Great Works

This course introduces students to university-level English by exploring in depth a sequence of works that have earned the label 'great' for some or all of the following reasons: because of their enduring, wide and deep cultural influence; because of the originality of their creative conception; because of the power of their language; because of the power and appeal of the stories they tell or the characters or images they contain.

15 points

Writing for Academic Success

Writing for Academic Success fosters the capacity for analytical thought about texts and language. The course also provides training in the writing of clear and effective prose, inculcates awareness of crucial structural and rhetorical features of expository writing, and encourages the application of that awareness to writing in a range of academic and professional contexts.

15 points

WRIT101

Creative Writing: Skills, Techniques and Practice

This course provides a grounding in the skills, techniques and tricks a writer needs to transform ideas and material into art. Guided exercises will develop students’ creative practice of observation, play and experiment; the study of selected poetry, short prose and dramatic texts will introduce diverse forms and approaches. Students will also develop a feedback and revision practice at the weekly workshops; closely and sensitively engage with both published and peer texts.

15 points

The Essay and Beyond: Creative Non-Fiction

Non-fiction writing has a strong place within the traditions of literature, but has often tended to be neglected as a subject of study. To redress this, we will look at different genres of non-fiction: essays, popular science, travel writing, nature writing, and various types of "life writing". We will question the particular techniques and generic distinctions of texts studied, consider the specific subjects of non-fiction texts, examine how the texts are constructed and discuss their significance in the contexts most relevant to them. In addition, the course will explore the representation of place, displacement and placement; the history of subjectivity; recent interventions into postcolonial, globalisation and literary studies, and ecocriticism and human-animal studies; and the operation of gender and class as they apply to the production and readership of literary non-fiction.

15 points

Any 15 points at 100 level from ENGL, or any 60 points at 100 level from the Schedule V of the BA.

Cultural Politics/Cultural Activism

This course offers students a grounding in Cultural Studies theories and methods. It examines the political dynamics and historical foundations of contemporary culture, and the strategic roles that it can play as a force for change. Drawing from a wide variety of examples, it focuses on how culture - as a process, as a practice, and as the production of meaning - functions as a battleground in the assignment of and struggle for social power.

15 points

Any 15 points at 100 level from CULT or ENGL, or any 60 points at 100 level from the Schedule V of the BA.

CULT202

Crime Stories

The course addresses the usefulness and range of the crime genre as an appropriate focus for the acquisition of the skills (in research, critical analysis, and written expression) peculiar to English studies, as well as a form of social and political critique. It will particularly concentrate on the last two centuries of the representations of crime, detection, confession, and punishments, assaying major trends and preoccupations present in a range of texts and theories. Within a general contextual examination of engagements between these facets, the development of genre forms and concerns will be considered, especially because the genre often speculates the fears and desires of its time in ways that likewise shape wider perceptions of crime and punishment. Students will be expected to read a range of key material, including a small selection of novels, some short fiction, theoretical writings and visual texts that should represent differences and similarities in representation and subject choice that writers and directors negotiate.

15 points

Any 15 points at 100 level from CULT or ENGL, or any 60 points at 100 level from the Schedule V of the BA.

ENGL352; CULT252; CULT352

Special Topic: Modern Poetry

This course takes a broad view of modern poetry. We begin with a selection of English and American poets identified with literary modernism, before widening our reading to encompass poets of other places and more recent eras who have responded in a variety of ways to modernist forms, techniques and preoccupations.

30 points

Any 30 points at 200 level from ENGL, or any 60 points at 200 level from the Schedule V of the BA.

ENGL434

Sexualities in Culture

This course analyses representations and models of 'normal' and 'abnormal' sexuality as these occur in sexology, psychiatry, self-help psychology, cinema and popular culture, and queer activism.

30 points

Any 30 points at 200 level from CULT or ENGL, or any 60 points at 200 level from the Schedule V of the BA.

AMST332, CULT303, GEND307, GEND211

Crime Stories

The course addresses the usefulness and range of the crime genre as an appropriate focus for the acquisition of the skills (in research, critical analysis, and written expression) peculiar to English studies, as well as a form of social and political critique. It will particularly concentrate on the last two centuries of the representations of crime, detection, confession, and punishments, assaying major trends and preoccupations present in a range of texts and theories. Within a general contextual examination of engagements between these facets, the development of genre forms and concerns will be considered, especially because the genre often speculates the fears and desires of its time in ways that likewise shape wider perceptions of crime and punishment. Students will be expected to read a range of key material, including a small selection of novels, some short fiction, theoretical writings and visual texts that should represent differences and similarities in representation and subject choice that writers and directors negotiate.

30 points

Any 30 points at 200 level from CULT or ENGL, or any 60 points at 200 level from the Schedule V of the BA.

ENGL252; CULT252; CULT352

Shakespeare

This course is designed to introduce first year students to a range of Shakespeare’s plays as well as to develop their understanding of the different ways in which his plays have been received in recent literary criticism.

15 points

Maori Storytelling

This course introduces students to a wide range of Maori writing in English and situates these works within a vast and vibrant whakapapa of Maori creative production in Aotearoa and beyond. Key themes within the course include: purakau and their contemporary retellings, Maori futurism(s), representations of kai and palate politics, the relationship between birds, writers, and the written word, and narrative sovereignty.

15 points

Writing for Academic Success

Writing for Academic Success fosters the capacity for analytical thought about texts and language. The course also provides training in the writing of clear and effective prose, inculcates awareness of crucial structural and rhetorical features of expository writing, and encourages the application of that awareness to writing in a range of academic and professional contexts.

15 points

WRIT101

Exceptional Americans: An Introduction to American Literature

This course offers students the chance to engage with some of the most exceptional writers and texts in the American tradition and, at the same time, to think critically about the idea of exceptionalism itself.

15 points

Any 15 points at 100 level from ENGL, or any 60 points at 100 level from the Schedule V of the BA.

ENGL109 and AMST110

Children's Classics: Popular Children's Texts and their Representation on Film

Children's Classics teaches the genre-specific nature of children's literature, its socio-historical contexts, and the significance of its re-readings as film. It introduces a selection of enduring children's texts, illustrating the importance to literary production of changing cultural context, demonstrating the importance of intertextuality in children's literature and how texts change when filmed, and promotes the skills of reading and writing.

15 points

Any 15 points at 100 level from ENGL, or any 60 points at 100 level from the Schedule V of the BA.

CINE224

Creative Writing: Storymaking and the Short Story

This course explores short-form prose storytelling with a focus on the short story. Students will be introduced to a wide range of short story forms and structures, and writing exercises will guide students towards expanding their writing practice and examining their own developing voice and style. This is a workshop process course where discussion, critical attentiveness, supportive insight and diverse ways of thinking will contribute to considered craft and creative exchange.

15 points

Any 15 points at 100 level from ENGL, or any 60 points at 100 level from the Schedule V of the BA.

Animals on Screen

This course explores cinematic representations of insects, mammals, fish, birds and reptiles, with an emphasis on their special place in horror and science fiction genres. Students will also be introduced to Human-Animal Studies as a field of scholarship.

15 points

Any 15 points at 100 level from CULT or ENGL, or any 60 points at 100 level from the Schedule V of the BA.

AMST236, CULT206, GEND213, AMST331, GEND311, and ENGL349

European Novels and Film Adaptations

A study of important European novels and their film adaptations.

30 points

Any 30 points at 200 level from CINE, ENGL, EURA, or RUSS, or any 60 points at 200 level from the Schedule V of the BA.

EULC204, EULC304, EURA204, EURA304, CINE214, RUSS215, RUSS216

The Contemporary Novel

The novelist and philosopher Jean Paul Sartre once described the experience of the contemporary as like looking out the back of a moving car: the present, glimpsed through the side windows, appears as a blur, but as one looks through the rear window the blur begins to take the forms we recognise as constituents of contemporary experience, now seen with the aid of perspective. To study the contemporary novel is to read for what the poet T.S. Eliot called the ‘pastness’ of the present, which involves reading for the ways in which the novel form has been, and will continue to be, used to question, critique, and imagine the contemporary.The course will look primarily at novels from the Twentieth Century, but will conclude with a look towards recent twenty-first century fiction.

30 points

Any 30 points at 200 level from ENGL, or any 60 points at 200 level from the Schedule V of the BA.

Animals in Culture

This course explores the role of imagery and narrative in producing historical and contemporary ideas about ‘animality’ and ‘speciesism’ across a range of texts and media (including mythology, fables and bestiaries; wildlife documentaries; contemporary art; graphic novels; animal biographies; online activism; social media). Students will also learn about intersectional theory and its use in the field of Critical Animal Studies.

30 points

Any 30 points at 200 level from CULT or ENGL, or any 60 points at 200 level from the Schedule V of the BA.

CULT335