Literature, Film, and Popular Culture Studies

Why Concentrate in Literature?

Why read and study Shakespeare, or Keats, Jane Austen, Cormac McCarthy, science fiction, or comic books? Literature (books, movies, poems, blogs, etc.) is the story we tell ourselves about others and ourselves. It is a way to imagine and cognize, individually and collectively, our past, present, and future.

To read a book is not only to read the world but also to reconstruct it. To study literature is to begin not only to interpret the world, but, paradoxically, also to enter it. This is because reading is a communal act; that is, the meaning of a book, poem, or movie is co-created between the author, the reader, and his or her particular culture and society. Engaging literature in a humanities classroom means thinking and feeling together with Emily Dickinson or James Baldwin in a historically and critically informed way. Doing this in a classroom with other students—arguing, listening, sharing, and learning—produces new forms of knowledge, and suggests new ways of being in the world.

This kind of thinking prepares students—not only as teachers, creative writers, editors, journalists, lawyers, and activists—but also as people, as citizens, as life-long learners. Perhaps it is for this reason that English majors do better financially than other comparable humanities and social science majors ten years out from graduation; it might also explain why so many English major graduates are at the center of movements for social, culture, and political change.

Requirements

  • 9 credit hours of historical surveys in literature
  • 3 credit hours of research methods
  • 3 credit hours of diversity in English Studies
  • 3 credit hours of pre-1800 English Literature
  • 3 credit hours of pre-1900 English Literature
  • 9 credit hours upper-level English electives
  • 3 credit hours of rhetoric, professional writing, creative writing, or grammar
  • 9 credit hours additional English electives

The Literature concentration can be completed at Ohio State’s Newark campus.

Interested in the Literature concentration? Talk to Dan Keller (keller.507@osu.edu) or Rob Hughes (hughes.1021@osu.edu) to learn more.

For more information, download the official OSU Literature Concentration sheet.