English: Literature Emphasis - BA, BS

With its small class sizes and nationally published faculty members, the English Department helps students develop skills in analysis, production, and understanding of texts in the English language. Students learn to write, think, and communicate effectively in a technologically and culturally complex world. Students develop skills in the areas most valued by employers, including critical thinking, teamwork, and oral and written communication, which will prepare them to enter into a wide range of career options.

Because the English Department is home to faculty that are heavily involved in research, students are provided with numerous opportunities to pursue undergraduate research projects and creative projects with individual attention from professors.

Students receive a by completing all required courses in the major. To receive a BA, students must also gain proficiency in one or more foreign languages.

Literature Emphasis: Literary studies students read, analyze, and research texts and writers in American, British, and other world literatures as well as their cultural contexts. Students in literary studies develop critical thinking and communication skills that prepare them for a variety of careers.

• For more information about English Teaching Composite: Literature, see the Department of English website.

• Admitted and current students must meet with an advisor.

• Log on to Degree Works to check student-specific program progress.

• The highest math requirement for this degree is Quantitative Literacy (QL) of the student’s choice.

Additional Information

Students in this emphasis learn the value of literature as they practice important career skills: writing, speaking, researching, collaborating, and thinking critically.

Literature students learn to solve problems both logically and creatively, both independently and in teams. Graduates will thus be well prepared to pursue their individual goals in a wide variety of educational and professional paths, including (but not limited to) business and marketing, publishing, teaching, museum and library work, arts organizations, and in the law–in short, any field that requires strong communication skills, cultural awareness, and critical thinking. Literature graduates can also look forward to a lifetime of intellectual curiosity and cultural enrichment.

course: Teaches students to read closely, and appreciate literary art, draw connections between form and content, and make interpretive claims.

Students in 3000-level and 4000-level courses learn to draw connections between literature and its historical, cultural, social, and biographical contexts. These courses put texts in conversation with one another and with the conventions of different genres. 

The Advanced Seminars at the 5000 level serve as a capstone to the student’s Literature emphasis.course is a Special Topics course, which brings together diverse literary texts in imaginative ways, encouraging students to think across historical, biographical, and generic boundaries. course is a course on Contemporary Literature, in which students bring literary history up to the present day. course and course explore literary and cultural representations of, respectively, gender identities and sexualities, and racial and ethnic identities. course, a course on Multimedia Literature, gives students a chance to explore new and emerging forms of literary and cultural representation.

The emphasis includes nine elective credits: three additional English courses in Literature or any other area of the department. Students may devote three of these credits to an internship that combines their academic skills with their professional interests.

English General Education Requirements

Students must complete the General Education Requirements.

Students must also complete the University Studies Depth Requirements:

• The following courses will fulfill the Communication Intensive requirement for students enrolled in each of the four emphases: Literature–courses having CI designation (such as course and course); course and course (both required); course, and course (both required); Creative Writing–two courses having CI designation (course, course, or course).

• Complete at least 2 credits in approved 3000-level or above courses from each of the following categories: Depth Life and Physical Sciences (DSC) Course and Depth Social Sciences (DSS) Course.

• New freshmen must be admitted to USU in Good Standing.

• Transfer students from other institutions or other programs at USU: 2.5 GPA