Bachelor of Arts in English

at Kings University College at Western University Canada

All around us the world is changing. Security considerations, geo-politics, divisions born of wealth and poverty, and global development challenges are all re-shaping the world in fascinating and critical ways.

Political science is the field of study interested in making sense of power and authority within the global, national, provincial and local arenas.

Political Science at King’s is a vibrant community of students and award-winning faculty that offers opportunities to questions and debate policy choices and to examine alternative futures for our society. The King’s Political Science Department is committed to real student engagement and active learning. Our faculty supports an active student club and a debating society where vibrant discussion, contentious, timely public lectures, and visits to major political institutions take place frequently. We aim to help students develop in all aspects of life- intellectually, socially and personally.

King’s English programs provide the pleasures and challenges of reading closely literary texts of our own time and many other periods and places.  We offer courses in all the major historical periods of English, from medieval through contemporary; national literatures in English, including British, Canadian, American, and Postcolonial;  courses in literary theory, drama, popular literature, film, children's literature, creative writing, and more.

In our small classes and seminars, our students acquire knowledge and skills in analysis, writing, and public speaking.  Our graduates thereby prepare themselves for careers in, for example, education, publishing, law, marketing, media and communication, public relations, business, and industry.

In addition, the study of English allows us, as Wallace Stevens put it, to find ourselves "more truly and more strange." Come study with us, and see how reading, writing, and thinking about literature can cultivate a lifetime of curiosity, wonder, and pleasure.

This program focuses on the functioning of organizations and their most important resources: their employees. Courses will examine how companies operate as well as the importance of human resource management and how it relates to the effectiveness within an organization

Human Rights are predicated upon the belief that every human being deserves to be treated with equal dignity, and that every person has inherent value. But how do we move towards these goals? Human Rights Studies interrogate how we fulfill these ideals, but also how we fail to do so in different times and places. It equips students with the intellectual and practical skills they need to explore, understand, and act-to become protagonists in the equal granting of all human beings the status and the rights associated with their being.

What will I study?
This is a new collaborative degree program that integrates approaches from across the disciplines to provide students with critical understanding of, and experience in, the growing field of human rights.

• These are the most fundamental rights and freedoms belonging to all human beings, including equality, dignity, the right to work and to education, and freedom of opinion and expression. The United Nations declares that “everyone is entitled to these rights, without discrimination.”
• Using a cross-disciplinary approach, Human Rights Studies at King’s equips students to understand and to critique the effectiveness of legal, diplomatic and political frameworks that have been employed to protect human rights.
• The program also examines how different groups have understood and fought for expanded rights protection throughout history.
• Topics include women’s rights; the rights of minorities; refugees and displaced persons; Indigenous rights; and remedies for human rights violations in domestic and international law.

This program focuses on the subject of childhood from an interdisciplinary perspective.  Thus, we look at childhood in sociological, anthropological, historical and geographical perspectives.  We discuss issues such as: what is the meaning of ‘childhood’? What competencies do children have? How is childhood framed in policy discourse, both local and global?  What are children’s views of the world that they live in?  

Topics covered in the program include:-

• The social study of childhood
• Histories of childhood
• Children’s rights
• Advocacy with children
• Children and the legal system
• Social policy
• Working children
• Children’s everyday lives and social worlds
• Child poverty

Our Criminology program promotes multi-disciplinary research and instruction aimed at understanding the complex nature of crime, the criminal justice system, and issues related to social control and criminalization. Students will study a variety of issues within the criminal justice system, including law, law enforcement, penal policy, courts, corrections, violence, terrorism, and media representations of crime and justice. Within the Department of Sociology, King’s offers a Minor and Major in Criminology. 

This program is based closely on the Management and Organizational Studies program with diverse studies in both Business and the Social Sciences.  There is a more distinctive and detailed focus on international business in this stream.  Students have the opportunity to study with King’s professors at sister universities in Brazil or China

Students in Sociology at King`s learn about all facets of the human condition from leaders in their fields in small class settings as they discuss the linkages between individual experiences with the wider society. Our students develop a range of analytic, computer and communication skills that enhance their employability while simultaneously developing an enriched understanding of the social, cultural and historical forces that have helped shape the modern world. Students will learn to appreciate the tension between individual agency and the social forces at play that constrain how human beings behave in all spheres of life. Such learning creates skills communicators, researchers, and analysts who can enter the working world as imaginative thinkers with concrete technical abilities writing expertise, and critical thinking skills that are vital to being successful professionals.

The French Language and Literature Program at King’s is designed to foster an appreciation of the various literatures and cultures of la Francophonie as well as to develop a variety of skills that will serve you well in the future. We offer a range of language and literature courses to help you hone your language, communication, and research skills.

Our small classes provide an excellent opportunity for you to interact with your classmates and your professors. 

• Being able to speak French will open up career opportunities in teaching, business, government agencies as well as in many other sectors.
• Our students have the opportunity to spend the third year of their French program at the Université Catholique de Lille. Studying abroad can be a life-changing experience, a chance to see the world, to make new friends, and to learn to appreciate cultural differences.
• We have a free tutoring service for students having difficulties with French grammar or composition.
• Every year, two graduate students from the Université Catholique de Lille will help you improve your pronunciation and conversation skills in the language lab.
• You can join in extra-curricular activities such as French film nights and casual drop-in conversation hours to further enhance your French experience at King’s.

Students have the opportunity to complete a BA in Catholic Studies for teachers, and, if desired, another major of their choice with guaranteed admission to Western’s Faculty of Education to complete the Bachelor of Education (BEd) degree. This program is intended for preparation for teaching in the Catholic school system.  Students can choose either the Junior Intermediate or the Intermediate Senior streams in the BEd program.

In Years 2, 3, and 4 of the BA (Honors) or four-year BA program, students complete Religious Studies courses in Catholic studies in areas as diverse as Scriptures, Catholic symbols, tradition and morality, issues in religion, as well as courses in Judaism, Islam, and Eastern Traditions.  Students will also register in service learning courses in which they will be placed in Catholic schools to assist teachers in the classroom as well as work in other parts of the school (such as the library, special education) to get an overall view of the educational institution as a whole and its culture. Students will receive extensive orientation before their placements and will also have regular meetings with the program coordinator throughout their time in the schools.