ENGL 5004

This graduate-level seminar offers an in-depth exploration of experimental and avant-garde literatures within Canada from 1945 to the present. Working actively to be in conversation, and with a focus on English-language texts and key works in translation that push the limits of literary expression, we will traverse the evolution of innovative forms across multiple genres, including poetry, prose, drama, comics, and intermedial forms. Students will engage with aesthetic movements and their sociopolitical contexts that have shaped avant-garde literary production, examining how unconventional approaches to literary forms historically and currently challenge hegemonic narratives to broaden the scope of Canadian literatures, thus forming what is often referred to as the “expanded field.”