3000-Level Course Descriptions

FALL 2023 | FALL WINTER 2023-24 | WINTER 2024

ENGL-3116-001 | Topics in Creative Writing: Writing for Readers of Colour | J. Wills
Course Delivery: IN PERSON

This workshop-based course explores the ways creative writing in English often falsely presumes and centres a so-called “neutral” white reader. We will challenge these assumptions and consider the roles of race and ethnicity in relation to craft and audience. This is NOT a course about how one might enact racial ventriloquism in writing. Rather, it is a course that celebrates Own Voices writing while attending to the multicultural worlds in which our characters may live. Students will practice various writing techniques that purposefully address race in difficult, albeit meaningful ways, like racial coding. We will especially consider how writers of colour signal to our own communities while also anticipating broader audiences. We will discuss the roles of sensitivity readers, the importance of radicalized editors and publishers, and expose the ways we, as writers, “read race." Short writing exercises will be paired with readings by authors that may include Toni Morrison, Akwaeke Emezi, Raven Leilani, Chang-Rae Lee, and Claudia Rankine. This course focuses on fictional and non-fictional prose writing. 

ENGL-3160-001 | Topics Y P Cult Lit Texts: Witchcraft and Folklore | C. Tosenberger
Course Delivery: IN PERSON

In this course, we will study the multiple iterations of the witch throughout history, through the medium of folk, literary, and visual representations. Of special interest is the idea of the witch as either a threat to young people (fairy tale monster, eater of babies, tormenter of teenage girls), and, conversely, the child or teenager AS witch: the use of magic as a way to (positively or negatively) destabilize existing hierarchies of power that impact young people. Through a study of Julian Goodare’s concept of the four “models” of the witch—demonological, village, storytime, and visionary—we will examine the multiple ways the witch has been framed, abused, and reclaimed. 

ENGL-3709-001 | Topics in Canadian Literature: Life Writing | C. Rifkind
Course Delivery: IN PERSON

This course studies the broad field of life writing by focusing on recent Canadian memoirs and auto/biographies in comics, prose, poetry, drama, and film. We will study compelling personal stories by and about Canadian writers and artists from the past twenty years to ask the following questions: What is life writing and how can it be read and analyzed? How can life writing help us explore crucial questions about identity and the construction of the self in relation to others, including families, communities, regions, and nations? We will read lively and interesting stories on such topics as work and labour, Indigeneity and colonialism, gender and sexuality, immigration and language, and race and ethnicity. Along the way, we will discuss how these writers and artists transform the “facts” of their life experiences into art and we will trouble the conventional divides between fiction and non-fiction, memory and history, and self and other.  

Evaluation will be based on a course workbook of different kinds of exercises to develop skills in auto/biography studies, paratextual analysis, close reading, and critical analysis. There will be a take-home exam. Active engagement and participation in the course also forms part of the evaluation as classes will combine lectures and large/small group activities. Students may use print or electronic versions of the required readings, some of which are available free through the UW Library: Boon et al. Routledge Introduction to Auto/biography in Canada (excerpts); Guy Delisle’s Factory Summers; Jesse Wente’s Unreconciled: Family, Truth, and Indigenous Resistance; Ivan Coyote and Rae Spoon’s Gender Failure; Sadiqa De Meijer’s alfabet/alphabet; Fred Wah’s Diamond Grill;  Lorena Gale’s Je Me Souviens (English). Film screenings will be available through the UW Library website. 

ENGL-3719-001 | Literature of Manitoba | C. Russell
Course Delivery: IN PERSON

In this course, we explore the literary culture of the Canadian Prairies through poetry, fiction, and drama by authors who live or have lived in Manitoba, and in which Manitoba is a main setting.  History and geography of the province will provide a framework as we examine representations of the experience of Indigenous people before and after European contact; colonization by French and British fur traders and settlers; subsequent waves of new immigrants; and contemporary life in this province.  Themes examined will include: establishing new communities in unfamiliar territory while recalling a cultural history from another place; different perceptions of nature and the land; small town life versus big city life; and the search for intellectual, social, and religious freedom amidst perceived parochialism.  Particular topics will include representations of the North End of Winnipeg, the Winnipeg General Strike, the fur trade, and rural life in the province.  Evaluation in the course likely will include short writing assignments, a group presentation, a mid-term test, an essay, a term project, and a final exam.

ENGL-3719-245/246 | Literature of Manitoba: De-Centredness in Canada's Middle | S. Rich
Course Delivery: IN PERSON

Despite myriad, systemic forms of personal and political prejudice, Canada nonetheless promotes itself as an inclusive space of diversity and difference. The result is a destabilized, precarious sense of personal and social identity, one that denies the existence of hostile and discriminatory realities. Located in the geographic middle of the nation, Manitoba exemplifies the hypocrisy of our public self by exhibiting, instead, rampant levels of racism, xenophobia, cultural intolerance, sexual discrimination, and class divide that provide stark contrast to any idea of a harmonious national identity. The province thus illuminates the country as tenuously “de-centred” at its core.  

In this course, we will examine Manitoban works of literature that challenge a homogenized view of Canadian identity. These texts offer a nuanced expression of our nation as consisting of such dualities as foreign/native, urban/rural, singular/hybrid, contemporary/traditional, and same/other. The history, geography, and climate of the province will provide a framework within which to examine:  representations of Indigenous communities before and after European contact; colonization by French and British fur traders and settlers; waves of new immigrants and their recalled cultural histories; and contemporary life in this province.   

This class will be highly collaborative and participatory in nature, involving much informal discussion in addition to regular lectures. Throughout the course, we will focus extensively upon improving skills in rhetorical argumentation, close readings, clear scholarly writing, and effective research. Students are expected to have read required texts (carefully) before each class. 

ENGL-3812-001 | History of English | Z. Izydorcyzk
Course Delivery: IN PERSON

This course offers a concise survey of the evolution of the English language as a medium of communication and literature from Old to Modern English. It introduces students to the concepts and meta-language used to describe linguistic change and emphasizes the connection between such change and cultural/literary expression. Students learn about the language of the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings, Arthurian knights, and Elizabethan gentlemen. They read excerpts from Beowulf, Chaucer, and Shakespeare, among others, to discover the profound shifts that occurred in the structure and use of English over the last millennium and a half. They also explore the consequences of those shifts for communication and literary practices over the centuries. The course will challenge students to enhance their awareness of the time-bound character of both language and literature.

This course will be taught in person though a combination of lecture-discussions, practical exercises and assignments, short quizzes, and a research paper. The textbook will be supplemented by additional readings available online.

FALL/WINTER 2023-24

ENGL-3101-770 | Creative Writing Comprehensive | L. Wong
Course Delivery: ONLINE

In this intensive workshop-based creative writing course, we will focus on crafting short fiction, novel chapters written for young people (ages 13+), in addition to memoir writing and personal essays. Student manuscripts will form the primary texts, in addition to some assigned reading and in-class exercises. 

Questions that we will explore but are not limited to: What are the best ways to understand quality in a text written for young adults? How do we construct powerful pieces of short fiction? What is “emotional truth” told when using only the facts? Within a stylistical, literary, and ethical context, what should we be aspiring to, as practitioners of this genre, and how can we be successful in breaking into the writing industry?

Students will submit 1-2 pieces of creative work during the term (depending on workshop size) and are responsible for placing as much attention on critique as on their own craft. Learning to successfully execute these three prose genres will be the focus of the workshop, and we will learn to hone our creative processes to produce compelling, original works of writing.

Attendance, thoughtful feedback on peers’ works, and lively discussion are expected. A final grade will be based on participation, including but are not limited to: a deconstruction of the structure of a popular YA novel of your choosing, a novel outline/synopsis, a report on an event featuring an author/literary agent, a literary genealogy reflection, peer feedback letters, and one or two workshop submissions. 

Students are encouraged to think about submitting their work to literary journals such as the University of Winnipeg’s Juice: https://www.uwinnipeg.ca/english/juice-journal-submissions.html

As this is an intermediate 300-level writing workshop, students should be fairly independent, committed, and motivated to improve their craft. Late workshop submissions without permission will receive a zero if they are submitted a week after the deadline. Similarly, if you are being workshopped and you are unable to attend, we may not be able to accommodate you because of scheduling. It is your responsibility to switch with another student if you know that you will be away that week.

Students are selected for this course based on the strength of their 10 page writing sample (5 pages of fiction and 5 pages of nonfiction, double-spaced, size font 12). Please submit your portfolio to li.wong@uwinnipeg.ca.

ENGL-3151-001 | Introduction to Critical Theory | A. Brickey
Course Delivery: IN PERSON

In her groundbreaking 1991 essay "Theory as Liberatory Practice," bell hooks writes: "I came to theory because I was hurting--the pain within me was so intense that I could not go on living. I came to theory desperate, wanting to comprehend--to grasp what was happening around and within me. Most importantly, I wanted to make the hurt go away. I saw in theory then a location for healing." In this class we will ask: what has theory offered us and how still could it be useful? Students will be introduced to the wide and diverse tradition of critical theory, beginning with its conservative roots in Western Metaphysics and moving historically through major schools of thought including Aestheticism, Marxism, Feminism, New Historicism, Queer Theory, Post-Colonial Theory, Black Studies, and more. We will dedicate ourselves to reading seriously and slowly, analyzing essays that have had significant impact on the history of ideas and taking a particular interest in Literary Studies and its critical attendants. We will read work from Plato, Philip Sidney, Matthew Arnold, Roland Barthes, Gayatri Spivak, Eve Sedgwick, Frantz Fanon, Judith Butler, Fred Moten, and more. Assignments will include regular in-class writing, pop quizzes on reading material, and a final critical essay. The use of AI software such as ChatGPT is prohibited in this class, and students will do the majority of their written work in class, writing by hand.  

ENGL-3190-050 | Literature and Film | M. Leeder
Course Delivery: IN PERSON

This class will examine the specifics of literature and cinema and the points of interaction of these two media. Some of the focus will be on adaptations, including of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Stephen King’s The Shining, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women and Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians, as well as on transmedia characters like Batman. The class will also examine adaptation and influence in the other direction, as novelizations, and consider works of film-influenced literature like Percy Walker’s The Moviegoer and Gemma Files’s Experimental Film. 

ENGL-3901-001 | Queer Lit, Cult & Theory | H. Milne
Course Delivery: IN PERSON

How have LGBTQ2S+ writers used literary forms to explore identity and record personal and collective history? How have queer texts circulated, both within queer communities and beyond them? These are some of the questions that will inform our investigation of queer literature and culture in this course. The first semester will focus primarily on literature written prior to the gay liberation movement of the 1970s and will include readings by Oscar Wilde, Radclyffe Hall, Christopher Isherwood, Ann Bannon, and Audre Lorde. In the second semester, we will consider the complex and diverse LGBTQ2S+ literary communities that emerged after gay liberation.  We will spend several weeks looking at literature that takes as its focus the impact of AIDS on queer communities; we will consider how issues of race and nation have influenced queer writing; and we will examine the place of transgender literature within the broader category of LGBTQ2S+ literature. We will also examine local queer histories by looking at archival and historical material about LGBTQ2S+ culture in Winnipeg.  We will supplement our analysis of literary texts and films with historical and theoretical materials. We will also critically analyze current events that pertain to LGBTQ2S+ culture and rights.   

ENGL-3980-770 | Topics in Comics: Autobiographical Comics | C. Rifkind
Course Delivery: ONLINE

Auto/biographical comics, or graphic life narratives, have been at the forefront of the alternative comics scene since the 1970s. This course traces their development over the past three decades, primarily in the US but with examples of Japanese manga and French bandes-dessinée in translation, to explore how comics can draw non-fictional stories about individuals lives and experiences in broader historical, cultural, and political contexts. In the Fall term, we will study “essential” texts that have laid the foundation for contemporary auto/bio comics studies. In the Winter term, we will study recent works of graphic memoir, graphic journalism, and auto/bio comics for young readers. This will allow us to think about how graphic life narratives can explore the relationships between memory and history, peace and conflict, child and parent, individual and community, self and other, documentary and creativity, fiction and non-fiction.

Students should expect to study serious topics (war, genocide, trauma, gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, illness and disability) in a seemingly lightweight medium. We will investigate the tensions between such serious topics and the visual pleasures of the comics page. Students will learn how to study comics as a distinct form and how to draw on literary studies, cultural studies, screen studies, art history, media and communications, and other disciplines to speak and write about visual-verbal texts. Evaluation will include presentations, reading responses, close reading assignments, and a major research project (creative or academic). This live online course requires active participation and engagement: students should expect to attend and contribute regularly to large and small group discussions, and weekly participation will be included in the evaluation. The list of required texts is available through the UW Bookstore and students may also use ebooks if available. Additional readings will be posted to Nexus in the first week of classes.

WINTER 2024

ENGL-3110-001 | Writing Creative Non-Fic | J. Wills
Course Delivery: IN PERSON

In this course, students will read and write across genres of creative non-fiction, including but not limited to memoir, personal essay, blogging, and literary essay. Students will think about narrative development, language, and aesthetics in relation to form and the delivery of information. We will also discuss issues related to realism, ethics, and representation. We will explore different formats and venues for publishing creative non-fiction. This workshop-based course will include shorter writing assignments as well as a major final term project.

ENGL-3113-001 | Writing Short Fiction | J. Scoles 
Course Delivery: IN PERSON

This is a course in writing short fiction and exploring its many forms—including micro-fiction, short-short stories and short stories—through close reading, explication, group discussions and improvisational writing exercises. We will emulate and explore the short fiction of master storytellers, such as Sinclair Ross, Alistair MacLeod, Thomas King, Eden Robinson, Haruki Murakami, James Joyce, Alice Munro, Louise Erdrich and Margaret Atwood, among many others—and students will be introduced to structures and strategies fiction writers use in the art of storytelling. Important elements of craft—Narrative Voice, Conflict, Tension, Setting, and Character, for example—will be explored in depth through critical analysis, as will the cultural, social, and historical aspects of stories, and the lives and influences of the authors. Students will develop a portfolio of stories—multiple forms of short fiction—through writing exercises, deep editing, workshops and peer review sessions throughout the term. This course is recommended for students who have an interest in writing short fiction professionally.

ENGL-3116-770 | Topics in Creative Writing | S. Pool
Course Delivery: ONLINE

Course Description TBA

ENGL-3118-001| Topics in Fiction for Young People: Radical Botany | H. Snell
Course Delivery: IN PERSON

This course takes its subtitle from Natania Meeker and Antónia Szabari's Radical Botany: Plants and Speculative Fiction. A contribution to the growing field of critical plant studies, Radical Botany explores the relationship between plants and humans at both the level of methodology and as the object of scientific study and cultural fascination. While Radical Botany focuses on texts produced for adults, this course considers texts for young people that similarly draw attention to what Meeker and Szabari call "vegetal recalcitrance." Although the focus is on young adult novels, we also consider video games and other entertainment media in which plants appear – or can be played – as extraordinarily willful and powerful subjects in their own right. Representations of radical botany in young people's texts can neither be reduced to examples of anthropomorphism nor be celebrated as critical engagements with climate change. One objective of this course is to explore the effects of different ways of highlighting plants as participants rather than passive objects. For this reason, we historicize representations of radical botany for young people, paying attention to mode and genre (e.g. plant horror, climate fiction) and assessing how they invite young readers to think about their environment in particular places at particular times.  

ENGL-3209-770 | 18th Century Studies | K. Ready
Course Delivery: ONLINE

This course examines Restoration and eighteenth-century British literature, with a consistent attempt to contextualize it within contemporary political, economic, social, and intellectual life. Relevant contexts include the appearance and development of party-system politics; the growth of commercial capitalism, urbanization, and sociability; ongoing debates over the status of women, religious minorities, colonial rule, and the institution of slavery; and the impact on literary culture of an emergent mass reading public. In response to continuing challenges to the established canon of Restoration and eighteenth-century literature, the course includes works once considered representative as well as those by lesser known writers of wide-ranging backgrounds.

ENGL 3709-002 | Topics in Canadian Literature: The National Film Board of Canada | A. Burke
Course Delivery: IN PERSON

What are the connections between cinema and culture, movies, and memory? This course investigates how film functions as a vehicle for cultural memory and investigates the ways in which the audiovisual archive shapes and distorts what and how we remember. Founded in 1939, the National Film Board of Canada has, for over 80 years, documented modern life in Canada. From fiction features to experimental films to cartoons and classic documentaries, NFB productions form an archive of national life, a vision of Canada that is both powerful and problematic. The course will draw on the films available via the NFB Campus platform to examine how access and availability shape how and what we remember, how the past is present in its digitized traces. Focusing primarily on NFB productions of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, the course identifies and interrogates the way that film functions as a medium through which fantasies of nationhood and cultural mythologies are propagated and circulated.

ENGL-3717-001 | Indigenous Literature an Culture | P. DePasquale
Course Delivery: IN PERSON

Course Description TBA

ENGL-3724-001 | Topics in Race/Ethnicity | K. Sinanan
Course Delivery: IN PERSON

Course Description TBA

ENGL-3756-001 | Topics in Ancient Lit: Folklore in the Ancient World | C. Tosenberger
Course Delivery: IN PERSON

In this course, we will study popular narratives and beliefs in the Greek and Roman world, through the lens of folklore studies. We will examine some well-known works of literature, some that originate in oral culture (The Odyssey) and others written as novels (The Golden Ass); we will also look at how widespread folk beliefs about sex, death, and magic affected literature, art, politics, religion, and everyday life. We will pay special attention to narratives of magical transformation, and the role they play in the development of the European fairy tale tradition. Of particular interest will be stories and folk beliefs concerning concepts of the Other—in terms of gender, sexuality, social class, national origin, or religious practice—and their impact on Greco-Roman culture.  

ENGL 3905-770 | Topics in Biblical Text | T. Penner
Course Delivery: ONLINE

The Bible is many things to many people all over the world: a holy scripture, a set of guiding principles, an object of oppression, a confounding tome, a source of endless mystery, or a meaningless text. Whatever way it is considered, the influence of this collection of ancient literature has had an indelible influence on the art and history of Western Culture. In this course we will engage critically with a several works that borrow from, and allude to, Biblical stories and traditions in the construction of their narratives. By considering novels, films, poems, and drama we will examine the lasting impact of the “good book” as it is interpreted, questioned, celebrated, and critiqued by a variety of artists writing from divergent perspectives, traditions, and religious inclinations.