Below is information for English Majors who are beginning their majors in accord with the English Department's new requirements for graduation. The first group of students to take part in the "new major" was the Class of 2012.

General Information

Courses numbered from 100 to 294 (introductory courses) are designed for non-majors and majors alike.  With the exception of 200-level creative writing courses, these courses have no prerequisites.  English 295, “Critical Methods,” requires prior completion of one Foundations course and another 6-credit English course. (English 295 is not open to first-year students.)   Literature courses numbered 300 and above (upper-level courses) require prior completion of one Foundations course and another 6-credit English course.   Intermediate courses in creative writing (200-level) require prior completion of one 6-credit English course; admission to upper-level courses in creative writing (300-level) is by portfolio submission.  English 395, “Advanced Seminar,” requires prior completion of English 295 and one 300-level course.

Requirements for a Major

I.  72 credits in English, including the following:

1. Foundations:  One designated 100-level course that develops skills of literary analysis and introduces the concept of genre

2. Historical Eras:  36 credits in literature courses numbered 200-395 (excluding 220 & 295) which must include:

HE1. Group I:  12 credits in literature before 1660
201, Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales; 210, Medieval and Renaissance Literature; 213, Christopher Marlowe (3 credits); 214, Revenge Tragedy (3 credits); 216, Milton; 244, Shakespeare I, 285, Arts of Power at the English Court; 310, Shakespeare II; 313, The Faerie Queen (3credits); 314, Paradise Lost (3 credits); 395, Medieval Other Worlds

HE2. Group II:  12 credits in literature between 1660 and 1900
211, Neoclassic, Romantic, and Victorian Literature; 212, Nineteenth-Century American Literature; 217, A Novel Education; 218, The Gothic Spirit; 222, The Art of Jane Austen; 223, American Transcendentalism; 228, The American Novel: 1790-1850; 229, The American Novel: 1850-1910; 236, American Nature Writing; 240, The Romantic World; 319, The Rise of the Novel; 323, English Romantic Poetry; 327, Victorian Novel; 328, Victorian Poetry; 337, U.S. Literary Realism; 395, James and Wharton (Fall 2012).

HE3. Group III:  12 credits in literature after 1900
215, Modern American Literature, 227, Borderlands: Places and People; 231, 234, Literature of the American South; 235, Asian American Literature; 238, African Literature in English; 243, Text and Film; 245, Bollywood Nation; 247, The American West; 248, Visions of California; 249, Irish Literature; 250, Modern Indian Fiction I; 251, Contemporary Indian Fiction; 252, Caribbean Fiction; 258, Contemporary American Playwrights of Color; 329, The City in American Literature; 332, Faulkner, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald; 335, Postcolonial Literature; 350, Postcolonial Novel: Forms and Contexts;  352, Toni Morrison; 395, V.S. Naipaul (Spring 2013)

3.   English 295: Critical Methods

4.   English 395: Advanced Seminar

5.   English 400:  Senior Integrative Exercise (A senior may choose one of the following):

a.  Colloquium Option:  A group option in which 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.  Open only to students who have completed their Advanced Seminar by the end of Fall term senior year. 

c.  Creative Writing Option:  Creation of a work of literary art.  Open only to students who have completed at least two creative writing courses (one of which must be at the 300 level) by the end of Fall term senior year.

d.  Project Option:  Creation of an individual or group multidisciplinary project.

II.  Of the 72 credits required to complete the major:

            1) at least 6 credits must be taken in each of the following traditions: 

                   T1. British literature

                   T2. U.S. literature

                   T3. English literatures other than British and U.S.

          2) at least 24 credits must be in courses numbered 300-395

            3) up to 6 credits may be in literature other than English in the original or translation

          4) up to 12 credits may be in creative writing

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 Manuscript, The Lens, The Clap, and The Carleton Progressive and to enter Carleton's literary contests.

Writers on the Carleton faculty include poets Gregory Hewett and Susan Jaret McKinstry, and fiction writer 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 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.