English Major

Department Advanced Placement Policy

Students with AP credit in English are not awarded credit in the major or advanced placement in the English curriculum.

Requirements (Classes of 2027, 2028, 2029)

Course List
Code	Title
Required courses
ENGL 130	Poetry and Poetics
ENGL 230	Touchstones 1: Early Brit Lit
ENGL 231	Touchstones 2A: American Lit
or ENGL 232	Touchstones 2B: Brit&Anglo Lit
Select eight advanced courses, including requirements in the following categories: ^{1, 2, 3}
Group A (Pre-1800):
Two courses, each from a different period among medieval, Renaissance, 18th-century, and Early American historical periods.
Medieval period
ENGL 312	Medieval Romance
ENGL 314	Chaucer
ENGL 315	Sex & Gender in Middle Ages
Renaissance period
ENGL 318	Renaissance Marvels & Monsters
ENGL 320	Age of Elizabeth
ENGL 324	Milton
ENGL 328	Shakespeare's Contemporaries
ENGL 329	Shakespeare
18th century period
ENGL 324	Milton
ENGL 325	Georgic and Pastoral
ENGL 336	18th-Century Novel
ENGL 337	18th-Century Poetry
ENGL 338	18th-Century Satire
ENGL 339	Restoration & 18th-Century Drama
ENGL 345	British Women Writers 1770 - 1860
Early American Period
ENGL 350	Early American Colonialism
Group B (19th Century):
One course from the 19th-century British or 19th-century American historical periods.
ENGL 326	Dickensian Fiction
ENGL 344	The Romantic Revolution
ENGL 345	British Women Writers 1770 - 1860
ENGL 346	Victorian Poetry
ENGL 347	19th-Century British Novel
ENGL 348	Reality Hunger
ENGL 351	Walking with Thoreau
ENGL 352	American Realism
ENGL 353	American Women Write the World
ENGL 354	Lincoln, Civil War, & Memory
ENGL 355	Poe's Haunted World
ENGL 368	African American Literature
ENGL 377	Environmental Poetics
Group C (Marginalized Voices):
One course. Includes all courses focusing on historically marginalized groups.
ENGL 368	African American Literature
ENGL 345	British Women Writers 1770 - 1860
ENGL 353	American Women Write the World
ENGL 356	American Immigrant Narratives
ENGL 367	Latinx Literature
ENGL 372	Contemporary African American Literature and Culture
or CRES 371	Contemporary African American Literature and Culture
ENGL 375	Asian American Literature
or CRES 340	Asian American Literature
ENGL 378	21st-Century Literature
ENGL 379	Confrontations with Christianity
ENGL 382	Queer Theory
ENGL 383	Feminist Literary Theory
ENGL 394	The Black Urban Experience
Group D (Theories and Methodologies):
One course. Includes all seminars and all courses that offer a sustained methodological or theoretical consideration of the study of literature or language.
ENGL 357	The United States of Poetry
ENGL 377	Environmental Poetics
ENGL 381	Rhetoric
ENGL 382	Queer Theory
ENGL 383	Feminist Literary Theory
ENGL 384	Literary Theory
ENGL 387	Composition Theory & Pedagogy
ENGL 401	Seminar
Additional advanced courses:
ENGL 141	Introduction to Creative Writing: Poetry
ENGL 142	Introduction to Creative Writing: Narrative
ENGL 210	Intermediate Academic Writing
ENGL 241	Intermediate Poetry Workshop
ENGL 242	Intermediate Fiction Workshop
ENGL 243	Intermediate Creative Nonfiction Workshop
ENGL 358	Modern American Novel
ENGL 362	T.S. Eliot
ENGL 363	Joyce
ENGL 364	Contemporary Irish Literature
ENGL 366	Modern British Novel
ENGL 369	Modern Drama
ENGL 370	Being Modern
ENGL 388	Adv Creative Writing Workshop
ENGL 391	Topics in Rhetoric

Advanced courses can fulfill multiple category requirements simultaneously.

Six of the eight courses must be at the 300 level or above. Up to two courses in Creative Writing can count toward the eight advanced courses.

Advanced courses can simultaneously fulfill any of these four groups. That is, “double-dipping” or “triple-dipping” is allowed (e.g. a seminar on “Gender in the Renaissance” could conceivably fulfill Groups A, C, and D at the same time). The remaining courses required for the major may include any 300- or 400-level English Department literature courses, courses approved for Study Abroad, and tutorials and honors theses devoted to British, American, or world Anglophone literature.

External Courses: English majors may petition to count toward the requirement of eight advanced courses one advanced literature course from another department. Such a course would count as one of the two non-300-level electives allowed by the major.

TEP Program: If the student is in the Teacher Certification Program, which requires a full semester during senior year, it is necessary to take all of the requirements for the major by the end of the first term of the senior year.

Creative Writing Credit: Students may count up to two 100- or 200-level Creative Writing courses as upper-level courses toward the major even though they do not carry 300- or 400-level designations.

Study Abroad: Students who study abroad for the whole of their third year may transfer a maximum of four courses’ worth of credit toward the English major, with the exception that students studying at Oxford University or Trinity College, Dublin may transfer five courses’ worth of credit toward the major. Students who study abroad for one semester may transfer a maximum of two courses' worth of credit toward the English major.

Requirements (Class of 2030 and Later)

Course List
Code	Title
Required Courses:
ENGL 100	Intro to Literary Study ¹
ENGL 2XX	Literary Forms
ENGL 2XX	Literary Histories
Eight Advanced Courses: including at least five at the 300 level and one 400-level seminar. Of these 8 courses, at least 2 courses from the “Foundations” group and 2 courses from “Modernities” group are required. These courses must each come from different historical periods, listed below.
Foundations:(students must take one course from at least two of these periods)
Medieval Period
ENGL 312	Medieval Romance
ENGL 314	Chaucer
ENGL 315	Sex & Gender in Middle Ages
Renaissance period
ENGL 318	Renaissance Marvels & Monsters
ENGL 320	Age of Elizabeth
ENGL 324	Milton
ENGL 328	Shakespeare's Contemporaries
ENGL 329	Shakespeare
18th century period
ENGL 324	Milton
ENGL 325	Georgic and Pastoral
ENGL 336	18th-Century Novel
ENGL 337	18th-Century Poetry
ENGL 338	18th-Century Satire
ENGL 339	Restoration & 18th-Century Drama
ENGL 345	British Women Writers 1770 - 1860
Modernities: (students must take courses from both of these periods)
19th-Century Literature
ENGL 326	Dickensian Fiction
ENGL 344	The Romantic Revolution
ENGL 345	British Women Writers 1770 - 1860
ENGL 346	Victorian Poetry
ENGL 347	19th-Century British Novel
ENGL 348	Reality Hunger
ENGL 351	Walking with Thoreau
ENGL 352	American Realism
ENGL 353	American Women Write the World
ENGL 354	Lincoln, Civil War, & Memory
ENGL 355	Poe's Haunted World
ENGL 368	African American Literature
ENGL 377	Environmental Poetics
20th/21st-Century Literature
ENGL 316	The World Novel
ENGL 332	Reading Nature
ENGL 340	Caribbean Literature
ENGL 357	The United States of Poetry
ENGL 358	Modern American Novel
ENGL 362	T.S. Eliot
ENGL 363	Joyce
ENGL 364	Contemporary Irish Literature
ENGL 365	Modern British Poetry
ENGL 369	Modern Drama
ENGL 370	Being Modern
ENGL 374	Contemp. African Amer. Drama
ENGL 375	Asian American Literature
ENGL 378	21st-Century Literature

Students may also satisfy the 100-level requirement with one of the following options: any Montserrat course taught by an English Department professor and designated by that professor to be an English gateway course; ENGL 141 or 142; or selected Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES) literature courses, depending on availability. Students joining the major late can petition the chair to count a 200-level non-majors course for their 100-level requirement. Contact the English department for additional information.

External Courses: English majors may petition to count toward the requirement of eight advanced courses one advanced literature course from another department.