English is an ideal major for students who want to develop superior skills in literacy, imagination, analysis, and communication. No other major offers a practical preparation for so many different careers.

As an English major, you’ll join a lively community of students and teachers. The department’s professors, like those across the campus, have been trained in distinguished graduate programs and are active scholars with a strong commitment to teaching.

The English curriculum at Lafayette covers all major periods, forms, and authors. Three concentrations are available: literature, theater, and writing.

Most courses are writing intensive, with enrollment limited to 20. Many English courses are seminars.

Literary Studies

As an English major, you will work with faculty to select courses in various genres, theoretical approaches, and literary and cultural traditions.

The curriculum reflects a strong commitment to major periods, authors, and forms, from ancient myth to interactive fiction. As a student, you will explore various critical methods, theories, and cultural traditions through innovative courses.

Intermediate courses for majors include surveys such as American Literature, British Literature, Literary Women, Native American Literature, Black Writers, and Film and Literature. Advanced courses emphasize a particular period, genre, author, or theme. Recent advanced courses include: The 1950’s, The English Language, The Romantics, Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath, and Contemporary Black Intellectuals. Selections provide a balance between British and American literature and also between literature written before and after 1800.

Writing

Opportunities for writing are particularly abundant for English majors. With a writing concentration, you will study with published authors who are also skilled mentors. Courses and independent studies are offered in creative writing, screenwriting, reviewing, science writing, and playwriting.

All English department faculty teach College Writing and other required writing-intensive courses across the curriculum.

Drama and Theater

If you choose the drama/theater concentration, you’ll take courses in drama, acting, directing, and/or stagecraft. Independent work, theater internships, and January interim sessions in New York and London theater may also help you meet major or minor requirements.

College Theater offers rich opportunities for acting and technical experience. The Williams Center for the Arts features a 400-seat theater and a “black box” for studio theater and student-produced plays. Recent faculty-directed productions include Into the Woods, The Rivals, and The House of Blue Leaves. Recent student-directed productions include The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) and Always, Gene.

Special Opportunities

Many English majors do independent studies or honors theses. Past projects include a non-fiction college survival guide and a scholarly essay about masculinity in the Renaissance. Honor thesis projects in creative writing, filmmaking, or theatrical production are also possible. Projects in creative writing can include portfolios of poems, fiction, drama, screenplays or hybrid imaginative forms.

Noted writers, lecturers, and performers visit the campus each year. Recent visitors include poets Heather McHugh and David Lehman, writer Hannah Tinti, performance artist
Ping Chong, and writing expert Joseph Harris. Novelists Toni Morrison and John Updike, playwright Tony Kushner, and critics Mary Louise Pratt and Frank Lentricchia have also visited Lafayette.

For strong writers, many additional opportunities exist. The English department sponsors poetry competitions, poetry and fiction readings, and workshops with visiting writers.
Students have done internships with newspapers, magazines, advertising and public relations agencies, and television stations. Campus publications provide a venue for student writing.

Paid positions for English students with superior writing skills include appointments as Writing Associates in the College Writing Program. Students with strong research interests and abilities may participate in the campus-wide EXCEL Scholars program that provides funding for undergraduate research. Students are also encouraged to edit and contribute to the campus literary magazine, The Marquis, and other campus publications.

After Graduation

Upon graduation you may opt for advanced education or to enter the job market. Among the class of 2006, 54 percent of English graduates accepted full-time jobs, 6 percent went to law school, 14 percent went to graduate school, and 23 percent were volunteering, applying to graduate school, traveling, or working part-time by choice.

In recent years English graduates have entered medical school and law school as well as master’s or doctoral degree programs in English, creative writing, theater, education, journalism, business and linguistics at prestigious institutions including Columbia, Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown, New York University, Iowa, and Tulane.

Faculty

Steven Belletto, Assistant Professor. Ph.D., University of Wisconsin at Madison. Twentieth-century American literature; has published on literature of the Cold War, the Beat Poets, and Vladimir Nabokov.

Deborah Byrd, Associate Professor. Ph.D., Emory. Romantic and Victorian poetry, women’s studies, and Irish literature; has published on Tennyson, the Brownings, Joyce, and service learning pedogogy.

Paul A. Cefalu, (Home Page), Associate Professor. Ph.D., Chicago. Early Modern English literature and culture, Milton, 17th-century poetry, history of ethics, literary theory; has published books on moral identity in the Early Modern period and on revisionist Shakespeare; also authored forthcoming book on the English Renaissance and contemporary literary theory.

Lisa De Tora, Assistant Professor and Assistant Director of the College Writing Program. Ph.D., Rochester. Melodrama, theories of domestic violence, composition, and scientific writing; has published on popular culture and various medical topics.

Patricia Donahue, Professor and Director of the College Writing Program. Ph.D., California-Irvine. Rhetorical theory, critical theory, and Renaissance literature; has published three books on critical theory and pedagogy. Editor, Reader: Essays in Reader-Oriented Theory, Criticism, and Pedagogy.

Bianca Falbo, (Home Page), Associate Professor and Co-Director of the College Writing Program. Ph.D., Pittsburgh. Composition theory and pedagogy, 19th-century literature; has published on cultural identity and personal writing.

David R. Johnson,Professor and Associate Provost. Ph.D., Pennsylvania State. American literature and culture; has published on Ernest Hemingway and Harold Frederic; author of a biography of Conrad Richter.

Mary Jo Lodge, Assistant Professor. Ph.D., Bowling Green State. Acting, voice, choreography, and theater for young audiences; has published on women in theater and American musicals.

Alix Ohlin, (more), Assistant Professor. M.F.A., Texas-Austin. Creative writing; author of a novel and a collection of short stories.

Michael C. O'Neill, Associate Professor and Director of Theater. Ph.D., Purdue. Modern theater and theatrical production; has directed plays here and abroad; playwright and novelist.

Christopher N. Phillips, Assistant Professor. Ph.D., Stanford. American literature and culture to the Civil War, history of the book, law and literature, epic literature; has published on Melville and on American epic poetry.

June Schlueter, Charles A. Dana Professor. Ph.D., Columbia. Author of numerous books on modern drama and Shakespeare; co-edited Francis A. March: Selected Writings of the First Professor of English.

Andrew M. Smith, Assistant Professor and Chair of American Studies Program. Ph.D., New Mexico. American literature, American studies, film; writing on 19th-century American literature and photography.

Ian Smith, Associate Professor. Ph.D., Columbia. Early modern and postcolonial literature; has published on Shakespeare and Caribbean literature and is writing a book on “race” in the Renaissance.

Lee Upton, Writer-in-Residence and Professor. Ph.D., State University of New York-Binghamton. Creative writing, modern and contemporary poetry; author of five books of poetry and four of criticism.

Carolynn Van Dyke, Francis A. March Professor of English and coordinator of Women’s Studies Program. Ph.D., Yale. Medieval literature, the English language, and women’s
studies; author of one book on allegory and another on Chaucer.

Bryan R. Washington, Associate Professor. Ph.D., Harvard. American literature, black literature, and narrative theory; author of a book on F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, and James Baldwin.

Suzanne Westfall, (Home Page), Professor and Head. Ph.D., Toronto. Drama; acting theory and practice; author of two books and numerous articles on Renaissance and contemporary theater; directs College Theater productions.

James Woolley, Frank Lee and Edna M. Smith Professor. Ph.D., Chicago. Restoration and 18th-century literature and culture; author of books and articles on Jonathan Swift and related figures.

Suzanne Westfall
Head, English
(610) 330-5249
westfals@lafayette.edu

For general information:
Office of admissions
Lafayette College
Easton, PA 18042
(610) 330-5100
FAX (610) 330-5355
admissions@lafayette.edu