English HBA

Together with the visual arts and music, literature has for millennia provided humanity with the means to depict, reflect on, and understand our existence, from the most personal details of daily life to grand philosophical or religious efforts to comprehend the world as a whole. The literary arts are essential to what it means to be human; their study necessarily plays a central role in the modern university. Our programs specifically focus on how literature in English has developed through the centuries, all over the world, and in a rich variety of different forms and modes, from oral recitations to digital media. The degree programs and courses introduce students to the full range of literary genres and traditions in English, from eleventh-century elegies written in Old English to contemporary postcolonial novels.