Major Options

Melissa DaCosta, an English Literature and Philosophy major, won a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship to support her study of the civil war in Sri Lanka. Melissa worked with Professor Sandhya Shetty on her topic entitled "Buddhism and Civil War in Sri Lanka: Examining the Sinhalese-Tamil Conflict through Postcolonial Literature."

The Department of English offers four different undergraduate majors plus a fifth interdisciplinary major. Click a major name below for more information about that major. 

English Major

The English major has two chief objectives: to provide all students with a common core of literary experience and to provide each student with the opportunity of shaping a course of study to suit individual interests. The flexibility and freedom inherent in the second of these objectives places a responsibility upon students to devise a program that has an intelligent rationale. For example, students with a strong interest in creative writing or linguistics may wish to take only the minimum number of advanced literature courses required for the major and fill their upper-division requirements with courses in the writing of fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, or in the study of the English language, language formation, and other areas of linguistics. Students who intend to pursue graduate study in English should choose more than the minimum number of advanced literature courses and should seek a broad, historical background. For these students, the "English Literature major" would perhaps be a more appropriate choice than the standard "English major." All students should secure the assistance and approval of their advisers in formulating an early plan for the major program.

Elizabeth A. Joseph (bottom left), an English major, won a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship and spent five weeks actively participating in two intentional communities, places where groups of people live together devoted to the value and strengthening of community. Her writing goal was to create five pieces of creative nonfiction that explored her experience. Learn more.

Requirement Checklist
Contact Person: Carla Cannizzaro, Coordinator

English Literature Major 

The English Literature Major offers students the opportunity for a focused and comprehensive study of literature written in the English language. The English Literature Major engages students in the range of approaches to literary study that now characterize the field: the historical study of national traditions, literary theory, the study of texts in cultural context, genre studies, and the critical analysis of representations of identity, especially in terms of race, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality. It builds onto the existing English Major a series of requirements that ensure students' greater immersion in literature, and it foregrounds research. In these ways, the program will be especially useful to those students who wish to go on to graduate school in English and other fields, as well as various kinds of professional training, including law school. For students planning other career paths, the English Literature Major will help them gain the ability to read critically, write papers that synthesize research results in a sustained analysis, and develop familiarity with the historical and cultural contexts that inform written expression. Beyond these more practical career concerns, this major is ideal for students who are passionate about reading fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, and other kinds of imaginative literature.

Requirement Checklist
Contact Person: Professor James Krasner

English Teaching Major 

The English Teaching major is designed for students wishing to teach English in middle or high schools. Completion of this undergraduate major does not in itself, however, meet state certification requirements. To meet these requirements, students should enroll in the undergraduate major and, by September 15 of their senior year, apply for the fifth-year teaching internship and master's degree program.

Requirement Checklist
Contact Person: Professor John Lofty

English/Journalism Major

The English/Journalism major combines the study of literature with the study of nonfiction writing and professional training for students considering writing or editing careers in print journalism or related fields.

Requirement Checklist
Contact Person: Professor Sue Hertz

See the Journalism Program section of this website for detailed information about the program and its opportunities.

Linguistics major, Jim Wood, traveled to Iceland to study register--language variation within a language that is defined by a social or cultural context.  Learn more.

Linguistics Major, an interdisciplinary major 

Linguistics is the study of one of the most important characteristics of human beings--language. It cuts across the boundaries between the sciences and the humanities. The program is an excellent liberal arts major or pre-professional major for law, medicine, clergy, and others. It is a particularly appropriate major for students who want to teach English as a foreign language. Dual or double majors with a foreign language, business administration, and the like, are quite feasible.

Requirement Checklist
Contact Person: Professor Mary Clark

Learn more about the Linguistics Program at the program website.

English Department Policies on Fulfilling the B.A. Language Requirement

Students majoring in English, English Literature, and English/Journalism may satisfy their B.A. language proficiency requirement with one of the following languages: Spanish, French, German, Russian, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Latin, and Greek. Exceptions to this list may be considered by petition.

English Teaching majors can meet the B.A. language requirement by studying, for example: Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, or Greek. Given the increasing number of Hispanic students in United States schools, Spanish could be a very practical language to study. Knowledge of Latin also would be valuable for English teachers. English teaching majors who plan to pursue deaf studies can petition for ASL to meet the language requirement. Please note that although many graduate programs do not accept ASL to meet their language requirement, the MAT and MED at UNH do.

Linguistics majors must take the equivalent of two years at the university level of a language other than English as one of their major requirements. This will allow them to simultaneously satisfy the B.A. language requirement with whichever language they choose. Students whose first language is not English may use their study of English to satisfy this requirement.