Fact Sheet 07: Literature Minor

Revised June 2007

Literature Minor

The minor in literature teaches you to analyze texts, both from your own as well as other cultures, from a conscious and critical point of view; gives you the advantage of considerable experience in writing; and helps you understand the working of language. Completing a literature minor can not only add these important components to your academic program, but it can also complement many other majors. A literature minor can supplement your awareness of cultural context and cultural differences, of the ways texts reflect and influence their historical periods, and of the possibilities of human expression. Through writing and reading, you will begin to understand some basic ways in which politics, economics, business, languages, aesthetics, art, theater, and popular culture interrelate through language. You'll develop the critical analytical skills that will serve you well in your other academic pursuits and in your career after college.

Requirements

This 18-credit minor requires you to take two classes from a list of four core classes: American Literature I and II, English Literature I and II. You then supplement that core with four elective classes. One of each of these elective classes must be in American literature, and one must be in British literature, and they must be in a time period not covered in your core classes. You are welcome to use any other literature course for the remaining two electives.

Elective classes include:

African-American Literature
Feminist Poetry
History and Texts
New Fiction
Restoration and 18th-Century Drama
Theory, Meaning, Value
World Literature

Participating Faculty

A complete listing is available in the current Undergraduate Catalog and on the department Web site at http://www.wcupa.edu/_academics/sch_cas.eng.

For More Information

Dr. Anne Herzog, Chair
Department of English
532 Main Hall
West Chester University
West Chester, PA 19383
610-436-2282
aherzog@wcupa.edu