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Graduate Calendar Archives: 2002 / 2003

English Language and Literature

Dunton Tower 1812
Telephone: (613) 520-2310
Fax: (613) 520-3544
Web site: www.carleton.ca/english/

The Department

Chair of the Department: L.T.R. McDonald
Departmental Supervisor of Graduate Studies: R. Holton

The Department of English Language and Literature offers programs of study leading to the M.A. degree in English language and literature. Additional information may be obtained by consulting the departmental supervisor of graduate studies.

Qualifying-Year Program

Applicants who hold a general (3-year) B.A. degree with at least a high honours standing (normally B+), with a major in English language and literature, may be admitted to the qualifying-year program. Normally, these students will be required to complete 4.0 or 5.0 credits in English, as determined by the department, and to maintain a high honours standing (normally B+) before being considered for admission into the master's program. For more information regarding the qualifying year, see the General Regulations section of this Calendar.

Master of Arts

Admission Requirements

The minimum admission requirement for the master's program is a B.A. (Honours) (or the equivalent) in English language and literature, with at least a high honours standing (normally B+ or better)

Possession of the minimum entrance standing is not in itself, however, an assurance of admission into the program.

Program Requirements

Each candidate will select one of the following program patterns:

2.0 credits in English, selected from those at the 5000-level (excluding ENGL 5908), plus ENGL 5005, and a master's thesis; an oral examination on the thesis will be required. A prospectus for the thesis must be submitted to the graduate committee by December 1 after registration in September, or at the end of three months for any other registration

3.0 credits in English selected from those at the 5000-level (excluding ENGL 5909), plus ENGL 5005, and a research essay; an oral examination on the research essay will be required

Each program is designed to be completed within the three-term academic year. Each program is of equal status.

Guidelines for Completion of Master's Degree

Full-time master's candidates are expected to complete all requirements in twelve months or three terms of registered full-time study. Part-time master's candidates are expected to complete their degree requirements within an elapsed period of six calendar years after the date of initial registration.

All candidates are required to demonstrate a reading knowledge of one language other than English, approved by the Department.

Academic Standing

A standing of B- or better must be obtained in each credit counted towards the master's degree.

Graduate Courses

Course Designation System

Carleton's course designation system has been restructured. The first entry of each course description below is the new alphanumeric Carleton course code, followed by its credit value in brackets. The old Carleton course number (in parentheses) is included for reference, where applicable.

Not all of the following courses are offered in a given year. For an up-to-date statement of course offerings for 2002-2003 and to determine the term of offering, consult the Registration Instructions and Class Schedule booklet, published in the summer and also available online at www.carleton.ca/cu/programs/sched_dates/.

ENGL 5000 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.500)
Literary Criticism
A study of specific topics or particular areas of literary criticism. (Also listed as CLST 5002.)
ENGL 5002 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.502)
Contemporary Literary Theory
This course examines contemporary approaches to theory and literary studies. The first half of the semester is devoted to an overview of current theoretical approaches to literature, and the second half focuses on the work of Sigmund Freud, Jacques Derrida, and Michel Foucault.
ENGL 5003 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.503)
Feminism/s: The Literary Dimension
An examination of the configurations and discursive constructions of various cultural "spectacles," such as certain murder trials, disease outbreaks, sexual scandals, and violence in (and out of) sport; performance of race and gender in popular culture and how these performances influence cultural assumptions and expectations.
ENGL 5004 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.504)
Literature, Contact, and Empire in Colonial and Post-Colonial Societies
An investigation of specific European and North American documents relating to the dispossession of Native peoples from the Caribbean to the Arctic, together with the emergence of a radical critique by various Native and non-Native thinkers (Columbus, Montaigne, Cartier, Defoe, Hearne, Cooper, Jameson, Thompson, etc.)
ENGL 5005 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.505)
Bibliography and Scholarly Methods
An introduction to analytical and descriptive bibliography, editing, research methodology, and professional concerns. The course is graded Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory.
ENGL 5108 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.518)
Old Norse
Topic may vary from year to year.
ENGL 5208 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.528)
Middle-English Studies
A study of selected portions of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Also offered at the undergraduate level, with different requirements, as ENGL 4208, for which additional credit is precluded.
ENGL 5301 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.531)
Renaissance Poetry
Topic may vary from year to year.
ENGL 5302 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.532)
Seventeenth-Century Poetry
A study of selected seventeenth-century poets.
ENGL 5304 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.534)
Renaissance Drama
Politics and the English Renaissance Stage. A study of the popular drama of Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson, Marston, Webster, and Tourneur, and the court drama of Peele, Jonson, Shirley, and Carew.
ENGL 5307 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.537)
Renaissance Authors
A study of selected Renaissance authors.
ENGL 5308 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.538)
Renaissance Studies
Topic may vary from year to year.
ENGL 5402 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.542)
Eighteenth-Century Studies
Depictions of Friendship and Gender. An examination of the writings of Swift, Pope, and Johnson with respect to the concept of friendship and the depiction of gender. Works are examined from historical, biographical, and psychological points of view.
ENGL 5408 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.548)
Studies in Romanticism
An examination of the fantastic element in some key texts of Romantic literature. The emphasis is on imaginative structures and on the romantic exploration of the mysterious, the exotic, and the forbidden.
ENGL 5501 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.551)
Nineteenth-Century Studies
A study of works written between 1830 and 1870 in terms of gender representation in relation to generic modalities, exploring the thesis that poets of the period - Tennyson, the Brownings, the Rossettis, Arnold, Clough - confronted a crisis in gender ideology that problematized the lyric.
ENGL 5503 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.553)
Nineteenth-Century Fiction
Topic may vary from year to year.
ENGL 5508 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.558)
Nineteenth-Century Literature
Topic may vary from year to year.
ENGL 5601 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.561)
Twentieth-Century Poetry
Topic may vary from year to year.
ENGL 5603 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.563)
Twentieth-Century Fiction
A study of selected twentieth-century writers.
ENGL 5604 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.564)
Twentieth-Century Drama
Topic may vary from year to year.
ENGL 5606 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.566)
Twentieth-Century Literature
A study of the portrayal of the media as a reflection of society and its values in the twentieth-century British novel, starting with Evelyn Waugh's Scoop and completing the survey with Fay Weldon's Darcy's Utopia and Martin Amis's The Information.
ENGL 5607 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.567)
Twentieth-Century Authors
A study of twentieth-century authors of fiction.
ENGL 5608 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.568)
Twentieth-Century Studies
Topic may vary from year to year.
ENGL 5701 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.571)
American Poetry
A study of the formative poetry and poetics of several major modern American writers, including: Whitman, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, H.D., George Oppen, Charles Olson, and Robert Creeley.
ENGL 5703 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.573)
American Fiction
Topic may vary from year to year.
ENGL 5706 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.576)
American Literature
Topic may vary from year to year.
ENGL 5708 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.578)
Studies in American Fiction
Topic may vary from year to year.
ENGL 5801 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.581)
Canadian Poetry
Topic may vary from year to year.
ENGL 5802 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.582)
Ethnicity, Multiculturalism, and Canadian Literature
A study of Canadian literature in relation to theoretical and critical issues posed by ethnicity and other aspects of Canadian cultural diversity.
ENGL 5803 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.583)
Canadian Fiction
The course concentrates on Canadian writing of the last twenty to thirty years, exploring it with reference to the concept of ideology, within the contexts of Marxist, feminist, and postmodernist literary theories.
ENGL 5805 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.585)
Canadian English
Topic may vary from year to year.
ENGL 5807 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.587)
Selected Topics in Canadian Literature
Topic may vary from year to year.
ENGL 5809 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.589)
Colonial Discourse and Native Literatures in Canada
Topic may vary from year to year.
ENGL 5900 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.590)
Selected Topic
Topic may vary from year to year.
ENGL 5901 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.591)
Selected Topic
Topic may vary from year to year.
ENGL 5903 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.593)
English and Cultural Studies
Performing Bodies and Voices: A consideration of the juncture of literature and popular culture in the twentieth-century American and Canadian contexts. An examination of fusional blues lyric, Beat poetry, folk lyrics, performance art, comic book testimony, rap, Native and gay theatre, spoken word poetry, and dub poetry.
ENGL 5904 [0.5 credit] (formerly 18.594)
Special Studies in Dramatic Literature
Topic may vary from year to year.
ENGL 5908 [1.0 credit] (formerly 18.598)
Research Essay
ENGL 5909 [2.0 credits] (formerly 18.599)
M.A. Thesis

Undergraduate Courses

Graduate students may take the equivalent of 1.0 credit at the senior undergraduate level.

Other Disciplines

Graduate students may take the equivalent of 1.0 credit in a related discipline. The following courses may be among those of special interest:

Comparative Literary Studies
CLST 5001, CLST 5002

This is not a complete list of all acceptable options. Students should contact the supervisor of graduate studies or the chair of the Department for approval if there are other courses they wish to take which are not on the list.

Other Universities

Graduate students may take the equivalent of 2.0 credits at another university or other universities. Students are especially reminded that the University of Ottawa offers a wide range of graduate courses which may be completed (under the general 2.0 credit ruling) for credit at Carleton University.

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