Faculty:

• Chair: Michael J. Kowalewski
• Professors Emeriti: Vern D. Bailey, Wayne Carver, Keith Harrison, James McDonnell, Frank Morral, Edward Sostek, George Soule, Robert Tisdale, John Woodruff
• Professors: Namcy Cho, Susan Jaret McKinstry, Michael J. Kowalewski, Elizabeth McKinsey, Kofi Owusu, Timothy Raylor, Gregory Blake Smith, Constance H. Walker
• Associate Professors: Adriana Estill, Gregory G. Hewett, George G. Shuffleton
• Assistant Professors: Peter Balaam, Arnab Chakladar, Pierre Hecker, Jessica L. Leiman
• Visiting Instructors: Dennis Cass, Doug McGill, Mary L. Schier
• Senior Lecturers: Elizabeth Ciner, Carol Rutz

General Information:

Courses numbered from 100 to 290 (introductory courses) are designed for non-majors and prospective majors alike. With the exception of English 200, Methods of Interpretation, they have no prerequisites. Literature courses numbered 300 and above (upper-level courses) normally require as a prerequisite ONE course numbered 110-175 or the written permission of the instructor. Upper-level courses in writing (English 370, 371 and 375) usually require students to submit examples of their work. Courses that fulfill the “advanced seminar requirement” have as a prerequisite English 200 and the completion of at least two 300-level courses. First year students normally do not enroll in courses numbered 300 or above.

Students wishing to prepare for public school teaching should consult with the chair of the department and the Department of Educational Studies as soon as possible.

Students considering graduate study in English should be aware that most graduate schools require one or two ancient or modern languages.

Requirements for a Major in English:

• A. Sixty-six credits in English (not including English 100, 109, 290) distributed as follows:
  • 1. English 110, 111, and 112, preferably taken in this sequence before entering upper-level courses.
  • 2. English 200, for which any two of the following -- English 110, 111, 112 -- are prerequisites, preferably taken in the sophomore year. Not open to first-year students.
  • 3. At least 36 credits in courses numbered 300-395 taken at Carleton, including six credits in each of the following four groups. One course (6 credits) may be at the 200 level (excluding English 200).
    • Group I: Medieval and Renaissance Literature:
      244, Shakespeare I, 300; Chaucer I: The Canterbury Tales; 301, The Courtly Chaucer; 309, Renaissance Selves; 310, Shakespeare II; 381, Staging the Early Modern City, 1400-1650.
    • Group II: Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Literature:
      313, The Faerie Queene; 314, Paradise Lost; 318 The Gothic Spirit; 319, The Rise of the Novel; 322, Jane Austen; 329, Inventing "America": The literature of the Colonial U.S.; 395, Seductive Fictions.
    • Group III: Nineteenth-Century British and American Literature:
      American Studies 230, The American Sublime; 239, American Best Sellers; 240, Transatlantic Romanticism; 323, English Romantic Poets; 327, Victorian Novel; 328, Victorian Poetry; 331 American Transcendentalism; 336, Romance to Novel: Poe, Hawthorne, James, 337, Art and Argument in U.S. Literary Realism.
    • Group IV: Modernist and Contemporary Literature:
      American Studies 240, The Midwest and the American Imagination; English 227, Borderlands: Places and People; 234 Literature of the American South; 235, Asian American Literature; 243, Text and Film; 250, Modern Indian Literature I; 251, Modern Indian Literature II; 252, Caribbean Fiction; 330, Literature of the American West; 332, Studies in American Literature: Faulkner, Hemingway and Fitzgerald; 334, Postmodern American Fiction; 335, Postcolonial Literature; 339,Contemporary American Playwrights of Color; 395, Toni Morrison; 395; 395, Dissenting Americans; Theater 242, Twentieth Century American Drama; THEA 252/352, African-American Theater History;
  • 4. An advanced seminar (English 362 or 395) to be taken during the senior year or the second or third term of the junior year, after having completed English 200 and at least two 300-level courses.
  • 5. An integrative exercise. A senior may choose one of the four following options:
    • a. Colloquium Option: A group option in whcih participants discuss, analyze, and write about a thematically coherent list of literary works.
    • b. Research Essay Option: An extended essay on a topic of the student's own devising.
    • c. Creative Option: Creation of a work of literary art. Open only to students who have completed at lest two creative writing courses (one of whcih must be at the 300 level) by the end of Fall term senkor year. (for the class of 2010, only one creative writing class will be required.)
    • d. Project Option: Creation of an individual or group multidisciplinary project.
• B. Six credits in literature other than English, read either in translation or, preferably, in the original language.

Double-majors considering completing the integrative exercise during the junior year will need written approval from the departmental chair.

Workshops in Writing:

The Department of English offers workshop courses in the writing of fiction, poetry, memoir, and the essay for those students who wish to gain experience in writing. Students are encouraged to submit their work to college publications such as The Lens, The Clap, and The Carleton Progressive.

Writers on the Carleton faculty include poet Gregory Hewett, and novelist Gregory Blake Smith. In addition to those courses offered by regular faculty members, the department brings visiting writers to campus to read and to conduct workshops in their specialties. Visitors in recent years have included playwright Tony Kushner, memoirists Richard Rodriguez and Patricia Hampl, poets Robert Creeley, Carolyn Forche, Sharon Olds and Andrew Hudgins, nature writers Dan O'Brien and David Rains Wallace, and fiction-writers Jane Hamilton, Ann Beattie, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Marilynne Robinson.

The Writing Requirement:

Part I of the College's Writing Requirement may be fulfilled by taking an English course designated as a Writing Rich (WR) course. Typically, these courses are at the 100-level (e.g., English 100, 109, 110, 111, 112, etc.)

Professional Teaching Preparation:

Carleton College offers Minnesota teaching licensure preparation for grades 5-12 in communication arts, mathematics, earth and space science, life science, and social studies. Grades 9-12 preparation is available in physics and chemistry. K-12 preparation is available in French, German, Spanish, and visual art. Elementary licensure combined with a Master's in education may be completed through a collaboration between Carleton College and the Bank Street College of Education in New York City.

For more information, see the Educational Studies Department's web site.