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ONORS PROGRAM, AREA PROGRAMS IN ENGLISH

As an English Major, you’ll have the opportunity, but not the requirement, to specialize in your study of literature. Beyond mapping out a program with your advisor that emphasizes your interests and goals, you may also choose to apply for one or more of the following programs. Within them, you’ll find the kind of intellectual excitement that comes from joining a small community of students who share your focus.

THE DISTINGUISHED MAJORS PROGRAM

There are specific requirements, beyond those of the standard English major, for those who wish to be considered for a degree with honors in English. Such students must complete a two-semester thesis project (ENGL 491 —a six hour, year long course) and take two additional 400-level seminars in the department of English. If you have a GPA of 3.6 in major courses and a cumulative GPA of 3.4, you may apply in the spring of your third year for entry into the honors program in the fall of your fourth year. Applications to the program—submitted to its Director—must include a letter of recommendation from a faculty member other than the proposed thesis director and an outline of your research plans for the year of independent study (which will culminate in the submission of an essay of 40-50 pages). The Director of the Distinguished Majors Program will review these applications before the course enrollment period in the spring.

Once in the program, you should direct your fourth-year studies toward the completion of the year-long ENGL 491 project. You must be prepared to submit your honors essay in mid-April. Using the evidence of this essay, the recommendations of faculty readers, reports on your work from the instructors of other 400-level seminars, and your GPA in major courses, the Undergraduate Committee will decide whether your qualify for honors and, if so, what level of honors (Distinction, High Distinction, Highest Distinction) should be awarded. The honors thesis is a serious project and students interested in writing one should start to develop a research topic earlier rather than later in their third year—ideally, in consultation with their major advisor and with the Director of the Distinguished Majors Program.

Please note that students in the Area Program for Poetry Writing who wish to enter the Distinguished Majors Program have to fulfill slightly different requirements, although their preliminary applications should be submitted in the ordinary way. For more information on this and for application materials for the Distinguished Majors Program, see the department’s web page.

AREA PROGRAMS IN ENGLISH

Within the English department there are special courses of study for undergraduates known as "Area Programs." Conceived as structures for interdisciplinary study, these programs provide English majors an opportunity to examine the interrelationships among literature and history, the social sciences, philosophy, religion, and the fine arts. Formal requirements for the various areas may differ, but all require the student to take courses from other departments in addition to the regular English major courses. More important, all offer a series of seminars that are expressly designed to help formulate the methods of interdisciplinary study. The area programs also give opportunities for extensive independent reading and research in the final year of the major.

Such courses of study are clearly demanding. The number of hours required by most programs is greater than the minimum requirement for the English major. Nevertheless, belonging to a small community of students and teachers investigating problems of common concern and seeking new ways to conceive and resolve those problems can be an extraordinarily rich experience.

The current area programs will be explained in detail in the next few pages. If you are interested in learning more about a particular program, you should consult its director. (Names of the current directors are listed on the "Undergraduate Studies" page.) Application forms for all programs are available in Bryan 236.

Area Program in Poetry Writing

This area program allows talented undergraduate writers to pursue serious study of the craft of poetry writing within the context of the English major. The Poetry Writing Area Program encourages its participants to shape a curriculum that nurtures and inspires each student's particular work and developing aesthetic. In addition to taking upper-level English literature courses, students in the Poetry Writing Area Program will take at least 12 hours of upper-level poetry writing courses (300, 400, and 500-level) or independent studies, and two 3-hour seminars designed especially for students in the Program. A thesis is not required for the degree in Poetry Writing, but students may elect to complete a creative thesis as a two-semester Independent Study, in their fourth year. Eligible students may participate in the Distinguished Majors Program.

The Poetry Writing Area Program is a two-year course of study. Students usually apply in the spring semester of their second year. After the student is admitted, she or he must declare a major in English, though the requirements for the Poetry Writing program differ from the requirements for a standard major.

Committed to the conviction that close reading and creative writing are inextricably and essentially linked, the program requires its students to complete 30 hours of upper-level course work in English, in addition to the ENLT-M department prerequisite. Specific requirements are:

1. ENGL 383 and either 381 or 382.
2. 12 hours of upper-level poetry writing courses or independent studies in ENWR.
3. Two Poetry Writing Area Program seminars* on various topics of interest to students of poetry writing (restricted to students in the Area Program).
4. Shakespeare (ENRN 321, 322, or 323, or a 400-level seminar on Shakespeare), or one pre-1800 course in English at the 300-level or above.
5. 3 hours of course work in English at the 300-level or above.

A prosody or other poetic forms class, when offered, is also recommended.

* The Poetry Writing Seminars: These 400-level seminars (ENPW 481/482) will be offered on various aspects of interest to the student of poetry writing. They are readings courses for writers, designed to foster intimate experiences of texts, creative work, reciprocal conversation about and discovery of mutual interests, enlargement of students' understanding of language and its capacities, and collegial community among students in the poetry writing program. Topics might include "The Poetic Sequence in Contemporary American Poetry," "Dramatic Monologue: The Mask in Verse," "Negative Capability and Its Heirs," "Terrorizing and Creating Reality: Language & the Surrealist Poets," "Order and Disorder: The Lyric Impulse," "Brilliant Corners: Jazz & Poetry," or "Poets' Prose." Or these seminars might focus on a particular poet or poets.

The Creative Thesis: Poetry Writing Area Program students may elect to write a creative thesis in the fourth year, to be completed over the course of two semesters in collaboration with a faculty advisor. This thesis will consist both of creative work -- a group of poems -- and of an accompanying prose essay about the student's project: its influences, developing aesthetic, significance, ramifications. Those students who wish to complete a Distinguished Majors project may do so if they meet the requirements of that program.

How to Apply: Applications for rising third-year majors interested in the poetry writing area program are due in Professor Lisa Russ Spaar's office at a date determined each spring. To apply, students should submit no more than ten pages of original poetry and one letter of recommendation from a professor who knows well the student's work and potential for success in a small, focused program of study. Students should include a local telephone number and e-mail address with their submissions.

For Further Information: Contact Program Director Lisa Russ Spaar in Bryan Hall 403, or by phone at (434)924-6625, or by e-mail at lrs9e@virginia.edu.

The Medieval and Renaissance Area Program

The Medieval and Renaissance area program is intended for English majors intrigued by the cultural forms of the past and the varied perspectives they offer on cultural forms of the present. Participants in the program will be encouraged not only to pursue their own interests in English (and European) literature from the centuries between the writing of Beowulf and the publication of Paradise Lost, but also to delve into the social, historical, and intellectual contexts of the literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Students who wish to apply to the program should do so at the end of their second year, although some students may be admitted in their fifth semester.

Participants in the Medieval and Renaissance Area Program must:

1. Take at least 30 hours of English courses including ENGL 382 and 383. ENGL 381 is encouraged, but not required: it is assumed that students can judge whether they need to supplement the program's core seminar with the general survey.

2. Take ENRN 483, the core seminar in Medieval and Renaissance studies, ideally in the Fall of the third year. The seminar can help to establish close working relationships among various members of the program; it should also help to focus and orient your work in relation to various interpretive "schools," basic methods and tools of research, broad historical trends, and traditional patterns and themes in a wide range of genres and media.

3. Take at least three other courses in the ENMD or ENRN areas (literature written before 1700). At least one of these courses should be at the 400-level.

4. Take nine hours of coursework outside the department in areas which will complement and inform your Medieval/Renaissance literary studies. The director of the program will help you determine which courses in history, art history, classics, religious studies, philosophy, European literatures in translation etc. would be particularly relevant to your interests.

5. We strongly encourage students in the Medieval and Renaissance program to work on an independent study project (ENGL 493 or 494), or, if they are qualified, to consolidate their work within this field by writing a thesis in the Distinguished Majors Program (ENGL 491 and 492).

Students admitted to this program may count twelve hours of ENRN courses towards their 30 hours of coursework for the English major.

Modern Studies Area Program (1789 to the Present)

The program in Modern Studies is intended for students who wish to concentrate in literature of the modern period (1789 to the present) and who also desire to combine literary study with work in other fields. The guiding idea is that an interdisciplinary approach will lead the student to a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the modern world. Accordingly, students in the program develop a curriculum that will permit them to situate literature in relation to other areas of modern culture, such as philosophy, religion, political science, psychology, history, or the other arts.

Modern Studies is a two-year program. Students usually apply in the spring semester of their second year at the University, though some decide to apply at the close of their first year. Transfer students who arrive at Virginia at the beginning of their third year and who wish to apply to Modern Studies should see the program director within the first week of the fall term.

After being admitted to the program, a student must declare a major in English. The requirements for Modern Studies differ, however, from the requirements for a standard English major. For a Modern Studies major, 30 credit hours in the English Department are required. They must include:

  • ENGL 381 (History of Literature in English I)

  • One course pre-1800

  • One course pre-1900 (this may include ENGL 382)

  • Two Modern Studies Seminars (ENMC 483 and ENMC 484)

In addition, Modern Studies students are permitted, but not required, to count a total of five Modern and Contemporary courses (rather than the standard three) towards their major.

Modern Studies Seminars: Each year two seminars (ENTC 483 and 484) are offered on various aspects of modern literature and culture. Enrollment in the seminars is guaranteed to members of the Modern Studies program. Much of the strength of the program derives from the collegiality and intellectual community fostered in these small-group contexts. In addition to offering intensive study of the modern period and the nature of interdisciplinary work, the seminars provide occasions for students to come to know and to learn from one another. Recent seminar topics include "Crises of Faith," "Faces of the Avant-Garde," and "Women and Modernity."

Interdisciplinary Work: In addition to English courses, students in Modern Studies must take twelve further hours of courses outside the department. These courses are chosen in consultation with the program director. What they consist of depends on the student's particular interests, though considered as a group the courses should possess an intellectual coherence. Occasionally, students will take twelve hours in a single department; more often, though, they will pursue a topic or question across several disciplines. In recent years students have designed programs of study on topics such as "The City in Modern Life," "Gender and Modernity," "Crises of Faith in the Twentieth Century," and "Existentialism and the Modern Novel."

Thesis: A thesis is not required for the degree in Modern Studies, though many students elect to write Honors theses in their fourth year.

For further information and application details, please consult the Modern Studies application page.