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The Department of English Language and Literature offers a wide variety of courses leading up to both major and minor concentrations in English, as well as an honours degree. The core of the program reflects a traditional approach to English studies, including literary-historical and genre courses. What makes the department distinctive, however, are a number of courses cross-listed with other disciplines or programs, such as:
This feature allows students to expand their area of academic study in ways that reflect interdisciplinary approaches and their own developing interests. The Department also offers enhanced minors in:
The Bachelor of Arts (BA) is a well-established, foundational degree and requires the requirements listed below alongside general graduation requirements.
Students wishing to major in English must satisfy the general requirements set out by the Faculty of Arts, and complete forty-two (42) credit hours in English including three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level. The Major Program (42 credit hours) consists of:
Practical Criticism (ENGL 2205) is recommended.
A minimum of twenty-four (24) credit hours in English is required to obtain a concentration in English in partial fulfillment of the B.A. General degree (i.e., one with Double Arts Concentrations and a minimum of ninety (90) credit hours). Students must have a minimum of twelve (12) credit hours in English at the 3000 level or higher.
Further details are available from the Chairperson.
Students wishing to major in English with Honours must satisfy the general requirements set out by the Faculty of Arts, and complete sixty (60) credit hours in English including three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level.
The Honours program (60 credit hours) consists of:
Note: Within the total sixty (60) credit hours, at least three (3) credit hours must be selected from the following English Language courses:
A discipline-based Minor consists of at least twenty-four (24) credit hours in English with a maximum of three (3) credit hours at the 1000 level and a minimum grade point average of 2.0. This Minor is open to students in any program in the University (other than students currently enrolled in the English Major/Honours program).
All SMU students, including those in the English Major/Honours program, can choose to take one or more of the four thematic Minors offered through the Department of English Language and Literature:
Creative Writing Minor
Race, Culture and Resistance Minor
Dramatic Literature Minor
English Language Minor
The requirements for each Minors consist of: at least twenty-four (24) credit hours in English with a maximum of three (3) credit hours at the 1000 level and a minimum grade point average of 2.0.
Further details and annual lists of courses for each Minor are available from the Chairperson.
Students can also choose to take the British Studies Minor, offered jointly by the Department of English Language and Literature and the Department of History. Further details about this Minor are available from the Chairperson of English, or History.
A minor in Creative Writing gives students a chance to make art — poems, stories, works for performance —out of words, and also to consider literature from a maker’s perspective. Our creative writing minors come from all over the university: some major in English; some major in other disciplines, entirely. What brings our students together is an experience of the vitality of both written and spoken word. Our core courses are seminars in poetry-, fiction-, drama-, and nonfiction-writing in which students have a chance to hone their craft(s) in company. We also offer a selection of lecture-style courses where students study literature from their vantage as scholar/makers, and respond to what they're reading in both creative and critical forms.
Students who declare a Minor in Creative Writing must take:
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in English at the 1000 level
Strongly recommended courses: The Study of Poetry (ENGL 2393); The Study of Narrative (ENGL 2392)
The following courses are regularly offered; they can be considered to fulfill the minor credit requirement:
I. Seminar-style workshops Admission to these courses is based on submission of a writing sample; please contact the creative-writing coordinators for details: alexander.macleod@smu.ca; luke.hathaway@smu.ca.
II. Lecture-based courses General enrollment; no writing sample required.
A minor in “Culture, Race and Resistance in Literature” brings together a diverse range of courses that examine issues of race, nationalism, globalization, social justice, activism, and cultural resistance. It enables students to specialize in the study of literature from transnational, translocal and interdisciplinary perspectives. The courses investigate postcolonial, anti-colonial, black and Indigenous writing alongside theories of cultural, feminist and literary analysis. The theories and literature examined cover a range of periods and cultures, and include topics such as:
The minor offers an exciting opportunity for students to explore how literature reflects and galvanizes resistant cultural movements in ways that remold our contemporary world.
Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level.
Strongly recommended courses: Literary Theory I (ENGL 3302), and/or Literary Theory II (ENGL 3303), Cultural Studies (ENGL 3343).
See Handbook, produced annually.
A minor in Dramatic Literature provides students with an opportunity to specialize in drama as a literary form read within a context of staging and theatre history and from a perspective of performance theory. A dedicated minor brings together courses covering drama from a wide array of historical, thematic, international, national, and regional backgrounds, beginning with the antique drama of Greece and Rome and extending to contemporary drama and performance. Students explore dramatic literature from a range of theoretical and cultural approaches that shaped the study of drama and theatre in their vibrant and diverse responses to society, politics, ideology, and history. Literature offers students a unique and exciting opportunity to study one of the oldest genres of literary and cultural expression and to understand it as an agent of cultural and social critique and change across its long history.
The following courses already exist and are regularly offered, and they can be considered to fulfill the minor credit requirement:
(See Handbook, produced annually). This includes the study-abroad course Selected Topics in Atlantic Canada Studies II (ENGL 3826) (Criticism and Performance) and Special Author,Special Subject (ENGL 4801) (Theatre and Text).
A minor in English language allows students to study the English language as a subject, explicitly focusing on its grammar, its history and varieties, its uses and users. In taking the minor students will not only acquire extensive knowledge of English, but also learn how to describe a particular language and its varieties, and how to linguistically characterize instances of discourse in English – from everyday talk and texts to literary genres. Such explicit knowledge of English is complementary to studies of English Literature, Linguistics, Modern Languages or indeed any field where explicit knowledge of the grammar, dialects, history, and discourse patterns of English might be useful.
Courses listed below can be taken for credit towards a Minor in English Language. On the recommendation of the program coordinator/chair of English, students may substitute a linguistics course and/or an English literature course in an area of particular interest and relevance for their program of study.
See Handbook produced annually.
In addition to the programs cited above, information on a Minor in British Studies may be found in the British Studies section of this Academic Calendar.
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