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.