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 UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM CALENDAR 2003-2004 |
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English Courses
EGA 011 English: Forms of Literature Lect: 3 hrs. This course is an introduction to the study of English literature and composition through the literary genres of short fiction, poetry, drama and long fiction. It also teaches strategies for active reading, writing, and thinking about literary texts, as a foundation for further study in English literature.
ENC 107 English: Writing Strategies Lab: 3 hrs. This course aims to develop writing competence and to enhance analytic reading skills to the standard expected of students at Ryerson. The course focuses on clear and effective expression, developing the ability to write unified, orderly and coherent texts, and forceful and controlled prose. Where necessary, teaching of grammar will reinforce these skills. The course will deal with strategies of argument, effective writing under time pressure, and construction of research essays. No transfer credits are granted. (PR)
LNG 100 English: Language and Identity Lab: 3 hrs. This course for English as a Second Language students covers material focusing on how our use of language reflects our social identities. The course will also help students improve their English and express themselves in a university setting. Students will analyze, discuss, and write essays on the material. (LL) Prerequisite: Interview. Exclusion: ENC 196.
LNG 101 English: Language and Society Lab: 3 hrs. This writing-intensive course explores the social and cultural implications of print and writing. By exploring the shift from oral to print culture, by examining the role of scribes and writers in communities, by investigating the relationship between print and power, and by speculating on the impact of computers and digital technology, the course seeks to enlarge our understanding of writing and its impact, and to consider both how we write and why we do it the way we do. (LL)
LNG 200 English: Language and Public Life Lab: 3 hrs. This course for English as a Second Language students covers material focusing on how language is framed by institutional and cultural perspectives. The course will also help students improve their English and express themselves in a university setting. Besides discussion and analysis of the material, students will write a research paper. (LL) Prerequisite: LNG 100 or English Department approval. Exclusion: ENC 197.
ENG 018 English: The Nature of Narrative Lect: 3 hrs. This course investigates the ways media technologies interact and collide. Students will study a range of traditional and experimental narratives (poems, short stories, plays and novels, digital hypertexts, films, comics, architecture and painting) from around the world to address broader topics such as adaptation across media, translation across cultures and languages, and the relationships between technology and narrative forms. (PR)
ENG 024 English: Children’s Literature Lect: 3 hrs. Starting with the powerful images of fairy tale and legend, and following them through fantasies, nursery rhymes, poetry, animal tales, family stories and adventures, this course explores how picture books and novels teach very young and older children to know themselves and their culture better. It emphasizes Canadian content. Students are encouraged to try writing their own stories for children and to follow their own research interests in contemporary children’s literature. (PR)
ENG 030 English: The Modern in Literature Lect: 3 hrs. This course examines a representative selection of British, American and Canadian literature of the twentieth century in an attempt to define the modern situation, and the innovations authors in our time have made which have enabled them to articulate the contemporary experience. The course will also look at the intellectual and cultural cross-currents which parallel and influence the literature of the age. This course is equivalent to ENG 504 and ENG 604. (UL)
ENG 050 English: The Culture of the Modern Lect: 3 hrs. The twentieth century has been characterized by an intense, fundamental sense of its own difference from the past. Its culture has been marked by self-conscious innovation in fashion, art, architecture and a problematic sense of the self. This course explores what it means to be “modern” and “post-modern”, how this literature differs in theme, technique and structure from earlier work, and what intellectual and historical influences shaped the culture of the period. (PR)
ENG 060 English: Modern Women’s Writing Lect: 3 hrs. Women’s writing deals with gender differences, not only of content, but also in modes of subjectivity. Pluralistic and diverse, women’s writing crosses the boundaries of race, genre, sexuality and historical context. Seeing “difference” as both alienation and identification, writing by women simultaneously undermines mainstream forms and adapts them to new uses. Thus women’s writing contributes to understanding of twentieth-century literary diversity, while forging its own mode of creative expression. (PR)
ENG 061 English: Nineteenth Century Studies Lect: 3 hrs. The course will examine the important relationship between literary works and their historical and social backgrounds. We will study selected nineteenth century texts to explore how authors responded, or contributed, to new ideas such as “the woman question” or art for art’s sake or to social facts such as rapidly changing class definition, an expanding urban industrial economy, and increasing literary influence from abroad. The study of historical documents and foreign language texts in translation will supplement the examination of the texts. (PR)
ENG 070 English: The Roots of Modernity Lect: 3 hrs. This course examines the origins of human obsessiveness: sexual fixations, political passions, environmental concerns and the cult of death, all within a search for personal freedom and meaning. In its experimentation, radicalism, and valuing of the quantitative and the technological, the long eighteenth century shows a deep kinship with our own time. Students will be encouraged to examine current visual art, film and video to see how these ideas are re-presented today. (PR)
ENG 071 English: Modern Canadian Literature Lect: 3 hrs. Canadian Literature is more than ever a rich and eclectic mix that reflects this country’s diversities of gender, ethnicity, and class, for example. The radical transformations of Canadian Literature into a robust body of writing occurred during the twentieth century. This course will consider the literature of Canada in relation to film, visual art, music, and advertisements. Students will have the opportunity to study works, both classic and contemporary, including those by aboriginal, multicultural, and women writers. (PR)
ENG 072 English: Popular Literature Lect: 3 hrs. Students will learn how to recognize and identify the differing conventions defining such major genres of popular literature as romance, adventure, horror, detective, and science fiction. The course will explore the relationship between texts and audiences, and how readers assign meaning to, and make use of, what they read. Students will achieve an understanding of the historical origins of the genres of popular fiction and the social and cultural values embodied in such works. (PR)
ENG 080 English: Reading Television Lect: 3 hrs. Using a “cultural studies” approach to analyse television, this course will explore such central questions as: What genre conventions are associated with different television products? How do different individuals and communities use and value television products? To what extent do television products promote resistance or preserve the status quo? Students will do a major case study analysing what and how a television product “means”. Students will be encouraged to tailor their case studies to their own individual interests or to ongoing projects. (PR)
ENG 101 English: Laughter and Tears: Comic & Tragic Modes Lect: 3 hrs. Why are some stories sad, others tragic? Are our emotional responses contingent on story-lines, on characters, on choice of words? This course helps develop analytic tools for understanding responses to fundamental forms, through readings of early and contemporary drama, poetry, prose fiction and literary criticism. We begin with the bawdy sexual politics of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, and move to new forms, from the heroism of Frankenstein to the ironies of Alice Munro. (LL)
ENG 104 English: What’s The Story? This course features the best short stories by internationally acclaimed Canadian writers: crime, mystery, family conflict, first love and its bittersweet ending, speculations on the future, the search for origins and affirmations of personal and cultural identity are the themes which run through the works Lect: 3 hrs. Both those who enjoy reading stories and aspiring writers will benefit from this course. Students will have the opportunity to write creatively and Canadian writers will be invited to discuss their craft with the class. (LL)
ENG 112 English: Zap, Pow, Bang: Pop Lect: 3 hrs. Lit. Horror stories, pop songs, love poetry, comics—this course introduces students to various types of writing that were popular at different times and in different cultures. Students will learn central concepts and terminology in the study of popular writing and culture, and they will analyze the impact that cultural and political issues have had not only on what works became popular but also on the very notion of “the popular” itself. (LL)
ENG 201 English: The Hero’s Journey: Myth and Archetype Lect: 3 hrs. Clichés like “it’s just the same old story” show us there are patterns in life which keep reappearing in popular tales, comic books, detective stories and western romances, like Billy the Kid and the James Bond films. How do we recognize them? What do they tell us about values? About desires? We begin with Homer’s Odyssey and move to Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Students will be encouraged to view the various film versions of the texts. (LL)
ENG 204 English: Within & Without: The New Literature of Immigration Lect: 3 hrs. Mainstream Canadian literature has always been a literature of immigration, but as Canada embarked on her second century, she began to redefine herself. Focusing on the last two decades, this course will explore the techniques immigrants and their heirs have used to make Canada their home, what their observations tell Canadians about themselves, and how their participation has changed the things we are. (LL)
ENG 212 English: Cultures in Crisis Lect: 3 hrs. How does culture allow us to know who we are? Over time culture has not merely reflected the nature of reality, but also has participated in defining and creating it. The purpose of this course is to examine selected texts from a variety of cultural, social, economic, and historical perspectives and contexts, and to explore how these texts have shaped our shifting notions of reality and our place within it. (LL)
ENG 501 English: Canadian Literature Lect: 3 hrs. The Twentieth Century. This course focuses on Canadian writing of the last fifty years represented by writers such as MacLennan, Birney, Carrier, Atwood, Cohen, Findley, and Munro. It aims to give students an opportunity to discuss some of the concerns of their own culture. (UL) Exclusion: ENG 180.
ENG 503 English: Science Fiction Lect: 3 hrs. The mythology of our civilization is the story of things to come. The prophetic visions of writers such as Asimov, Brunner, Clarke, Gibson, Heinlein, Herbert, Hogan, LeGuin, Lem and Niven offer endless playgrounds for the imagination. Their second gift is a widening vista or real alternatives: our future may be what they let us choose to make it. If you want to play an informed part in that choice, this course will provide the menu. (formerly ENG 301). (UL)
ENG 504 English: The Modern in Literature 1900-1945 Lect: 3 hrs. The era between 1900 and 1945 experienced such a radical sense of its own difference from the past that it is still referred to as the Modern Age. It was an age of new thought, new fashion, and a new sense of the self. In literature, it was an age of experimentation. This course explores the literature and the cultural influences of the period. Such writers as Virginia Woolf and James Joyce will be studied. First half of ENG 030. (UL)
ENG 505 English: The Creative Process Lect: 3 hrs. This upper-level course offers qualified students the opportunity both to study models of good writing and to develop their own creative abilities. Class discussions and one-on-one interviews with the instructor are designed to enhance the student’s understanding of the creative process, to stimulate the imagination, and to develop the individual abilities of each student. Areas of discussion include style; prosody; conflict, character, and dialogue; and revising and reviewing. (UL)
ENG 506 English: Cultural Encounters Lect: 3 hrs. All societies reflect a history of encounters between cultures: whether between colonizing/colonized cultures, or between minority groups and dominant cultures. This course considers the following questions: What is “culture”? How do marginalized perspectives alter the understanding of mainstream society’s beliefs? By the end of the course, students will have a historically grounded understanding of the strategies that writers use to portray cultural encounters and to challenge dominant beliefs. (UL)
ENG 507 English: Science and the Literary Imagination Lect: 3 hrs. This course deals with the impact of innovation in scientific theory on the themes and forms of literature. It considers in what ways contemporaneous literary texts reflected the implications for human identity and significance of these great shifts in understanding. (UL)
ENG 510 English: Gothic Horror Lect: 3 hrs. Invented over 200 years ago, the gothic has become one of the most popular genres in literature and film. This course will explore the gothic presence in popular culture during this time. Students will analyze ways in which the genre challenges not only other cultural conventions, but also claims in the realms of art, science, and medicine. Topics to be addressed include the relation of the gothic to gender, sexuality, class, orientalism, imperialism, and criminality. (UL)
ENG 511 English: The Art of Diaries Lect: 3 hrs. Diaries have generally been thought to be private texts, not meant for public eyes. In this course, we will consider instead how they are crafted works of art. By studying texts ranging from the early twentieth century to those posted on the internet, students will be introduced to life-writing theory, which they will use to rethink the relationship between genre and genre; art and artlessness; public and private; fact and fiction. (UL)
ENG 520 English: The Language of Persuasion Lect: 3 hrs. This course explores how language functions in personal and professional life. As George Orwell has observed, no writing is truly free of political bias, or “the desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other people’s idea of the kind of society that they should strive after”. Students will read and analyse material from such areas as: business, law, journalism, politics, advertising, in order to understand how language achieves its most powerful effects. (PR)
ENG 602 English: Women’s Writing Lect: 3 hrs. Twentieth century women writers redefine traditional literary forms and produce revolutionary new ones. Scrutinies of sexuality, refusals to submit to oppressive authority, and reassessments of women’s roles in marriage and child rearing are some of the controversial subjects presented. As well as critiquing social arrangements, modern and contemporary women writers celebrate life and the differences in race, culture and sexual choice. (UL)
ENG 604 English: The Contemporary in Literature: Post 1945 Lect: 3 hrs. Imaginative writing of the post-war period reflects the complexity of contemporary life. In themes as old as folk tales and as current as new visions of space, writers express the dreams and terrors of post-nuclear life. It is an era in which values and beliefs have been challenged and conventional distinctions—illusion and reality, fact and fiction, the sacred and the profane—have been called into question by writers as diverse as John Fowles, Margaret Atwood, and Samuel Beckett. Second half of ENG 030. (UL)
ENG 610 English: The Language of Love, Sex, and Gender Lect: 3 hrs. Love, sex, and gender are fluid and complex. Looking at stories, novels, films, and other types of texts, students will analyse the impact of literature, popular culture, and aesthetics on the formation of new notions of gender, sexuality, and desire. Emphasis will be placed on a consideration of the cultural and sociopolitical influences that contributed to these changes and on the possibility of affections, sexualities, and genders that may not yet have names. (UL)
ENG 700 English: Great Journalism Lect: 6 hrs. A fourth year seminar on selected twentieth century journalists who have not only reported on but been actively involved in and sometimes affected the world around them. Their work is marked by stylistic experimentation as they explore the boundaries of conventional journalism and search for prose forms capable of expressing the complexity of contemporary life. (PR)
ENG 906 English: Hawthorne and History Lect: 3 hrs. The course will study Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, The Blithedale Romance, The Marble Faun and selected short stories to explore his perspective on such major subjects, ideas and movements of his time as women’s rights, Utopian communes, Mesmerism (Hypnotism), Transcendentalism, and Fourierism. The author’s use of symbolism and allegory to convey his viewpoint will be examined as well. (UL)
ENG 920 English: Reading Science in Popular Culture Lect: 3 hrs. This course investigates the intersection of scientific and technological innovation with developments in literature and culture. We focus on pivotal moments in the history of science and technology: evolution, the mapping of the galaxy and the human genome, the development of physics and the internet. We explore how constructions of identity and human interaction shift in relation to significant developments in science and technology, and how these shifts are reflected in literature and culture. (PR)
ENG 921 English: Hypertext: Narrative in a Digital Age Lect: 3 hrs. This course explores how contemporary writers and theorists have attempted to come to terms with the so-called post-print era – a historical moment characterized by the strategies of fragmentation and recombination that electronic hyperspaces make possible. By analysing digital hypertexts and the work of cultural theorists on the nature and impact of this new medium, students will address the implications of the rise of computing and the internet for the future of literature. (PR)
ENG 930 English: High and Low Culture Lect: 3 hrs. Why do we consign some works of art to the dustbin of history, while others are preserved as monuments? Enter the topsy-turvy world where distinctions between “popular culture” and “high art” are called into question. Critical readings of texts, ranging from “classic” narratives to more contemporary fiction, rap music, comics, and t.v. will underscore not only how the “high” and “low” divide was erected, but why it needs to be dismantled. (PR)
ENG 931 English: Critical Theory: Literary and Cultural Lect: 3 hrs. Contrary to the assumption that theories are designed to obscure or complicate things, theories seek to interpret and explain sociocultural structures, and illuminate the practices of everyday life we might otherwise take for granted. This course introduces the core questions of literary and cultural theory. Students will learn what thinking “theoretically” means, and will study ways of understanding the interrelationship between author, reader, text, and world. (PR)
ENG 940 English: Diversity in Literature and Culture Lect: 3 hrs. Diversity is embodied in the texts that surround us, from novels, movies, and other works that we consciously consume, to more subliminal pieces such as billboards and radio jingles. Indeed, literature and other arts with the greatest impact always have been those that challenge social and artistic norms. In this course, students will learn the ways in which literature and culture in general influence our views regarding various forms of diversity. (PR)
ENG 941 English: Gender and Sex in Literature and Culture Lect: 3 hrs. In this course, students will explore uses of language and rhetoric to communicate diverse models of gender and sexuality. Looking at verbal and visual texts, the class will gain a nuanced understanding of the ways in which changes in communication, literature, popular culture, and aesthetics foster the formation and re-formation of various notions of gender, sexuality, and desire. Emphasis will be placed on the cultural and sociopolitical influences that contributed to these changes. (PR)