Program Description

The English major with an emphasis in drama and playwriting provides students with the literary and analytical skills they will need as teachers, writers, scholars and theatre professionals. Their literature and theatre history classes will ground them in our rich legacy of dramatic literature from the ancient to the modern eras, encompassing classic as well as contemporary dramatic work from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas. In all their literature classes, students will engage not only with the aesthetic dimensions of literature, but also with the values, views and dynamics of a given cultural and historical context. Playwriting workshops give them the opportunity to develop their own skills as writers and develop an appreciation for the craft of other writers.

Learning Outcomes

 Upon completion of the program, students will be able to:

• Apply knowledge of historical, cultural and generic contexts in order to analyze the canonical works and major periods of American and British literature as well as some lesser-known works within and outside that canon (including global literature).
• Interpret major works of dramatic literature from the ancient to the contemporary eras within and across historical and cultural contexts.
• Produce original dramatic work, thereby demonstrating the ability to put theory into practice.
• Compose thesis-driven, textually-supported literary analyses that apply the conventions of literary study, including close reading and MLA style.
• Identify and evaluate appropriate research sources, incorporate those sources into well-documented writing and formulate their own arguments based at least in part on those sources.