English

This course introduces students to a diverse range of literary works written in English, primarily from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including short stories, poems, plays, and novels. These works demonstrate how literature can open up new understandings about societies and histories both within and beyond our local experience. The selection of texts varies from section to section, but all sections devote one-third of class time to developing writing skills, and the course places considerable emphasis on critical reading. ENGL 1000 welcomes all students with an interest in English, and it is normally required for the English Major and Honours programs.

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.

A further examination of the basic principles of prose writing, with special attention to larger patterns of organization and development used in prose exposition and argument. 

By studying non-fiction prose models and by writing essays, students will work to improve their writing, explore techniques to craft effective essays, and develop critical and analytical skills applicable to a wide range of disciplines. Tutorials use exercises and discussions to assist this development.

Two weekly lectures examine a variety of short stories (and perhaps one or two novels) from the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. Weekly small tutorials teach critical and writing skills (such as grammar, punctuation, organization, and argumentation) applied to the course readings.

Examines a brief range of novels from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 

An introduction to acting suitable for students at all skill levels, from beginners to experienced performers. Instruction will cover the basics of voice, movement, improvisation, script analysis, and monologue and scene work, culminating in a final performance project.

Introduction to the writing of poetry and drama, with a focus on basic technique, style, and form. 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. May include assigned readings.

Introduction to the writing of fiction and to screenwriting, with a focus on basic narrative technique, style, and form. 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. May include assigned readings. 

Film directors have transformed Shakespeare into one of today's hottest cultural properties, rekindling a profitable relationship with the world's greatest playwright that dates back to the first days of late-nineteenth-century cinema. The screen has now overtaken both the written text and the stage as the medium in which most people discover and appreciate Shakespeare. In this course we shall study some examples of this flourishing exchange between Shakespeare and film in terms of artistic expression and social practice. Required readings will include single-volume editions of the plays; a film studies handbook; and screenings of the films (at least two versions of each play).

An exploration of poetry, fiction, and drama written, in English, by Atlantic Canadians that emphasizes the prevalent themes explored by Maritime and Newfoundland authors, such as the search for personal and regional identity, human relations to landscape and the natural world, and the meaning of “home place.” Authors may include Alden Nowlan, Milton Acorn, Rita Joe, David Adams Richards, John Steffler, Mary Dalton, Anne Compton, Wayne Johnston, Lisa Moore, Anne Simpson, George Elliott Clarke, Sue Goyette, Michael Crummey, and Tammy Armstrong.

A survey of English-Canadian fiction, non-fiction prose, poetry, drama, and film that explores major themes in contemporary Canadian literature, such as the shaping of Canadian identity, regionalism and the global perspective, class divides, ecocritical views, and other current issues. Authors may include Dionne Brand, Tomson Highway, Lynn Coady, Don McKay, Eden Robinson, Ken Babstock, and Lori Lansens.

An exploration of selected topics in American literature and culture. The theme of the course changes each year. In each course, students read selected works of poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, and/or drama and may also explore the relationship between U.S. literature and other media such as film and television. Possible themes include the American West, multi-ethnic literature, U.S. presidential elections, the Beat Generation, and Hollywood fictions. Please see the Department of English Handbook or website for the current description.

This course traces the beginnings of English literature to 1660, with a focus on love and sexuality, cultural and linguistic upheavals, religion and secularism, and the impact of imperialism. While society was structured by powerful ideas of order grounded in religion, nature, social rank, gender, ethnicity, and race, traditional thinking about these concepts was increasingly challenged, not least by contact with non-European cultures and the Scientific Revolution. As literacy rates rose, English literature found new audiences, producing richly varied and often playful works. Works by figures such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton are central to the course, but other texts will also be discussed. Genres include poetry, drama, and prose. This course is required for the English Major and Honours programs, and strongly recommended for Minors.

This course picks up the story from ENGL 2901. In these centuries, trade, industrialization, wars, and Britain's rise as an imperial power helped to spark social conflicts centring on class, race, indigeneity, gender, sexuality, politics, and religion. New genres (such as the novel) emerged and others (such as poetry) transformed; the accelerating rise in literacy rates created new audiences for literature, and also meant that people from an ever-broader range of social backgrounds were writing. Poetry and prose are the major genres here. This course is required for the English Major and Honours programs, and strongly recommended for Minors.

An examination of literary texts that address one or more of the following: fear, suspense, and/or horror; monsters and the grotesque; criminality and detection; violence and war; love gone wrong; estrangement and alienation. The specific focus and the selection of texts vary from year to year. 

This course introduces students to major stages in the development of film as an international art. Topics include: Silent Cinema, German Expressionism, Soviet Montage, Classical Hollywood, Italian Neorealism and Modernism, French New Wave, Japanese New Wave, British New Wave, Australian New Wave, Experimental Cinema, Cinema Novo, New German Cinema, Postcolonial Cinema, Bollywood, the New Hollywood, American Independent Cinema, Dogme 95, and others. NOTE: Students who already have credit for ENGL 3194 cannot obtain credit for ENGL 2909 or FILM 2909. 

Introduces the language, literature, and culture of the Anglo-Saxons. Emphasis is on working towards a reading proficiency.

Continues the study of the Anglo-Saxon period begun in ENGL 3003 (Old English I). Considers a greater number of texts, and demands a more sophisticated level of literary and linguistic analysis.

After a brief consideration of the nature of human language, introduces students to phonetics and the International Phonetic Alphabet. Then traces the history of the English language from its Indo-European origins to its present state. Focuses on the various kinds of linguistic change: those affecting sounds, forms, and vocabulary.

Examines a wide variety of medieval literature, ranging from courtly romance to bawdy fabliau to dream-vision, alliterative heroic verse, lyric poetry, verse satire, and drama. Also explores the historical and intellectual contexts of the individual works: the politics and shifting social structures of this period, the way people lived and thought, their culture and customs, and many other aspects of the Middle Ages. Precise course content varies from year to year, but usually includes selections from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

A study of the development of literary theory and criticism, with some attention to critical practice. The course covers major approaches to literary interpretation, such as deconstruction, gender studies, Marxism, new historicism, postcolonial studies, and psychoanalysis. Readings will include excerpts from theorists such as Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Julia Kristeva, Judith Butler, and Homi Bhabha. NOTE: Students cannot obtain credit for both ENGL 3083 and ENGL 5083.

A studio course offers students the opportunity to work on an independent creative writing project supervised by a faculty member of the English Department or by a person approved by the Director of Creative Writing and the Chair of the Department. Students wishing to take a studio course must find a faculty member willing to supervise the project. The project may explore a single genre in depth or may be a multi-genre work. Readings will typically be assigned in addition to the writing done for the course. Students will meet regularly with the supervisor in editorial sessions to discuss the writing in detail and to discuss assigned readings. The course must not include writing done for another course or workshop.

In today’s world, effective writing is an indispensable career-building skill. Focusing on transferable skills, this course explores the principles of written communication in academic and professional contexts and provides extensive practice in the application of these principles. Frequent writing assignments allow students to refine their skills in various forms of written communication, including both academic essays and career-related writing such as reports, proposals, abstracts, and other written documents. The course emphasizes class discussion, individual and group work, peer review, and workshop sessions. To succeed in this course, students must be prepared to complete numerous written assignments. NOTE: The course is intended for students in the final two years of their program and is open to students in all disciplines. 

A workshop course in expository prose, intended for those who expect writing to be an important element in their careers. There will be frequent reading and writing assignments, and discussion of student work in the class. 

A creative writing course aimed at developing skills in the writing of poetry. Students will participate in workshops and discussions and will complete assigned readings and exercises as they explore the poetic possibilities of language.

A creative writing course aimed at developing skills in the writing of short fiction. Students will participate in workshops and discussions and will complete assigned readings and exercises as they delve into the craft of storytelling.

A creative writing course aimed at developing skills in the writing of non-fiction. It involves prescribed readings, exercises, workshops, and discussions.

A creative writing course aimed at developing skills in the writing of drama. It involves prescribed readings, exercises, workshops, and discussions.

A project-based course that builds on ENGL 2173/DRAM 2173 and ENGL 2174/DRAM 2174 by offering advanced training in acting, directing, and design for the theatre. Instruction centres on 1-2 full-scale theatre productions mounted by the class for Theatre UNB. Rehearsal, workshop, and performance time additional to regular class hours required.

Building on the skills developed in ENGL 2175/DRAM 2175, participants in this course form a theatre company and produce, rehearse, and perform a mainstage production for the Theatre UNB season, under the direction of the instructor. Rehearsal and performance time additional to regular class hours required. Permission of the instructor is required.

This course guides writers through the basics of short format screenplay structures and introduces them to basic story, character, and dialogue principles.  Students will be exposed to a wide range of short films in a variety of genres and forms so that they can explore the limits and possibilities of briefer forms of cinematic storytelling.

This intensive course guides writers through the basics of feature screenplay structure, character principles, archetypal storytelling, writing and rewriting strategies, and ‘the biz.’ Classes are a combination of lectures, discussion, and workshops.

A study of selected plays. 

A study of English medieval and Renaissance drama, excluding Shakespeare. 

Examines a wide variety of sixteenth-century poetry and prose, including sonnets and other lyric poetry, allegorical epic, early prose fiction, statements on literary theory, and contemporaneous commentary on political events, as well as early translations of a few major works of the European Renaissance. Also explores the historical and intellectual contexts of the works, and the politics and social structures of this age of exploration and experimentation.

Examines a wide variety of non-dramatic poetry and prose from the end of the reign of Elizabeth I to just after the Restoration (1660). The course explores the poetry of Donne and the Metaphysical poets, Jonson and the Cavalier poets, Marvell, and the gradually more numerous women writers; it also examines the new forms of prose and includes a selection of Milton's works.

A study of the early development of the novel, from the beginnings to the early nineteenth century, including such novelists as Defoe, Richardson, Sterne, Burney, Henry and Sarah Fielding, and Austen. Some attention will be paid to the social contexts of the emerging genre, and to its roots in such forms as the letter, the newspaper, and broadsheet criminal biography.

A study of selected works of eighteenth-century literature. The emphasis in the course (whether it focuses on drama, poetry, or prose) will depend upon the instructor.

A study of English literature written between 1789 and 1832 in the context of intellectual, social, political, and religious forces. The course will focus on the Romantic poets but will include a selection of prose texts from the period. NOTE: Students cannot obtain credit for both ENGL 3400 and ENGL 3406.

A study of English literature written between 1789 and 1832 in the context of intellectual, social, political, and religious forces. The course will focus on the Romantic poets but may include a brief selection of prose texts from the period. NOTE: Students cannot obtain credit for both ENGL 3406 and ENGL 3400. 

This course studies selected British Victorian authors, such as Thomas Carlyle, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Emily Brontë, Alfred Tennyson, George Eliot, Charles Dickens, D.G. Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, Matthew Arnold, and John Ruskin. Although the course may include some fiction, its main focus is on poetry and essays. The literature will be studied in its historical context, with substantial attention paid to the rich historical and cultural developments of this eventful era. NOTE: Students cannot obtain credit for both ENGL 3416 and ENGL 3410.

Studies selected British Victorian authors, such as Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the Brontës, Tennyson, Eliot, Dickens, and Ruskin. Although the course may include some fiction, its main focus is on poetry and/or essays. NOTE: Students cannot obtain credit for both ENGL 3410 and ENGL 3416. 

A study of major novels from the mid nineteenth century to the early twentieth century.

This course explores a variety of British poems from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including examples of traditional artistic concerns, technical innovations, war protest, social criticism, whimsy, emotional turmoil, and political commentary. The primary focus is on the detailed examination of a small number of selected works.

This exploration of ten British novels from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries reveals the period’s wide range of both social concerns and literary techniques. The varied selection of the course offers intriguing stories that display the complexities of human relationships and social conventions as well as the possibilities of technical experimentation. A sense of the overall development of the modern novel is provided by the inclusion of both early representatives and novels published within the last few years.

A survey of Canadian non-fiction prose, poetry, fiction, and drama from early narratives of encounter to 1900, examining key cultural and historical moments in the development of Canada as a nation. Authors may include Jacques Cartier, Samuel de Champlain, Joseph Brant, Oliver Goldsmith, Susanna Moodie, Anna Brownell Jameson, Catherine Parr Traill, George Copway, Mary Ann Shadd, Louis Riel, E. Pauline Johnson, Charles G.D. Roberts, Sara Jeannette Duncan, Bliss Carman, and Archibald Lampman. NOTE: Students cannot obtain credit for both ENGL 3608 and ENGL 3610 or for both ENGL 3608 and ENGL 3640.

A survey of English-Canadian non-fiction prose, poetry, fiction, and drama from the turn of the century to 1970, with a focus on the development of Realism and Modernism in Canada. Authors may include Jessie Sime, Stephen Leacock, L.M. Montgomery, Robert Service, Frederick Philip Grove, E.J. Pratt, F.R. Scott, A.M. Klein, Dorothy Livesay, P.K. Page, Sinclair Ross, Sheila Watson, Elizabeth Smart, Al Purdy, and Chief Dan George. NOTE: Students can obtain credit for only one course in each of the following pairs: ENGL 3610/3688, ENGL 3640/3688, ENGL 3684/3688.

A survey of English-Canadian fiction, poetry, drama, and non-fiction prose from 1970 to the present. Authors may include Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Northrop Frye, Margaret Laurence, Robert Kroetsch, Alice Munro, Leonard Cohen, Rudy Wiebe, Maria Campbell, Rohinton Mistry, M. Nourbese Philip, Thomas King, Miriam Toews, and Joseph Boyden. NOTE: Students can obtain credit for only one course in each of the following pairs: ENGL 3610/ENGL 3684, ENGL 3610/ENGL 3698, ENGL 3640/ENGL 3698, ENGL 3684/ENGL 3698.

A survey of American poetry and prose from colonial times to the early nineteenth century, examining key cultural and historical moments in the development of the United States as a nation. Texts will include contact narratives, Puritan poetry and memoirs, revolutionary-era fiction and plays, and the earliest published work by Native- and African-American writers. NOTE: Students cannot obtain credit for both ENGL 3703 and ENGL 3707.

A survey of nineteenth-century American fiction, poetry, and non-fiction prose ranging from the American Renaissance to the Realist and Naturalist period. Authors may include Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Rebecca Harding Davis, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Edith Wharton, and others. NOTE: Students cannot obtain credit for both ENGL 3743 and ENGL 3708. 

A close study of selected works of American modernism published in the first half of the twentieth century, including poetry and fiction. This course will start with the high modernism of writers such as Gertrude Stein, Robert Frost, T.S. Eliot, William Faulkner, Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, Ernest Hemingway, H.D., William Carlos Williams, and Wallace Stevens before considering other varieties of modernism such as the Harlem Renaissance, Proletarian Literature of the 1930s, and late modernism.

A survey of major developments in 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.

A study of women's writing in English from a range of historical periods. Texts will vary from year to year, but will include poetry, drama, fiction, and/or non-fiction written primarily by British, American, and Canadian women. Attention will also be paid to relationships between women's writing and history, contemporary feminist and gender theory, and social issues such as identity, sexuality, class, and race. 

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. 

This course explores the relationship between the screen and cityscape within the context of a range of films, genres, historical periods, and urban locales in order to show that cinema owes much of its nature to the historical development of urban space and that cinema has shaped our view of the city. Grounding our discussion of the ‘cinematic city’ in film theory and urban theory (Benjamin, Kracauer, Baudrillard, Foucault, Deleuze, Lacan, Lefebvre, and others), we will examine the cinematic forms most significantly related to the city, including early cinema, documentary film, film noir, science fiction, the New Wave, migrant and diasporic cinema, and postmodern cinema. Possible films to be screened: Metropolis, Things to Come, The Man with the Movie Camera, Berlin: Symphony of a Great City, The Maltese Falcon, The Blue Dahlia, Dark Passage, Manhattan, Annie Hall, Street of Crocodiles, Taxi Driver, Boyz N the Hood, Three Colors: Red, Crash, Collateral, Berlin Alexanderplatz, Dekalog, Blade Runner, Dark City, Menace II Society, Safe, SubUrbia, Sin City, Paris je t’aime, and others.

The Film Genre course explores the history, iconography, and socio-cultural significance of one particular film genre by means of a number of examples. The specific focus of the course varies from year to year. 

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 explores the evolution of zombies form studio pictures starring Bela 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 loving family pets. 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.

Through the study of various representative Canadian filmmakers and prevalent genres, this course explores the roles that regionalism, commercialism, and independent filmmaking play in defining national ideas about Canadian cinema and film audiences. This course concurrently traces developments in Canadian film production, policy, funding, distribution, and use since the creation of Telefilm (formerly the CFDC) and how these funding and cultural policies have affected and responded to the central themes and issues facing Canadian filmmakers and audiences. NOTE: Students who already have credit for ENGL 3966 cannot obtain credit for FILM 3916/ENGL 3916.

The National Cinemas course explores significant historical periods, movements, styles, film theories, directors, and topics in the development of particular national and/or transnational cinemas. The specific focus of the course varies from year to year.

One of the most exciting movements in cinema, the French New Wave radically altered film, influencing and informing new kinds of cinema around the world and changing how we talk about and study films. The films of filmmakers like François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, and Jean-Luc Godard continue to inspire contemporary filmmakers and critics. Through watching and analyzing their first films, reading their writings in Cahiers du Cinéma, and exploring how film historians interpret this period now, we will attempt to understand the artistic, social, economic, and historical forces that shaped the film movement and filmmaking in the decades to follow.

Each course in the National Cinemas series explores significant historical periods, movements, styles, film theories, directors, and topics in the development of particular national and/or transnational cinemas. Possible topics include Classical Hollywood Cinema, American Cinema of the 1960s and 70s, post-1989 European cinema, the French New Wave, Canadian Auteurs, Contemporary American Cinema, post-World War II Italian Cinema, Race and Gender in American Cinema, Contemporary French Cinema, and others. NOTE: Students who already have credit for ENGL 3966 cannot obtain credit for ENGL 3916 “National Cinemas: Canadian Film.” 

Open to students completing the final year of a Double Major or 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. NOTE: Students can take no more than 6ch of ENGL 4170/DRAM 4170, ENGL 4173/DRAM 4173, and ENGL 4174/DRAM 4174 for credit. 

Open to students completing the final year of a Double Major or Minor in Drama. Working in groups, students produce a full-scale production for Theatre UNB, under the supervision of the Director of Drama. NOTE: Students cannot obtain credit for both ENGL 4173/DRAM 4173 and ENGL 4170/DRAM 4170. 

Open to students completing the final year of a Double Major or 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. NOTE: Students cannot obtain credit for both ENGL 4174/DRAM 4174 and ENGL 4170/DRAM 4170. 

Continues the study of the Anglo-Saxon Period begun in Old English I. Considers a greater number of texts, and demands a more sophisticated level of literary and linguistic analysis. In addition to the regular course work for ENGL 3004, a seminar presentation and a paper based on it will be required. NOTE: Students cannot obtain credit for both ENGL 3004 and ENGL 5004.