English Department Courses and Requirements

Learning Goals

We want our students to be able to engage literary texts (a field we construe very broadly) both closely and deeply, understanding how texts function internally, what relation they bear to their generative contexts and traditions, and how they respond to and resist the changing circumstances of their reception.

We want our students to know how to pursue the work of interpretation and analysis in relation to other people; how to find, learn, and contribute to a conversation; how to formulate robust and original arguments in respect to that conversation; and how to communicate such arguments, along with their stakes and ramifications, effectively in both oral and written form.

We hope our students will be keen to apply their critical habits of thought both to and beyond the study of literature as it is presently understood. We wish them able to probe and to alter the conventions that govern their utterances.