Department of English - Undergraduate Program Overview

Program of Study

The undergraduate program in English Language and Literature is designed to provide students with the opportunity to study intensively works of literature, drama, and film originally written in English. Courses address fundamental questions about topics such as the status of literature within culture, the literary history of a period, the achievements of a major author, the defining characteristics of a genre, the politics of interpretation, the formal beauties of individual works, and the methods of literary scholarship and research. The study of English may be pursued as preparation for graduate work in literature or other disciplines, or as a complement to general education.

Majors in the Department of English Language and Literature learn how to ask probing questions of a large body of material; how to formulate, analyze, and judge questions and their answers; and how to present both questions and answers in clear, cogent prose. To the end of cultivating and testing these skills, which are central to virtually any career, each course offered by the department stresses writing.

Although the main focus of the English Department is to develop reading, writing, and research skills, the value of bringing a range of disciplinary perspectives to bear on the works studied is also recognized. Besides offering a wide variety of courses in English, the department encourages students to integrate the intellectual concerns of other fields into their study of literature and film. This is done by permitting up to two courses outside the English Department to be counted as part of the major if a student can demonstrate the relevance of these courses to his or her program of study.