Major Requirements
The English department offers a Literature major and a Writing major. Described below are the requirements for the Literature major.
The Literature Major
The Literature major consists of 10 courses given by, or approved by, the department.
Two core courses are required for the Literature major. All students will complete ENGL 199. In most cases, Literature majors will fill the core requirements by taking ENGL 200. Literature majors who minor in Cinema and Media Studies can substitute ENGL 221 for ENGL 200.
Two of the following core courses are required for the Literature major:
- ENGL 199 Approaches to Literature
- ENGL 200 Intro to Theory (or ENGL 221 The Critical Lens for Cinema and Media Studies minors)
Four Context courses that cross borders of space or time are required for the Literature major:
- Two courses that emphasize Geographical and Cultural Contexts
- Two courses that emphasize Historical Contexts
Of the ten courses required for the Literature major, two must be upper-level courses:
- One course designated by the department as a 200-level Research Methods course.
- One course taken at the 300 level.
The remaining two courses are taken as electives.
ENGL 199 is an introduction to the Literature and Writing majors and is open to all students thinking about majoring in Literature or Writing. All potential majors are urged to take it no later than the beginning of their sophomore year. While ENGL 199 and ENGL 200 constitute a sequence in the Literature major and must be taken in that order, this sequence is not necessarily consecutive: ENGL 199 is a class appropriate for incoming first-year students, while ENGL 200 is an advanced course in critical theory, open only to students with sophomore standing and above who have taken ENGL 199. Students will thus typically take ENGL 199 at the beginning of their first year, and they will take ENGL 200 no earlier than the beginning of their second year.
ENGL 199 is the prerequisite for all 300-level classes offered by the department. Some 300-level classes may have additional prerequisites.
The English Department does not permit double-counting. Although some of our courses fill multiple requirements, each course can only be used to fill one requirement for a particular student’s major.
Some context courses will be designated by the department as filling both the Historical Context (HC) requirement and the Geographical and Cultural Context (GCC) requirement. Students may choose to use each course to fill either of the two context requirements, but not both simultaneously.