Reading with Attention: Practical Criticism in Literature & Film

Course Description

Practical criticism is a method of reading that focuses on texts themselves, with close attention paid to the analysis of words, images, repetitions, rhythms, allusions, and other techniques in the chosen artform. It emphasises the way form and content work together to create meaning. In this course, we will apply this practice of reading and criticism to the poetry of T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, a short story, a short essay, and a selection of films. By reading and viewing these texts together, in the community of the classroom rather than individually, we will come to see how the form of art can inform its potential meanings, change us as readers, and be a means of exploring theological themes such as the practice of faith, humanity’s relationship to creation, eschatological hope, the relationship of sin and grace, the sacredness of the ordinary, and yearning for the presence of God.

Offered	2026 Fall
Dates	Sep 14 - Dec 14
Days	Mon, 06:00PM - 09:00PM
Format	Onsite Only
Credit Hours	2-3
Audit Hours	2
Room Number	Rm 100

Teaching Faculty

James Smoker

Sessional Lecturer

James Smoker is the Registrar at Regent College and earned his PhD at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. His research centred on the writing of the poet and theologian Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834), with a focus on how the imagination intersects with questions of knowing God, faith, and doubt. James's other research interests include the life and writing of Sara Coleridge (1802–1852), popular culture and theology, and the intersection of the imagination and creation care. He has written for journals such as Religions, Literature and Theology and The Coleridge Bulletin and publications such as Christ and Pop Culture and Plough, and was an Associate Editor with Transpositions, the online journal for the Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts in St Andrews, Scotland. James now lives in Vancouver with his wife and three children.