Literature

The English Department has a number of goals for its Literature majors:

• To learn how to read texts with cultural, historical, and formal attention.
• To learn how to speak and write about texts with authority and grace.
• To learn how to express his or her own enthusiasm for and engagement with the written word.
• To learn how to engage in critical, active, and responsible discussions about literature’s role in shaping (and reshaping) cultures, worlds, and peoples.

The Literature Major requires 55 credits:  15 credits of readings courses (covering British and American Literatures); 25 credits of directed electives; and 15 credits of English electives.  Detailed information about the distribution of credits in the major and in the University’s core can be found in the Bulletin.  Information about specific English courses for the current or upcoming quarters can be found here.

Literature students also have the opportunity to participate in a number of programs and activities designed to enhance the major.  These include: Departmental Honors, Study Abroad, Women Studies, The Literary Society, and Fragments, SU’s Arts and Literature Magazine.