Literature
Literature: Changing the World
The Literature major is ideal preparation for a career in law, publishing, health care, government, arts, activism, business, and communications. In a world where the average person now has more than 10 different careers, English provides the flexibility to take you where you want to go.
Literature is the major of choice for people who want to change the world.
Our students work closely with faculty in small, discussion-based classes and have extraordinary freedom to pursue the subjects they love. Our courses include an unusual variety of classic and special topics, such as detective fiction, experimental film and performance, environmental literature, early modern revenge tragedy, war films, and visions of the future. Students read works by Jane Austen, Octavia Butler, Charles Dickens, William Faulkner, Chang Rae Lee, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Toni Morrison, Zadie Smith, William Shakespeare, and many more.
Kimberly Forster: B.A. in International Studies, English Literature, and Spanish
A 2016 Fulbright Fellowship recipient, Forster has participated in extensive legal fieldwork abroad.
Learn MoreI see literature as a way of gaining knowledge and understanding my surroundings.
Arman Aboutorabi, '20
Flexible and Vital Curriculum
In the age of artificial intelligence, the English literature major gives you the power to forge your own future. Stories shape the world. Literature hones critical thinking about complex social issues. And literary study cultivates expressive excellence—what employers rank as the single most important skill they seek. From Shakespeare to contemporary social media, the curriculum is varied and dynamic.
Program Highlights
- Choose from more than 40 courses in a wide range of topics
- Hone communication skills in small, discussion-based classes
- Explore the diversity of human experience and cultural history
- Read transformative works of imagination and wrestle with enduring human questions
- Work closely with prominent scholars and award-winning teachers
- Join a vibrant community of student-run organizations and clubs
- Conduct independent research and compete for scholarships and awards
- Advance your degree in a study abroad program or internship
Contact
Talk to Literature co-directors and professors Michele Navakas and Patrick Murphy about the major and their teaching interests!
I’m often asked how studying English literature prepared me to become the CEO of a publicly-traded biotech company. I’m not a scientist, and I don’t have a business degree, but Miami gave me an ability to synthesize complex problems and quickly come to a conclusion, to communicate expertly, and to connect genuinely with people.
Katherine Stueland, '97
Career Prospects and Placement: Preparing for Your Future
Miami's English literature students have gone on to become lawyers at top firms, professors at Stanford, Ohio State, Wisconsin, University of Virginia, Bryn Mawr, and other universities, publishers, editors, advertising and marketing executives, doctors, and managers at companies including American Express, Politico, Oxford University Press, HarperCollins, IBM, and Goldman Sachs.
We love to hear from our alumni and share their success with current students. If you are a graduate, reach out and let us know how you are changing the world!
Interested in continuing your literary studies?
Check out Miami's English and American Literature graduate programs. You could earn both your Bachelor's and Master's degree in four to five years.
I just knew this was where I want to be. This is what I love.
Jocelyn Martin, '20
I’m forever grateful for my experiences at Miami because they led me to my dream job at HarperCollins!
Taylor McBroom, '16
I believe that I will be a better physician thanks to our class discussions.
Olivia Klein, '23
Frequently Asked Questions
Contact the English Department and request to be added via email (english@miamioh.edu) or phone (513-529-5221), or visit us in person at 356 Bachelor Hall.
- Generate arguments and other writing based on close reading and analysis of texts
- Analyze literature within a historical and/or cultural context
- Explain and appraise the methodologies and theories of literary studies
- Apply methodologies and theories to literature within a particular historical and/or cultural context
Yes. You can earn credit while enrolling in ENG 340: Internship course. Students have had internships in places as diverse as film sets and in British marketing companies.
- The Carl R. Greer/Andrew D. Hepburn Awards in English
Four awards: Past awards ranged from $700 to $5000. - The Edward J. Montaine Awards in English
Three awards: Past awards ranged from $1000 to $3000. - The Almy Awards in Critical Studies
Two awards, about $400 to $600 each.
Students can study in the following programs taught by our faculty: Literary London, London Calling, Sea Islands of the South, Paris Cultural Capital, and Florence: Visions and Contrasts programs. For more information, look here.
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Literature majors have worked on a range of topics such as:
- "Decameron, Epidemics, and the Role of Literature"
- "Risk Consciousness in the Fiction of Don DeLillo"
- "Going to the Mountains is Going Home: Constructing Early 20th-Century American Wilderness and National Parks"
- "The Adaptive-Haptic Gaze of Dance: Subverting Female Identification in the Transition from Page to Screen"
- "Off the Script: Performing Female Identities in Victorian Literature"
- "Reconsidering the Unreliability and Treatment of Mentally Ill Narrators"
- "Risk Consciousness in the Fiction of Don Delillo"
- "A Stifled Carnival: Stand-Up and the Audience"
- "The Myth of the New Heroine: The Protoevangelium in Young Adult Fiction"
- "Staging Race in Early Twentieth-Century America"
- "The Daily Grind: Performing a Comedy Sketch"
- "Ophelia and Virginity: An Analysis of Early Modern and Modern Ideas"
- "Coming out Films: Speech, Cinema, and the Making of a Queer Subject in Film"
- "Language, Temporality, and Ecology in Kingsnorth's The Wake"
- "Echoes of Pleasure and Audiophilic Cinema"
Our Faculty
- James Bromley | Professor, Literary London Associate Director | bromlejm@MiamiOH.edu
- Mary Jean Corbett | Interim Chair, University Distinguished Professor | corbetmj@MiamiOH.edu
- Madelyn Detloff | Professor, Interim Director of Graduate Studies | detlofmm@MiamiOH.edu
- Erin Edwards | Associate Professor | edwarde4@MiamiOH.edu
- Andrew Hebard | Associate Professor | hebarda@MiamiOH.edu
- Nalin Jayasena | Associate Professor, Associate Chair for Administration and Curriculum | jayasen@MiamiOH.edu
- Katie Johnson | Professor, Co-Director of Paris Cultural Capital | johnso33@maimoh.edu
- Cynthia Klestinec | Professor | klestic@MiamiOH.edu
- Tim Melley | Professor, Director of the Humanities Center | melleytd@MiamiOH.edu
- Patrick Murphy | Professor, Co-Director of Literature Program | murphyp3@MiamiOH.edu
- Michele Navakas | Professor, Co-Director of Literature Program | mnavakas@MiamiOH.edu
- Kaara Peterson | Associate Professor, Literary London Director | petersk7@MiamiOH.edu
Department of English
500 Harris Drive
Harris Hall 134
Oxford, OH 45056
