Courses

A study of selected works of Renaissance poetry and prose (excluding those by Shakespeare and Milton), situated in their cultural contexts.

A study of selected works written by women in seventeenth-century Britain and America, situated in their cultural contexts.

A study of the literary works of the major writers of the eighteenth century.

A study of the poetry and nonfiction prose of British writers during the Victorian era, situating these works in their historical and social contexts.

A study of works written in English by writers from postcolonial nations, focussing on issues related to postcolonialism and literature.

A survey of the major interpretive approaches to literature in contemporary theory and practice, considering the social and intellectual context out of which each approach arises.

A seminar in the reading and writing of literary nonfiction and in the development of a critical appreciation of its various forms. The course focuses on life writing in terms of its literary forms, as the authors’ responses to their culture, and as texts within which identity is shaped and altered by the intentional acts of their writers. Chosen texts demonstrate the art of life writing, as well as other paradigms for its interpretation and its literary and cultural influence. Such forms as (auto)biography, memoir, letters, diaries, travel and nature writing, and personal essays will provide the models for students’ exploration of this genre. Examples are drawn from writers such as C.S. Lewis, Thomas Merton, E.M. Forster, George Orwell, Michael Ondaatje, Annie Dillard, Kathleen Norris, Flannery O’Connor, John Bunyan, Virginia Woolf, and others who form part of the literary canon of such writing.

Examines representative works of twentieth century American literary prose and the development of its themes in various historical, political, and socio-cultural contexts, including the major wars and social upheavals in which American society has been involved in the last one hundred years. Students examine the major themes and values that comprise a canon of literature which addresses the literary movements characterized by realism and naturalism and the contexts of modernism and postmodernism to which literature has responded in the American tradition. American literature and its contributions to the discussions on religion, morality and Christianity, and the relationship between the three, are engaged.

Literature has been at the centre of the human story from its beginnings as recorded in ancient sacred texts to its current study as cultural narrative with transformative and transcendent possibilities for interpretation and creativity. This course will explore literary themes integral to the pursuit of Christian spirituality, past and present. The movement to interdisciplinary interpretation and literary hermeneutics demands that students, as readers of text, understand the role that Christian thought and aesthetics have played in their influencing of contemporary literature. In understanding that role, human spirituality is being considered as one of the integral aspects of this enterprise; Christian spirituality offers foundational vantage points from which to participate in this ongoing task of creativity and engagement in the human condition.