Major Requirements

Seventy-two credits in English, including the following:

1. Foundations: One designated 100-level course that develops skills of literary analysis and introduces the concept of genre 

  • ENGL 100 Drama, Film, and Society
  • ENGL 100 Imagining a Self
  • ENGL 100 Novel, Nation, Self
  • ENGL 100 Rhetoric: Art of Persuasion
  • ENGL 100 Reading, Interpreting, Writing
  • ENGL 112 Introduction to the Novel
  • ENGL 113 Horror Fiction (not offered in 2022-23)
  • ENGL 114 Introduction to Medieval Narrative
  • ENGL 115 The Art of Storytelling
  • ENGL 116 The Art of Drama: Passion, Politics, and Culture (not offered in 2022-23)
  • ENGL 117 African American Literature (not offered in 2022-23)
  • ENGL 118 Introduction to Poetry
  • ENGL 119 Introduction to U.S. Latino/a Literature (not offered in 2022-23)
  • ENGL 120 American Short Stories (not offered in 2022-23)
  • ENGL 137 Terrorism and the Novel
  • ENGL 144 Shakespeare I
  • ENGL 187 Murder

2. Historical Eras: 36 credits in literature courses numbered 200-394 (excluding 220 and 295) which must include:

  • Group I: 12 credits in literature before 1660
    • ENGL 202 The Bible as Literature (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 203 Other Worlds of Medieval English Literature (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 207 Princes. Poets. Power (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 208 The Faerie Queene (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 209 Much Ado About Nothing: A Project Course
    • ENGL 210 From Chaucer to Milton: Early English Literature (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 213 Christopher Marlowe (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 214 Revenge Tragedy
    • ENGL 216 Milton
    • ENGL 219 Global Shakespeare
    • ENGL 244 Shakespeare I
    • ENGL 310 Shakespeare II (not offered in 2022-23)
  • Group II: 12 credits in literature between 1660 and 1900
    • AMST 230 The American Sublime: Landscape, Character & National Destiny in Nineteenth Century America (not offered in 2022-23)
    • AMST 256 Walt Whitman’s New York (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 212 Nineteenth-Century American Literature (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 217 A Novel Education (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 218 The Gothic Spirit
    • ENGL 221 “Moby-Dick” & Race: Whiteness and the Whale (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 222 The Art of Jane Austen
    • ENGL 223 American Transcendentalism (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 225 ‘Public Offenders’: Pre-Raphaelites and Bloomsbury Group (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 239 Democracy: Politics, Race, & Sex in Nineteenth Century American Novels (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 319 The Rise of the Novel
    • ENGL 323 Romanticism and Reform
    • ENGL 327 Victorian Novel (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 328 Victorian Poetry (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 338 Dickinson, Moore, Bishop
  • Group III: 12 credits in literature after 1900 
    • AMST 240 The Midwest and the American Imagination (not offered in 2022-23)
    • AMST 269 Woodstock Nation (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 215 Modern American Literature (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 227 Imagining the Borderlands
    • ENGL 230 Studies in African American Literature: From the 1950s to the Present
    • ENGL 233 Writing and Social Justice (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 234 Literature of the American South (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 235 Asian American Literature
    • ENGL 236 American Nature Writing (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 238 African Literature in English (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 241 Latinx Voices in the Age of Trump
    • ENGL 245 Bollywood Nation
    • ENGL 247 The American West (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 248 Visions of California (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 249 Modern Irish Literature: Poetry, Prose, and Politics
    • ENGL 250 Indian Fiction 1880-1980 (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 251 Contemporary Indian Fiction (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 252 Caribbean Fiction (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 256 Ireland Program: Irish History and Culture (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 258 Playwrights of Color: Taking the Stage
    • ENGL 274 Ireland Program: Irish Literary Pasts and Presents (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 281 London Program: London as City: Londinium to the Anthropocene
    • ENGL 288 California Program: The Literature of California
    • ENGL 329 The City in American Literature
    • ENGL 332 Faulkner, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 350 The Postcolonial Novel: Forms and Contexts
    • ENGL 352 Toni Morrison: Novelist (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 359 World Literature in the Twenty-First Century (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 362 Narrative Theory
    • ENGL 366 The Carleton Miscellany (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 381 London as a City: Londinium to the Anthropocene
    • THEA 242 Modern American Drama (not offered in 2022-23)

3. English 295: Critical Methods

4. English 395: Advanced Seminar

5. English 400: Senior Integrative Exercise (A senior may choose one of the following):

  • Colloquium Option: A group option in which participants discuss, analyze and write about a thematically coherent list of literary works.
  • Research Essay Option: An extended essay on a topic of the student’s own devising. Open only to students who have completed their Advanced Seminar by the end of fall term senior year.
  • Creative Writing Option: Creation of a work of literary art. Open only to students who have completed at least two creative writing courses (one of which must be at the 300 level) by the end of fall term senior year.
  • Project Option: Creation of an individual or group multidisciplinary project.

Of the 72 credits required to complete the major:

1. at least 6 credits must be taken in each of the following traditions:

  • T1: Literature of Ireland and Britain
    • ENGL 112 Introduction to the Novel
    • ENGL 114 Introduction to Medieval Narrative
    • ENGL 116 The Art of Drama: Passion, Politics, and Culture (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 135 Imperial Adventures (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 144 Shakespeare I
    • ENGL 202 The Bible as Literature (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 203 Other Worlds of Medieval English Literature (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 207 Princes. Poets. Power (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 208 The Faerie Queene (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 209 Much Ado About Nothing: A Project Course
    • ENGL 210 From Chaucer to Milton: Early English Literature (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 213 Christopher Marlowe (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 214 Revenge Tragedy
    • ENGL 216 Milton
    • ENGL 217 A Novel Education (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 218 The Gothic Spirit
    • ENGL 219 Global Shakespeare
    • ENGL 222 The Art of Jane Austen
    • ENGL 225 ‘Public Offenders’: Pre-Raphaelites and Bloomsbury Group (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 244 Shakespeare I
    • ENGL 249 Modern Irish Literature: Poetry, Prose, and Politics
    • ENGL 256 Ireland Program: Irish History and Culture (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 274 Ireland Program: Irish Literary Pasts and Presents (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 281 London Program: London as City: Londinium to the Anthropocene
    • ENGL 310 Shakespeare II (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 319 The Rise of the Novel
    • ENGL 323 Romanticism and Reform
    • ENGL 327 Victorian Novel (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 328 Victorian Poetry (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 381 London as a City: Londinium to the Anthropocene
    • ENGL 395 Seductive Fictions
  • T2: Literature of North America
    • AMST 230 The American Sublime: Landscape, Character & National Destiny in Nineteenth Century America (not offered in 2022-23)
    • AMST 256 Walt Whitman’s New York (not offered in 2022-23)
    • AMST 269 Woodstock Nation (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 113 Horror Fiction (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 117 African American Literature (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 120 American Short Stories (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 212 Nineteenth-Century American Literature (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 215 Modern American Literature (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 221 “Moby-Dick” & Race: Whiteness and the Whale (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 223 American Transcendentalism (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 227 Imagining the Borderlands
    • ENGL 230 Studies in African American Literature: From the 1950s to the Present
    • ENGL 233 Writing and Social Justice (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 234 Literature of the American South (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 235 Asian American Literature
    • ENGL 236 American Nature Writing (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 239 Democracy: Politics, Race, & Sex in Nineteenth Century American Novels (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 241 Latinx Voices in the Age of Trump
    • ENGL 247 The American West (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 248 Visions of California (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 258 Playwrights of Color: Taking the Stage
    • ENGL 288 California Program: The Literature of California
    • ENGL 329 The City in American Literature
    • ENGL 332 Faulkner, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 338 Dickinson, Moore, Bishop
    • ENGL 352 Toni Morrison: Novelist (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 366 The Carleton Miscellany (not offered in 2022-23)
  • T3: Global Anglophone Literatures
    • ENGL 238 African Literature in English (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 245 Bollywood Nation
    • ENGL 250 Indian Fiction 1880-1980 (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 251 Contemporary Indian Fiction (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 252 Caribbean Fiction (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 350 The Postcolonial Novel: Forms and Contexts
    • ENGL 359 World Literature in the Twenty-First Century (not offered in 2022-23)
    • ENGL 395 The Twenty-First Century Novel

2. at least 24 credits must be in courses numbered 300-395

3. up to 6 credits may be in literature other than English in the original or translation 

  • ARBC 144 Arabic Literature at War (not offered in 2022-23)
  • ARBC 185 The Creation of Classical Arabic Literature (not offered in 2022-23)
  • ARBC 315 Readings in Premodern Arabic Anthologies
  • CHIN 245 Chinese Vision of the Past in Translation (not offered in 2022-23)
  • CHIN 251 Heroes, Heroines, Exceptional Lives in Chinese Biographical Histories (not offered in 2022-23)
  • CHIN 355 Contemporary Chinese Short Stories
  • CHIN 364 Chinese Classic Tales and Modern Adaptation (not offered in 2022-23)
  • CLAS 112 The Epic in Classical Antiquity: Texts, Contexts, and Intertexts (not offered in 2022-23)
  • CLAS 116 Greek Drama in Performance (not offered in 2022-23)
  • ENGL 202 The Bible as Literature (not offered in 2022-23)
  • FREN 238 Back to the Future: French Classics Reimagined (not offered in 2022-23)
  • FREN 239 Banned Books
  • FREN 241 The Lyric and Other Seductions (not offered in 2022-23)
  • FREN 244 Contemporary France and Humor (not offered in 2022-23)
  • FREN 245 Francophone Literature of Africa and the Caribbean
  • FREN 248 Murder and Mayhem: Narratives of Suspense (not offered in 2022-23)
  • FREN 259 Paris Program: Hybrid Paris
  • FREN 340 Arts of Brevity: Short Fiction
  • FREN 341 Madame Bovary and Her Avatars
  • FREN 347 Gender and Sexuality in the Francophone World
  • FREN 359 Paris Program: Hybrid Paris
  • FREN 360 The Algerian War of Liberation and Its Representations (not offered in 2022-23)
  • FREN 395 The Mande of West Africa (not offered in 2022-23)
  • GERM 247 Mirror, Mirror: Reflecting on Fairy Tales and Folklore (not offered in 2022-23)
  • GRK 204 Intermediate Greek Prose and Poetry
  • GRK 240 Xenophon’s Oeconomicus
  • JAPN 345 Advanced Reading in Modern Japanese Literature: The Short Story
  • LATN 204 Intermediate Latin Prose and Poetry
  • RELG 161 The Jewish Bible (not offered in 2022-23)
  • RELG 162 Jesus, the Bible, and Christian Beginnings (not offered in 2022-23)
  • RUSS 244 The Rise of the Russian Novel (not offered in 2022-23)
  • RUSS 261 Lolita (not offered in 2022-23)
  • RUSS 266 The Brothers Karamazov
  • RUSS 267 War and Peace
  • RUSS 341 From Folktale to Fanfiction: Russian Short Prose (not offered in 2022-23)
  • RUSS 351 Chekhov (not offered in 2022-23)
  • SPAN 242 Introduction to Latin American Literature
  • SPAN 262 Myth and History in Central American Literature (not offered in 2022-23)
  • SPAN 277 The Poem as Artifact: Art and Work in Contemporary Spanish American Poetry (not offered in 2022-23)
  • SPAN 330 The Invention of the Modern Novel: Cervantes’ Don Quijote
  • SPAN 366 Jorge Luis Borges: Less a Man Than a Vast and Complex Literature
  • SPAN 371 Yours Truly: The Body of the Letter (not offered in 2022-23)

4. up to 12 credits may be in creative writing

Double-majors considering completing the integrative exercise during the junior year will need written approval from the departmental chair.

Workshops in Writing

The Department of English offers workshop courses in the writing of fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction. Students are encouraged to submit their work to college publications such as The Second Laird Miscellany, the Clap, and The Manuscript.

Writers on the Carleton faculty include poets Gregory Hewett and Susan Jaret McKinstry and novelist Gregory Blake Smith. The department invites writers (most recently Jane Hamilton, Kao Kalia Yang, and Aisha Sabatini Sloan) to teach workshops in creative writing. In addition, the department brings writers to campus for readings and lectures.  Recent visitors have included Teju Cole, Edwidge Danticat, David Henry Hwang, and Sarah Vap.