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Program Codes:
BAENGCW
Bachelor of Arts
Introduction
The English department constitutes a major humanizing force within the university. Our courses engage with diverse literary and cultural texts, giving our students the opportunity to practice critical reading and effective writing, thus preparing students for career options and advanced study. English majors develop skills in writing, information literacy and research, oral communication, cultural awareness, reading comprehension, and literary analysis.
The English department at Mercyhurst offers a B.A. in English, as well as the following concentrations: Creative Writing, Professional and Technical Writing, Secondary English Education, and Pre-Law. The English department also houses the Theatre Minor and the Film Studies Minor. These programs allow students to personalize their studies while acquiring the breadth of knowledge and skills found in the traditional English major.
The English Department sponsors the Mercyhurst Literary Festival, the Mercyhurst Theatre Program, and Lumen, the campus arts journal. We have a chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, an international honor society formed to recognize English majors and minors who achieve high standards of excellence in their chosen linguistic or literary fields.
English Department Mission Statement
The Department of English offers programs of study that teach students to think critically and imaginatively about literature, language, and culture. Our goal is to produce discerning and creative readers, writers, and thinkers who have the communication skills needed to excel professionally. English majors and minors study challenging American, British, and world texts, while cultivating their skills in oral communication, digital literacy, creative writing, research and information literacy, and professional writing.
English majors must maintain an overall 2.0 GPA. English majors with a concentration in Secondary Education preparation must maintain an overall 3.0 GPA and at least a 3.0 GPA in their major courses. English majors must earn a C or better in any course from the major meant to fulfill a degree requirement. No required course in the major may be taken on a Pass/Fail basis.
All English majors are highly encouraged to take an internship and/or study abroad. All majors will undergo a sophomore review with their advisor during their sophomore year of study or upon transferring into the English major.
In this program, students gain practical experience writing both poetry and fiction in small workshops and seminars. The aim of this coursework is for students to produce publishable work under the close guidance of our experienced faculty. The English faculty strongly encourage students to refine their editing skills by working on the staff of Lumen, Mercyhurst University's arts journal. Additionally, each year the department hosts the Mercyhurst Literary Festival, which gives students a chance to meet and attend workshops with renowned writers from across the country. Ultimately, students graduate from the program ready to pursue careers as writers and editors in the publishing industry or to attend graduate school to further develop their craft.
Introduces students to the discipline of English studies, with emphasis on close reading, major genres, and critical/theoretical approaches. Readings will be drawn from a range of literary periods and traditions.
Choose One:
A study designed to broaden a student's sense of the roots of the literary tradition of the U.S from its origins to the 1820s. Works include those of 16th century Spanish explorers, Native American tales, Puritan New England writers, and the literature of the American Revolution.
Between 1820 and 1865, American literature came of age with the period's extraordinary cultural and social upheavals. A study of the most important writers of the period, such as Poe, Emerson, Douglass, Hawthorne, Melville, Thoreau, Whitman, and Dickinson.
Choose One:
A study of the regional voices and the literary movements of realism, including local color and naturalism, that marked the years following the American Civil War through the works of such writers as Davis, Jewett, Chopin, Gilman, Chesnutt, Howells, James, Twain, and Crane.
A study of the modernists writing from 1910 to 1945, along with the writers of the Harlem Renaissance and of the 1930s Depression. Poets include Frost, Eliot, Pound, Williams, Stevens, H.D., Moore, Hughes, and fiction writers such as Faulkner, Cather, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Hurston.
Choose One:
A study of representative prose and poetry of Old English and Middle English from Beowulf to Chaucer, including Old English heroic poems, elegies, gnomic verses and riddles, and works such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
A study in the literary milieu in England from the early 1500s to 1600 with authors such as Wyatt, Surrey, Shakespeare, and Milton.
A comparative study of the historical, cultural, and literary movements underpinning the development and influences of the Neoclassical Age in England, focusing on such authors as Dryden, Congreve, Pope, Haywood, and Johnson.
Choose One:
A close examination of some of the major ideas and influences in British and continental Romanticism, with special emphasis on the development of Romantic literary theory through the works of such writers as Goethe, Hoffman, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats.
A comparative examination of the historical and literary movements of the British Victorian period. The study covers a range of poetry and prose by authors such as Tennyson, Arnold, the Brownings, and Rossetti.
The course examines modernist poetry, fiction, and drama written in England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland through the works of such writers as Hardy, Joyce, Woolf, Yeats, Synge, Auden, Shaw, Forster, as well as a more recent group that includes Greene, Murdock, Durrell, Stoppard, Larkin, O'Brien, and Beckett.
Choose One:
This seminar explores the biography, creative achievement, and lasting impact of a major author (or set of closely linked authors). Drawn from any national or cultural tradition, classes might include Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Emily Dickinson, or William Faulkner.
A study primarily of Shakespeare's dramas through a careful analysis of the great tragedies, comedies, and histories.
Take the Following:
200 OR 300 Level ENG or THEA Elective 3 credits
300 Level ENG or THEA Seminar 3 credits
300 Level ENG or THEA Seminar 3 credits
300 Level Seminar in 20th/21st Century Lit 3 credits
An examination of the fundamentals essential in the art of fiction and poetry writing through the reading and discussion of work by contemporary writers and through the development and critiquing of students' own writing in a workshop setting.
Further development of skills studied in Introduction to Creative Writing with exclusive emphasis on poetry.
ENG 280
Further development of skills studied in Introduction to Creative Writing with exclusive emphasis on fiction.
ENG 280
An in-depth study of critical and theoretical approaches to literature, with an emphasis on the development of theories of literature from classicism to contemporary cognitive poetics.
This capstone seminar is designed for students to prepare and present publically, a significant and sophisticated written project in literary scholarship, technical writing, or creative writing.
Required Courses
ENG 200 Literary Studies - 3 credits
ENG 205 Introduction to the English Major - 3 credits
ENG 280 Introduction to Creative Writing - 3 credits
ENG 380 Creative Writing Fiction - 3 credits
ENG 384 Creative Writing Poetry - 3 credit
Choose One 200 or 300 Level Elective in Literature or Theatre - 3 credits
Choose One 300-Level Elective in 20th/21st Century Lit - 3 credits
