English Program
Why study English?
As an English student, immersing yourself in literary genres such as fiction and poetry is just the beginning. You’ll expand on this knowledge to study society, culture, media, and gender in a variety of contemporary and historical contexts.
In doing so, you’ll sharpen your communication skills, gain cross-cultural perspectives, and develop proficiency in linguistic, critical, and analytical thinking.
The Saint Mary’s approach
The core of the program reflects a traditional approach to English studies, including literary, historical and genre-based courses. What makes the department distinctive, however, is the cross-listing of a number of its courses with other disciplines or programs, such as Atlantic Canada Studies, Linguistics, Irish Studies, and Creative Writing. This allows students to expand their area of academic study in ways that reflect interdisciplinary approaches and their own developing interests.
This diverse major offers a wide variety of courses leading to a major in English, minor concentrations in English and Creative Writing, and an Honours degree. A degree in English provides a solid foundation for a range of careers, from education and communications to publishing and law.
Hands-on learning
Saint Mary’s English students have studied Shakespeare abroad at the Shakespeare Centre in Stratford-Upon-Avon, UK; participated in academic exchanges in China, Finland, and Ghana; and welcomed world-renowned authors such as Alistair MacLeod, David Adams Richards, Dionne Brand, Anne Carson, Anne Enright, and Colm Toibin to Saint Mary’s. The English Department also hosts a writer-in-residence each year.
Sample courses offered:
- Introduction to Indigenous Literature: You'll be introduced to contemporary Indigenous literatures of Turtle Island, in English, through writing by Indigenous peoples in Canada (First Nations, Inuit, and Métis) and Native Americans in the U.S. Through the lens of Indigenous worldview and intellectual ways of knowing, class discussion and analysis centers on social, political, historical, spiritual, and environmental issues with an eye towards decolonization.
- 20th Century European Drama: A study of the principal European dramatists and theatre movements in the present century with emphasis on the ones that have most influenced drama written in English. Reference is made to works by such dramatists as Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, Pirandello, Brecht, Beckett and Ionesco.
- Literature and Resistance: Students examine literature from around the world that enacts forms of resistance. From political revolutions to protest movements, students explore the ways in which a range of texts (fiction, poetry, drama and film) creatively engage with issues of oppression, struggle and corruption.
Future career opportunities:
- Journalism
- Publishing, writing and editing
- Public relations and marketing
- Law
- Education
- Library and Information Science
- Research