Second-year English courses at Langara offer students the opportunity to build on the foundations of literary and rhetorical analysis established in first-year courses while applying a much more specific focus in terms of content. Whether you are planning on getting a degree in English or you just want to take an interesting elective, the course offerings change each semester, so make sure you check back often!
For Creative Writing courses, click here.
All our second-year courses are fully transferable to UBC and SFU. For information about transfer credit and articulation of these courses, please visit the BC Transfer Guide.
For more information, check out the following video, or contact the individual instructors or the English Department Chair.
Download PDF of all Summer 2025 second-year English and Creative Writing courses.
Second-Year Courses for Summer 2025
ENGL 2224: English Literature from 1680 to 1900
This course will immerse us in the works of major British authors from the 1660 Restoration to the late nineteenth century. Along the way, we’ll explore some of life’s most pressing questions against the backdrop of emerging literary genres and colossal cultural shifts. For instance, should the rake get the girl (ala Wycherley’s Restoration comedy)? Could putting babies to use be society’s answers to inequality and rampant poverty (ala Jonathan Swift’s social satire)? Are haunted castles, novel reading, and too much alone time the root of society’s ills (ala Jane Austen’s satiric fiction)? And what exactly are the world’s mercantile goblins up to, anyway (ala Christina Rossetti’s poetic fairytale)? Come buy, come buy! Note: ENGL 2223 is not a pre-requisite for this course; students may take ENGL 2224 before, after, or at the same time as ENGL 2223.
Instructor: Sandra Friesen sfriesen@langara.ca | Monday/Wednesday 10:30 - 12:20
View Course Outline | Register for ENGL 2224 (CRN: 20208)
ENGL 2225: Canadian Literature
If you have ever wondered “what is Canadian literature anyway?,” you are not alone. In fact, such questions are fundamental to literature by and about Canadians. In this survey course, we read a range of genres (scholarly articles, poetry, nonfiction, short fiction, and a novel), historical periods (19th - 21st century), regions (rural and urban), and subject matter (including ghosts, magic, adventure, nationhood, violence, loss, memory, and much more). We cover some conventional “classics” as well as more experimental and diverse perspectives within Canadian literature and criticism (with particular consideration of Indigenous cultures, multiculturalism, and cultural hybridity). We read literature by Canadians of African, Indigenous, East-Asian, European, Middle Eastern, and South-Asian descent, and we explore how Canadian writers have anticipated, answered, and even challenged Northrop Frye’s question of “where is here?”
Instructor: Tiffany Johnstone tjohnstone@langara.ca | ONLINE ASYNCHRONOUS
View Course Outline | Register for ENGL 2225 (CRN: 20209)
ENGL 2237: Adaptations
To adapt means to change in relation to new circumstances or environments. For Charles Darwin, an adaptation is a heritable trait that might enhance an organism’s ability to survive and reproduce. Similarly, world culture has long adapted its forms of expression to new historical and technological circumstances, going back at least as far as Homer’s adaptation of oral storytelling to the medium of writing. In this course, we will use the concept of adaptation to consider the different ways stories, characters, and ideas are refashioned or remediated, as well as the ways that newer mediums themselves adapt to, transform, and challenge older mediums. We will begin with Edgar Allan Poe, perhaps the most adapted of all authors, and end with the remediation of another Homer—Homer Simpson—in Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play. In between, we will consider how various novels, comics, and movies have adapted to new, often rapidly changing, historical contexts and media environments..
Instructor: Sean McAlister smcalister@langara.ca | Tuesday/Thursday 10:30 - 12:20
View Course Outline | Register for ENGL 2237 (CRN: 20210)
ENGL 2430: Film Through Theory: 2SLGBTQIA+
How much do you love film? Enough to immerse yourself in it for an entire semester—and even read theory about it? This course introduces students to the vibrant world of 2SLGBTQIA+ representation in contemporary films and how societal attitudes shape these portrayals. As part of viewing film through theory, we’ll explore the impact of historical film censorship and the evolution of queer coding and delve into the emergence of new representations during the anti-AIDS activism of the 1990s. We’ll also engage with modern issues, like queerbaiting and #BuryYourGays, and examine how mainstream visibility influences the fates of 2SLGBTQIA+ characters and storylines. No prior knowledge of either theory or 2SLGBTQIA+ representation is needed to succeed in this course. Lectures will support you in using scholarship and theory from several fields to develop your own perspective and attend to the films you study respectfully and with care, no matter your starting point.
Instructor: Mono Brown mmbrown@langara.ca | Monday/Wednesday 14:30 - 16:20
View Course Outline | Register for ENGL 2530 (CRN: 20215)
Second-Year Courses for Fall 2025
ENGL 2223: English Literature to 1680 | Tanya Lewis | tlewis@langara.ca
ENGL 2225: Canadian Literature | Joanna Clarke | jclarke@langara.ca
ENGL 2233: Children's Literature | Erin Robb | erobb@langara.ca
ENGL 2234: Literature from a Feminist Perspective | Erin MacWilliam | emacwilliam@langara.ca
ENGL 2237: Video Games | Greg Holditch | gholditch@langara.ca
ENGL 2430: Film Through Theory: Psychoanalysis | Marc Acherman | macherman@langara.ca
ENGL 2266: Writing Lives I | Jill Goldberg | jgoldberg@langara.ca
Second-Year Courses for Spring 2026
ENGL 2222: Classical Literature in Translation | Erin Robb | erobb@langara.ca
ENGL 2223: English Literature to 1680 | Ciara Lawlor | clawlor@langara.ca
ENGL 2224: English Literature 1680-1900 | Sandra Finlayson | sfinlayson@langara.ca
ENGL 2233: Imagining Otherwise | Jonathan Newell | jnewell@langara.ca
ENGL 2235: American Literature | Sean McAlister | smcalister@langara.ca
ENGL 2530: Horror Films | Mono Brown | mmbrown@langara.ca
ENGL 2286: Writing Lives II | Jill Goldberg | jgoldberg@langara.ca