For more information on our course offerings, please go to the York Course Website.
Calendar Year
Term
Course #
Course Title
2024
F
gs/en 6000A
Literary Research Methods
Situating literary research methods in the context of those of other disciplines, this course is designed to introduce new graduate students in English department to conceptual and methodological frameworks which characterize literary scholarship; how to perform literature reviews; specialized research and writing resources; critical methods for interrogating those resources; and relevant, emerging issues in scholarly communication.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): L. Sloniowski
2024
SU
gs/en 6010A
Directed Reading
Instructional Format: DIRD
2024
F
gs/en 6010A
Directed Reading
Instructional Format: DIRD
2025
W
gs/en 6010M
Directed Reading
Instructional Format: DIRD
2024
F
gs/en 6150A
Satire: Twisting World Literature
This course studies satire from its the origins to the present but along a distinct through-line of the sub-genre called the grotesque. Melding repellent physicality with politically commentary, the grotesque invokes rude histories and contemporary dangers, producing abject responses to monstrous combinations of political horror and laughter.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): J. Creet
2024
S2
gs/en 6151M
The City in Translation: Negotiating Linguistic Plurality in Urban Spaces
This interdisciplinary course investigates translation and multilingualism as they relate to the experience of the city. It provides an opportunity to study translation and various forms of languaging in narrative and poetic praxis, and explore the multilingual condition as a lived experience of translation in various cities, with an emphasis in Toronto.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): E. Basile
2024
F
gs/en 6157A
Comparative and World Literature Seminar: History and Practice
Cross-listed in English, Humanities, and Translation Studies, this seminar introduces students to the conditions of emergence and development of the discipline of Comparative Literature from its beginnings in nineteenth-century Europe to its most recent global iteration of World Literature. Students will experience how expanded understandings of cultural translation and textuality have radically altered and expanded the Eurocentric character of the discipline. Questions for investigation include: How have the aesthetics and politics of Comparative Literature changed over the past two hundred years? What factors have influenced those changes? How is World Literature related to Comparative Literature? How do both relate to colonial, post-colonial, diasporic, cultural and translation studies and digital humanities?
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): S. Ingram
2024
F
gs/en 6305A
Global Georgics: Land and Labour across the Long Eighteenth Century
This course examines the relationship between land, labour, and poetry from the classical origins of the georgic mode to the present day. Special focus is given to the relationship between georgic, transatlantic slavery, and settler colonialism in the long eighteenth century and beyond.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): K. O'Briain
2025
W
gs/en 6325M
Walter Benjamin and his Contemporaries
This course engages selected texts by Walter Benjamin and those of some fellow intellectuals of import for literary and cultural criticism and theory. Particular attention is paid to Benjamins thinking on history, language, criticism or critique, translation, and media.
Instructional Format: SEMR
2025
W
gs/en 6385M
Nineteenth-Century Imperial Culture: Britain and the United States
Offers a comparison and contrast between British and American imperialist cultures in the long nineteenth century, from the American Revolution to the First World War. We begin with a historical overview and introduction to theories of imperialism, and proceed with such topics as territorial expansion, exceptionalism, theories of race, imperial women, slavery, and science fiction.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): V. Shea
2024
F
gs/en 6424A
Victorian Sexualities
Examines Victorian representations of sexual pleasure and anxiety in a range of theoretical, historical, scientific, and literary texts.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): T. Choi
2024
F
gs/en 6425A
Readings in Victorian Literature
This course explores Victorian literature and culture through readings drawn from a range of genres.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): L. Higgins
2024
F
gs/en 6517A
The Cold War and U.S. Literature
This course considers the literary response to geo-political and domestic dramas of the Cold War, and the attempt to rethink the purpose of culture in the 1950s and beyond. Emphasis will be placed upon emerging conceptions of race, ethnicity, and sexuality.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): A. Redding
2025
W
gs/en 6549M
Modernism, Interdisciplinarity, and the Arts
Examines the literary, musical, and visual cultures of modernism to create better understanding of the forms, meanings, and significance of interdisciplinary art practices.
Instructional Format: SEMR
2024
F
gs/en 6575A
Studies in Postcolonial Literature
This course explores literary and cultural texts that reflect and shape postcolonial debates around nation, gender, religion, caste, and language in South Asia. Through reading texts both originally written in English and translated into English from other South Asian languages, students will examine various postcolonial responses, allegiances, and resistance to empire. Challenging the 'post' in postcolonialism, students will study historical and contemporary forms of occupation and racialized violence in South Asia.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): S. Bhat
2024
SU
gs/en 6625A
The Crisis of Love: Twenty-First Century Fiction
This course examines twenty-first century fictions to engage questions about love and its affective, ethical, social and political valences. It follows a critical practice that attends both to the contexts informing their writing and reading and their formal dimensions and properties.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): S. Warwick
2025
W
gs/en 6695M
Muslim Women Write Back
In this course we will read and discuss contemporary literature and theory by and about Muslim/Middle Eastern women, with an emphasis on current world issues.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): M. Ebrahimi
2024
S1
gs/en 6741A
Modern Canadian Poetry
This course examines Canadian poetry produced between 1920 and 1960, incorporating an overview of Modernist trends in Canadian poetry alongside a consideration of longer collections by significant poets.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): S. Cain
2025
W
gs/en 6776M
Seminar-Workshop in Creative Writing: Poetry
Along with matters of craft, this workshop course considers questions that confront poets: how to make poetry relevant in today's society, what forms of attention does poetry allow, what relationship to poetic tradition is most effective, what is an effective relationship towards formal tradition and innovation, etc. All students will write both poetry and academic papers (critical and/or theoretical engagements with elements of contemporary poetry and poetics). Students taking the course as part of the GDiP in Creative Writing will be evaluated primarily on their poetry; other students will be evaluated on the basis of their academic work.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): K. Allen
2025
W
gs/en 6779M
Seminar-Workshop in Creative Writing: Fiction
What exactly is realism in fiction? How is it challenged by other ways of telling? Where is the border between factual and fictional narrative? How do we engage creatively with a world in crisis? Readings will be drawn from a range of contemporary fiction and criticism, spanning regions and genres. Students will write fiction and a short critical paper.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): P. Malla
2025
W
gs/en 6965M
Theorizing Memory
This course explores contemporary theories of cultural, collective, archival and literary memory through transhistoric texts and transgeneric materials that have proven central to current configurations of memory studies.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): J. Creet
2024
F
gs/en 6998A
Studies in Contemporary Literature
This course focuses on texts and theories of contemporary English literature. The content and method change from year to year, depending on the instructor.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): M. Boon
2025
W
gs/en 7000M
Dissertation Proposal Writing Workshop
This writing workshop analyses the components of the dissertation proposal, discusses appropriate writing strategies, and provides a faculty-member-facilitated, peer-review setting for students to develop their dissertation topics and draft their proposals according to Faculty of Graduate Studies' guidelines.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): R. Zacharias
Learn More
The Graduate Program in English at York is an exciting environment to pursue innovative, socially engaging, career-ready education. Contact our Graduate Program Assistant to learn more.