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What is the English Major and Minor?

And how should I make my way through it?

We assume you love to read. You love to think about what you read, and about your experiences of reading. You love to work to convey your thinking to, and with, others and to find out what they think and have experienced in reading—both your peers and other critics, writers, intellectuals, and scholars. You want to practice reading, thinking, communicating and to get better at those activities.

Why would you want to be an English major? What skills will the English major help you develop and refine? Why is the English major called “English,” and why is it organized as it is?

Why is the English major called “English”?

The full and formal name of our department is “English Language and Literature.” The short, informal “English” acknowledges that we teach the history of literatures written in English across the world. But our English department also teaches literature written in other languages and translated into English; we thus have ties as well to W&M’s Departments of Modern Languages and Classical Studies. Course offerings in English regularly include poetry, drama, fiction and films originally written or produced in a vast array of languages from across time and across the globe—from the Bible and Sophocles to Tolstoy and Proust, Ibsen and Kafka to Varda, Bolaño and Murakami.

The English department has a historical connection to Linguistics, which—although now a separate program and major—includes the study of language change, including the history of English, and language variation within communities, including their social and political bases.

Creative Writing workshops also have a home in the English department. The workshop model for learning the craft of writing fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and other genres is an inclusive, artist-centered way of developing technical proficiency through sharing work with fellow writers. We offer a stand-alone Creative Writing Minor, which can be combined with an English major (a maximum of two courses can be shared between any major and minor), and Creative Writing workshops can be counted as electives for the English major and minor.

Why Do We Ask You to Take the Courses We Ask You to Take?

 

Our requirements for the English major start with the basics of literary forms, interpretive strategies and critical writing, and then move on to different historical periods of British and American Literary History. The requirements for the minor are similar, though scaled proportionally to 21 credits, rather than the 36 required for the major.

250: Interpreting Literature

This course aims to give an introductory overview of the ground the major covers.

Faculty have liberty to choose the works, organized around a theme of their choosing, that they will read with students, following these guidelines: focus on common skills—especially careful close reading and writing interpretive-analytic essays; include at least one author of color; at least one text before 1800 and at least one after 1900; some exposure to poetry and poetic form; some exposure to prose narrative and narrative form.

We see Interpreting Literature as a gateway into the major and suggest students take it early on. It helps students develop a map of the major and a common set of tools for literary analysis, which they will of course continue to expand and refine.

That said, 250 is not a formal prerequisite for any class but 475: Research Seminar.

Period and National Literature Distribution Requirements

These courses give students some grounding in the history of literature written in English, primarily in Britain and North America, though the last, LS: Literature Since 1900, sometimes moves outside these national literary frames.

• BLB (British Literature Before 1700)

Courses in this period give students a sense of the historical development of English as a “modern” language--i.e., the language we, more or less, recognize and can read today. The earliest courses in this period cover materials that are not in modern English and that either require translation or developing new language skills.

This period includes works produced in and helping to shape the era of chivalry, Renaissance, the professionalization of theater, the refinement of English into a literary language and the beginnings of colonization in the Americas. It features such poets as Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, and John Donne; dramatists like William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and Aphra Behn; and in other genres, Thomas More, Francis Bacon, and the King James Bible.

• BLT (British Literature Between 1700-1900)

Works produced in this period help to shape the era of Enlightenment, sensibility, revolutions in Europe, North America, and the Caribbean, industrialization and empire-building. It features such poets as Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning; prose fiction writers like Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, and the Brontë sisters; and in other genres, Jonathan Swift, Olaudah Equiano, and Oscar Wilde.

• ALB (American Literature Before 1920)

Works produced in this period help to shape the era of encounters between indigenous North America and European populations; enslavement and abolition; American independence, westward expansion, and global presence; Civil War, Reconstruction, and Gilded Age. It features such poets as Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson; in prose fiction, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, and Louisa May Alcott; and in other genres, Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass, and W.E.B. Du Bois.

• LS (Literature Since 1900)

World literature, chiefly Anglophone but also in translation, often in relation to other media, including film. Some of these media, through complex socio-cultural processes, come to be seen as “literary” or literature-like—e.g., movies that we strongly associate with director’s names (akin to authors) or, increasingly, “quality TV” and video games that also get connected with an authorial name, which can sometimes be a corporate name, like Disney.

Conceptual Distribution Requirement

This attribute may, on some courses, overlap with Period/National Literature attributes.

• CR (Constructions of Race and Ethnicity)

Before it was ingested into biological and anthropological “science” in the 19th century—science discredited by the last century and more of research in both fields—ideas of race were built with words and stories. Words (e.g., black, white, red, yellow, etc.) and stories informed the development and circulation of race science; served as a main tool for criticizing and showing the flaws in this thinking; shaped legal regimes built on racial distinctions; and helped oppressed people maintain bonds, build shared resources and meanings, and claim their individuality, subjectivity, and agency. Constructions of Race and Ethnicity courses explore facets of these complex and continuing legacies and effects of language and literature, particularly in relation to works by writers who have been classified as “raced” (and thus subordinated) by the societies and cultures they work in.

 475/COLL 400: Research Seminar

475s may, in some cases, also carry a Period/National Literature or a Conceptual Distribution attribute

475s provide students opportunities to explore a specific topic—it could be works of a single author, a genre or form, something crucial to a literary historical period, etc.—in depth and to develop a research question of their own devising in relation to that topic.

Electives

The English major and minor are rounded out by elective courses, which students can use to both broaden and deepen their literary study.

There are limits on the number of 100/200-level class that can be counted for the major (250 plus up to three other 100/200-level classes) and minor (250 plus up to two other 100/200-level classes).

Creative Writing workshops can count as electives, as can select courses in Modern Languages, Classical Studies, Linguistics, and some of W&M’s interdisciplinary programs.

Using the “subject attribute” search for ENGL in PATH will turn up most such courses, but if you see a course not offered in the English department and that doesn’t carry the ENGL attribute that you think could be a suitable elective, consult your advisor or the department chair.

FAQ

Q: What’s the deal with the “levels” (e.g., 100, 200, 300, 400) of courses in the English major?

A: Generally speaking:

• 100/200-level courses are suitable for all 1st and 2nd year students; taking 250 as your first ENGL class—or at least early as you can in your studies—is highly recommended.
• 100-level: Non-major, 1st year courses, though such courses can count as electives for the ENGL major/minor
• 200-level: COLL 200 courses, general interest, and gateway courses (ENGL 250: Interpreting Literature
• 300/400-level courses are suitable for majors, minors, and non-majors/minors who know they have an abiding interest in literary analysis. While we generally recommend taking a 100/200-level course first, 300/400-level courses can be taken in any year of study, and if you know you want to be an English major

 

 Q: Should I take the the period requirements in order?

A: This is definitely not required. More important than taking period requirements in historical order is continually keeping in mind two questions: 1. How does course X (whatever it may be) relate to Y (whatever it may be)? What connections and conflicts can I see? 2. How do I think temporal order works in relation to the creation of meaning and in relation to a mediated form (print) that a reader may experience out of historical order of production?

For example, while it is true that (for example), Beloved written by Toni Morrison and published in 1987 could not have influenced Absalom, Absalom! written by William Faulkner and published in 1936 (a novel and writer Morrison knew well), a reader might well encounter Beloved first and find themselves reading Absalom, Absalom! later and in an important sense through Beloved. Linear notions of history and historical period, important as they are, might not be sufficient for all literary interpretive and evaluative tasks.

 

Q: Do I need to wait to my senior year to take 475?

A: No. And you can take more than one. They are demanding (as reflected by the fact that they are 4 credits), so the questions you should consider are: 1. Do I feel confident in the development of my practice in literary analysis so far, so that I can stretch myself? 2. Will my schedule allow me to do this work in the depth I aspire to?

 The “Big Why”?

 

Of course there is not a single answer to the question, “Why do I love to read, love to think about what I have read, love to communicate about both those things, and want to practice those skills?” At some level, only you can account for your passion—and that accounting will likely change over time.

 Reframing the question a little might make it more generalizable: If I am not going to be an English teacher, why would I become an English major? What is practicing these things I already love likely to do for me?

 Studying English, along with other liberal arts, is good for you, nurturing the intellectual curiosity you arrived with, making you more knowledgeable and articulate, broad-minded and compassionate. You will have greater versatility and flexibility both in life—and in employment. With regards to employment, many different fields value the habits of close attention, critical questioning, written and verbal communication skills, and general (and specific) research capabilities that studying English cultivates. W&M English Majors have over the decades done some of the things you might imagine doing: they become teachers and scholars, lawyers, writers, editors, media and public relations specialists, actors and filmmakers. But they do many other things, in medicine (med schools love humanities majors), banking and finance, governmental and social work, psychiatry and religious ministries.

 The English major is an invaluable preparation for a life well lived.