Program Overview

English and Global Humanities Joint Major

Bachelor of Arts

This joint major is for those interested in exploring relationships between English literature and global humanities. Students must plan their program in consultation with advisors in each department.

Program Requirements

Students complete 120 units, as specified below.

English Lower Division Requirements

Students complete any two 100-division English courses. Such courses may include:

• ENGL 111W - Literary Classics in English (3) Examines literary “classics”, variously defined, apprehending them both on their own terms and within larger critical conversations.
• ENGL 112W - Literature Now (3) Introduces students to contemporary works of literature in English and/or contemporary approaches to interpreting literature.
• ENGL 113W - Literature and Performance (3) Introduces students to plays and performance works created and adapted for the stage, and/or the performative dimensions of other literary forms.
• ENGL 114W - Language and Purpose (3) Introduces students to the relationships between writing and purpose, between the features of texts and their meaning and effects.
• ENGL 115W - Literature and Culture (3) An Introduction to the study of literature within the wider cultural field, with a focus on contemporary issues across genres and media.
• ENGL 199W - Writing to Persuade (3) An introduction to reading and writing from a rhetorical perspective.

Students also complete any four 200-division English courses. Such courses may include:

• ENGL 202 - The Environmental Imagination (3) Explores how literature and language imagine the natural world and engage with environmental and ecological crisis.
• ENGL 204 - Reading Sexuality and Gender (3) Considers how sexuality and gender are articulated, understood, explored, and negotiated through literature and language.
• ENGL 209 - Race, Borders, Empire (3) Examines how literature and language work to reflect, perform, complicate, and critique constructions of race, ethnicity, and national and diasporic identities and spaces.
• ENGL 210 - Reading and Writing Identities (3) Considers how identity - construed psychologically, culturally, or socially - is performed and interrogated through literature and language.
• ENGL 211 - The Place of the Past (3) Examines literature and language within specific social, cultural, geographical, and textual environments to explore the mutually informing relationship between history and text.
• ENGL 213 - Reading Across Media (3) Explores texts in relation to their different material forms, including oral, manuscript, print, film, and digital media.
• ENGL 214 - History and Principles of Rhetoric (3) Introduction to the history and principles of rhetoric, and their application to the creation and analysis of written, visual, and other forms of persuasion.
• ENGL 216 - History and Principles of Literary Criticism (3) The study of selected works in the history of literary criticism, up to and including modern and contemporary movements in criticism.
• ENGL 234 - Metrics and Prosody (3) A study of different historical methods of measuring poetry in English, with practice in scanning and analyzing poems using different methods of quantitative analysis.
• ENGL 272 - Creative Reading (3) An introduction to the art of reading for creative writers, focusing on the linguistic, literary, and conceptual tools writers use to manipulate language to create different experiences for those encountering it.

Global Humanities Lower Division Requirements

Students complete 15 units including:

• HUM 101W - Introduction to Global Humanities (3) Introduction to issues and concepts central to the study of the humanities around the world.
• HUM 102W - Classical Mythology (3) Introduction to the central myths and literary sources of the ancient Greeks and Romans.
• HUM 105 - Many Europes: Ancient, Medieval, Early Modern (3) Study of the many diverse peoples, languages, and regions of the European continent from the origins of civilization until the mid-16th century.
• HUM 106 - Art and the Humanities (3) Introduction to the study of art across cultures and periods.
• HUM 110 - The Greek World (3) Interdisciplinary introduction to Greek culture in different periods.
• HUM 121 - Walk of Life: Migrations in Eurasia from Antiquity to the Present (3) Examines population movements in Eurasia, from antiquity to the present.
• HUM 130 - Introduction to Religious Studies (3) Introduction to concepts central to the academic study of religion, exploring various relevant methodologies.

English Upper Division Requirements

Students complete 20 units of upper division English courses. A minimum of four of these units must be at the 400-level, excluding directed studies courses (ENGL 490, 491); a minimum of four units must be from the following group of courses, focused on Canadian and/or Indigenous Literatures:

• ENGL 355 - Canadian Literatures (4) Study of selected works of Canadian literature, including Indigenous, diasporic, and settler texts.
• ENGL 360 - Popular Writing by Indigenous Authors (4) Examines works of popular fiction by Indigenous authors, and their use of specific genres.
• ENGL 431W - Seminar in Indigenous Literatures (4) Advanced seminar on selected works by Indigenous writers.
• ENGL 432W - Seminar in Canadian Literature (4) Advanced seminar in Canadian literature.

Global Humanities Upper Division Requirements

Students complete 20 units in upper division global humanities courses. The following courses are recommended:

• HUM 305 - Medieval Studies (4) Detailed interdisciplinary analysis of a selected topic, issue, or figure in the Middle Ages.
• HUM 311 - Italian Renaissance Humanism (4) Study of the major writings, cultural milieu, and influence of the humanist movement of the Italian Renaissance.
• HUM 312W - Renaissance Studies (4) Detailed interdisciplinary analysis of a selected topic, issue, or figure from the Italian and/or Northern Renaissance.
• HUM 321W - The Humanities and Critical Thinking (4) Study of the counter-traditions in human civilization and thought, including impulses and movements that critique and resist dominant value systems.

Elective Courses

In addition to the courses listed above, students should consult an academic advisor to plan the remaining required elective courses.

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Degree Requirements

For all bachelor of arts (BA) programs, students complete 120 units, which includes:

• at least 60 units that must be completed at Simon Fraser University
• at least 45 upper division units, of which at least 30 upper division units must be completed at Simon Fraser University
• at least 60 units (including 21 upper division units) in Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences courses
• satisfaction of the writing, quantitative, and breadth requirements
• an overall cumulative grade point average (CGPA) and upper division overall CGPA of at least 2.0, and program CGPA and upper division program CGPA of at least 2.0 on the course work used to satisfy the minimum program requirements.

Writing, Quantitative, and Breadth Requirements

Students admitted to Simon Fraser University beginning in the fall 2006 term must meet writing, quantitative and breadth requirements as part of any degree program they may undertake.

• A grade of C- or better is required to earn W, Q or B credit
• Requirement | Units | Notes
  • W - Writing | 6 | Must include at least one upper division course, taken at Simon Fraser University within the student's major subject; two courses (minimum three units each)
  • Q - Quantitative | 6 | Q courses may be lower or upper division; two courses (total six units or more)
  • B - Breadth | 18 | Designated Breadth | Must be outside the student's major subject, and may be lower or upper division: Two courses (total six units or more) Social Sciences: B-Soc Two courses (total six units or more) Humanities: B-Hum Two courses (total six units or more) Sciences: B-Sci 6 | Additional Breadth | Two courses (total six units or more) outside the student's major subject (may or may not be B-designated courses, and will likely help fulfil individual degree program requirements).

Residency Requirements and Transfer Credit

• At least half of the program's total units must be earned through Simon Fraser University study.
• At least two thirds of the program's total upper division units must be earned through Simon Fraser University study.