The English Department fosters students’ love of literature through rigorous examination of texts, challenging discussion, thoughtful writing and training in different theoretical approaches. Students explore the works of important writers in multiple genres from many countries and time periods, as well as the ideas, cultural values and debates literature presents, supported by a faculty with diverse interdisciplinary interests. The skills practiced in our curriculum foster a deeper understanding of the English language, independent thought and critical acumen, all of which prepare students for such varied careers as advertising, creative writing, law, journalism, public relations, publishing and teaching.

Students graduating with a degree in English will demonstrate the ability to: 1. Engage in close reading: interpret textual details and ambiguities, employing a vocabulary of literary terms, theories and/or critical methods. 2. Advance a proposition or thesis, supporting claims with explicit reasoning and textual evidence. 3. Conduct research: find, evaluate and cite secondary sources, using accurate MLA style conventions 4. Place an argument in conversation with the ideas of other critics and theorists. 5. Formulate a research question and locate it within an interpretive context, such as aesthetic, cultural, ethico-political, historical, intertextual, or social. 6. Compose analytical papers in cogent and coherent prose.