The English major is offered by the English Department in theMay School of Arts and Sciences .
Laura Scales
Cushing-Martin 123
505-565-1793
lscales@stonehill.edu
Departmental Mission
The English major and minor alike offer a multi-disciplinary approach to literary study that forges connections between texts and contexts, as well as between the literary arts and other studies in the Humanities. Our program enjoins students to explore the literary arts as a contact zone where history, critical analysis, literary theory, and creativity converge.
By encouraging disciplined inquiry and creative critical thinking, English courses challenge students to examine their cultural and historical positions and to organize and articulate their discoveries in writing and discussion. The program provides students with an understanding not only of traditional Western literary history, but also of non-European and multi-ethnic American voices that have been historically excluded from this tradition.
Through courses in poetry, fiction, drama, creative writing, graphic narrative, cinema, and digital media, students examine the world through multiple lenses, navigate the variety of literatures in English, and pursue new ways of seeing received truths.
Learning Outcomes
Majors in English will:
- advance in six core curriculum areas: critical writing, critical reading, literary history, cultural studies, creative writing, and literary-critical methodologies.
- analyze, evaluate, and incorporate primary and secondary sources to formulate substantive critical claims supported by effectively integrated textual evidence.
- recognize that literary texts shape and are shaped by their historical and cultural contexts and that different time periods and cultures have unique perspectives, norms, assumptions, and views about literature itself.
- understand how to approach literature as a historical, cultural and aesthetic object of inquiry that is both distinct from and in resonance with other forms of expression.
The major in English requires the completion of 11 courses, though students are encouraged to take additional courses so as to gain a full sense of their discipline.
