The
Undergraduate Program: Why Study English?
| What does it mean to study
English today? The English department engages that question
by offering its students the opportunity to explore literary
texts written in Old English, internet texts, American
novels, Anglo-Irish literature, queer textuality, Science
Fiction, literature of the body, modern poetry, Shakespeare
etc.—all kinds of "literatures" written in English.
We study the complex interactions between literature,
culture and history. At the heart of literary study lies
the simple yet striking recognition that language constitutes
both a technology of thought and a constituent of human
reality. The major in English transforms this recognition
into a program of study that develops the critical skills
required to negotiate complicated literary and cultural
texts. Together, we spend time working on questions like
these: (1) how do historical and cultural contexts lend
written texts their intelligibility and convey their strange
power? (2) How do gender and minority discourses inform
our understanding of literature? (3) How does the study
of English engage the public
sphere in its intersection with other fields, such
as cognitive science, social science and information science? |
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What can
one "do" with a degree in English? Graduate and professional
schools and employers seek people who can read, write,
speak, and analyze—the basic skills acquired by
our English majors. Students who study English learn
how to think, and to think independently. They are trained
to read a variety of literary and cultural works from
across centuries and continents and to write proficient
and lively arguments. English majors learn about how
the past informs the present, become "keepers" of past
works and present cultures, and leave college thinking
and feeling more deeply about life and how to live it.
Our program
is a coherent and comprehensive program of literary
studies leading to the Bachelor of Arts degree. The
program is academically oriented, providing thorough
preparation for graduate
studies, and is a strong program for those students
desiring a broad liberal arts background. The English
major provides the opportunity to develop skills in
writing and in critical reading.
| —Excerpted from Section
2 of the English Department's Undergraduate
Handbook. |
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