English

Overview

English is a flexible and capacious field, founded on careful engagement with artistic writing or “literature,” but reaching into all corners of communicating in English including film, digital media, and performance. The field engages questions that intersect with philosophy, cultural anthropology, and the arts. A degree in English can lead in many directions after college—from writing-intensive careers such as publishing and education to less obvious tracks in library or curatorial work, health care, human resources, marketing and business, and public service with non-profit organizations. 

At New College, regular courses in literature and culture are offered, ranging from a focus on the medieval period to contemporary print and electronic media, and performance. The Area of Concentration (AOC) in English focuses on intersections between English language literature and its historical and cultural environments. Students graduating in this field should be able to analyze texts from a variety of genres and historical periods; to recognize the role of literature in encounters between cultures across national, ethnic, and temporal lines; and to deploy a variety of critical and theoretical approaches to the study of literature and communication in English. More details about the careers of New College students who graduated with an English AOC are available on the English program's webpage: http://www.ncf.edu/english. 

Faculty in English

Melanie Hubbard, Visiting Assistant Professor of English
Nova Myhill, Professor of English and Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies
Patricia Okker, Professor of English (On Leave)
Jessica Young, Assistant Professor of Global English
Robert Zamsky, Professor of English/Associate Provost

Requirements for the AOC in English

A minimum of eight (8) academic units, with two courses each from the categories of Textual Analysis, Historical Approaches, Cross-Cultural Perspectives, and Criticism/Theory. Students should work in American, British, and Global English literary traditions. At least two of the courses should focus on periods before 1900, and at least one course should focus on poetry or poetics and another should focus on drama. Up to two Creative Writing courses may also be included, although not more than one per category. Three or more of the courses must be at the 3000-level or above.

¹

This new category features courses that focus on close reading and textual analysis. It may include courses taught by faculty outside of English.

Requirements for the Joint AOC in English

A minimum of five (5) academic units. Students should include work in two of the following literary traditions: British, American, or Global English. At least two of the courses should focus on periods before 1900. At least one course should focus on poetry or poetics and another should focus on drama; one Creative Writing course may also be included. Three or more of the courses must be at the 3000-level or above.

¹

This new category includes courses that focus on close-reading and textual analysis. It may include courses taught by faculty outside of English.

Representative Sample of Recent Courses in English

African American Literature; American Humor; Becoming Jane Austen: The Romantic-era Novel and Women Writers; Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales; Critical Theory in the US: An Introduction; Jazz Poetry; Lines of Sight: Poetry and the Visual Arts; Mapping America: Introduction to American Literature; Postcolonial Literature and Theory; Reading Poetry; Renaissance Epic: The Poetry of Nationalism; Shakespeare: Plays and Poetry, Terror and Fiction: British, American, and World Literature; Twentieth-Century British and American Drama: Realism and Its Discontents; and Virginia Woolf.

A student whose particular interests or needs are not fully served by the courses offered in a particular semester may make arrangements with faculty to pursue tutorials or independent reading projects.

Representative Senior Thesis Projects in English

• Fearing the Future: The Uncanny Child and Modern Children’s Literature by L. Frank Baum, Neil Gaiman, and J. K. Rowling
• Form or Fascism?: Exploring Genre and Innovation in Three Nontraditional Sonnet Sequences
• Illustration as Interpretation: Illustrations of John Milton’s Paradise Lost
• Jazz Poetry: The American Idiom
• “A Maneuvering Business”: Courtship, Family, and Marriage in Novels of Manners (Burney, Austen, Edgeworth)
• A New Multimedia Edition of John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera
• The Quest to Find Utopia: From Thomas More to Aldous Huxley
• Educating the Bodymind in Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend and McCaffrey’s The Ship Who Sang
• Experimental Writing and the Vietnam War: Gnosticisim and Politics in the Work of Robert Duncan and Nathaniel Mackey
• Doctor, Doctor, You’re Fired: Examining Literature Informed by Identities of Physical Impairment
• Remembering “Happy Birthday Valerie Solanos!”: An Experiment in Devising New Theatre from Text, Archives, and Research