Read, Write, Create.

These three words reflect the core activities of our discipline.  They express our conviction that the discipline of literary study brings together critical and creative modes of writing and thought.  Fundamentally, the discipline stresses the intensive study of writers and their works in literary, cultural, and historical contexts. It is keyed to the appreciation and analysis of literary language, through which writers compose and organize their poems, stories, novels, plays, and essays.  The discipline equally stresses writing critically and creatively in response to reading literature. 

We thus offer a wide range of courses: introductory courses in literary and writing skills; more advanced courses in influential writers, historical periods, and themes in English, American, and world literatures in English; and numerous courses in creative writing, including screenwriting and creative nonfiction.

Our course offerings strike a balance between great authors of past centuries and emerging fields of study. We teach courses on writers such as Shakespeare, Milton, Jane Austen, and James Joyce, and on Asian American literature, the Harlem renaissance, and film. We stress analysis and argument in paper-writing, critical thinking, and literary research, and we foster and develop a deep, complex, passionate response to literature.