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s 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.

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.

Detailed information about specific area programs can be accessed via the links on this page. 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 "Contact" page.) Application forms for all programs are available in Bryan 236.