Undergraduate Program
in Literatures & Cultures in English
The concentration in Literatures and Cultures in English is one of the largest humanities concentrations at Brown. The study of English may be pursued as preparation for graduate work in literature or other disciplines or as a complement to a general liberal education. Please follow the links on the left to detailed information about concentration requirements, honors programs in literature or nonfiction writing, and other areas of interest to potential and current concentrators.
For 40 years the English Department at Brown has been at the forefront of innovations in research and teaching in the field of English studies. A pioneer in the now widely accepted interdisciplinary approaches to literature, the Brown English Department has been a leader more recently in the turn toward a transnational perspective on literature and culture and away from the static national model informing, most prominently, the isolation of "American" from "British" literary studies. In the last few years, the literature faculty has organized itself into three research areas: medieval and early modern literatures and cultures; the Enlightenment and the rise of national literatures and cultures; and modern and contemporary literatures and cultures. A description of this tripartite organization, along with detailed information about the research and publications of individual faculty members, can be found on the Faculty pages.
The new transnational perspective allows for research and teaching that correspond to the dynamic movements of English across the array of national contexts in which its literature has been produced and read. English at Brown has also been committed to the premise that literary works both shape and are shaped by particular historical settings. Put simply, this means that literature has both historical specificity and contemporary relevance. While students need historical knowledge, they must also remain open to the possibility that some aspects of a literary work from yesterday may first come to light today through the prism of our own historical moment.
In addition to our innovative program in English literatures and cultures, the English Department's curriculum at Brown includes an exciting range of courses in nonfiction writing. The Nonfiction Writing Program offers courses in critical writing, the research paper, journalism, creative nonfiction, and writing-intensive literature-based courses. We encourage students to take a variety of these courses and discover various ways of conceptualizing writing and putting those concepts into practice. Honors programs in English offer outstanding students the opportunity to engage in advanced work in literature and in nonfiction writing. We award a number of prestigious prizes annually for literary and cultural criticism as well as nonfiction writing.
English concentrators take an active role in undergraduate life at Brown, in particular as writers for the Brown Daily Herald, The Independent, and a number of campus publications.
