Courses - Faculty of Arts
English
Stage I
Literature and the Contemporary
Constitutes a wide-ranging study of literatures in English in different forms and media in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Themes studied may include modernity/postmodernity, diaspora, gender relations, sexuality, cross-cultural contacts, memory, film adaptation, war and ecological crisis. Works will be examined in the context of key historical events and cultural movements.
Great Books: Seduction and Betrayal
Surveys a selection of literary masterpieces by major authors from different periods in the history of English literature. Selection of texts is organised around the theme of seduction and betrayal, understood more particularly as a story-arc exploring attitudes to love and sex, to politics and ambition, to ethical conduct, and to the activity of reading itself.
Global South: New World Texts
Introduces cross-disciplinary study of transnational texts in English, with particular reference to poetry and prose works from the Caribbean and Pacific, including New Zealand. In both regions, the local history of writing is extensive and includes notable texts that reflect diverse cultural origins, but also a sharp sense of the new (scenes, socio-political structures, languages).
Reading/Writing/Text
Develops University-wide skills of reading, writing and analysis. Addresses the needs of students in both English and other disciplines where both writing and reading have an important role in learning. The course fosters personal writing skills and also introduces writing as a subject of study in itself.
Stage II
Pacific Literature in English
An introduction to contemporary Pacific Literature exploring texts from canonical Pacific writers to spoken word performance poets. Texts will be examined in light of recent theories in Indigenous Writing Studies, with a focus on crossings of cultural and creative borders, diaspora and identity.
Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage I in English, or 15 points at Stage I in English and PACIFIC 100
Creating Stories
Explores narrative theory and analysis through major stories from the literature and art of the last six centuries, from Shakespeare’s sources to now; from at least four continents; and including short story, drama, 'classic' and modern novels, verse, children’s picture story, narrative painting, comics, film and music video. Investigates universal, human, local, individual, work and intra-work levels of analysis.
Prerequisite: 60 points passed
Restriction: ENGLISH 111
Age of Shakespeare: Tragedy
An introduction to the golden age of English theatre, involving detailed study of a selection of tragedies by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. The theatrical emphasis of the course is intended to help students respond to the plays as theatrical artefacts and not merely as literary texts.
Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage I in English or Drama, or approval of Academic Head or nominee
Restriction: ENGLISH 353
Early Texts: Modern Inventions
A study of key works and contexts of selected medieval and early modern writers, including Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, and Behn. Offers a compact history of literary engagements with important social issues that arose in a period notable for revolution and reform; also develops knowledge of literary forms and trends that are historically important, but, in this period, relatively new.
Prerequisite: 15 points at Stage I in English
Restriction: ENGLISH 210, 330
Modernist Transformations
Taking transformation as its theme, the course focuses on a selection of influential Modernist works that map out some of the possibilities for the avant-garde in the early 20th century. Students will expand their knowledge of modernism as a multimedia, multicultural phenomenon and exert their imaginations and research skills as they consider its relevance to contemporary cultural production.
Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage I in English
Restriction: ENGLISH 206, 222, 322
Postcolonial Memory: Ireland
Explores globally significant issues of cultural memory, identity and postcolonial inheritance through the lens of Irish literature and cultural experience. Debates about memory and postcoloniality guide our navigation of twentieth and twenty-first century Irish novels, plays, poetry and short stories. Conversely, our literary navigations interrogate postcolonial representations of identity across changing cultural contexts.
Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage I in English
Restriction: ENGLISH 266, 316, 361
Nineteenth Century Literature
Considers a range of literature from the nineteenth century – poetry, fiction and drama – as regards its treatment of growing up in the period. Issues covered include the recognition of childhood as a special state, the establishment of an individual's gender and sexual identity and the opportunities and constraints afforded by the changing social hierarchy and religious belief systems.
Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage I in English
Restriction: ENGLISH 104
New Zealand Literature
Offers an historical survey of major writers and key issues in New Zealand literature. Students will not only read some of the best writing our country has to offer but will develop, through the literature studied, a richly detailed overview of New Zealand experience from the period of first contact until now.
Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage I in English
Restriction: ENGLISH 355
Modern Writing and Critical Thinking
Explores theories and practices of writing and criticality in academic, civic, and artistic contexts. We consider some of the scripts that organise literate social practices and how to perceive and extrapolate their principles. We explore how we are affected by, how we navigate, and how we transform our immersive world of signs.
Prerequisite: 15 points at Stage I in English
Restriction: ENGLISH 305
Literary Theory and Critical Practice
Examines the concerns and methods of contemporary criticism through a selection of key concepts central to the study of literature. We explore the history of these concepts, the theoretical issues they raise, and the reading strategies they permit. The emphasis is on literary theory as a resource that opens out possibilities for critical practice.
Prerequisite: 15 points at Stage I in English
Restriction: ENGLISH 230, 329
Creative Writing: Four Genres
Develops practical skills in four writing genres: Poetry, Multimedia, Creative Non-Fiction and Short Fiction. A range of published models will be studied alongside write and workshop exercises; and students will develop close-reading skills. Two portfolios of creative work cover all four genres, based on work begun in seminars.
Prerequisite: 45 points passed including 30 points in English
Restriction: ENGLISH 255, 324
Tolkien and his Worlds
Examines Tolkien’s primary fictional texts, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, in relation to the author’s ideas about fantasy and world-building, his use of Celtic, German and Christian mythology, and the adaptation of the novels into film.
Prerequisite: 60 points passed
Restriction: ENGLISH 306
Special Topic: The Modern Novel
A study of fiction. The prescribed works vary widely in their country of origin, formal elements and themes. Some are recognised as classics, while others show the new directions taken by the writers of the time. The texts are given detailed consideration as well as being placed within social and critical contexts.
Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage I in English
Restriction: ENGLISH 356
Shakespeare: Comedies and Tragicomedies
A study of selected comedies and tragicomedies of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Works of Shakespeare may include the romantic comedies of his first decade and a half as a playwright, the so-called 'problem plays', the darker comedies of his middle years, and the tragicomedies of his final years, sometimes called 'romances'. The nature of comedy and its relationship to tragedy is also explored.
Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage I in English or Drama, or approval of Academic Head or nominee
Restriction: ENGLISH 310
Stage III
Modern Writing and Critical Thinking
Reading modern works that overtly blend critical and creative styles, the course examines relations among discourses, criticality, and imagination.
Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage II in English, Drama, and/or Writing Studies
Restriction: ENGLISH 223
Tolkien and his Worlds
Examines Tolkien's primary fictional texts, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, in relation to the author's ideas about fantasy and world-building, his use of Celtic, German and Christian mythology, and the adaptation of the novels into film.
Prerequisite: 60 points passed
Restriction: ENGLISH 256
Shakespeare: Comedies and Tragicomedies
A study of selected comedies and tragicomedies of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Works of Shakespeare may include the romantic comedies of his first decade and a half as a playwright, the so-called 'problem plays', the darker comedies of his middle years, and the tragicomedies of his final years, sometimes called 'romances'. The nature of comedy and its relationship to tragedy is also explored.
Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage II in English or Drama
Restriction: ENGLISH 265
Creating Stories
Explores narrative theory and analysis through major stories from the literature and art of the last six centuries, from Shakespeare’s sources to now; from at least four continents; and including short story, drama, “classic” and modern novels, verse, children’s picture story, narrative painting, comics, film and music video. Investigates universal, human, local, individual, work and intra-work levels of analysis.
Prerequisite: 60 points at Stage II from the BA Schedule
Restriction: ENGLISH 111, 207
From Romantics to Victorians
An exploration of some key preoccupations of nineteenth-century literature: identity and the psyche, and the self’s engagement with the other. Both topics will be considered against a changing social context which influenced religious beliefs and constructions of gender in particular. Covers poetry and prose from the 1790s to the 1880s.
Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage II in English
Postcolonial Memory: Ireland
Explores globally significant issues of cultural memory, identity and postcolonial inheritance through the lens of Irish literature and cultural experience. Debates about memory and postcoloniality guide our navigation of twentieth and twenty-first century Irish novels, plays, poetry and short stories. Conversely, our literary navigations interrogate postcolonial representations of identity across changing cultural contexts.
Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage II in English
Restriction: ENGLISH 217, 266, 361
The Gothic: Texts and Theory
An advanced introduction to literary theory through an exploration of classic works of Gothic Literature. We examine the competing claims of psychoanalysis, new historicism, post-colonialism and queer studies in accounting for the appeal and cultural significance of the Gothic mode.
Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage II
Restriction: ENGLISH 321
Modernist Transformations
Takes transformation as its theme, focuses on a selection of influential Modernist works that map out some of the possibilities for the avant-garde in the early 20th century. Students will expand their knowledge of modernism as a multimedia, multicultural phenomenon and exert their imaginations and research skills as they consider its relevance to contemporary cultural production.
Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage II in English
Restriction: ENGLISH 206, 216, 222
Contemporary Poetry
An introduction to the work of a dozen influential poets, this course emphasises new developments. The focus is on the still controversial L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry that emerged in the late 1970s and developments concurrent with it. This shift is seen against a background of changes in technology, politics and in popular and intellectual culture.
Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage II in English
Creative Writing: Four Genres
Develops practical skills in four writing genres: Poetry, Multimedia, Creative Non-Fiction and Short Fiction. A range of published models will be studied alongside write and workshop exercises and students will develop close-reading skills. Two portfolios of creative work cover all four genres, based on work begun in seminars.
Prerequisite: 60 points passed, including 45 points in English
Restriction: ENGLISH 252
Literary Theory and Critical Practice
Examines the concerns and methods of contemporary criticism through a selection of key concepts central to the study of literature. We explore the history of these concepts, the theoretical issues they raise, and the reading strategies they permit. The emphasis is on literary theory as a resource that opens out possibilities for critical practice.
Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage II in English
Restriction: ENGLISH 229, 230
Early Texts, Modern Inventions
A study of key works and contexts of selected medieval and early modern writers, including Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, and Behn. Offers a compact history of literary engagements with important social issues that arose in a period notable for revolution and reform; also develops knowledge of literary forms and trends that are historically important, but, in this period, relatively new.
Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage II in English
Restriction: ENGLISH 214, 351
Arthurian Literature
The Arthurian story, from its first passage into French in the twelfth century. The English writings are studied in comparison with their French sources and counterparts (in translation).
Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage II in English or FRENCH 200
Restriction: ENGLISH 738, 746
Writing Poetry
Students will be guided through poetry and poetics and the writing of poetry. As part of the course requirement, they will submit a portfolio of poems.
Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage II in English, Drama, Writing Studies and Programme Coordinator approval
Restriction: ENGLISH 328
Writing Creative Prose
An art and craft class focused on refining technical skills in writing short fiction and creative non-fiction, studying local and international models, and based around weekly workshops.
Prerequisite: 60 points passed and Programme Coordinator approval
Restriction: ENGLISH 328
Adolescent Fiction
Adolescence is a problematic category and a peculiarly modern one; necessarily, the same holds true for adolescent fiction. The aim of this course is to examine this phase of development that is neither childhood nor adulthood but lies between, and recent literary and filmic responses to the characteristic interests and demands of readers at this stage of their lives. Course reading will include film and television, as well as written texts.
Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage II in English
African and Caribbean Literature
The Caribbean, by virtue of its geography and history, embraces cultural elements of Africa, India, Europe and North America. The focus, however, will primarily be on Caribbean and African societies in order to address a range of issues connected to these variously hybrid cultures: slavery, black identity and sexuality, nation/narration, home and location/dislocation.
Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage II in English or Transnational Cultures and Creative Practice, or approval of Academic Head or nominee
Special Topic: Renaissance Poetry
A study of poems by the extraordinary English poets writing in the early modern period, giving due attention to their contexts. It covers short, witty poems – erotic, meditative, political – by Shakespeare, Sidney, Donne, Herbert, Marvell, as well as Milton’s great religious epic, Paradise Lost. Women's writing, for the first time in English, is a distinctive, added pleasure.
Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage II in English
Age of Shakespeare: Tragedy
An introduction to the golden age of English theatre, involving detailed study of a selection of tragedies by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. The theatrical emphasis of the course is intended to help students respond to the plays as theatrical artefacts and not merely as literary texts.
Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage II in English or Drama
Restriction: ENGLISH 213
Writing Selves
Extends student skills in critical reading and composition while critically exploring changing concepts of the self. Considers the nationalist and historicising functions traditionally assigned to biographies and autobiographies, issues of authorship, genre, form, and convention, sexual and gender politics in life writing, and the controversial borderline between fiction and auto/biography.
Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage II in English or Writing Studies
Restriction: ENGLISH 263
New Zealand Literature
Offers an historical survey of major writers and key issues in New Zealand literature. Students will not only read some of the best writing our country has to offer but will develop, through the literature studied, a richly detailed overview of New Zealand experience from the period of first contact until now.
Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage II in English
Restriction: ENGLISH 221
The Modern Novel
A study of fiction. The prescribed works vary widely in their country of origin, formal elements and themes. Some are recognised as classics, while others show the new directions taken by the writers of the time. The texts are given detailed consideration as well as being placed within social and critical contexts.
Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage II in English
Restriction: ENGLISH 220, 262
Postgraduate 700 Level Courses
Pacific Poetry
A critical engagement with poetry written in English by the peoples of Oceania (Polynesia, Melanesia, Micronesia). Pacific aesthetics and epistemologies evident in orature and art, in addition to post-colonial and women of colour feminist theories, will be used in the construction of culturally insightful frameworks to better appreciate this poetry that spans from the 1970s to the present day.
Restriction: ENGLISH 717, 720
Milton and Poetic Authority
Milton is the poet who has been most significant in the establishment of the familiar canon of English poetry. This achievement raises questions about the greatness of poetry written in one set of historical circumstances that is then judged by an audience constructed in part by the poetry itself. In this context the course covers political as well as poetic works.
Restriction: ENGLISH 760
Postcolonial Literary Studies
Provides a critical investigation of postcolonial literary studies as a field of academic inquiry and cultural critique. We read essays by influential theorists, including theoretical essays by contemporary poets and novelists, but concentrate on the study of literary texts produced in the social, political and cultural circumstances that are largely identified as postcolonial.
Restriction: ENGLISH 786
Stages of Religion
The history of English religion through the longer Reformation period, as reflected and addressed especially in the drama of the period, from the Cycle-plays to Milton. Combines English history and history of religion with issues of dramatic history and performance. Extensive use of primary and rare materials.
Modernism and the Contemporary
Examines the work of Modernist writers intensely concerned with ideas of the contemporary within the context of Modernism, the defining international 'movement' of the twentieth century, known for its narratives of crisis and transformation.
Shakespeare: Selected Plays and Poems
The focus of this course varies from year to year but includes attention to several of the most influential approaches to the reading of Shakespearean texts: psychoanalysis, feminism, new historicism, cultural materialism and post-colonial theory.
Writing World War II
Takes the terror wrought by bombing as its theme with particular focus on the literature of the Second World War and the Cold War that followed it. Also addresses contemporary literary reimaginings of the Second World War, which incorporate elements of military, architectural and postcolonial history, and asks what these later versions imply about the war's historicity.
Theatre on Screen
Examines a range of mainstream and arthouse films which treat the processes of theatrical performance and dramatic composition. These films create commercial and aesthetic appeal by engaging the thin dividing line between reality and drama. Topics include: theatricality and politics; the business of theatre; gender and sexuality; adaptation.
Restriction: ENGLISH 774
Shakespeare from Stage to Page, 1590-1640
Studies the development of the theatre in the half-century encompassing Shakespeare's career and after, and its relation to the print industry of the same period. Treats authors and writing, acting, company structure, audiences, censorship, book production, publication and readership. Involves extensive use of primary and rare materials.
Restriction: ENGLISH 342, 754, 765
Research Essays - Level 9
A number of essays are written with guidance from a supervisor, focusing on a field, author, genre or period of literature.
To complete this course students must enrol in ENGLISH 713 A and B, or ENGLISH 713
Special Topic: Performing Writing
Considers multilingual, multi-genre, and multi-modal writing across the last fifty years. Readings include paper books, performance writing texts (live, site-specific, and installations), and born-digital literature. Authors include Caroline Bergvall, Kamau Brathwaite, JR Carpenter, Caren Florance, Édouard Glissant, Duriel E. Harris, Aodán McCardle, Maggie O'Sullivan, Tru Paraha, John Pule, and Jack Ross.
Opening the Archive
Develops practical research skills while attending to archives as concept and theory. Skills include scoping and pursuing a significant research project, seeking permissions and presenting findings. The course also reflects critically on the provenance of textual, material, visual and digital collections and their public and scholarly uses in the twenty-first century.
Writing, Literacy, Poetics
Study of textualities, reading and writing as situated language, and literary study in relation to wider literacies and media. What does 'deep reading' promise? Can one be 'fully literate'? Readings in literacy and literary theory, performativity, and performance.
Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë
A comparative study of two significant women novelists of the nineteenth century, exploring the similarities and differences among their works, as well as giving attention to their critical and popular reception history and their 'afterlife' in print and on screen.
Restriction: ENGLISH 752
Popular Fiction: Mystery, Romance and Fantasy
Popular Fiction offers an opportunity to extend critical study of literature to the mass of texts customarily denied academic approval. A key element is the reader's pleasure. Does pleasure make a difference in what is, admittedly, a critical study of several varieties of modern popular fiction, especially children's literature, romance and crime fiction (both in print and on television). Reading of texts will be supported by discussion of a range of theoretical issues.
To complete this course students must enrol in ENGLISH 732 A and B, or ENGLISH 732
For students currently enrolled in a postgraduate programme in English
Arthurian Literature
The Arthurian story, from its first passage into French in the twelfth century. The English writings are studied in comparison with their French sources and counterparts (in translation).
Restriction: ENGLISH 340
Advanced Studies in Rhetoric and Composition
An investigation of writing practice, taking up situated, instrumental and political aspects central to rhetorical theory throughout history from Aristotle and Cicero to Bakhtin, Habermas, Burke, Anzaldua and Gates. Considers issues that have served to focus the work of commentators and theorists, including cognitive process theory, language as social semiotic, gender and literacy studies, and writing for new technologies.
Restriction: ENGLISH 350
Representing Imagining
Investigates representation in imaginative writing. Principal texts are from 1928 to the present and from North America, UK, Aotearoa New Zealand, France, and the Caribbean. Topics include genre and expectations; ideologies of originality and copying; discursive mixing; authenticity; wholeness and brokenness; translingualism; the page, the codex and the digitas; and the economy of the imaginative subject.
Special Topic: Jane Austen
Focuses on the complete novels of Jane Austen, their critical reception, their adaptations, and their afterlife in popular culture.
Pedagogy and Performance
Explores teaching as theory and performance in the context of Writing Studies and English. The course reviews the discipline of English, its concerns, materials and methods, and the challenge of multi-literacies. Teaching writing is rationalised in theory and rehearsed in practice through learning activities and assignments that address the discourse of discipline, the teaching room and public pedagogy.
The Social Text, 1350-1590
Explores the relations between literature and political society in the late medieval/early modern period. The literary text may articulate the designs and demands of political culture, employing the terms of emerging political discourses, or it may itself become a political event. The course aims at an understanding of public culture in the period, including its texts.
Research Essay - Level 9
To complete this course students must enrol in ENGLISH 780 A and B, or ENGLISH 780
For students enrolled in a postgraduate programme in English.
Interpreting Janet Frame
An exploration of the fiction of renowned writer Janet Frame. Using interpretative theory, the course addresses the challenge of developing enabling critical contexts for Frame’s novels. Conversely, Frame’s novels are used as a means of exploring the reading process and the dynamics involved in the act of interpretation.
Restriction: ENGLISH 710
To complete this course students must enrol in ENGLISH 782 A and B
Studies in English Renaissance Drama
An advanced seminar on the intersection of literary and theatrical cultures in the English Renaissance period. Students will become acquainted with performance theories relating to the Renaissance stage, with particular attention paid to the relation between stage production and the production of meaning.
Directed Study
Supervised research on a topic or topics approved by the Academic Head or nominee.
Literature USA: from the American Renaissance to the Jazz Age
Examines a selection of classic texts and major issues in the literature of the United States from the American Renaissance of the 1840s and 1850s through to the Jazz Age of the 1920s and 1930s.
Dissertation - Level 9
To complete this course students must enrol in ENGLISH 792 A and B, or ENGLISH 792
Thesis - Level 9
Prerequisite: A BA(Hons) in English with at least Second Class Honours, First Division, or equivalent
To complete this course students must enrol in ENGLISH 793 A and B
Thesis - Level 9
Prerequisite: A BA(Hons) in English with at least Second Class Honours, First Division, or equivalent
To complete this course students must enrol in ENGLISH 796 A and B
