Quick Facts
- Delivery: On Campus
- Credits: 37
Gain a new perspective on your favorite authors and discover new ones with a concentration in literature.
In the literature concentration, you and your fellow students will explore literary works and their contexts, led by expert faculty who are innovative and committed teachers. Reading texts deeply, with an eye to the social and historical context in which they are created, will enhance your critical thinking and prepare you to untangle complex problems in any field you pursue after college. The poetry, fiction, essays, films, and plays we study offer rich sources of meaning that help us better understand the human condition as we work through them in class.
What You Will Learn
By the time you complete this program, you will know how to:
- study literature, using the methods and tools of literary analysis
- write clearly and think analytically
- untangle complex problems across many disciplines
- collaborate and share ideas with peers
What It’s Like to Study Literature
You’ll increase your powers of reading comprehension, analysis, interpretation, research, synthesis, and writing.
Many of the classes you’ll take emphasize the historical and political significance of literature and the ways it has grappled with pressing social and moral problems. This will help you envision a role for yourself as an effective agent in a participatory democracy.
Our courses offer:
- senior seminars on special topics that range from gothic and horror literature to non-human subjects to “American Bestsellers”
- advanced literature classes focusing on Literature and Gender, African-American Literature, American Ethnic Literature, Queer Literature, and Disability Studies
See major requirements to learn more about the courses we offer.
Dr. Deborah Mix, for instance, is the author of A Vocabulary of Thinking, a book that identifies a contemporary literary tradition of women writers deeply inspired by Gertrude Stein. She has taught a number of courses that examine evolving literary traditions, including recent courses on best-sellers and winners of book prizes.
Dr. Sreyoshi Sarkar has published on world literature and environmental justice in prestigious collections and journals. She has applied her scholarly interest in these topics when teaching courses such as “World Literature and the Environment” and “The Digital Literature Review,” an immersive-learning course in which students published an undergraduate journal on human interaction with the non-human world.
Dr. Molly Ferguson’s recent book, Banshees, Hags, and Changelings: Feminist Folklore Transformations in Irish Writing, combines her interests in Irish literature and women’s writing. She brings this expertise to courses such as Literature and Gender, and World Literature, focusing on ways that writers combine world literary traditions with current social concerns.
Read profiles of our faculty:
You’ll turn your analytical and writing skills toward the kind of activities you’ll pursue in the workplace after graduation.
Just a couple of the ways we do this include:
In addition to the dozens of scholarships the university offers its students, our department gives awards to acknowledge the excellence and achievements of our own majors and minors. Learn more.
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Take the Next Step
If you’d like to learn more about our English degree, complete our online form. Or one of the best ways to get a true feel for Ball State is to see it for yourself, so schedule a visit today! And if you’re ready to apply, review our admission requirements and complete our online application.