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Aug 31, 2024
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Course Catalog 2023-2024 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
English Major
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The major consists of a minimum of 11 full courses (or the equivalent) and language competency.
Note: Students must earn minimum grades of C- or P for all courses that apply toward the major.
View the catalog page for the English department.
The English major is designed to meet the needs of students with various goals, including those seeking a foundation for postgraduate work or study in fields related to English (e.g., education, communications, media, editing and publishing, law, theater, etc.) and those who want a humanistic base in reading, thinking, and writing for a liberal arts education without established career plans. The English major has proven to be valuable training—in attentiveness, complex thinking, interaction, communication—for virtually all professions. Many students realize that English is a complementary second major, given that it aims to educate a person broadly, rather than train for a specific path.
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Note(s) on Requirements
- Students must complete a minimum of eight English courses (i.e., courses with the ENGL prefix, including those cross-listed with English courses).
- FYSP courses do not apply to the major.
- A maximum of one 100-level ENGL course may count toward the 11 full courses required for the major, but is not required.
- A maximum of three literature and critical studies courses outside of ENGL are allowed.
- In lieu of taking courses outside of English, students can complete additional 200-level, 300-level, and/or 400-level English courses to meet the minimum number of courses required for the major.
- Application for a 400-level course will be required of rising seniors in the second semester of the junior year.
Declaring the Major
Before declaring the major in English, students must complete the following, in consultation with an advisor (a faculty member in the department):
- a one-page Plan for the Major, including a brief narrative explaining the student’s motivations and goals; and
- the declaration of major form (available from the AARC/Registrar’s Office).
These plans are important and will be revisited and revised across the student’s career at Oberlin. There is not a single English major sequence. Instead, students, in consultation with their advisors and other faculty, are asked to co-create a customized track through the major. The plan will be updated regularly, giving the student a chance to articulate choices, goals, and to refine both over time.
Transfer of Credit Toward the Major
No more than three full courses of transfer credit in English literature may be applied to the Oberlin English major. (Note: “English literature” generally excludes basic composition, creative writing, and more than one course in literature not written in English.) To have transfer credit approval toward the major and/or toward meeting prerequisites for upper-level courses, students should consult the faculty member in charge of transfer of credit (inquire at the department office), with relevant materials in hand.
Note: AP/IB transfer credit received for ENGL 600 does not count toward the English major.
Course of Study
The department offers a flexible major that can be customized to student interest, within certain limits of course type and level. Students interested in graduate work in English should consult with their advisors about crafting a pathway to that goal.
Honors in English
The Honors Program in English is an intensive year-long program that will also fulfill the requirement for a 400-level course for the major. The two-semester program will include supervised research with a faculty member, submission of a 35-page essay (or equivalent project), and an oral examination on that project. During the fall semester, honors students may meet in a seminar to discuss their projects and common issues in literary criticism and theory. Successful work in the honors program will render a student eligible for consideration for honors at graduation, but it does not guarantee such honors.
Students hoping to do honors are advised to complete the majority of their major requirements and to have done significant work at the advanced level (in 300-level courses) by the end of their junior year.
Qualified students may apply for the honors program during the second semester of their junior year on the basis of their previous record in English. Students should confer with potential faculty supervisors to design a project proposal. Acceptance into the honors program will be based on a minimum major GPA of at least 3.33, the availability of faculty supervisors, the coherence and feasibility of the proposal, and a strong writing sample.
Detailed Major Requirements
English Major Course Lists
300-Level Courses
Return to the summary of requirements. - CINE 372 - Contemporary Literary Theory: Post-Modernity and Imagination
- CINE 381 - Hopeful Monsters: (Mixed-)Media Studies
- CMPL 304 - Shakespeare and Metamorphosis
- CMPL 319 - Charting Globalization in Diaspora Films and Novels
- CMPL 372 - Contemporary Literary Theory: Post-Modernity and Imagination
- CMPL 376 - Realism, 1800 to the Present: The Mirror Up to Nature
- CRWR 332 - Song and Book
- ENGL 301 - Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
- ENGL 302 - The Wild West, the New West, and the Weird West
- ENGL 304 - Shakespeare and Metamorphosis
- ENGL 306 - Literature and the Scientific Revolution
- ENGL 308 - Visuality, Materiality, and Renaissance Literature
- ENGL 309 - The Poetry of Love and Seduction in the Renaissance
- ENGL 310 - Early Medieval European Literature: From Virgil to Dante
- ENGL 317 - Postapocalyptic Pacific Rim
- ENGL 318 - From Don Quixote to Persepolis: History of the Novel
- ENGL 319 - Charting Globalization in Diaspora Films and Novels
- ENGL 320 - From Frankenstein to Dracula: At the Margins of 19th-Century Britain
- ENGL 322 - Imagining Immanence
- ENGL 323 - Six Poets
- ENGL 328 - Modern Drama II: Brecht to Pinter
- ENGL 329 - Louise Erdrich
- ENGL 330 - Modernist Chicago: Urban Literature and Sociology
- ENGL 332 - Song and Book
- ENGL 333 - Just Sayin’: The African American Essay
- ENGL 343 - American Gothic
- ENGL 348 - Modern Drama I: Ibsen to Pirandello
- ENGL 349 - Contemporary Drama: 1980 to the Present
- ENGL 357 - Inventing America: Histories of the Book, Archive, and Empire
- ENGL 360 - The End: Globalization and Literature
- ENGL 361 - Strange Cinema
- ENGL 363 - Gaines, Morrison, Wideman: Textualizing Orality and Literacy
- ENGL 372 - Contemporary Literary Theory: Post-Modernity and Imagination
- ENGL 375 - Realism, 1800 to the Present: The Mirror Up to Nature
- ENGL 376 - Migrant Subjects and the Postcolonial Novel
- ENGL 377 - Migrants and Postcolonial Novels
- ENGL 379 - Welfare Queens and Tiger Moms: Narratives of the Maternal
- ENGL 381 - Hopeful Monsters: (Mixed-)Media Studies
- ENGL 399 - Teaching and Tutoring Writing Across the Disciplines
- LOND 907 - A History of London
- LOND 908 - The London Stage
- THEA 348 - Modern Drama I: Ibsen to Pirandello
- THEA 349 - Contemporary Drama: 1980 to the Present
- WRCM 401 - Teaching and Tutoring Writing Across the Disciplines
Hispanic Studies Courses
Return to the top of the list of outside courses.
- HISP 306 - Introduction to Literary Analysis
- HISP 309 - Concoctions, Poisons, and Spells: Making Life Livable in Early Modern Spain
- HISP 310 - The Struggle for Modernity
- HISP 313 - Advanced Conversation and Communication in Spanish
- HISP 315 - Crossing the Line: Early Modern Spain and Spanish America
- HISP 317 - Beyond a World of Wonders: Questioning Narratives of the Conquest
- HISP 318 - Inverted Utopias: The Latin American Avant-Garde
- HISP 319 - Grandes Novelas Chicas: The Latin American Novella
- HISP 325 - Caos y Destrucción: Literatura Transatlántica de Ciencia Ficción
- HISP 327 - Surrealism Narrative from Center to Margins
- HISP 335 - Melodrama and Cultural Anxiety in Latin America
- HISP 337 - Cien Años de Soledad
- HISP 341 - Inquisitorial Practices: Heretics, Torture & Fear
- HISP 357 - Memory Battles of the Spanish Civil War: History, Fiction, Photography
- HISP 359 - Mexican-U.S. American Border Stories
- HISP 365 - Love and Death: Jewish Literature and Culture of the Americas
- HISP 416 - Constructs of Machismo and Marianismo in the Mexican Literary Canon
- HISP 417 - Saints, Sinners and Other Cursed Women
- HISP 419 - Big Old Funny Books: Cervantes, Rabelais, Sterne
- HISP 420 - Don Quijote en Español LxC
- HISP 421 - Julio Cortázar’s Rayuela
- HISP 445 - Crime, Sex, and Ghosts of the Past: Contemporary Spanish Fiction and Film
- HISP 447 - Luis Buñuel and His Legacy
- HISP 458 - Borges to Cortázar: Fantasy and Violence in Argentine Literature 1930-1955
- HISP 461 - Wild Laboratories: Political Experiments in 19th Century Latin America
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