Engage with diverse literatures and contexts to develop your critical thinking and writing skills as an English major at Wilkes. Concentrations in digital humanities, literature, writing and education will prepare you for a wide range of careers.

Program Snapshot

Program Type Format Credit Hours
Major, Minor On Campus 120 (18 for minor)

Why Study English at Wilkes?

The close-knit community and co-curricular activities are hallmarks of the Wilkes English department.

As an English major, you spend a significant amount of time reading and writing. To thrive, you will need not only concentration, but conversation. No writer writes alone! Our faculty share their expertise and creativity, and welcome yours in and out of the classroom. You鈥檒l be a vital part of the Kirby Hall community, the English Department鈥檚 home on campus.

You can hone your writing, editorial and leadership skills outside the classroom through co-curricular activities like:

What Will You Learn as an English Student?

  • Through an examination of American and world literature, you鈥檒l develop critical thinking skills that will serve you in your professional and personal life. You鈥檒l learn to effectively communicate your thoughts through exercises in academic, creative and workplace writing.
  • You鈥檒l build an appreciation for and understanding of genres, including fiction, poetry, drama and nonfiction.
  • In our digital humanities courses, you鈥檒l analyze and create literary and non-literary digital texts to enhance your experience in the remote work space.
  • Choose one of four concentrations that best suit your education and career goals:
  • You can also minor in Creative Writing to develop your creative imaginations or Workplace Writing to prepare for opportunities outside of the classroom.
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Program Highlights

Workshops with Guest Artists

English majors have access to intimate writing workshops and conversations with rising and established authors through the annual Allan Hamilton Dickson Spring Writers Series. Past guests include Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, Dave Eggers, Alice Sola Kim, Phil Klay and Valeria Luiselli.

International Membership

You can become a member of Alpha Gamma Alpha, our award-winning Sigma Tau Delta chapter. This international honor society lets you exhibit your academic achievements and have the opportunity to present at conferences, network at conventions and earn scholarships.

Real-World Experience

Earn valuable hands-on experience in leadership roles with The Inkwell and The Manuscript Society.  Develop skills as a consultant and workplace writer in the University Writing Center.  You can also earn scholarship funds for your commitment to editorial positions. If you want to venture into off-campus opportunities, you have access to a variety of local and remote publishing and workplace writing internships.

Wilkes was a place for me to foster my intelligence and critical thinking. Keep your options open. Don鈥檛 be afraid to go off road and see what happens.

Brianna Schunk '20 - English and Individualized Studies
4

concentrations (digital humanities, literature, writing and education)

90%

of English majors get full-time work in a related field with their bachelor's degree Asterisk

4+1

BA/MA in Creative Writing program offered

Asterisk indicates based on self-reported survey data.

Explore Our Courses

Do you wish to...

  • Explore the rhetorical and linguistic strategies used by legal, government and media experts?
  • Discover the roots of English drama starting in the 10th century?
  • Analyze the conflict of rational and irrational that permeates Gothic literature?

Our diverse course offerings provide an abundance of opportunities to study every and all aspects of the English language.

Featured Upcoming Courses: Spring 2025

Taught By: Dr. Lawrence Kuhar
T, R | 1 - 2:15 P.M.

English 303: Advanced Workshop in Poetry is designed for students who want to work on studying and writing poetry. In addition to discussions and workshops, our course will consist of analyzing and modeling various poetic forms and working with varied prompts 鈥 both individually and as a class 鈥 as students work to generate a collection of new poems.

As part of the course, students may also have the opportunity to revise already-written poems. Students will study contemporary poetic techniques. Students will focus on shaping their voice, experimenting with different forms, and engaging in close readings of poems. Students will produce a portfolio of their work modeled for publication or reading.

 
Taught By: Dr. Thomas A. Hamill
M, W, F | 12 - 12:50 P.M.

In this course we will examine the history of English, beginning with a comparative study of the language from its origins in Proto-Germanic (and Proto-Indo-European) and working our way chronologically up through the sounds and symbols we use (and continually adapt) today. Our aim will be to acquire a working vocabulary for language study and grammatical and linguistic analysis, as well as a critical understanding of the historical, social, political, cultural, and material forces that have affected (and still shape) the ways we communicate and comprehend鈥攁nd the ways in which we identify ourselves and others鈥攊n and through English.

We will study in detail the internal lexical and grammatical features of the major versions of the English language that have evolved over the last 1500 years鈥擮ld, Middle, and (Early) Modern English鈥攁s we consider thoroughly the broader, external factors involved in language change. In conjunction with our chronological mapping of developments across the history of English, we will regularly examine and engage contemporary instances of language change that unfold around us (and that we participate in and perpetuate) every day; we will also consider and project, from an historical linguistic perspective, the changes English will likely continue to undergo due to variables as language-specific as usage patterns and as general as socio-cultural change and technological innovation.

While our course focus and readings will primarily be linguistic, we will also read and literary texts that provide important historical examples of English and that align with 正澳门六合彩开奖直播 Spring Theatre Production and the Department of English鈥檚 Allan Hamilton Dickson Spring Writers Series.

Tentative course assignments include two unit exams, a final exam, one short response paper (5-7 pages); a word history paper (5-7 pages), a research essay (10-12 pages), and a digital lexicology/lexicography project.

Taught By: Dr. Helen H. Davis
M, W, F | 2:30 - 3:45 P.M.

"If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern." - William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

English 335 will provide an overview of the British Romantic period and will allow us to closely analyze key Romantic texts. Romantic writers challenged the accepted social norms of the period, pushed for the rights of enslaved people, women, and the poor, and created amazing literature that confronts these issues. In this class, we will:

  • Read about the aesthetics of the gothic and picturesque and explore the illuminated poetic works of Blake from the Blake archive.
  • Explore the emergence of new philosophical ideas of the self and the role of the poet as German Romantic philosophies reached Great Britain and see the influence of those ideas in Romantic poets like Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, Keats, and Shelley.
  • Learn about the prominent social issues of the time, focusing especially on socioeconomic shifts, women鈥檚 rights, slavery, and colonization, and then use that knowledge to come to a greater understanding of the literature of the period.
  • Read The History of Mary Prince a West Indian Slave and The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African and learn about slavery, British Colonialism the push for the abolition of slavery.
  • Explore the beginning of science fiction novels with Mary Shelley鈥檚 Frankenstein and learn more about the scientific ideas of the time that inspired her work.
  • Explore how Austen鈥檚 use of irony and innovations of form altered the novel genre, and bring together our discussions of class, gender, and social issues in our analysis of one of her novels, then discuss how Austen does and does not fit into 鈥淩omantic鈥 literature.

Requirements: Students in this course can expect to write weekly responses, make one class presentation, write a paper that critiques a scholarly source, write a 12-15 page research paper with an annotated bibliography, and take a mid-term and final exam.

Students in the Honors program can take the course for Honors Credit.

Taught By: Dr. Sean J. Kelly
T, R | 9:30 - 10:45 A.M.

In his classic essay 鈥淭he Uncanny鈥 (1919), Sigmund Freud theorized the psychological implications of those aesthetic effects which disturb us, unsettle us, and creep us out without us quite knowing why. While the uncanny or das unheimliche evokes a peculiar form of affect within 鈥渢he field of the frightening鈥 (123), it is a type of fear quite distinct from (though not entirely unrelated to) that produced by horror and terror. The uncanny, Freud observes, 鈥済oes back to what was once known and had long been familiar鈥 (124). In this sense, the uncanny marks a traumatic return of the repressed. While the fear caused by an external threat corresponds specifically to the biological organism, the uncanny relates, more particularly, to what the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan refers to as the 鈥渄ivided鈥 subject, namely the subject of language and of the unconscious. The uncanny generates anxiety in the subject not because it threatens its biological existence, but rather, because it stages a 鈥渕issed鈥 encounter with what Lacan calls the ex-timate, 鈥渟omething strange to me, although it is at the heart of me鈥 (VII 71).

In this class, our aim will be to:

  1. Familiarize ourselves with the aesthetics of the uncanny by examining theoretical accounts not only from Freud and Lacan but also from leading contemporary theorists. Along the way, we will consider the ways in which the uncanny may be viewed as a manifestation of drive structures involving the gaze and the voice as partial objects;
  2. Consider not only when but also how the uncanny is constructed in literary, visual, and filmic representations;
  3. Consider the implications of the uncanny for a theory of the subject as it pertains to broader social issues, such as: freedom, morality, the law, sexuality, and death. Accordingly, we will read passages and excerpts from psychoanalytic theorists, including: Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Elizabeth Bronfen, Julia Kristeva, Joan Copjec, Mladen Dolar, and others.

Primary texts:

  • Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland (1798)
  • Edgar Allan Poe: 鈥淭he Raven鈥 (1845), 鈥淭he Fall of the House of Usher鈥 (1839), 鈥淟igeia鈥 (1838), and 鈥淭he Black Cat鈥 (1843)
  • Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (1850)
  • Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987)
  • Doris Lessing, The Fifth Child (1988)
  • Sam Shepard, Buried Child (1978)
  • Yukiko Motoya, 鈥淎n Exotic Marriage鈥 (2015)
  • Andres Barba, Such Small Hands (2017)
  • Alejandro Amen谩bar (director), The Others (2001)
  • Ben O鈥橞rien and Alan Resnick (directors), Unedited Footage of a Bear (film short) (2014)

Courting Success

If you鈥檙e pondering a career as an attorney, consider pursuing an English major. A BA in English will give you a solid foundation of reading comprehension, compelling writing and analytical thinking.

Through Wilkes鈥 pre-law program, you鈥檒l work with a pre-law advisor in addition to your advisor in the English department. The pre-law program provides guidance on law school preparation and admission, as well as access to guest speakers and law school visits.

Wilkes English majors consistently earn some of the highest scores on the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) as well as admission and full scholarships to highly ranked law schools.

Explore the Pre-law Program

Careers & Outcomes

English majors often pursue careers in writing, publishing, education or law, but a variety of industries and corporations need the creative and analytical skills English majors bring to the table.

Job Titles

  • Secondary or Middle-Level Educator
  • Attorney
  • University Professor
  • Managing Editor
  • Senior Editor
  • Content Writer
  • Public Relations Representative
  • Grant Writer
  • Health Care Manager

Employers

  • Google
  • Wyoming Valley West (PA) School District
  • Winchester (VA) Public Schools
  • Berkshire Hathaway Guard Insurance
  • Syracuse University Press
  • Elsevier Publishing
  • U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Department of the Interior
  • Web.com
  • Salisbury University
  • Think Company (PA)
  • Epic Games

Graduate Schools

  • Penn State Dickinson Law
  • University of Illinois
  • UCLA School of Law
  • Indiana University of Pennsylvania
  • Hofstra University
  • Rosemont College
  • Villanova University
  • New York University
  • Tulsa University

Spring Writers Series

The Allan Hamilton Dickson Spring Writers Series brings published authors to campus, providing the Wilkes community and other literature lovers with access to readings and book signings.

English majors have a unique opportunity to connect with these professionals and gain insight into the creative process through small class sessions and writing workshops.

We鈥檝e hosted writers such as Margaret Atwood, Zach Linge, Poupeh Missaghi and Howard Norman, who shared a diverse look at poetry, fiction and memoir.

Explore the Writers Series