English

Master of Arts (MA)

Explore the notion of place in literature and culture through experiential learning, digital methodologies and traditional humanistic scholarship.

GRADUATE PROGRAM OVERVIEW

Program	Components	Expected Duration
MA in English	Thesis	16 to 24 months
MA in English	Coursework	12 to 16 months

UBC Okanagan’s Master of Arts (MA) degree in English provides training in the theory, methods, and practice of literary studies in English. The program emphasizes a theme of place and its importance to culture and literature in both present and historical perspective.

Graduates will be prepared for PhD research and a variety of professions that value strong communication skills and a facility in writing and textual analysis—such as education, law, public administration, journalism, professional writing and editing, publishing, consulting, digital content creation, technical writing, and marketing.

The MA involves coursework and independent publishable research driven by student interests and supported by attentive supervision. Our mission is to train students to be successful scholars, who are capable of contributing important literary and cultural knowledge, both within our field and the culture at large.

Literature and Place

The English MA graduate program concentrates in literary studies and the concept of place. How is “place” comprehended? How have writers engaged with various places, from the local, such as the Okanagan Valley, the unceded, ancestral territory of the Syilx people, to the global in postcolonial contexts? How does place intersect with markers of social difference such as race and gender? How can environmental literature contribute to sustainability? How does literature intersect with the constitution of bodies, identities, histories, spaces and places. These questions will be addressed through place-based and experiential learning opportunities, as well as in traditional classrooms.

Master’s Thesis Option

To complete the thesis option MA in English, students are required to take 30 credits:

18 credits attained through coursework: English 501, English 503, and four additional courses normally chosen from the English 520 and 530 series (details below);
12 credits achieved by completing the thesis (English 599). The thesis ranges from 15,000 to 20,000 words and requires an oral defence administered by the College of Graduate Studies. On March 1 of the second semester, you will submit a Thesis Proposal of 2,500 words with a four-page bibliography to the Graduate Programs and Planning Committee; it is developed in consultation with your supervisor.

Students are required to take core courses that are taught every year as well as courses chosen from the English 520 and 530 series. See Graduate Courses for details.

The thesis is a 12-credit independent research project that advances current knowledge in the student’s chosen field and within the larger discipline of literary and cultural studies, between 15,000 and 20,000 words, based on independent research conducted by the student. It must be accompanied by a bibliography, use MLA style citation, and be presented properly formatted. The thesis will need to be defended in an oral exam.

Master’s Coursework Option

For the coursework option, students complete an Independent Research Paper (IRP), a 9-credit academic paper of publishable length, between 7,500-10,000 words, based on independent research conducted by the student.

To complete the coursework option MA in English, students are required to take 30 credits:

21 credits attained through coursework: English 501, English 503, and five additional courses normally chosen from the English 520 and 530 series (details below);
9 credits achieved by completing English 590, the Independent Research Paper (IRP). The IRP ranges from 7,500 to 10,000 words.
On March 1 of the second semester, you will submit an IRP Proposal of 1,500 words with a three-page bibliography to the Graduate Programs and Planning Committee it is developed in consultation with your supervisor.
Coursework students typically complete the degree in 12 months and might take up to 16 months.

Students are required to take core courses that are taught every year as well as courses chosen from the English 520 and 530 series. See Graduate Courses for details.

Required Graduate Courses

English 501 Methodologies: Critical Theory: This course examines critical and cultural theory and how it informs current practices of research.

English 503 Practices in the Profession of Literary Studies and Related Disciplines: Introduction to the profession’s expectations, practices, and responsibilities. Pass/Fail

The following courses will be taught based on faculty research interests and expertise. They will be offered on the basis of faculty rotation. We will offer at least four per year and content will change annually. All courses will align with the following rubric.

ENGL 521: Topics in Historical Periods and Movements

ENGL 522: Topics in Genre Studies

ENGL 523: Topics in National/International Literatures and Culture

ENGL 524: Individual Author Studies

ENGL 525: Studies in Diversity and Identity

ENGL 531: Place and Power

ENGL 532: Culture and Location

ENGL 533: Narrating Place

Courses - 2022 Academic Year

ENGL 501 Methodologies: Critical Theory | Dr. Melissa Jacques

Course Description: In keeping with the theme of the English MA, this iteration of ENGL 501 will focus on critical theories of place and space. The course will be divided into three sections. In Section One, we will read canonical twentieth-century texts on space and place by such writers as Walter Benjamin, Gaston Bachelard, Henri Lefebvre, Jacques Derrida, and Michel Foucault. In Section Two, we will focus on largely feminist contributions to this canon by Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, and Jacqueline Rose. In Section Three, we will focus on space and place through the lenses of post-humanism, new-materialism, Indigenous Studies, and Black Studies. Readings will include work by such writers as Donna Haraway, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Tracey Lindberg, Saidiya Hartman, and Christina Sharpe. Throughout the term, we will supplement the theories under discussion with a range of cultural texts and contexts including, but not limited to, graffiti, memorials, public parks, public assemblies, and tent cities. In other words, we will work to bridge the alleged distance between theory and praxis by bringing these into dynamic relation.

English 503 Practices in the Profession of Literary Studies and Related Disciplines | Dr. Aisha Ravindran

Course Description: The first half of this course is designed to provide learners with core skills in teaching. In coordination with the Centre for Teaching and Learning and FCCS faculty members, sessions will address equity practices, class design, discussion strategies, writing and critiquing exercises, and grading. Students will be given the opportunity to design and deliver short lessons in their field of expertise and will receive constructive feedback on their teaching. The second half of the course will familiarize scholars in Literary Studies with the profession’s expectations, practices, and responsibilities. Topics will include the teaching dossier, conference presentations, research strategies, the proposal and thesis/ research project, publication, and employment. The course will also offer information on and encourage attendance at workshops on applying for funding. Class discussions are intended to provide a forum for reflection on the professional opportunities and challenges that exist within graduate studies. Textbook: Kathy M. Nomme and Carol Pollock. (2022). The Successful TA: A Practical Approach to Effective Teaching. UBC Press.

ENGL 521B Feminist Forerunners: Early Modern Women’s Literature and Contemporary Theory | Dr. Margaret Reeves

Course Description: This course will examine the relationship between modern feminist thought and what could be called the “proto-feminist” thought of early modern women. The approach is both comparative and historical, in that we will read a selection of texts by seventeenth-century women writers and compare their ideas about gender, female subjectivity, race, and class to those found in modern feminist theory. Can early modern women writers, despite their very different social and historical circumstances and perspectives, be counted as feminist forerunners? Is feminism itself primarily a modern movement, or does it have a longer history than is often acknowledged? In what ways do the social and historical contexts in which a woman writes shape her ability to understand, challenge, and navigate social injustice and systemic oppression? Reading texts written during the seventeenth century (1600-1700) alongside selections by modern feminist thinkers such as Judith Butler, Donna Haraway Bell Hooks, Genevieve Lloyd, and Trinh T. Minh-ha will enable this comparison between early modern proto-feminism and modern feminist thought. We will investigate both the commonalities as well as important differences in women’s writing during these distinct historical periods. Possible areas of inquiry include the politics of literary and theoretical canons; representations of female subjectivity, sexuality, same-sex desire; and strategies used by feminist and proto-feminist thinkers to actively contest restrictive cultural and social codes.

ENGL 521T Fiction and Science: Animal Alterity | Dr. Jodey Castricano

Course Description: Everywhere in popular culture today, one finds deep‐rooted anxieties about science, technology, and the fate of the human. Thus, in recent films such as The Fly, Jurassic Park, Splice, Species, Godzilla, and Deep Blue Sea, the focus has been on biological mutations, experiments gone awry, and the creation of monstrosities in regards animals often as chimeric beings. Already, science has genetically engineered mice, cows, and pigs to use in research involving xenotransplantation, raising animals to transfer organs from one species to another, while de-extinction research is involved in the aim to clone a wooly mammoth. Yet the use of animals in contemporary society and biomedical and technological research is increasingly invisible: they are hidden away in laboratories and factory farms, weaponized in military applications and instrumentalized in other context all the while their mediated and idealized forms appear on Animal Planet or National Geographic television, but purged from city geographies. This course aims to bring constructive criticism to the use of animals in scientific contexts and will engage with this issue by considering the role of literature (and, possibly film) in determining an alternative truth of animal existence in relation to the official discourse of science which recounts their experiences primarily as objects in an anthropocentric world. In contrast to this world view, a differently-centered story can be told in literature, which enables us imaginatively to engage with the question of the animal’s place in philosophical systems and, therefore, calling into question what it means to be human. We will explore these issues in novels such as Wilkie Collins’ Heart and Science, H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr Moreau, Richard Adams’ The Plague Dogs and Don LePan’s Lucy and Bonbon, all of which raise extremely important ethical and philosophical issues regarding other animals and science.

ENGL 522C 18th Century Novel | Dr. Oliver Lovesey

Course Description: This course examines the beginnings of the realistic novel and its development from Haywood, Behn, and Defoe to Austen, emphasizing changes in formal narrative features and the novel’s engagement with social, historical, and cultural matters.

ENGL 523T Canadian Poetry & the Digital Archive | Dr. Karis Shearer

Course Description: TBA

ENGL 524E Individual Author Studies – CHAUCER | Dr. Martin Blum

Course Description: This course examines the diverse themes, genres, and voices of Chaucer’s unfinished Canterbury Tales. Chaucer’s Tales allow its readers a unique glimpse into the society and culture of late medieval England and the negotiation of its values, issues, and anxieties. A brief introduction to Middle English – the language of Chaucer – allows us to read the original medieval text with the help of a detailed glossary. Particular emphasis will be on Chaucer’s development of the narrative voice of both, himself, and that of his individual narrator-characters in order to discover the diverse themes, genres, and perspectives in his Tales.The format of this course will be based on lectures and discussions. Individual background topics that will be explored in seminar presentations. Tentative Reading List: Geoffrey Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales Complete. 2nd Ed. Robert Boering and Andrew Taylor. Peterborough, On.: Broadview, 2012. Please note: The complete Broadview edition of the Canterbury Tales has been selected as it covers also the minor tales discussed in class.

ENGL 525N Drag and Pop Culture | Dr. Cameron Crookston

Course Description: This course examines the evolution of drag as a queer cultural practice and form of popular entertainment over the last century. Drawing on examples from live performance, film, and television, classes will examine the relationship between drag and queer subcultures, mainstream representation of queerness, and trans visibility in the media. In particular we will consider the relationship between contemporary interest in drag and earlier historic instances of mainstream interest in drag. We will also consider how drag intersects with queer politics, the evolution of LGBTQ2+ communities, identity politics, and various sociopolitical influences. Readings draw on media studies, theatre history, queer theory, culturally and trans studies scholarship. Tentative Reading List: Selections from: Marlon Bailey. Butch queens up in Pumps: Gender, Performance, and Ballroom Culture in Detroit. University of Michigan Press, 2013. Mark Edward and Stephen Farrier. Contemporary Drag Practices and Performers. Methuen, 2020. Jack Halberstam. Female Masculinity. Duke University Press, 1998. Susan Stryker. Transgender History. Seal Publishing, 2008.

ENGL 531A Place and Power | Dr. Allison Hargreaves

Course Description: This course explores the primacy of place in contemporary Indigenous literatures and theory. Beginning with the premise that “Stories take place,” (Womack, Art as Performance 44), the course approaches place not from a thematic or setting-based perspective, but as a methodological precept and philosophical underpinning of Indigenous literary arts. Vanessa Watts (Mohawk/Anishinaabe) employs the concept of “Place-Thought” as a way to describe this “theoretical understanding of the world”—one in which “land is alive and thinking and [where] humans and non-humans derive agency through the extensions of these thoughts” (“Indigenous Place-thought” 21). Our task is to be curious about how literature represents and practices this aliveness—this agency—as a core mediating presence in relations between humans, land, and other non-human people. To that end, we will ask: how might literature help us to hear the thoughts that place is thinking? By what methods—literary and otherwise—might we best train our listening skills? What are the implications of this approach for our relationships with the non-human world? And what does place ask of us as readers, writers, storytellers, students, and dreamers?

Courses - 2021 Academic Year

English 501 Methodologies: Critical Theory | Dr. Astrida Neimanis

This course examines critical and cultural theory and how it informs current practices of research. (Required Course)

English 503 Practices in the Profession of Literary Studies and Related Disciplines | Dr. Aisha Ravindran

The first half of this course is designed to provide learners with core skills in teaching. In coordination with the Centre for Teaching and Learning and FCCS faculty members, sessions will address equity practices, class design, discussion strategies, writing and critiquing exercises, and grading. Students will be given the opportunity to design and deliver short lessons in their field of expertise and will receive constructive feedback on their teaching. At the end of the first five weeks, students who have attended and participated in the sessions will receive the Foundations Certificate for Graduate Teaching Assistants. The second half of the course will familiarize scholars in Literary Studies with the profession’s expectations, practices, and responsibilities. Topics will include the teaching dossier, conference presentations, research strategies, the proposal and thesis/ research project, publication, and employment. The course will also offer information on and encourage attendance at workshops on applying for funding. Class discussions are intended to provide a forum for reflection on the professional opportunities and challenges that exist within graduate studies. (Required Course)

ENGL 521A- Posthumanism and Critical Animal Studies | Dr. Jodey Castricano

This course begins from the philosophical position that animals are worthy of serious intellectual and ethical consideration and, thus, a further aim is to attend to how animality and the question of the animal(s) similarly intersect with questions of gender, race, class and ethnicity by introducing students to the necessary intersection of posthumanism and critical animal studies. To this end, we will begin by developing an understanding of the field of posthumanism in relation to critical animal studies, postcolonial and cultural studies and eco-feminist theory. We will then move into the question of the animal and discuss how the relations of hierarchy, domination, and exploitation between humans and animals are systematically reproduced in relations of class, race and ethnicity among humans themselves while keeping before us the plight of actual animals as they are subject to systems of biopower. In addition to materials dealing with posthumanism and critical animal studies, we may be reading literary works which frame the question of the animal in its representational complexity.

ENGL 521C Studies in 16th- and 17th-Century Literature: Special Topics: Same-Sex Relationships in Early Modern England, 1550-1735 | Dr. Marie Loughlin

This course will examine the representation of same-sex erotic desire in early modern England, between approximately 1550 and 1735. This expansive coverage in terms of period allows students to examine groupings of texts in terms of specific social, cultural, and political contexts, ranging from the Reformation to the humanist revival to the ‘birth’ of pornography. Among other issues, we will explore the relationship between same-sex desire, relationships, and erotic acts; the changing nature of early modern sexual identity; the influence of Biblical precedent and the classical tradition in translation; and the shaping effect of genre on representations of the love between men, and the love between women. In terms of the critical work of the last 30 years or so, which has seen signal developments in the study of early modern sexuality and literature, we will consider a variety of debates related broadly to the ‘essentialist’ and ‘social constructivist’ positions in the context of larger theoretical discussion of identity, sexuality, and subjectivity; the nascent discourse of early modern lesbianism; the complex exchange between early modern homophilic and homophobic social discourses and institutions; the profound twinned influence of the humanist revival of the classical past, and the Bible. In these and other contexts, we will consider the critical analyses produced by major figures in the field, such as Valerie Traub, Alan Bray, Jonathan Goldberg, Harriette Andreadis, Rictor Norton, and Kenneth Borris.

ENGL 525B | Gender, Race, Medicine: The Construction of the Hysteric Dr. Maria Alexopoulos

In this course students will think critically about the entanglement of medicine, science, culture, and power, with a focus on ‘hysteria’. Together, we will engage with a diverse range of material including theory, medicine, literature, and film. From witch hunts in Early Modern Europe and colonial North America to contemporary cases of ‘contagious’ mass-hysteria, students will consider the shifting diagnoses, treatments, and representations of hysteria over time, paying special attention to their relationship with constructions of race, gender and sexuality.

ENGL 525A Studies in Diversity and Identity: Reimagining Our Relations | Dr. Allison Hargreaves

This course explores the concept, structure, and practice of settler colonialism, and the role of representation in maintaining, resisting, or transforming settler colonial relations of power in the place we know as Canada. Together, we will explore a variety of cultural texts by differently positioned non-Indigenous and settler writers whose work can help us to re-story dominant myths and reimagine our social relations. In addition to these creative works, we will be reading essays and other forms of critical engagement by key Indigenous thinkers.

ENGL 531A Place and Power | Dr. Allison Hargreaves

This course explores the primacy of place in contemporary Indigenous literatures and theory. Beginning with the premise that “Stories take place,” (Womack 44), the course approaches place not from a thematic or setting-based perspective, but as a methodological precept and philosophical underpinning of Indigenous literary arts.

ENGL 532B Climate Change and Literature | Dr. Greg Garrard

This course reflects on the reasons why science-focused communication about climate change may have had limited impact on public attitudes and behaviors. Students will consider the problems and prospects for fictional exploration of climate change scenarios as a way of mitigating the limitations of the politico-scientific IPCC process. This course will conclude by considering the tension between the global scope of climate change and the affective and cognitive benefits attributed to place-based knowledge of the environment.

ENGL 532C Culture and Location: Contemporary Women’s Writing from South Asia and its Diaspora | Dr. Jennifer Gustar

This course will explore contemporary women’s fiction in English from South Asia and the South Asian Diaspora. The fiction will range from historicized narratives of Partition and the imposition of a colonial solution to Indian Independence, the Radcliffe Line, which remapped the Subcontinent with a
specific impact on women and children and cultural diversity.

Courses - 2020 Academic Year

ENGL 501 Methodologies: Critical Theory | Dr. Melissa Jacques

This course is a survey of critical theory. In the first week, students will get a crash course on the field we call critical theory. The goal is to understand the origins of the field before we enter into the debates that attend particular themes, movements, and applications of theory from the early twentieth century to the present. The syllabus covers what have become “canonical” theoretical paradigms, such as structuralism, Marxism, feminism, deconstruction and postcolonial theory. What we will find, as we move through the course, is that theorists rarely contain their thinking to discrete themes, positions, movements, and influences.

ENGL 503 Practices in the Profession and Teaching of Literary Studies and Related Disciplines | Dr. Aisha Ravindran

ENGL 521A Posthumanism and Critical Animal Studies | Dr. Jodey Castricano

ENGL 521B Feminist Forerunners: Early Modern Women’s Literature and Contemporary Theory | Dr. Alison Conway

This course examines foundational feminist writing from two historical periods, taking a comparative approach to writing during the early modern period (from the mid-sixteenth century to the early eighteenth century) in relation to a selection of work of late twentieth and early twenty-first century theory.

ENGL 521E Topics in Historical Periods and Movements| Dr. Margaret Reeves

This course examines advanced topics in seventeenth-century literature and culture. In this section of “Approaches to 17th-Century Literature: Special Topics” we will examine the gendering of political thought in fictional, historical, and philosophical narratives of the early modern period (1500-1700) with a focus on the seventeenth century (1600-1700). We will study how gender inflects some of the core concepts in political thought of this period, such as patriarchalism and royalism, analogies between the family and the commonwealth, republicanism and masculinity, the sexual contract embedded within social contract theory, and the gendering of early modern utopias (including those by Thomas More and Margaret Cavendish). By invoking conventional tools of literary analysis as well as the critical historiographical methods of Hayden White, we will consider the relationship between various forms of political narratives–fictional, poetic, historical, and philosophical–as modes of representation.

ENGL 525K Postcolonial Studies – Humanitarian Life Narratives | Dr. David Jefferess

This course examines the construction of the humanitarian in life narratives, understood broadly to include memoir, documentary biographical film, NGO marketing appeals, fiction, etc. Drawing upon scholarship in life writing, celebrity culture, media discourse, moral philosophy, postcolonial theory, critical race studies, and gender studies, the course focuses on the ongoing legacy of the “white saviour complex”. As a 400 level/graduate course, the course will be participatory, focusing on student-driven analysis, and will provide opportunities to develop skills in collaboration, oral presentation, and discussion facilitation, with options for both scholarly and creative research and communication.

ENGL 532A Culture & Location: Shakespeare and Place | Dr. Sean Lawrence

This seminar will examine the role of place and location in the works of William Shakespeare and the stage and society in which they were presented. The discussion will be framed by a dialogue between the respectively ethical and ontological phenomenologies of Emmanuel Levinas and Martin Heidegger. The course will be divided into three sub-themes, each examining three plays in three weeks: the English popular stage; representations of the world beyond Europe; the erotic landscape. The course has a philosophical focus, but seeks to find points of integration with other critical concerns.

RESEARCH & SUPERVISORS

The success of UBC Okanagan’s MA in English Program depends on exceptional students.

Please touch base with a faculty supervisor before you start the application process. We look forward to hearing about your research interests and career goals.

Anderson Araujo | 250.807.9589 | anderson.araujo@ubc.ca
Research interests: Transnational modernism; First World War poetry, 20th-century British and Irish literature; modernism and transatlantic modernism; peace and war studies; aesthetics.

Adebayo Sakiru | adebayo.sakuiru@ubc.ca
Research interests: African and African Diaspora Literature, Postcolonial Studies, Trauma and Memory Studies

Martin Blum | 250.807.9362 | martin.blum@ubc.ca
Research interests: Medieval and Renaissance studies; short narrative genres; German language and culture.

Jodey Castricano | 250.807.9196 | jodey.castricano@ubc.ca
Research interests: 19th-century studies, including gothic studies and psychoanalysis (Freud/Jung); critical animal studies; ecofeminism; critical and literary theory, film and media studies; feminist and queer theory; ethics; social activism.

Kerrie Charnley| kerrie.charnley@ubc.ca
Research interests: Indigenous Epistemologies, Salishan Intellectual Traditions and Literatures (Interior Salish Literatures and Coast Salish Literatures), Indigenous Literatures, Indigenous Storywork, Indigenous Oral Traditions, Indigenous Literacies, Indigenous Land/Ocean-Based Pedagogies, Indigenous Languages, Multimodal and Multi-sensory Literacies, Cognitive Maps and Geography, Rhetoric, Discourse Analysis, A/r/tography and Arts-Based Research, Autoethnography and Memoir, Mixed Genre Writing, Writing Education.

Alison Conway | 250.807.9701 | alison.conway@ubc.ca
Research interests: Literary and cultural history of the long eighteenth-century in Britain; narrative studies; and gender and sexuality theory.

Robert Eggleston | 250.807.9380 | robert.eggleston@ubc.ca
Research interests: Restoration and 18th-century theatre; ideological instability in the comedies and farces of Edward Ravenscroft; theories of comedy during the late 17th century; political satire and censorship of the stage during the 1720s and 1730s.

Greg Garrard | 250.807.8479 | greg.garrard@ubc.ca
Research interests: Ecocriticism; contemporary environmental writing; critical animal studies; film and media studies; literature and science; Canadian literature.

Lisa Grekul | 250.807.9347 | lisa.grekul@ubc.ca
Research interests: Canadian literatures; diaspora literatures and theory; postcolonial and decolonization studies; film and media studies; Ukrainian-Canadian literature.

George Grinnell | 250.807.9638 | george.grinnell@ubc.ca
Research interests: Critical and literary theory; cultural studies; Romanticism; peace and war studies; punk culture; cultural studies in music; aesthetics; critical and literary theory; feminist and queer theory; literature and medicine; ethics; African-American literature.

Jennifer Gustar | 250.807.9384 | jennifer.gustar@ubc.ca
Research interests: Women’s literature; feminist and queer theory; postcolonial theory/fiction and contemporary British literature.

Allison Hargreaves | 250.807.8446 | allison.hargreaves@ubc.ca
Research interests: Indigenous literature and theory; Indigenous feminisms; settler studies; Indigenous writing in Canada; postcolonial and decolonization studies; feminist and queer theory; reconciliation; social activism.

Melissa Jacques | 250.807.9537 | melissa.jacques@ubc.ca
Research interests: Trauma theory; queer theory; popular culture (crime fiction and graphic memoir); life writing and creative non-fiction; Holocaust Studies; the scholarship of teaching and learning; narrative medicine/medical humanities.

David Jefferess | 250.807.9359 | david.jefferess@ubc.ca
Research interests: Postcolonial studies; globalization; anti-oppression; cultural studies; peace and war studies; reconciliation; humanitarian discourse; ethics; social activism; South-Asian literature; African literature.

Daniel Keyes | 250.807.9320 | daniel.keyes@ubc.ca
Research interests: Film, television and media studies; critical whiteness studies; critical and literary theory; cultural studies; studies in the suburban culture of North America; cultural studies in music; postcolonial and decolonization studies; drama and theatre studies; digital culture; Canadian literature.

Sean Lawrence | 250.807.9415 | sean.lawrence@ubc.ca
Research interests: Shakespeare; canonical literature and 20th-century French philosophy; Medieval and Renaissance studies; peace and war studies; drama and theatre studies; ethics.

Ruthann Lee | 250.807.9181 | ruthann.lee@ubc.ca
Research interests: cultural studies; politics of decolonization, solidarity, and resistance; Indigeneity, diaspora, and settler colonialism; feminist art and media activism.

Marie Loughlin | 250.807.9330 | marie.loughlin@ubc.ca
Research interests: 16th-century poetry and prose; early modern women’s writing; early modern drama; women’s literature; 16th and 17th-century literature; spiritual autobiography; speculative fiction; feminist and queer theory.

Oliver Lovesey | 250.807.9385 | oliver.lovesey@ubc.ca
Research interests: Victorian and 18th-century novel; postcolonial studies; restoration and 18th-century literature; history of the novel; cultural studies in music; postcolonial and decolonization studies; literature and medicine; social activism; African literature.

Paul Milton | 250.807.9418 | paul.milton@ubc.ca
Research interests: 20th-century American and Canadian fiction; literature and space; fictional treatments of suburban life; Canadian poets and literature; African-American literature.

Emily Murphy | 250.807.8073 | emily.murphy@ubc.ca
Research interests: Digital Humanities; text encoding; digital editing; actor-network theory; feminist and intersectional DH; critical and creative making; digital pedagogy; the body and digital culture; twentieth-century literature and culture; high, middlebrow, and popular modernisms; literature of the Spanish Civil War; women’s writing; adaptation and media-specificity; dance, movement, and physical culture; history of psychiatry and psychoanalysis; celebrity culture; little magazines and the slicks; life writing.

Aisha Ravindran | 250.807.9308 | aisha.ravindran@ubc.ca
Research interests: Internationalization of higher education; academic writing in multilingual, multicultural, and globalized environments; English as an additional language (EAL); university writing pedagogy; the intersections of language, culture, literacies, and student and teacher agency and identities; second language teacher education; new materiality and posthumanism; Gilles Deleuze.

Margaret Reeves | 250.807.9639 | margaret.reeves@ubc.ca
Research interests: Early modern women’s writing; children’s literary cultures (early modern to contemporary); early modern childhood and youth; Milton and early modern political theory; satiric fiction; women’s literature; Medieval and Renaissance studies; 16th and 17th-century literature; history of the novel; auto/biographical discourse; speculative fiction; feminist and queer theory.

Karis Shearer | 250.807.9776 | karis.shearer@ubc.ca
Research interests: Canadian poetry and fiction; critical pedagogy; gender theory; American poetry; cultural studies; feminist and gender theory; modernism and transatlantic modernism; drama and theatre studies; digital culture; feminist and queer theory; creativity; social activism.

Jordan Stouck | 250.807.9663 | jordan.stouck@ubc.ca
Research interests: Composition studies; Canadian and Caribbean literature; postcolonial and decolonization studies; scholarship of teaching and learning.

Bryce Traister | 250.807.9357 | bryce.traister@ubc.ca
Research interests: American Literature, especially the colonial and antebellum periods; religious studies; American Cultural Studies; science fiction.

Michael Treschow | 250.807.9356 | michael.treschow@ubc.ca
Research interests: Old and Middle English literature; Medieval and Renaissance studies, speculative fiction.

Kyong Yoon | 250.807.8897 | kyong.yoon@ubc.ca
Research interests: Migration and media; Asian popular culture; Korean diaspora; audience studies; cultural industries and political economy. [Available as a committee member but not supervisor in the English MA]

STUDENTS & THESES

Meet Our Students

FCCS students are significant contributors of artistic and cultural events on campus and off in Kelowna, the Okanagan Valley and beyond. Follow our English program on Facebook to keep up to date on events and connect with our community on campus and beyond.

English Students have participated in digital initiatives on our campus such as Textual Editing and Modernism in Canada and Punk Pedagogy, learning valuable skills and gaining the opportunity to disseminate research and work directly with stakeholders.

Students have also participated in experiential graduate courses that move outside the traditional classroom, sometimes in the local area and sometimes travelling to remote locations such as the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre on Vancouver Island.

We are proud to share our the accomplishments of our alumni who have gone on to many prestigious programs, and have had successes in publications and career opportunities.

Theses and Dissertations

Search all UBC Okanagan English student publications at cIRcle, the university’s digital repository for research and teaching materials.

View the FCCS Thesis Defence Flowchart to see the process in scheduling a student’s thesis defence.

View our list of graduated students and student profiles for you to discover more about them and their research.

MA in English Program Completions

Samuel Fraser| A Black Writing on the Hills: The Interplay of Knowledge, Discourse, and Power in Susan Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, 2023 (Margaret Reeves)
Alison Kloosterman| Shattered Temporalities: An Investigation into Trauma, Time, and the Monstrous in Maria Dahvana Headley’s The Mere Wife (2018), 2022 (Michael Treschow)
Olivia Abram| Settler-as-secondary: Ethics and Politics of a Settler Engagement with Islands of Decolonial Love, 2022 (Allison Hargreaves)
Leah Wafler| I would prefer not to”: Non-Human Animal Resistance and the Language of Speciesism, 2022 (Jodey Castricano)
Kyla Morris| Step into My Coffin or (M)other Space:Theorizing Motherhood as Heterotopic Space in Angela Carter’s “Ashputtle or The Mother’s Ghost: Three Versions of One Story”, 2022 (Melissa Jacques, George Grinnell)
Dana Penney| The Woman Warrior and Her Bodymind in Action: An Analysis of Bodies, Minds, Gender, and Movement in Wonder Woman, 1941 – 2017, 2022 (Marie Loughlin)
Dserae Gogel | The Past is Present: Gendered Colonial Violence in Contemporary Canadian Theatre, 2021 (Lisa Grekul)
Kholbey Ozipko| No eclipse lasts forever: Confronting Gendered Violence in Stephen King’s Gerald’s Game and Dolores Claiborne, 2021 (Jodey Castricano)
Shohel Rana | Modern Surveillance and the Loss of the Great Potential in Dave Egger’s ‘The circle’, 2021 (George Grinnell)
Steven Defer| “Let’s Have the Conversation”: Climate Change, Religion, and Belief Formation in Barbara Kingsolver’s’ Flight Behavior’, 2021 (Bryce Traister)
Murat Yaman| Independent Research Paper, 2020 (George Grinnell)
Rachel Stubbs| Dear Mr. Dumbledore: Handwritten and Printed Intraliterary Texts in Lewis Carroll’s Alice Series and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Series, 2020 (Margaret Reeves)
Caitlin Voth | Independent Research Paper, 2019 (Karis Shearer)
Rebecca Jane Francis | Instruction Within Entertainment: Explicit and Implicit Religious Teachings in Children’s Literature in the Nineteenth Century, 2018 (Margaret Reeves)
Francesca Gimson | Independent Research Paper, 2017 (Jennifer Gustar)
Brittany Rhodes | Independent Research Paper, 2017 (Janet MacArthur)
John Harrison | Independent Research Paper, 2017 (Jodey Castricano)
Mark Buchanan | How Alcohol Use in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Perpetuates Late-Victorian Traditions of Racism, Sexism and Classism, 2016 (Constance Crompton)
David Laird | “Saying God with a Straight Face”: Towards an Understanding of Christian Soteriology in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, 2016 (Daniel Keyes)
Patricia Mitton | Independent Research Paper, 2016 (Allison Hargreaves, Marie Loughlin)
Angela Froese | Independent Research Paper, 2015 (Oliver Lovesey)
Alexa Manuel | Independent Research Paper, 2015 (Allison Hargreaves)
Zane Phillips | Independent Research Paper, 2014 (Sean Lawrence)
Max Dickeson | Feminist Science Fiction’s Prophetic Metaphors: The Destabilization of Gender and Race in Nalo Hopkinson’s Midnight Robber and Susan Palwick’s Shelter, 2014 (Margaret Reeves)
Spekla Grasic | Identity, Home and Loss in Goran Vojnovic’s Cefur Raus!, 2014 (Janet MacArthur)
Gracie Cleveland| Independent Research Paper, 2014 (Karis Shearer, Allison Hargreaves)
Ashley Cail| Independent Research Paper, 2014 (Marie Loughlin)
Daniel Tracy | Independent Research Paper, 2014 (George Grinnell)

MA in English Student Profiles