The Major – English – Carleton College

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: How We Read: The History and Science of Reading
ENGL 100: Imagining a Self
ENGL 100: Inventing the Past
ENGL 100: Literary Revision: Authority, Art, and Rebellion
ENGL 100: Novel, Nation, Self
ENGL 100: Reading, Interpreting, Writing
ENGL 112: Introduction to the Novel
ENGL 113: Horror Fiction · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 114: Introduction to Medieval Narrative · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 115: The Art of Storytelling
ENGL 116: The Art of Drama: Passion, Politics, and Culture · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 117: African American Literature · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 118: Introduction to Poetry
ENGL 120: American Short Stories · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 136: Black Speculative Fiction · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 137: Terrorism and the Novel · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 144: Shakespeare I
ENGL 187: Murder · not offered in 2023-24

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 2023-24
ENGL 203: Other Worlds of Medieval English Literature · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 205: “Passing Strange”: Shakespeare’s Othello and its Modern Afterlives
ENGL 206: William Shakespeare: The Henriad
ENGL 207: Princes. Poets. Power
ENGL 208: The Faerie Queene
ENGL 209: Much Ado About Nothing: A Project Course · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 214: Revenge Tragedy · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 216: Milton · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 219: Global Shakespeare · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 244: Shakespeare I
ENGL 281: Living London Program: Reading London, Writing London
ENGL 310: Shakespeare II · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 381: Living London Program: Reading London, Writing London

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 2023-24
AMST 256: Walt Whitman’s New York · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 212: Nineteenth-Century American Literature · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 217: A Novel Education
ENGL 218: The Gothic Spirit
ENGL 221: “Moby-Dick” & Race: Whiteness and the Whale · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 222: The Art of Jane Austen
ENGL 223: American Transcendentalism · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 225: ‘Public Offenders’: Pre-Raphaelites and Bloomsbury Group · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 229: The Rise of the Novel
ENGL 239: Democracy: Politics, Race, & Sex in Nineteenth Century American Novels · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 281: London Program: Romantic London · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 319: The Rise of the Novel
ENGL 323: Romanticism and Reform
ENGL 327: Victorian Novel
ENGL 328: Victorian Poetry · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 338: Dickinson, Moore, Bishop · not offered in 2023-24

Group III: 12 credits in literature after 1900

3. English 295: Critical Methods

4. English 395: Advanced Seminar

ENGL 395: Dickinson, Moore, Bishop · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 395: Dissenting Americans · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 395: Murder
ENGL 395: Narrative
ENGL 395: Seductive Fictions · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 395: The Twenty-First Century Novel · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 395: Yeats and Heaney · not offered in 2023-24

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

T2: Literature of North America

AMST 230: The American Sublime: Landscape, Character & National Destiny in Nineteenth Century America · not offered in 2023-24
AMST 256: Walt Whitman’s New York · not offered in 2023-24
AMST 269: Woodstock Nation · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 113: Horror Fiction · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 117: African American Literature · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 120: American Short Stories · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 136: Black Speculative Fiction · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 212: Nineteenth-Century American Literature · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 215: Modern American Literature · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 221: “Moby-Dick” & Race: Whiteness and the Whale · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 223: American Transcendentalism · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 227: Imagining the Borderlands · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 230: Studies in African American Literature: From the 1950s to the Present
ENGL 233: Writing and Social Justice · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 234: Literature of the American South · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 235: Asian American Literature
ENGL 236: American Nature Writing
ENGL 239: Democracy: Politics, Race, & Sex in Nineteenth Century American Novels · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 241: Latinx Voices in the Age of Trump · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 247: The American West · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 248: Visions of California · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 255: The Poetics of Disability
ENGL 258: Playwrights of Color: Taking the Stage · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 288: California Program: The Literature of California · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 329: The City in American Literature · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 332: Faulkner, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald
ENGL 338: Dickinson, Moore, Bishop · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 352: Toni Morrison: Novelist
ENGL 366: The Carleton Miscellany · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 395: Dickinson, Moore, Bishop · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 395: Dissenting Americans · not offered in 2023-24

T3: Global Anglophone Literatures

ENGL 237: Black British Literature · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 238: African Literature in English
ENGL 245: Bollywood Nation · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 246: Film, Literature, and Culture in Mumbai and Seoul Program: Beyond Bollywood
ENGL 250: Indian Fiction 1880-1980 · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 251: Contemporary Indian Fiction
ENGL 252: Caribbean Fiction · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 272: Film, Literature, and Culture in Mumbai and Seoul Program: Representing Mumbai
ENGL 350: The Postcolonial Novel: Forms and Contexts · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 359: World Literature in the Twenty-First Century · not offered in 2023-24
ENGL 395: The Twenty-First Century Novel · not offered in 2023-24

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

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, Aisha Sabatini Sloan and Sun Yung Shin) 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, Sarah Vap, Jaswinder Bolina and Jesmyn Ward.