Upper-Level Courses 2025-26

For most upper-level courses, the prerequisite is six credits of second-year English, third-year standing, or by permission of the instructor. See prerequisites for individual courses.

Fall 2025

Spring 2026

Note: Any course descriptions or reading lists here are tentative. Check back for updates.

Course Descriptions: Fall 2025

ENGL 300: Backgrounds to English Literature

Professor Neil Surkan

“How do I explain / this restless search for beauty or relief?” *

The Sonnet: Then and Now

This course will provide students with a history of the sonnet, one of poetry’s most popular and flexible forms, before focusing on its notable popularity in the present. Beginning with an overview of two historical sonnet forms, we will proceed through the centuries, studying shifts in focus, intention, and convention, until we arrive at our contemporary moment, where the sonnet form persists, transforms, and continues to fascinate poet and reader alike.

What are the risks, and what are the rewards, of parcelling a heartache, quandary, or event into a “little song”? What is it about a poem with a turn (or “volta”) that feels so satisfactory? And at what point does the sonnet form, itself, stretch beyond recognition?

*Diane Seuss, Frank: Sonnets

ENGL 312: History of  Critical Theory

Professor Mike Roberson

This historical survey of literary theories from Plato to the Moderns will rely on two broad approaches.  First, we will consider aesthetic and literary statements from the perspective of M.H. Abrams and his four orientations of literary theory.  These orientations—the mimetic, the pragmatic, the expressive, and the objective—offer an historical and a practical approach to understanding criticism.  Second, we will consider aesthetic and literary statements as they engage in a long history of attacks against and defenses of art and literature.  This dynamic will help show how art and literature has always manifested out this fight between convention and innovation.  Along the way, we will explore how literary theories reflect and challenge the politics and philosophies of their times. 

Emblem from the cover of Sir Philip Sidney’s A Defence of Poesie and Poems, 1891 Cassell & Company ed. Source:  Project Gutenberg.  https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1962/1962-h/1962-h.htm

ENGL 326: Topics in Globalization and Literature

Professor Melissa Stephens

A study of literary and cultural responses to globalization. Content may vary from broad issues, such as human rights, multiculturalism, diasporas, and economics, to specific topics, such as food production, terrorism, urbanism, and censorship.

ENGL 329: Topics in Children's and Young Adult Fiction

Professor Janet Grafton

The figure of the witch is experiencing a resurgence in contemporary literature, and "witch lit" has become a popular sub-genre. In this course, we will engage in a survey of children’s and YA fiction and trace the reinvention of the witch from evil to empowered within these genres. Conducting close readings from a range of literary formats, we will explore what this cultural shift reveals about attitudes to and relationships with gender, power, and age.

Possible readings could include fairy tales such as Baba Yaga, Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dahl’s The Witches, Murphy’s The Worst Witch, Leyh’s Snapdragon, and Ostertag’s Witch Boy. 

ENGL 330: Topics in Speculative Narrative

Professor Daniel Burgoyne

A study of narrative through speculative fiction, which may include fantasy, science fiction, steampunk, cyberpunk, scientific romance, and alternate worlds. Genres may include short fiction, novels, poetry, graphic narratives, television, and film.

Authors will include Diane Wynne Jones, Ursula Le Guin, and Octavia Butler.

ENGL 340: Topics in Medieval Literature

The Canterbury Tales (by Geoffrey Chaucer)

Professor Cynthea Masson

Alongside our practice of Middle English, we will examine the plots, themes, genres, and characters of several Canterbury Tales. To contextualize our readings, we will discuss aspects of medieval England, including political and religious beliefs. Assignments will include translation tests, a research paper, a midterm exam, and a final exam. Depending on the number of students enrolled, creative presentations about Chaucer and his works (or, alternatively, dramatic recitations of Chaucerian verse) will be a required component.

REQUIRED TEXT 

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Edited by Robert Boenig and Andrew Taylor, 2nd ed., Broadview, 2012.

ENGL 346: Topics in 17th-Century Literature (Online Asynchronous)

Anna Atkinson

A study of 17th-century literature within the broader social, political, philosophical, and cultural contexts of the age. Genres may include poetry, prose, non-Shakespearean drama, and others. The focus may be on a single author, theme, or genre.

Course Descriptions: Spring 2026

ENGL 310: Topics in Rhetoric (Online Asynchronous)

Professor Richard Lane

A study of rhetoric through a focus on key themes, issues, and controversies that have shaped it. This course may involve an historical approach, with an emphasis on the Western rhetorical tradition, or it may focus on contemporary rhetorical theory and practice.

ENGL 325: Topics in Environmentalist Literature

Professor Toni Smith

The Wild and the Wilderness

Although seemingly natural, the construct of “wilderness” is a strange idea.  What is the world beyond human society? How can we come to know it, or can we? Is it a dangerous place? An idyllic one?  Should we get to know it better? Or stay away?

For North American colonial and settler writers, the wilderness allures and repels, as they are drawn to the mysteries but also seek to tame, know, and control the natural world. For Indigenous writers, is there such a construct as “wilderness” or is it simply home, the place to which humans belong, know intimately, and are eternally co-creating?

Join us to interrogate and explore the idea of wilderness in novels and other texts from North America and beyond.

ENGL 334: Topics in Canadian Literature

Professor Farah Moosa

A study of Canadian literature focused on a specific author or topic. Topics may include regionalism, urbanism, landscapes, geographies, eco-poetics, transnationalism, and others.

ENGL 348: Topics in 18th-Century Literature

Professor Daniel Burgoyne

ENGL 352: Topics in 20th-Century Literature

Professor Theo Finigan

A study of 20th-century literature within the broader social, political, philosophical, and cultural contexts of the age. Topics may include Modernism, Post-Modernism, the Harlem Renaissance, 1960s activist literature, and others. Focus may be on a specific author, genre, or literary movement, with texts primarily from outside of Canada.

ENGL 394: Topics in Television Narrative

Professor Paul Watkins

ENGL 396: Literature and Film

Instructor Clay Armstrong

A study of the interrelationships between literature and film. Focus may be on a particular author, director, genre, theme, or region.

Generic course descriptions for all English courses are in the VIU Program and Course Calendar.