Literature

Under the Literature option, students ground their study in the reading and examination of works through a series of historically based surveys as well as other core courses, covering the techniques of literary analysis, the application of literary theory, and finally the development of a research project in a senior capstone. Students complement these core courses with a selection of electives that engage specific genres, authors, and periods, as well as different disciplines (e.g. Literature and the Environment) and literatures of diversity (e.g. Native American Literature).  M.A. students select graduate seminars in American, British, and comparative literatures as well as other disciplines, their course work culminating in a research thesis or a portfolio of seminar papers revised in collaboration with a committee.  The literature emphasis imparts an understanding of not only the aesthetic richness of canonical and emerging literatures but also the historical and cultural forces that have contributed to their making. The classes are of a size that makes discussion very much a part of a student’s experience.

Bachelor of Arts - English; Literature Option

College Humanities & Sciences

Catalog Year: 2016-2017

Degree Specific Credits: 42

Required Cumulative GPA: 2.0

Note: Upon successful completion of the Pre-English requirements, students must declare the English major and choose a degree option. English majors with the option in Literature must earn 42-60 of their total credits in Department of English courses.

Pre-English Core Courses

Rule: Complete four courses (12 credits) including LIT 201, British, and American Literature surveys.

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Show Description LIT 201 - Intro to Literary Studies
Offered every term. Introduction to the field of literary studies, to the conventions of literary analysis, and to the literature option for English majors. Reading, writing, and research skills will be stressed, along with interpretative approaches to major genres within the field.
 3 Credits
Minimum Required Grade: C 12 Total Credits Required

Early British Literature survey

Rule: Complete one course (3 credits).

Note: LIT 220 satisfies the "A" designation. Students who elect to take LIT 220 need not take another "A" designated-course at the 300-level (see Upper Division Core requirements). LIT 221 satisfies the "B" designation. Students who elect to take LIT 221 need not take another "B" designated-course at the 300-level (see Upper Division Core requirements).

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Show Description LIT 220L - Brit Lit: Med to Renaissance
Offered every term. Representative texts from the Anglo-Saxon period through the Renaissance.
 3 Credits
Show Description LIT 221L - Brit Lit: Enlightenment to Rom
Offered every term. Representative texts from the seventeenth through the eighteenth century.
 3 Credits
Minimum Required Grade: C 3 Total Credits Required

Late British Literature and American Literature survey

Rule: Complete two courses (6 credits).

Note: LIT 210 satisfies the "B" designation. Students who elect to take LIT 210 need not take another "B" designated-course at the 300-level (see Upper Division Core requirements).

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Show Description LIT 210L - American Lit I
Offered every term. Representative texts from the pre-colonial period through the Civil War.
 3 Credits
Show Description LIT 211L - American Lit II
Offered every term. Representative texts from the Civil War to the present.
 3 Credits
Show Description LIT 222L - Brit Lit: Victorian to Contemp
Offered every term. Representative texts from the early nineteenth century to the present.
 3 Credits
Minimum Required Grade: C 6 Total Credits Required

Upper Division Requirements

Rule: Complete four courses (12 credits).

Note: LIT 220 satisfies the "A" designation. Students who elect to take LIT 220 need not take another "A" designated-course at the 300-level, but must substitute another 300-level LIT elective.

LIT 221 and LIT 210 satisfy the "B" designation. Students who elect to take LIT 221 or 210 need not take another "B" designated-course at the 300-level, but must substitute another 300-level LIT elective.

Minimum Required Grade: C-
12 Total Credits Required

A Designation: Medieval through early modern British Literature

Rule: Complete one course (3 credits).

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Show Description LIT 349L - Medieval Lit
Offered alternate years. Prereq., LIT 300 or consent of instr. Exploration of literature from the medieval period, focusing on the major cultural and intellectual influences on the emergence of vernacular writing. Topics will vary, but will regularly include Anglo-Saxon literature and Middle English literature (excluding Chaucer).
 3 Credits
Show Description LIT 350L - Chaucer
Offered alternate years. Critical reading of Chaucer's masterpiece, the Canterbury Tales, with attention to Chaucerian irony, the author's place in literary history, and issues in Chaucer studies.
 3 Credits
Show Description LIT 351 - Donne & His Followers
Offered alternate years. Prereq., LIT 300 or consent of instr. Close study of John Donne and other early 17th century religious poets within the context of Renaissance intellectual history.
 3 Credits
Show Description LIT 353 - Milton
Offered alternate years. Prereq., LIT 300 or consent of instr. Selected study of poetry and prose of Milton.
 3 Credits
Minimum Required Grade: C- 3 Total Credits Required

B Designation: Enlightenment through Romantic British Literature or pre-1865 American Literature

Rule: Complete one course (3 credits).

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Show Description LIT 353 - Milton
Offered alternate years. Prereq., LIT 300 or consent of instr. Selected study of poetry and prose of Milton.
 3 Credits
Show Description LIT 355 - British Romanticism
Offered alternate years. Prereq. or co-req., LIT 300. Introduction to the major texts, themes, and authors of British literature from 1790-1815, focusing on poets such as Blake, Barbauld, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and P.B. Shelley but attending also to prose writers from Austen to Mary Shelley.
 3 Credits
Minimum Required Grade: C- 3 Total Credits Required

C Designation: 400-level theory

Rule: Complete one course (3 credits).

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Show Description LIT 420 - Critical Theory
(R-9) Offered autumn or spring. Prereq., LIT 300 and six credits in literature courses numbered 300 or higher or consent of instr. Study and application of one or more theoretical approaches to interpreting texts (e.g., aesthetic post-structural, new historicist, classical, Renaissance, Romantic, narrative, psychoanalytic, formalist, neo-Marxist, feminist, gender, cultural studies and reader-response theory).
 3 Credits
Show Description LIT 421 - History of Criticism & Theory
Offered autumn or spring. Prereq., LIT 300 and six credits in literature courses numbered 300 or higher or consent of instr. Survey of the historical development of critical theories which shaped ways of reading and writing from Plato and Aristotle to the present.
 3 Credits
Minimum Required Grade: C- 3 Total Credits Required

D Designation: Diversity

Rule: Complete one course (3 credits)

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Show Description LIT 304 - U.S. Writers of Color
Offered intermittently. Prereq., LIT 300 or consent of instr. Selected readings from African American, Asian American, Chicano/a, Latino/a, and Native American literatures.
 3 Credits
Show Description LIT 305 - Lit by & About Native Amer
Offered autumn. Prereq., three credits of lower-division LIT courses and NASX 105H or 235X. Same as NASX 340. Selected readings from Native American literature with special emphasis on the literature of writers from the Rocky Mountain west.
 3 Credits
Show Description LIT 314 - The American Novel
Offered intermittently. Prereq., LIT 210L or 211L and prereq. or co-req., LIT 300. Examination of a selection of American novels in their historical, cultural, and literary contexts. Exploration of literary movements such as realism, naturalism, modernism, and postmodernism. Discussion of critical theories and application to the texts.
 3 Credits
Show Description LIT 315 - Voices of the Am Renaissance
Offered intermittently. Prereq., LIT 210L or 211L and LIT 300 or consent of instr. Perspectives on antebellum Native American, African American, and gender issues. Study of the poetry of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson in light of these three perspectives.
 3 Credits
Show Description LIT 343 - African American Lit
Offered intermittently. Prereq., LIT 300 or consent of instr. Selected works by African-American authors. Course may define a narrowed focus such as poetry, women writers, etc.
 3 Credits
Show Description LIT 363 - Modern Poetry
Offered alternate years. Prereq., LIT 300 or consent of instr. Survey of modern poetry in English beginning with Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman and moving toward the present, centering on modernist poets.
 3 Credits
Show Description LIT 378L - Gay and Lesbian Studies
Offered alternate years. Prereq., LIT 300 or consent of instr. Review of the history of the gay and lesbian movement in the twentieth century as a basis for understanding the political, social, and sexual issues that influenced homoerotic cultural representation in plays, films, and novels.
 3 Credits
Show Description LIT 379L - Gender & Sexuality in Eng. Fic
Offered alternate years. Same as LSH 327L. Major 20th century novels and short stories written in English in different parts of the world and how these texts explore changing concepts of gender and sexuality.
 3 Credits
Minimum Required Grade: C- 3 Total Credits Required

Upper Division English Electives

Rule: Complete three courses (9 credits) of 300- or 400-level English electives.

Note: Please note that most of these courses carry pre-requisites.

Note: Select any three courses (9 credits) from the course prefixes CRWR, ENIR, ENLI, FILM, LING, or LIT. All courses must be 300- or 400-level.

Minimum Required Grade: C-
9 Total Credits Required

Literature Seminar Capstone

Rule: Complete one course (3 credits).

Note: Students must complete the capstone requirement at UM, ideally during their last two semesters of undergraduate study.

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Show Description LIT 494 - Seminar: Lit Capstone
(R 9) Offered autumn and spring. Prereq., LIT 300 and nine credits in literature courses numbered higher than 300. Required for completing the English literature option, this seminar will allow students to conduct advanced studies in literary figures and topics chosen by faculty to engage a broad range of interests. A long research paper is required.
 3 Credits
Minimum Required Grade: C- 3 Total Credits Required

Upper Division Writing Courses

Rule: Complete two courses (6 credits).

Note: LIT 300 is open only to English majors who have completed the Pre-English curriculum and have declared a major option.

Note: LIT 300 is the pre-requisite for most other 300- and 400-level LIT courses, including LIT 327. FILM 320 Shakespeare and Film substitutes for LIT 327 Shakespeare.

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Show Description LIT 300 - Literary Criticism
Offered every term. Prereq. or coreq., 12 credits of lower-division English courses. Study of various literary theories and their application to literary texts.
 3 Credits
Show Description LIT 327 - Shakespeare
Offered autumn and spring. Prereq., LIT 300 or consent of instr. A survey of selected Shakespeare plays emphasizing close reading of the texts and consideration of their dramatic possibilities.
 3 Credits
Minimum Required Grade: C- 6 Total Credits Required

Modern or Classical Language major requirement

Rule: Complete the 202-level proficiency in either a modern or classical language other than English

Note: Students may either take four sequential semesters (101, 102, 201, 202) of a modern or classical language or exemplify proficiency through examination (available through the Modern and Classical Languages and Literature Department).

Minimum Required Grade: Pass
4-18 Total Credits Required