shakespeare aside) has never been equalled. Not only did theatres (before their closing in 1642) see the performance of an array of comedies, tragedies, and histories, but the court and the household became theatrical spaces for masques and closet dramas. In this course, we shall study plays by Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Dekker, Ben Jonson, Elizabeth Cary, and others to gain a better appreciation of their experimental range, imaginative achievement, and social commentary on the emerging modern world.
The method of instruction will be lectures and discussion. You will be assigned one short paper (1000 words), one long paper (2000 words), and a three-hour final examination. The textbook will be announced.
3283 Early Renaissance Poetry and Prose
3 Credit Hours
2nd Term: MW 2:30-3:45 Instructor: C. Canitz
The sixteenth century was an age of experimentation in literature, expansion of English power, and enormous social, political, and religious change. We will study a wide variety of non-dramatic poetry and prose of this era, from early Humanism down to the time of Spenser and Shakespeare. In addition to sonnets and other lyric poems, allegorical epic, satire, the proto-novel, statements on literary theory, contemporaneous commentary on political events, and other representative English texts, we will also read (in translation) one or two major works of the European Renaissance outside England for essential intellectual background.
The final grade will be based on two or more essays, a three-hour final exam, and possibly some additional short assignments.
3343 The British Novel I
3 Credit Hours
1st Term: MWF 1:30 Instructor: TBA
In this course, we will study the development of the novel from its beginnings to the early nineteenth century. We will read and discuss a range of novels, covering key subgenres such as the fictional autobiography, the picaresque comedy, the Gothic tale, and the courtship novel. We will explore the social contexts, the innovations in narrative form, and the wide thematic range of the emerging genre. Classes will include lectures and discussions, and assignments will include one short paper (800-1000 words), one long paper (2000-2500 words), and a three-hour final examination.
Tentative list of texts: Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders, (1722); Samuel Richardson, Pamela (1740); Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews (1742); Charlotte Lennox, The Female Quixote, (1752); Clara Reeve, The Old English Baron (1778); and Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813).
NOTE: These books are fun to read, but a couple of them are LONG. Students should start reading BEFORE the class begins. A final reading list will be emailed to the class in the summer.
3400 The Romantic Period
6 Credit Hours
Full Year: MWF 11:30 Instructor: R. Leckie
This course studies the major works of the Romantic Movement in British Literature, with special emphasis on Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats. There will be a focus on some of the women writers of the period, including Anna Letitia Barbauld, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, and Jane Austen. The literature will be placed in the context of the social, economic, political, and artistic events of the period, including the American Revolution; the French Revolution; the industrial revolution; the Conservative government and political oppression in England, nascent feminism, and the revolution in music and visual art. Topics discussed include Blake’s reinterpretation of Christian mythology; Wordsworth’s special view of nature and natural humanity; the ballad revolution of Wordsworth and Coleridge; Coleridge and the supernatural in poetry; the Byronic hero and emergence of “negative Romanticism”; Shelley’s visionary idealism; Keats and the war between sense and intellect, or what he called “Sensation and Truth.”
The required text for the course is The Age of Romanticism, edited by Joseph Black et al, and published by Broadview Press. Texts by Mary Shelley and Jane Austen will likely be added. The method of instruction will be lectures, with class discussion encouraged. There will be group presentations and a paper in the fall, and a paper and a three-hour final examination during the examination period in the winter.
3443 The British Novel II
3 Credit Hours
2nd Term: MWF 10:30 Instructor: M. Rimmer
The middle and late nineteenth century was a vibrant and exciting time for fiction writers: this is the heyday of the realist novel, a time when writers were both exploring the possibilities of realism and testing its limits. The focus of this course will be on fictional technique and structure, but also on the social issues raised in the novels (such as gender and class).
Tentative list of texts: Charlotte Brontë, Villette; Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall; Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South; Charles Dickens, Great Expectations; George Eliot, Silas Marner; Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge. Classes will involve lectures and discussion, and requirements will include one short essay (750-1000 words), one research paper (2000-2500 words) and a three-hour final examination.
Note: These books are great reads, but most of them are also big; students should start reading BEFORE the course begins. A final reading list will be emailed to the class during the fall term.
3535 Modern British Poetry
3 Credit Hours
1st Term: MWF 10:30 Instructor: D. Austin
This course will introduce you to a range of British poets from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, in the process offering an overview of some of the period’s techniques and concerns. The modern period offers a wonderful diversity in its poetry. Students will find here examples about love, war, social criticism, humour, emotional struggle, and political commentary, to name only a few areas. Somewhere in this huge repertoire there is a type of poetry for everyone.
The primary focus will be on the detailed examination of a small number of selected works. After starting with precursors Gerard Manley Hopkins and Thomas Hardy, we will examine poems representative of powerful social and literary elements shaping the early modern decades, including World War I poetry. From the middle of the modern period we will look at topics like doubt and violence in poems by Philip Larkin and Ted Hughes, before moving on to a sampling of current writing. Poets like Seamus Heaney, Tony Harrison, Grace Nichols, Carol Ann Duffy, John Agard, and Benjamin Zephaniah all address issues affecting us today, including identity, social inequality, drugs, and violence. To save students money the class reading list will be available through UNB library e-databases, although I will also order some copies of the latest 2-volume edition of the Norton Modern and Contemporary Poetry anthology for those who wish to buy the best modern poetry edition currently in print. It has a wonderfully comprehensive international selection of poets who write in English, as well as an excellent selection of the specifically British poets we will examine in this particular course and a variety of thoughtful commentaries; it is truly a book to last a poetry lover for decades. The class format will include both lecture and discussion with participation expected, encouraged, and rewarded. Two essays will be assigned, one short (1000 words) and one long (2000-3000 words). There will be a three-hour final examination.
3610 Canadian Prose and Poetry
6 Credit Hours
Full Year: TTh 12:30-1:45 Instructor: W. Robbins
This survey of Canadian prose and poetry in English explores texts from the pre-Confederation period to the present, paying attention to their social, cultural, and political contexts. While the survey is historical, the various periods and movements are not all weighted equally: the course will highlight post-1967 writing. The aims are to ensure that you are conversant with a range of texts, authors, themes, and techniques that are important in understanding Canadian literature; to exercise your imagination and extend your powers of empathy; and to enhance your skills in critical analysis. The selected texts (short stories, poems, essays, and at least one novel and one film) will be analysed in terms both of their artistic characteristics and of their role in defining Canada and Canadians, at home and abroad.
A number of critical methods and perspectives will be employed, but the major emphasis will be on the varied issues raised by Canadian, postcolonial, and feminist critics. These include challenges to the “Canlit” canon; representations of women, Native, “other,” and colonial “mimic men”; imperialism, the colonial mentality, garrison culture, relationships to the land, “northness,” and survival; identity and “belonging”; diaspora, multiculturalism, globalization, and Canada’s place in the world. The course thus may extend and deepen your understanding of not only Canadian literature, but also life in Canada.
Class meetings will incorporate lectures, class discussions, focus-group discussions, seminar presentations, film, audiovisual aids, and Internet resources. Assignments will include a class presentation, an essay, and an in-class test each term.
3708 American Literature from 1820-1900
3 Credit Hours
1st Term: MWF 9:30 Instructor: S. Schryer
This survey of American fiction, poetry, and non-fiction explores texts from the American Renaissance to the late-nineteenth century. During this period, the United States grew from a relatively new, agrarian nation into one of the most robust, industrial economies in the world. At the same time, the country developed a distinctive and self-consciously nationalistic literary tradition, which evolved from the transcendentalism of the 1830s and 1840s to the realism and naturalism of the post-Civil War period. Our focus, throughout the course, will be on U.S. writers’ engagement with some of the most important social and political issues faced by the developing nation: abolitionism, feminism, westward expansion, imperialism, industrialism, and the rise of the urban proletariat. Some of the authors we will discuss include: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Louisa May Alcott, Rebecca Harding Davis, Stephen Crane, and Edith Wharton. Assignments will include two essays, weekly response papers, and a final exam.
3744 American Fiction after 1900
3 Credit Hours
2nd Term: MWF 9:30 Instructor: S. Schryer
This course explores American fiction of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, focusing on both novels and short stories. During this period, the United States went through dramatic transformations, changing from an industrial to a post-industrial nation and ultimately emerging as a global superpower. We will discuss how U.S. writers reflected these changes in their literary practice, moving from the modernism of the early twentieth century to the postmodern fiction that emerged after World War II. In particular, we will focus on writers’ evolving relationship with American media culture, as reflected in the formal innovations of modernism and postmodernism. How do American writers, working within an old-fashioned medium successively displaced by film, television, and the internet, nevertheless affirm the lasting cultural significance of their work? Some of the authors we might discuss include: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Willa Cather, William Faulkner, Nathanael West, Ralph Ellison, Flannery O’Connor, Thomas Pynchon, Philip Roth, Toni Morrison, Don DeLillo, and Jennifer Egan.
3815 Literatures of the Postcolonial World
3 Credit Hours
1st Term: W 4:00-6:50 Instructor: W. Robbins
This course is designed to make you conversant with some important primary texts and critical approaches in the field of postcolonial (or diasporic) literary studies in English. It explores texts from a selection of Commonwealth countries by such internationally acclaimed writers as Chinua Achebe (Nigeria), Dionne Brand (Trinidad/Canada), Doris Pilkington Garimara (Australia), Deepa Mehta (India/Canada), Salman Rushdie (India), and Derek Walcott (St. Lucia).
Themes typical of the literatures of formerly colonized societies include power relations, based on factors such as racialization, gender, language, and religion; home, exile, identity, community, and belonging (or not); resistance, independence, survival, and transnational allegiances.
Class meetings will incorporate lectures, student presentations, class discussions, and Internet resources as we explore the primary texts within their literary, social, and political contexts. Assignments will include a class presentation, a mid-term test, and an essay.
3877 Modern Drama
3 Credit Hours
2nd Term: MWF 12:30 Instructor: T. Finlay
This course offers a survey of major developments in late nineteenth- and twentieth-century theatre. Plays will be studied with attention to their often controversial engagements with social and political issues, moral debates, and theatrical conventions, as well as their connections to movements such as realism, modernism, expressionism, and absurdism. Students will engage with a range of plays—beginning with August Strindberg’s landmark play Miss Julie and ending with John Cameron Mitchell’s boundary-breaking Hedwig and the Angry Inch—from a variety of perspectives. Assignments for the course include a seminar presentation (with a written report), a group presentation, a research essay, and a final exam.
3903 Film Theory
3 Credit Hours
1st Term: TTh 2:30-3:45 w/screenings Th 6:00-8:00
Instructor: R. Gray
This course introduces students to the major debates in the field of film theory, including (but not limited to): Early Silent Film Theory, the Soviet Montage-Theorists, Russian Formalism and the Bakhtin School, the Historical Avant-gardes, French Auteur Theory and its Americanization, Third World Film and Theory, Genre and Authorship, Marxist film theory, Spectatorship, Feminist Film Theory, Cognitive and Analytic Theory, Postcolonial Film Theory, Race and Ethnicity in Cinema.
NOTE: Students who already have credit for ENGL 3193 cannot obtain credit for ENGL 3903 or FILM 3903.
Cross-listed as FILM 3903.
3909 Film Genre: Zombies
3 Credit Hours
2nd Term: TTh 4:30-5:50 w/screenings Th 6:30-8:30
Instructor: R. Gray
Zombie films make up one of the longest living sub-genres of horror though representations of zombies have evolved from exoticized monstrous figures from Haiti, to cannibalistic brain eaters and eventually to infectious bodies carrying epidemics. This course will explore the evolution of zombies from studio pictures starring Bella Lugosi, to B-movies featuring fighting ninjas and murdering cheerleaders, through to modern film zombies who look uncannily like the unconscious bored populace and/or become a loving family pet. Zombies are never simply undead; they always reflect something about our changing lives and fears. These films also permit us to explore the murky spaces between high and low culture, the history and development of horror films as a genre, and the aesthetics of fear. Students will be expected to write a research paper, give a small seminar presentation, and complete weekly reading quizzes.
Special Topics in English
3986 Crash Course: The Road in Literature
3 Credit Hours
1st Term: Th 6:00-9:00 Instructor: M. Jarman
This course will steer its way through the varied obsessions, perceptions, mythologies, and psychologies of the open road and the road story. We will look at Jack Kerouac’s influential beat novel On the Road and The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, but the coursework will also reach back to older texts such as Don Quixote, arguably the first road novel, as well as examples of more recent road movies from Hollywood and abroad.
Texts include:
Jack Kerouac, On the Road
Charles Portis, The Dog of the South
J.G. Ballard, Crash
Callie Khouri, Thelma and Louise
Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Drama Projects
4170 Thesis Production and Independent Project
6 Credit Hours (practical work)
Full Year: TBA Instructor: L. Falkenstein
Open to students completing the final year of a Minor in Drama. Working in groups, students produce a full-scale production for Theatre UNB. The second requirement for the course is to complete an independent project designed to further students’ knowledge of a theatre discipline of their choice. Both halves of the course are completed under the supervision of the Director of Drama.
Prerequisite: ENGL/DRAM 2170 and/or ENGL/DRAM 3170 and per-mission of the Director of Drama. Note: Students can take no more than 6 ch of ENGL/DRAM 4170, 4173, and 4174 for credit.
Cross-listed as DRAM 4170.
4173 Thesis Production
3 Credit Hours (practical work)
1st Term: TBA Instructor: L. Falkenstein
Open to students completing the final year of a Minor in Drama. Working in groups, students produce a full-scale production for Theatre UNB, under the supervision of the Director of Drama.
Prerequisite: ENGL/DRAM 2170 and/or ENGL/DRAM 3170 and per-mission of the Director of Drama. Note: Students cannot obtain credit for both ENGL/DRAM 4173 and ENGL/DRAM 4170.
Cross-listed as DRAM 4173.
4174 Independent Drama Project
3 Credit Hours (practical work)
2nd Term: TBA
Instructor: L. Falkenstein
Open to students completing the final year of a Minor in Drama. Under the supervision of the Director of Drama, students complete an independent project designed to further their knowledge of a theatre discipline of their choice.
Prerequisite: ENGL/DRAM 2170 and/or ENGL/DRAM 3170 and per-mission of the Director of Drama. Note: Students cannot obtain credit for both ENGL/DRAM 4174 and ENGL/DRAM 4170.
Cross-listed as DRAM 4174.
Honours Seminars
5116 Beauty in Early Modern English Literature
3 Credit Hours
1st Term: T 9:00-12:00 Instructor: E. Snook
Looking at what it means to be beautiful (or not) in early modern England, this course will consider cultural, visual, and historical texts that provide evidence of beauty practices—paintings, conduct books, recipes for cosmetics, and accounts of clothing—as well as philosophical and literary texts that define beauty’s aesthetic significance. The analysis of physical beauty was crucial for some of the most famous male writers of the period, such as Sidney, Shakespeare, and Milton, and for their less well known female contemporaries, such as Cary and Lanyer; other writers entirely rejected dominant codes of beauty. Particularly important to the course will be questions of gender, race, violence, colonialism, health, and power.
The course grade will be based on participation, presentations, and essays.
5131 Victorian Writers and the “Woman Question”
3 Credit Hours
1st Term: Th 2:30-5:30 Instructor: M. Rimmer
Debate on the “Woman Question” in Victorian England was linked to issues of class, imperialism, political economy, the franchise and individualism. The topic therefore provides a window on many nineteenth-century intellectual debates and their literary ramifications. Supplementary readings will include selections from such writers as Barbara Bodichon, Mona Caird, Francis Power Cobbe, Sarah Stickney Ellis, and Sarah Lewis.
Though grounded in an awareness of the historical pressures that shape literature and writers’ lives, the seminar will also emphasize literary analysis, and the critical/theoretical implications of studying “purpose” writing.
Requirements: two presentations, a reading journal, a research topic proposal with annotated bibliography, and a research paper.
Tentative long list of primary texts:
Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh
A. Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Eliot, The Mill on the Floss
Gaskell, Ruth or Wives and Daughters
Gissing, The Odd Women
Levy, Reuben Sachs
Meredith, Diana of the Crossways
Mill, The Subjection of Women
Nightingale, Cassandra
Patmore, The Angel in the House
Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies
Tennyson, The Princess
A selection of shorter poems (likely authors include Mary Coleridge, Michael Field, Amy Levy, Christina Rossetti and Augusta Webster)
A selection of short stories (likely authors include Mary Elizabeth Braddon, George Egerton, and Margaret Oliphant)
5144 Poverty and American Literature
3 Credit Hours
2nd Term: T 9:00-12:00 Instructor: S. Schryer
A striking feature of the United States is the weakness of its welfare state. One reason for this weakness is many Americans’ persistent belief that welfare recipients fall into the category of the “undeserving poor”: lower-class citizens who, for an assortment of cultural and psychological reasons, are responsible for their own poverty. In this course we will explore a broad range of literary texts that address the causes and effects of poverty and that grapple with the problem of representing it. Our readings will focus on historical moments when poverty became a central topic of public debate and government policy: the Progressive Era, the Great Depression, the Great Society, and the Reagan Revolution. We will ask questions such as the following: How has the aesthetics of poverty literature changed since the early twentieth century? How do writers interested in poverty negotiate the difference between their own class status and that of their subjects? How might writers represent the poor without abjecting or romanticizing them? Some of the authors we might discuss include: Jacob Riis, Upton Sinclair, Gertrude Stein, William Faulkner, Tillie Olson, John Steinbeck, Richard Wright, Ann Petry, Chester Himes, Gloria Naylor, Dorothy Allison, and Larry Brown.
5179 Temporal and Technical Dislocations in Contemporary British Fiction
3 Credit Hours
2nd Term: Th 2:30-5:30 Instructor: D. Austin
Fiction in the 20th and 21st c. has often demonstrated complicated (and frequently contradictory) attitudes towards time. Various commentators have argued, for example, that modernism was hostile to history, and obviously something similar might be said about post-modernism (ominously, Amis’s London Fields invites us to “Imagine the terrestrial timespan as an outstretched arm: a single swipe of an emery-board, across the nail of the third finger, erases human history”).
By raising questions about language, reality, history, and ideology, literary and cultural movements of the last few decades have encouraged a skeptical historical consciousness, one aware of gaps, slippage, and bias. However, critics often disagree about novels stationed at the intersections of history and narrative: is setting a novel completely in the past or using a dialectical tacking between the present and either past or future a thoughtful, courageous act, one that interrogates the past or future as well as the present? Or are such novels automatically limited by their choice, doomed to merely re-inscribe the problems they purport to explore by blurring temporal boundaries? How does playing with time within a story’s structure affect narration or other elements of a novel?
By looking at a number of recent British novels in which a fascination with time suggests various technical, theoretical, historical, and cultural questions worth exploring, this course will examine the ways in which temporality can function as both motivating concern and structuring technique in selected recent British novels.
Proposed Texts: Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus (1984); Pat Barker (The Ghost Road 1995 or Double Vision 2003 or Toby’s Room 2012); Ian McEwan, Atonement (2001); David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas (2004); Martin Amis (London Fields 1989 or Lionel Asbo 2012); plus one other novel.
5188 “Innovative” Poetics in English Canada since 1945
3 Credit Hours
1st Term: Th 9:00-12:00 Instructor: T. Finlay
This course is designed to develop, tease out, and challenge notions of “innovative” poetics in English Canada. We will explore some relevant critical contexts in an attempt to address such theoretical questions as: how do we define the “innovative”? What are the ideological implications of attempting such a definition? What are the relationships among the “innovative,” the “experimental,” and the “avant-garde”? How have Canadian writers been influenced by specific schools, political movements, publications, presses, and writing communities, within Canada and internationally? How do questions of genre, form and theoretical approach—as well as issues of identity politics—affect our reading of an “innovative” text? Is the idea of “innovative” poetics limited to poetry? Starting with Elizabeth Smart’s lyrical narrative By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept (1945), we will follow a chronological approach in order to consider how the idea of the “innovative” might have shifted over time. Students will actively participate in class discussions by preparing response papers, giving seminar presentations, and leading question periods; they will also produce a final term paper on an original topic of their choice—anything from a single-author study to a history of a particular small press or magazine.
Proposed Courses for 2014-2015
First-Year Courses
1000 Introduction to Modern Literature in English
1103 Fundamentals of Clear Writing
1144 Reading and Writing Non-Fiction Prose
1145 An Introduction to Prose Fiction
1173 Introduction to Acting and Performance
Second-Year Courses
2170 Principles of Drama Production
2195 Introduction to Creative Writing: Poetry and Drama
2196 Introduction to Creative Writing: Fiction and Screenwriting
2263* Shakespeare and Film
2603* Literature of Atlantic Canada
2608* Introduction to Contemporary Canadian Literature
2703* Introduction to American Literature
2901 A Survey of English Literature to 1660
2902 A Survey of English Literature, 1660-1900
2903* Literature of the Abyss
2909 International Film History
* These second-year courses are offered on a rotational basis as Departmental resources permit. At least one of these courses will be offered annually.
Third- and Fourth-Year Courses
3040 Chaucer & Co.
3083 Literary Theory and Critical Practice
3123 Creative Writing: Poetry
3143 Creative Writing: Short Fiction
3170 Advanced Drama Production
3183 Creative Writing: Screenwriting for Short Formats
3260 Shakespeare
3284 Poetry and Prose of the Later Renaissance
3385 Restoration and 18th-Century Literature
3410 Victorian Literature
3540 The Modern British Novel
3640 The Canadian Novel
3704 American Prose and Poetry Since 1900
3707 American Literature before 1820
3883 Women’s Writing in English
3903 Film Theory
Special Topics in English
3957 Writers on Vietnam—America’s Longest War
Drama Projects
4170 Thesis Production and Independent Project
4173 Thesis Production
4174 Independent Drama Project
Honours Seminars
5115 Shakespeare and Ecology
5143 Allusion in American 20th-Century Poetry
5153 Narratives of the Sea
5174 Chaos and Catalyst: Social and Literary Change in World War I British Literature
5185 Rewriting the Past: Contemporary English-Canadian Historical Novels
