The English Major at Ithaca College: A Gateway to Literary Exploration and Diverse Careers
Studying English at Ithaca College (IC) offers a compelling blend of creative expression and rigorous training in literary analysis and critical interpretation. The Department of Literatures in English provides a rich academic environment where students delve into the vast landscape of language, exploring classic works of English and American literature alongside contemporary forms such as poetry, dramatic texts, autobiographies, science fiction, mysteries, critical theory, African American and global ethnic literatures, and much more. This comprehensive approach exposes students to the established canon of English literature while also highlighting voices from cultural, racial, or economic margins, fostering a nuanced understanding of diverse perspectives.
English majors at IC come from a wide array of backgrounds, united by a shared fascination for how human experience is shaped and expressed through language. The program is designed to equip students with essential skills: the ability to read intelligently and critically, and to write clearly and persuasively. Beyond these foundational competencies, the curriculum invites students to engage with profound questions raised by contemporary literary theory. These include inquiries such as: How do readers actively shape meaning within a text? What are the implications when different interpretations of a literary work collide? In what significant ways does literature both mirror and actively influence history and culture? By engaging with these complex questions, English majors learn to embrace nuance, challenge assumptions, and recognize complexity as a valuable intellectual strength.
The learning experience at Ithaca College is characterized by small, engaging classes that prioritize group discussion and active student participation. This interactive environment encourages the free exchange of ideas and fosters a deep connection with the material. For students seeking to further challenge themselves, opportunities abound through advanced seminars or the chance to work individually with faculty members on subjects of mutual interest via independent studies and honors projects. Past student investigations have explored fascinating topics like “Race and Slavery in the American Novel,” “Incarnations of Helen of Troy in Literature,” and “Shakespeare's Body,” demonstrating the breadth and depth of research opportunities available. Furthermore, many English majors choose to enrich their academic journey by participating in events sponsored by Omega Psi, the local chapter of the Sigma Tau Delta international English honor society, becoming part of a vibrant community of curious and ambitious students and faculty.
Core Curriculum and Academic Foundation
The English B.A. program at Ithaca College requires a total of 120 credits, with 36-56 credits dedicated to the major itself. The Integrative Core Curriculum Requirements and Electives account for an additional 18-64 credits. This major is specifically approved to fulfill the Integrative Core Curriculum requirement for the Humanities perspective, underscoring its central role in a well-rounded liberal arts education.
The degree requirements are structured to provide a robust understanding of literary study. Foundation Courses are essential for building analytical skills, including "Introduction to Poetry" (ENGL 11300) and "Approaches to Literary Study" (ENGL 20100), each worth four credits. Students are then guided through the study of literature across different historical periods. The "Literatures Before 1900" requirement involves selecting any three courses with the EP19 attribute, totaling 12 credits. Following this, students engage with "Literatures of the 20th and 21st Centuries" by taking any course with the E20A attribute (4 credits).
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Beyond these chronological explorations, the English major includes "English Electives" designed to allow students to tailor their studies to their specific interests. This involves taking any two 300- or 400-level ENGL courses (8 credits), followed by a requirement to complete any ENGL 400-level course (4 credits). A crucial component of the curriculum is the "Race, Gender & Sexuality, and Class Requirement," which mandates students to take a minimum of two ENGL classes designated with the ERGC attribute, ensuring a critical engagement with intersectional identities and social justice issues within literature.
Exploring Literary Landscapes: A Glimpse into Course Offerings
The breadth of topics covered within the English Department at Ithaca College is extensive, offering students a diverse range of literary experiences. Courses are designed to foster analytical skills and encourage active participation, preparing students for advanced study and critical engagement.
For those interested in teaching, a course focused on preparing pre-service teachers to effectively teach language and writing in secondary school English courses is available. This course delves into the essential elements of the English language for effective communication and explores issues in composition relevant to teaching writing. It emphasizes speaking and writing skills and includes a required research project. This is particularly relevant for graduate students in the M.A.T. English program, though undergraduates may enroll with approval.
Courses exploring literatures from various cultures and periods outside of American literature are a cornerstone of the curriculum. These may encompass Western and non-Western texts, ancient and modern works, Anglophone literature, and literature in translation, all emphasizing speaking and writing skills with a required research project. Similarly, courses focusing on American texts explore novels, short stories, adolescent and young adult literature, African American and Native American literature, and film or dramatic adaptations.
Specific thematic courses offer in-depth explorations of various literary modes and genres. Students can engage with literary modes such as fiction, poetry, essays, and drama, examining how American writers have expressed ideals or challenged societal practices. These courses foster literary analysis and writing skills through active discussion and varied participation. Courses also consider works of English, American, or European literature in relation to recurrent themes, with a strong emphasis on class participation.
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Critical discussions of drama and fiction are offered, covering a broad range of forms and techniques, and are recommended for beginning English majors. These courses, some also offered through the London Center, emphasize class participation. Similarly, critical discussions of short stories and poetry focus on developing skills in literary analysis and writing.
The curriculum also delves into specific literary periods and genres. An introductory study of the novel explores its role in tracing and shaping modern and post-modern selfhood, featuring authors like Hemingway, Woolf, Morrison, and Smith. Introductory courses examine representations of injustice in 19th, 20th, and 21st-century poetry, drama, and fiction, as well as representations of gender and gendered identity in modern and contemporary novels and poetry. The complexities of "truth" and "falsehood" in 20th and 21st-century fiction and poetry are explored, alongside challenges in articulating an "authentic" identity in the digital age, with attention to the relationship between aesthetics and ethics.
Environmental literature is also a focus, with courses studying essays, stories, novels, and poems from the last 100 years that engage with representations of nature and the environment, examining cultural, historical, and political constructions of nature. The development of fantasy literature in the 20th century, with a special emphasis on the fairy tale, is another area of study, alongside the parallel between reading fiction and detecting truth in Gothic and detective novels, exploring how reader perspective, emotions, and biases can influence interpretation.
Twentieth-century understandings of obscenity in literature and its intersection with popular, philosophical, and legal notions are examined, with readings including works by Wilde, Nabokov, and Lawrence. The cultural figure of the vampire, from medieval times to the present, is surveyed in novels, short stories, and visual media, investigating its role as a catalyst for thinking about religion, sexuality, and individual identity.
Introductory surveys of Asian American literature, examining works by authors like Victoria Chang, Celeste Ng, and Nina Revoyr, focus on issues of immigration, generational conflict, and identity formation. The study of global literary genres from 1970 to the present is also offered.
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More advanced courses delve into the discipline of literary studies itself, exploring issues concerning literary critics, the historical development of the field, canonicity, and the interpretive consequences of different theoretical approaches. These courses, designed to develop skills for reading both primary and secondary texts, are intended for English majors but open to non-majors.
The curriculum also includes a comprehensive survey of horror literature from its 17th-century origins to the present. Novels, stories, and films from the last 120 years engaging with science and technology and their impacts on human culture are examined, highlighting political and ideological aspects. Specific courses focus on varying topics within the science fiction genre.
The leading American dramatists of the 20th and 21st centuries are studied, alongside a variety of Shakespeare's plays, examining dramatic literature and the achievements of English writers. The works of black women writers from the eighteenth century to the present are surveyed, as is African American literature from 1700 to the present. Foundational works of Western literature, including epics and plays, are explored, along with literature written between c. 800 and c. 1500 CE, primarily in the British Isles.
Linguistics, the study of language itself, is introduced with a focus on sounds, word and sentence structure, and language change, with potential exploration of semantics, language acquisition, dialects, and pidgin and creole languages. The role of translation in comparative literature is examined, drawing from representative texts across centuries and discussing concepts of interpretation, faithfulness, and ethics, with a prerequisite of basic reading proficiency in a language other than English.
Holocaust representation in literature and film, and the Jewish diaspora in Latin America, are explored, examining the power of narration and the human capacity for resistance. Major works by Spanish and/or Latin American writers are studied. Renaissance literature, from the early 16th century through Milton, and its continental backgrounds, with an emphasis on Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, are covered. A survey of primarily British and Anglophone literary works from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth century is also offered.
Jane Austen's works are studied alongside those of her contemporaries, with a focus on literary representations of women's lives and attitudes toward the transatlantic slave trade. Canonical literary texts produced by and about Latino groups in the United States are examined, exploring historically changing ways Latino communities have imagined their identities. British writing from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century, including Romantic poetry and the Victorian novel, is surveyed.
Key works of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer literature, and key debates in queer literary studies, are explored. Individualized study projects arranged with faculty members are available for students seeking to pursue specific interests, with a maximum of three credits counting toward major or minor requirements.
Advanced studies in dramatic literature prior to 1900 and in modern drama are offered. Thematic studies of French works from the 19th century to the present, with an emphasis on representations of gender, sexuality, class, and race, are available. A survey of 19th- and 20th-century short stories, British and American, examines the history and development of the short story form. Major works of American literature from the 18th and 19th centuries are studied, as are naturalist writers and poets of the early 20th century.
The theological and literary dimensions of reading the Bible in Jewish and Christian traditions are examined, focusing on comparative methodologies. Major narratives and poetry from the Bible and their influence on subsequent literature are studied, with an emphasis on literary strategies and historical knowledge.
Special topics courses allow for in-depth exploration of various literary subjects, with the possibility of repeating for credit when topics vary. Examination of how women have employed autobiography as a form of self-expression and gender definition is a unique offering, analyzing autobiographies as literary texts. Courses focusing on varying topics within young adult and/or children’s literature, which may cohere around a particular theme or be interdisciplinary, are also available. Finally, courses explore the ways religious ideas and practices appear in contemporary novels associated with various cultures and religious traditions, examining how authors use religious themes to negotiate modernity and engage with questions of religious identity.
Career Pathways and Graduate Opportunities
An English major from Ithaca College provides an exceptionally strong foundation for an innumerable array of career choices. The skills honed through the program-critical thinking, sophisticated communication, imaginative application, and disciplined analysis-are highly valued across diverse professional fields.
Many graduates embark on careers in education, becoming secondary school teachers who inspire the next generation of readers and writers. Others choose to pursue advanced academic study, entering graduate school to earn degrees in English, or matriculating into professional schools to obtain degrees in fields such as law, public administration, and other specialized areas.
The commitment to service is also a significant pathway for English majors, with many joining programs like the Peace Corps or Teach for America, dedicating their skills to community development and education. A substantial number of graduates transition directly into the professional world after receiving their bachelor’s degrees. In the workforce, IC English alumni have found success as journalists, writers, editors, managers, and consultants, leveraging their communication and analytical prowess. The graduates consistently report that the skills acquired in writing and critical thinking, coupled with their capacity for disciplined imagination and creativity, have prepared them exceptionally well for a wide range of careers.
Student Life and Community
The English major at Ithaca College fosters a close-knit community of literature enthusiasts. This vibrant atmosphere is cultivated through various events and activities, including poetry readings, informal staged readings of plays, public presentations of students' critical essays, and appearances by visiting writers. These experiences are integral to the academic journey, providing opportunities for engagement beyond the classroom. Whether analyzing canonical works like "Lolita" or "Love's Labour's Lost," or crafting analytical essays on poetry, novels, or drama, students benefit from small class sizes that facilitate the easy exchange of ideas and collaborative learning.
Diversity and Inclusivity
While the majority of students majoring in English Language & Literature at Ithaca College are white, the program is committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive environment. For the most recent academic year available, statistics show that 26% of English Language & Literature bachelor's degrees were awarded to men and 74% to women, indicating a strong female presence in the major. The college is dedicated to supporting a broad range of students and encourages diverse perspectives within its academic programs.
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