Program Advisor: Paul Dyck, Ph.D. (web page)Associate Professor of English
Through the study of English literature, you will learn to interpret texts, to communicate their interpretations effectively, and, in creative writing courses, to develop your own literary art. The study and creation of imaginative literature makes a unique contribution to the examined Christian life by teaching sensitivity to metaphor and narrative, which is necessary if we are to find ways to conceive of God and ourselves.
Studies in English prepare you for careers that demand excellent communication and critical thinking skills, including journalism, media, business, law, publishing, church ministry, and teaching.
At CMU, you can study English as a four-year major (minimum 48 credit hours), a three-year major (minimum 30 credit hours), or a minor (minimum 18 credit hours) within the Bachelor of Arts.
Go here for information about the requirements of this program
For specific questions about this program, contact the Program Advisor.
Find below a list of all the courses CMU offers in the field of English. CMU offers ENGL-1010 English Literature I, ENGL-1020 English Literature II, ENGL-2010 British Literature A, and ENGL-2020 British Literature B each year. Other courses are offered in a rotation so that students will have opportunity to take all the courses required by their majors or minors over the years of their studies at CMU.
Courses
The following section contains a complete list of courses for its curriculum. For current course listings please see the Course Description section of our website.
ENGL-1010/3 English Literature I—Prose Fiction (Formerly:
63.101/3): This course will examine narrative, focusing on the
genres of the novel and the short story, drawing upon a
broad range of historical and contemporary literature from
around the world, with an emphasis on the twentieth
century. It will examine the complex relationship between
form and content, reflecting on how words make meaning.
ENGL-1020/3 English Literature II—Poetry and Drama (Formerly: 63.102/3): This course will examine the genres of
the play, the narrative poem and the lyrical poem, drawing
upon a broad range of historical and contemporary literature
from around the world, with an emphasis on the twentieth
century. It will examine the complex relationship between
form and content, reflecting on how words make meaning.
ENGL-2010/3 British Literature—Canon, Texts, and
Contexts A (Formerly: 63.201): This course, together with
ENGL-2020/3, studies British literature from the Middle Ages
to the twentieth century. It explores the complex and
nuanced relationship between literature and its cultural and
historical contexts, providing an extensive grounding in
English literary traditions. Prerequisite: ENGL-1010/3 and1020/3
or the permission of the instructor.
ENGL-2020/3 British Literature—Canon, Texts, and
Contexts B (Formerly: 63.202/3): This course, together with
ENGL-2010/3, studies British literature from the Middle Ages
to the twentieth century. It explores the complex and
nuanced relationship between literature and its cultural and
historical contexts, providing an extensive grounding in
English literary traditions. This course continues from
Reading British Literature A, with which it must be taken in
sequence, normally in the same year. Prerequisite: ENGL-2010
or the permission of the instructor.
ENGL-2400/3 Creative Writing—Non-fiction (Formerly:
63.240/3): This is a workshop-based course in non-fiction
writing. Students will study models of accomplished writing
and will produce a number of short pieces ranging from the
autobiographic to the journalistic. Students will be expected,
in addition to other work, to read and comment upon each
other’s work. This is not a remedial writing course.
Prerequisite: ENGL-1010/3 and 1020/3 or instructor’s permission
based on evaluation of student portfolio.
ENGL-2410/3 Creative Writing—Short Fiction (Formerly:
63.241/3): This is a workshop-based course in writing short
fiction. Students will be expected, in addition to other work,
to read and comment upon each other’s work. Prerequisite:
ENGL-1010/3 or instructor’s permission based on evaluation of
student portfolio.
ENGL-2420/3 Creative Writing—Poetry (Formerly:
63.242/3): This is a workshop-based course in writing poetry.
Students will be expected, in addition to other work, to read
and comment upon each other’s work. Prerequisite: ENGL-
1020/3 or instructor’s permission based on evaluation of
student portfolio.
ENGL-2450/3 The Digital Word (Formerly: 63.245/3): This
course responds to the question “how does writing and text
itself change in an electronic medium?” This course will
explore hypertext theory and practice, the use of icons and
images within compositional structures, and the practice of
textual tagging, all from a rhetorical angle. Prerequisite:
Students should have familiarity with computing, including
word processing and file management.
ENGL-2950/3 Topics in English (Formerly: 63.295/3): The
content of this course will vary from year to year, depending
on the needs of students and the interests and availability of
instructors. Prerequisites: Prerequisite: ENGL-1010/3 and1020/3
or permission of the instructor.
ENGL-3000/3 The History of the Book (Formerly: 63.300/3):
This course examines the book as a material and a conceptual
object. It focuses on the development of writing
technologies from stone tablets through the paper book and
to electronic texts, asking centrally about the material history
of the literature we read as well as our ideas about
knowledge itself. Prerequisite: ENGL-1010/3 and1020/3 or
permission of the instructor.
ENGL-3010/3 Shakespeare (63.301/3): This course studies
the dramas of William Shakespeare and asks both what they
would have meant to their original audiences and why they
remain popular today, four centuries later. Plays will include
histories, comedies, tragedies, and romances. Prerequisite:
ENGL-1010/3 and1020/3 or permission of the instructor.
ENGL-3020/3 Studies in English Renaissance Literature (Formerly: 63.302/3): This course will consider the literature
of the sixteenth century. The course may take the form of a
general survey or it may focus on a particular topic.
Prerequisite: ENGL-1010/3 and1020/3 or permission of the
instructor.
ENGL-3030/3 Studies in Seventeenth-Century
Literature (Formerly: 63.303/3): This course will consider the
literature of the seventeenth century, primarily up to the
Restoration. The course may take the form of a general
survey or it may focus on a particular topic. Prerequisites:
ENGL-1010/3 and1020/3 or permission of the instructor.
ENGL-3040/3 Nineteenth-Century Novel (Formerly:
63.304/3): This course is a study of the emergence of the
novel as one of the dominant literary forms. We will
investigate historical and theoretical contexts, research
theories of the rise of the novel, and examine various styles
such as comedy, realism, romance, and early examples of
modernism. The reading list will emphasize influential British
novels but may include North American and European titles.
Authors may include Scott, Austen, Bronte, Dickens, James,
George Eliot, Hardy, Conrad, Twain, Hawthorne, Dostoyevsky,
Flaubert. Prerequisite: ENGL-1010/3 and1020/3 or permission of
the instructor.
ENGL-3050/3 The Novel Since 1900 (Formerly: 63.305/3):
The novel survived a rapid series of transformations in the
past century, including the declaration of "the death of the
novel," and remains a dominant form. Each version of this
course may offer a survey of influential novels, focus on a
national tradition or topic, or consider subgenres such as
science fiction, comic, or dystopian novels. Trends to be
examined include modernism, postmodernism, and magic
realism. Theoretical and cultural contexts will be studied, but
the primary goal of the course is detailed study of individual
novels. Prerequisite: ENGL-1010/3 and1020/3 or permission of
the instructor.
ENGL-3060/3 Canadian Literature (Formerly: 63.306/3):
Students will investigate Canadian poetry, fiction, drama, and
non-fiction and consider the political and historical issues
involved in the creation of "Can Lit." The focus will vary and
may include regional, aboriginal, Francophone, or Pre-
Confederation voices. Major authors may include Stephen
Leacock, Mordecai Richler, Margaret Atwood, Guy
Vanderhaeghe, Rudy Wiebe, Michael Ondaatje, Robert
Kroetsch, Michel Tremblay, P.K. Page, and Thomas King.
Prerequisite: ENGL-1010/3 and1020/3 or permission of the
instructor.
ENGL-3070/3 World Literature in English (Formerly:
63.307/3): Some of the most exciting and challenging writing
of the past decades belongs to the literatures of former
British colonies. This course will consider the complex
relationship between indigenous and colonist literary
traditions and the development of national voices within the
colonial structures of language and genre. Individual
instructors will focus the course, usually on a particular place
or topic. Prerequisite: ENGL-1010/3 and1020/3 or permission of
the instructor.
ENGL-3080/3 Mennonite Literature (Formerly: 63.308/3):
This course deals with literature that substantively engages
the broad Mennonite experience, particularly in North
America. It will primarily deal with recent Canadian and U.S.
authors who write out of personal experience of Mennonite
community, though not necessarily autobiographically. Texts
will be studied in the context of Mennonite histories,
cultures, and theologies. Prerequisite: ENGL-1010/3 and1020/3
or permission of the instructor.
ENGL/INTG-3090/3 Studies in Medieval Literature: This
course will consider the literature of the Middle Ages. The
course may take the form of a general survey or it may focus
on a particular topic. Prerequisites: ENGL-1010/3 and 1020/3 or
permission of the instructor.
ENGL-3100/3 Short Fiction: This course will consider the
short story and novella, from their origins (Aesop, Chaucer,
Boccaccio, Grimm) through the flood of short fiction written
from the mid 19th century on, and on to present examples.
The course will look at influential British, American, and
Canadian short fiction (from Poe to Munro) and also at works
in translation from around the world, including examples of
realism, romanticism, modernism, fantasy, detective fiction,
etc. Prerequisites: ENGL-1010/3 and n1020/3 or permission of the
instructor.
ENGL-3430/3 Literary Non-Fiction (Formerly: 63.343/3): This
course will focus on the personal essay, a vital literary form
that allows the writer informal and candid reflection on self
and on social, political, and spiritual issues. We will study
examples from ancient times to the present day and include
memoirs, polemics, and comic essays. Our reading list will
feature such famous essayists as Augustine, Montaigne,
Lamb, Woolf, and Orwell. The focus will be on short essays
but influential book-length non-fiction works will also be
included. Prerequisite: ENGL-1010/3 and1020/3 or permission of
the instructor.
ENGL-3800/3 Reading Culture (Formerly: 63.380/3): An
extension of the practices involved in reading written texts,
this course includes the exploration and analysis of other
cultural forms such as film, TV programming, and visual
graphics, including photographs and advertising that
participate in the cultural production of meaning. Attention
will be given to theories of how meaning is constructed and
exchanged. Prerequisite: ENGL-1010/3 and1020/3 or permission
of the instructor.
ENGL-3950/3 Topics in English (Formerly: 63.395/3): The
content of this course will vary from year to year, depending
on the needs of students and the interests and availability of
instructors. Prerequisite: ENGL-1010/3 and1020/3 or permission
of the instructor.
ENGL/INTG-4200/3 Revenge (Formerly: 63/11.420/3): This
course will explore the cultural and theological meanings of
revenge through a range of literary forms including drama,
narrative, poetry, and film, beginning with the tradition of the
revenge tragedy. Why do so many revenge stories end in
cataclysm? Out of what does the desire for revenge arise? Is
the desire for revenge an endless response to injustice?
What is forgiveness, and how might it interrupt the desire for
revenge? Prerequisite: ENGL-1010/3 and1020/3 or six credit
hours of introductory Bible and/or Theology.
ENGL-4800/3 Literary Theory (Formerly: 63.480/3):
Students will survey theoretical trends in literary analysis.
Topics range from the possibility of determining meaning
and intention in a text to whether a text may be seen in the
colour of a flower. Further topics include Northrop Frye’s
notion of the Bible being the code for all western literary
expression to Terry Eagleton’s theory that all literary criticism
is political in nature. Prerequisite: ENGL-1010/3 and1020/3 and
30 credit hours of university-level studies.
ENGL-4940/3 Independent Study in English (Formerly:
63.494/3): A study in a specific area of English under the
direction of a faculty member. Prerequisite: ENGL-1010/3
and1020/3, an additional nine credit hours in English, and a
minimum of 60 credit hours of post-secondary education.
ENGL-4950/3 Topics in English (Formerly: 63.495): The
content of this course will vary from year to year, depending
on the needs of students and the interests and availability of
instructors. Prerequisite: ENGL-1010/3 and1020/3 or permission
of the instructor.
