Department of English

From the Chair

Why Major in English?

Every time we walk into a classroom, we see the increasing importance of communication in different media and varying genres. People at the beginning of the 21st century have greater sophistication about the technologies of writing (with laptop computers, PDAs, instant messaging) and a better sense of how to read the world that surrounds them (TV, streaming video, email) than they had even twenty years ago. In short, we are aware that the world is far more interconnected than ever.

English is the common language spoken in a lot of these media, not just here in the US but around the world. English is the predominant language of commerce, of air-traffic control, of diplomacy, and of the news media. That’s why it’s so important to keep the English department as vital and as forward-looking as possible. Our department serves to foster our students’ critical literacy skills, to help them make sense of the information swirling around them and use those skills to their advantage. It can also help explain how English came to be “the coin of the realm,” for better and for worse. How did the language of Chaucer and Shakespeare, along with the language of Parliament and of the public sphere, become the voice of CNN?

The department remains strong in traditional areas. The creative writing program is nationally renowned; the medieval, early-modern, and contemporary literature faculty are some of the very best in the country. In addition, the field of English studies has been transformed by recent technology and perspectives. Whereas thirty years ago we focused on the canonical literatures of Britain and the United States, with some attention to literary theory, today we are theoretically-informed through and through and devote attention to literatures written in English from around the world.

Four trends stand out in the transformation of English studies:

• A broadening of interest from the reception and interpretation of literary texts to the production of the English language in all of its cultural contexts. This trend includes study of how the English language is taken up not just at school but also at work; how English is taken up and changed through its use in the non-English-speaking world; how traditionally literate societies using English have transformed and been transformed by other cultures with which they came in contact.
• A focus on the technology of reading and writing. This includes not only a history of the book and of print culture, but also of emerging technologies of reading and writing: the internet, the world-wide web, mixed visual and digital technologies (as well as photography and film).
• A forging of connections with other areas of disciplinary inquiry, including not only the humanities but also (and especially) the social and natural sciences. This trend would take into account the growing interest in, for example, the connections between literature and the fields of medicine, of ecology, and of religion/theology. It also includes the study of how writing in the fields of biology, engineering, physics, and the other sciences differs from its use in other settings, and how the disciplines themselves are shaped by that use.
• The transcultural influences of English. This refers to the increasing use of English in the non-English-speaking world, as well as the transformation of the language in this global context.

These trends, and others, will enliven the department’s teaching and research, and will inform how we teach the canonical texts of English and American literature in the years to come.

(rev. 8/2005)