100-level

ENGL102
Great Works
Description
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.
Occurrences
Semester One 2026
Points
15 points
ENGL107
Shakespeare
Description
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.
Occurrences
Semester Two 2026
Points
15 points
ENGL110
Maori Storytelling
Description
This course introduces students to a wide range of texts by Maori authors 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, representations of nonhuman perspectives, the relationship between writing and other forms of narrative, and Maori futurism.
Occurrences
Semester One 2026
Semester One 2026 (Distance)
Points
15 points
ENGL118
Creative Writing: Skills, Techniques and Practice
Description
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.
Occurrences
Semester One 2026
Points
15 points
Restrictions
WRIT118

200-level

ENGL201
The Essay and Beyond: Creative Non-Fiction
Description
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.
Occurrences
Semester One 2026
Points
15 points
Prerequisites
Any 15 points at 100 level from ENGL; DISC101 or DISC102; or any 60 points at 100 level from the Schedule V of the BA.
Restrictions
WRIT201
ENGL206
Science, Technology and Literature
Description
This course will particularly concentrate on the last two centuries of intersections between science, technology and literature, assaying major trends and preoccupations present in a range of texts and theories. Within a general examination of literature's engagements, the development of science fiction forms and concerns will be considered, especially because of the way that the genre often speculates the fears and desires of its time onto both futuristic settings and "alternate realities". 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.
Occurrences
Semester Two 2026
Points
15 points
Prerequisites
Any 15 points at 100 level from ENGL, or any 60 points at 100 level from the Schedule V of the BA.
Restrictions
ENGL306
ENGL210
Inventing New Zealand in Literature
Description
ENGL 210 is an introduction to New Zealand literature. The course has a twentieth-century focus, and, in its survey of the century, examines texts that engage the issues of translation (a politics of metaphor) by which different ideas of ‘New Zealandness’ have been established and critiqued. What is it we mean when we speak of New Zealand literature? What are the assumptions, readings and interpretations employed in the formation of something like New Zealand identity, and what are their contexts?
Occurrences
Semester One 2026
Points
15 points
Prerequisites
Any 15 points at 100 level from ENGL, or any 60 points at 100 level from the Schedule V of the BA.
ENGL220
Creative Writing: Storymaking and the Short Story
Description
In this course students explore storymaking with a focus on the short story. The course is structured into three modules: ‘the beginning’, ‘middle’, and ‘end’, and each includes diverse readings, guided writing exercises, and discussion. Students explore character, place, plot, structure, voice, meaning, resolution and editing, and the weekly workshops offer space for supportive feedback and experiment. By the end, students will have drafted, re-crafted and completed a short story, developed their fingerprint storytelling voice and style.
Occurrences
Semester Two 2026
Points
15 points
Prerequisites
Any 15 points at 100 level from ENGL; DISC101 or DISC102; or any 60 points at 100 level from the Schedule V of the BA.
Restrictions
WRIT220
ENGL233
Creative Writing for Stage
Description
This course combines the development of students' creative writing with teaching of the practical skills and dramaturgic techniques of scripting for stage.
Occurrences
Summer Nov 2025
Points
15 points
Prerequisites
Any 15 points at 100 level from ENGL; DISC101 or DISC102; or any 60 points at 100 level from the Schedule V of the BA.
Restrictions
ENGL234
ENGL239
Creative Writing: Eco-Lit in the Field
Description
In this course students will have a series of immersive experiences of the Aotearoa environment and explore a range of poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction texts by key writers including pioneers of environmental writing, contemporary writers, and writers with a strong Aotearoa New Zealand connection. Students will participate in daily lectures, writing workshops and guided writing exercises and walks, will engage in close observation and explore ways to effectively and powerfully communicate ideas about the environment, landforms and lifeforms through creative writing. This course will take place over five Tuesdays and will require that students attend two full day fieldtrips to Hinewai on Banks Peninsula and Cass Field Station in the Southern Alps, as well as three on-campus days. Students can book a place in the UC vans on the fieldtrip days, and are strongly advised to email pieta.gray@canterbury.ac.nz or vana.manasiadis@canterbury.ac.nz to confirm a place, if required, before enrolling. The fee for a place in the van is $40.
Occurrences
Summer Nov 2025
Points
15 points
Prerequisites
Any 15 points at 100 level from ENGL; or any 60 points at 100 level from the Schedule V of the BA; or permission of the Head of Department
ENGL243
Creature Features: From Jaws to Planet of the Apes
Description
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.
Occurrences
Semester Two 2026
Points
15 points
Prerequisites
Any 15 points at 100 level from CULT or ENGL, or any 60 points at 100 level from the Schedule V of the BA.
Restrictions
CINE243, CULT206, ENGL349
ENGL250
Indigilit - Indigenous Literature in Aotearoa and Beyond
Description
This course is a survey of Indigenous literature which presents Indigenous creative production in Aotearoa in relation to Indigenous literatures around the globe. Students are encouraged to consider various forms of narrative which constitute 'literature' in Indigenous contexts, to critically engage with representations of and ideas about Indigenous peoples within a range of texts, and to read Indigenous texts comparatively.
Occurrences
Semester Two 2026
Points
15 points
Prerequisites
Any 15 points at 100 level from ENGL, or any 60 points at 100 level from the Schedule V of the BA.
Restrictions
TITO201, MAOR207
ENGL252
Crime Stories
Description
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.
Occurrences
Semester One 2026
Points
15 points
Prerequisites
Any 15 points at 100 level from CULT or ENGL, or any 60 points at 100 level from the Schedule V of the BA.
Restrictions
ENGL352; CULT252; CULT352

300-level

ENGL306
Science, Technology and Literature
Description
This course will particularly concentrate on the last two centuries of intersections between science, technology and literature, assaying major trends and preoccupations present in a range of texts and theories. Within a general examination of literature's engagements, the development of science fiction forms and concerns will be considered, especially because of the way that the genre often speculates the fears and desires of its time onto both futuristic settings and "alternate realities". 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.
Occurrences
Semester Two 2026
Points
30 points
Prerequisites
Any 30 points at 200 level from ENGL, or any 60 points at 200 level from the Schedule V of the BA.
Restrictions
ENGL206
ENGL313
Scream Theory: The Changing Face of Fear
Description
This course examines shifting representations of the fearful, monstrous and abject in visual culture and popular culture more generally. Emphasis is placed on sociocultural, feminist and postmodern interpretations of horror themes in American, Japanese and New Zealand contexts.
Occurrences
Semester Two 2026
Points
30 points
Prerequisites
Any 30 points at 200 level from CULT or ENGL, or any 60 points at 200 level from the Schedule V of the BA.
Restrictions
AMST313, CULT317, AMST413, ENGL413, CULT417
ENGL317
Modern Poetry
Description
This course begins with the study of a selection of English and American poets from the early 20th century who are identified with literary modernism. When these poets found that the conventions of traditional English poetry failed to represent the social and political upheavals of modernity, including the impacts of industrialisation and the horrors of the First World War, they searched for ways to break with the past and make poetry new. Although the defining decade for modernist poetry was the1920s, modernism has influenced much of the poetry in English produced in the subsequent century. With this in mind, the remainder of the course studies the way later poetry has responded to modernist forms, techniques and preoccupations, with particular attention paid to recent poetry from Aotearoa New Zealand and the Pacific.
Occurrences
Semester One 2026
Points
30 points
Prerequisites
Any 30 points at 200 level from ENGL, or any 60 points at 200 level from the Schedule V of the BA.
Restrictions
ENGL421; ENGL434
ENGL318
Animal Stories: From Mythology to Social Media
Description
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.
Occurrences
Semester Two 2026
Points
30 points
Prerequisites
Any 30 points at 200 level from CULT or ENGL, or any 60 points at 200 level from the Schedule V of the BA.
Restrictions
CULT335
ENGL331
Writing with Impact
Description
This course develops to an advanced level students' skills and knowledge in various forms of non-fiction writing. The aim is to produce graduates who can write with novelty, vitality, and versatility across a range of genres; who can evoke distinctive voices of many kinds; who can express subtle and individual nuances of emotion; who can produce real embodied descriptions of the world; whose work can undertake fresh formal experiments, produce unprecedented effects, and go in surprising directions. Genres covered, depending on the year, may include life writing (biography, autobiography, and memoir); the personal and informal essay; popular science and science communication; writing about nature, animals, and the environment; travel, food, and health writing; review writing; writing for and about the digital and online world; and professional writing (reports, funding applications, web content).
Occurrences
Semester One 2026
Points
30 points
Prerequisites
Any 30 points at 200 level from ENGL, or any 60 points at 200 level from the Schedule V of the BA.
Restrictions
WRIT301
ENGL332
Sexualities in Culture
Description
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.
Occurrences
Semester One 2026
Points
30 points
Prerequisites
Any 30 points at 200 level from CULT or ENGL, or any 60 points at 200 level from the Schedule V of the BA.
Restrictions
AMST332, CULT303, GEND307, GEND211
ENGL345
Close to the machine: digital literatures from the avant-garde to AI
Description
This course offers a wide-ranging exploration of ways in which literary reading and writing are being amplified, deterritorialised or hybridised by digital computing and the Internet. We will read a variety of combinatory writing, interactive fiction, as well as literary texts emerging from digital lifeworlds such as those of social media and software, and will examine how digital objects and processes - such as randomness, networks and machine learning - relate to narrative and poetic techniques. Alongside these, the course will consider wider cognitive and cultural implications connected to these shifts, including for literary research.
Occurrences
Semester Two 2026
Points
30 points
Prerequisites
Any 30 points at 200 level from DIGI or ENGL, or any 60 points at 200 level from the Schedule V of the BA.
Restrictions
DIGI301
ENGL350
Creative Writing: New Narratives
Description
This course marks the culmination of students’ undergraduate creative writing journey, offering a focused experience in the development, drafting, and completion of a substantial creative writing project. Through a combination of readings, discussion, exercises, and practical workshops, students will explore new narrative forms such as the novelette, novella-in-flash, verse novel and poetic sequence. The course emphasizes revision and peer feedback, supports the development of practice-led research, and will prepare students for graduate study or continued creative practice.
Occurrences
Semester Two 2026
Points
30 points
Prerequisites
Any 30 points at 200 level from ENGL, or any 60 points at 200 level from the Schedule V of the BA.
Restrictions
WRIT350
ENGL352
Crime Stories
Description
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.
Occurrences
Semester One 2026
Points
30 points
Prerequisites
Any 30 points at 200 level from CULT or ENGL, or any 60 points at 200 level from the Schedule V of the BA.
Restrictions
ENGL252; CULT252; CULT352

Not Offered Courses in 2026

100-level

ENGL103
The Outsider
Description
However you think about the outsider - as artist, as outlaw or anarchist, as hero or scapegoat, as criminal or critic - it is clear that this figure is a constant in the study of literature. In this course we shall investigate the way the figure of the outsider has been represented in the traditions of American and New Zealand literature. Furthermore, we will bring to bear on this figure three key critical contexts: romanticism, modernism and post-colonialism.
Occurrences
Not offered 2026, offered in 2018 , 2020 , 2021 , 2022 , 2023
For further information see ENGL103 course details
Points
15 points
ENGL115
Childhood in Children's Literature
Description
An introduction to the changing representations of the child and childhood in children's literature form the late 18th century to the present.
Occurrences
Not offered 2026, offered in 2012 , 2014 , 2015 , 2017
For further information see ENGL115 course details
Points
15 points
ENGL132
Cultural Studies: Reading Culture
Description
This course is an introduction to Cultural Studies, emphasising aspects of the field that are most pertinent to English Studies. Drawing from a wide range of examples, it demonstrates how our everyday life is a constant exercise in encoding and decoding our cultural environment through an exploration of the textuality and 'readability' of cultural forms and practices.
Occurrences
Not offered 2026
For further information see ENGL132 course details
Points
15 points

200-level

ENGL202
Rebels, Devils and Cannibals: Literature and the Origins of Modernity
Description
Examining a range of literary texts in English from the late sixteenth to the early eighteenth centuries, ENGL202/302 focuses on how the chosen works represent and are shaped by the first glimmerings of modern forms of culture and consciousness.
Occurrences
Not offered 2026, offered in 2018 , 2020 , 2021 , 2023
For further information see ENGL202 course details
Points
15 points
ENGL211
Exceptional Americans: An Introduction to American Literature
Description
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.
Occurrences
Not offered 2026, offered in 2016 , 2017 , 2018 , 2024 , 2025
For further information see ENGL211 course details
Points
15 points
ENGL213
Children's Classics: Popular Children's Texts and their Representation on Film
Description
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.
Occurrences
Not offered 2026, offered in 2019 , 2020 , 2021 , 2023 , 2024
For further information see ENGL213 course details
Points
15 points
ENGL231
Creative Writing: Experiments in G.L.A.M Poetry
Description
This course offers instruction and advice in the practice of writing poetry. A number of forms and styles will be studied, and writing exercises will be used to extend and develop the individual student's range of competencies. The course will culminate in the production by each student of a portfolio of his or her original work.
Occurrences
Not offered 2026
For further information see ENGL231 course details
Points
15 points
ENGL232
Cultural Politics/Cultural Activism
Description
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.
Occurrences
Not offered 2026, offered in 2023 , 2024 , 2025
For further information see ENGL232 course details
Points
15 points
ENGL238
Creative Writing for Screen
Description
The objective of the course is to combine the development of students' creative writing with the practical skills and dramaturgic techniques of writing for film.
Occurrences
Not offered 2026, offered in 2020 , 2021
For further information see ENGL238 course details
Points
15 points

300-level

ENGL302
Rebels, Devils and Cannibals: Literature and the Origins of Modernity
Description
Examining a range of literary texts in English from the late sixteenth to the early eighteenth centuries, ENGL202/302 focuses on how the chosen works represent and are shaped by the first glimmerings of modern forms of culture and consciousness.
Occurrences
Not offered 2026, offered in 2018 , 2020 , 2021 , 2023
For further information see ENGL302 course details
Points
30 points
ENGL305
European Novels and Film Adaptations
Description
A study of important European novels and their film adaptations.
Occurrences
Not offered 2026, offered in 2021 , 2022 , 2023 , 2024 , 2025
For further information see ENGL305 course details
Points
30 points
ENGL315
The Contemporary Novel
Description
This course studies novels from the early twentieth century to the present, written by some of the world’s most original and compelling minds. Students will learn about the novel form, will consider the relation of past texts to the contemporary, and will engage with key moments in history and consciousness as these have been explored both critically and creatively by a selection of novelists.
Occurrences
Not offered 2026, offered in 2025
For further information see ENGL315 course details
Points
30 points
ENGL316
New Zealand Literature 3
Description
A course which is designed to follow ENGL 210 (New Zealand Literature 2), examining in depth the ways in which New Zealand literature can be written about. The course consists of four units, each of which addresses a specific critical context.
Occurrences
Not offered 2026, offered in 2011 , 2012 , 2014
For further information see ENGL316 course details
Points
30 points
ENGL317
Modern Poetry
Description
This course begins with the study of a selection of English and American poets from the early 20th century who are identified with literary modernism. When these poets found that the conventions of traditional English poetry failed to represent the social and political upheavals of modernity, including the impacts of industrialisation and the horrors of the First World War, they searched for ways to break with the past and make poetry new. Although the defining decade for modernist poetry was the1920s, modernism has influenced much of the poetry in English produced in the subsequent century. With this in mind, the remainder of the course studies the way later poetry has responded to modernist forms, techniques and preoccupations, with particular attention paid to recent poetry from Aotearoa New Zealand and the Pacific.
Occurrences
ENGL317-26S2 (C)
Semester Two 2026 - Not offered
For further information see ENGL317 course details
Points
30 points
Prerequisites
Any 30 points at 200 level from ENGL, or any 60 points at 200 level from the Schedule V of the BA.
Restrictions
ENGL421; ENGL434
ENGL349
Creature Features: From Jaws to Planet of the Apes
Description
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.
Occurrences
Not offered 2026, offered in 2025
For further information see ENGL349 course details
Points
30 points