English Literary Studies

General Information
In an increasingly global environment where information courses instantaneously around the world, the disciplines devoted to the human word, to human communication, to the world's languages and literatures, its philosophies and religions and cultures remain vital. It is the mission of the Department of English and Humanities to prepare its students to participate in this global, information society by providing them with the critical, questioning, imaginative, and interpretive abilities they will need to succeed in college, in their careers, and in life. Majors in the Department of English and Humanities accept the invitation to intellectual adventure and self-exploration, and in so doing develop the skills and acquire the knowledge essential for understanding tomorrow's challenges.

The Literary Studies Major
Students majoring in Literary Studies will develop a comprehensive knowledge of Western and non-Western literary traditions, their cultural and historical development, and their modes of analysis. The Literary Studies major encourages students to engage texts through critical reading and to respond to texts through effective written and oral communication. As part of their coursework, students learn the research techniques of literary studies, which include the evaluation, analysis, and synthesis of scholarly sources. The major is writing-intensive, providing students with the communication skills of reading, writing, research, and interpretation that are essential for success in both graduate school and in their careers. YCP graduates in Literary Studies have been accepted into diverse graduate programs, including law, literature, and technical writing, and they have gained employment in publishing, business, education, government, communications, and the arts.

English majors who want to apply their skills in the workplace have the opportunity to do semester-long internships for credit. Literary Studies students regularly do internships at businesses, PR firms, newspapers, magazine publishers, social service agencies, and in local government. In consultation with a faculty member, a student may also create a semester-long independent study that is individually tailored to the student's interests and needs. The areas of expertise of our faculty range across many periods of literature, many theoretical approaches, and genres, including poetry, drama, theatre, fiction, and non-fiction.

Departmental Activities
The English and Humanities Department publishes an annual student literary journal, The York Review, which includes poetry, fiction, essays, photography, and art. The department sponsors an annual creative writing contest, funded by the Bob Hoffman Foundation, providing awards for poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. The department's theatre troupe, Players, mounts numerous productions annually, many of them directed by students. The department also supports an active Film Society, a student-run organization dedicated to the serious examination and discussion of movies-particularly classic films, independent films, documentaries, and foreign films.

The department organizes the annual "Humanities Lecture and Film Series," which brings noted scholars, writers, and performers to campus to meet with students, conduct special lectures and discussions in the classroom, and speak to the campus community. The department also regularly sponsors student socials, poetry readings, panel discussions, and workshops on careers for Liberal Arts majors and for students interested in graduate school. Majors in the department regularly present at area student conferences.

Students have worked with faculty as research assistants, gaining experience in the process of conducting research. Faculty members also work closely with students to develop opportunities for internships and experiential learning opportunities. Students have benefited from successfully being placed in a number of agencies and offices, including:
  • York Chamber of Commerce
  • The York Literacy Council
  • Access York
  • United Way of York
  • The York Historical Society
  • March of Dimes
  • The Hartford Stage Company
  • The York Dispatch
  • York Arts
  • American Red Cross
  • Harrisburg Magazine
  • WGAL-TV
  • York Daily Record
  • York Dispatch
  • Olivia's House
  • PA Dental Association
Students interested in study abroad opportunities are encouraged to develop their interests in the department. The study abroad program offered at The University College of Ripon and York St. John in Yorkshire, England, is popular with majors in the department. Students in Spanish often participate in language institutes in Mexico through association with York College or study abroad in Spain.

Career Opportunities
Perhaps the single most common question humanities majors hear, often from their parents, is "What are you going to do with a major in that?" While the widespread assumption is that majors in the traditional liberal arts are unemployable, in fact they enjoy great success in the job market. Especially in today's world, with its ever-accelerating rate of change, graduates need a set of broad-based abilities that will enable them to take advantage of a variety of professional challenges. Business recruiters are looking for graduates who are inventive and flexible enough to learn new skills. Graduates of the English and Humanities Department have excelled in a variety of fields, including publishing, governmental and non-governmental agencies, insurance, the law, and public relations.

Pre-Professional
  • Law
  • Medicine
  • Ministry
Federal Government
  • Administrative Assistant
  • CIA Staff Member
  • Congressional Staff Member
  • Policy Analyst
Education
  • Admissions Officer
  • Alumni Relations
  • College Professor
  • Development Officer
  • Educational Tester
  • Student Life
  • Teaching
The Arts
  • Acting
  • Arts Administrator
  • Museum Administrator
  • Stage Manager
Business
  • Advertising
  • Corporate Communications
  • Executive/Management Trainee
  • Market Analyst
  • Publishing Writing
  • Freelance Writer
  • Magazine Editor
  • Medical Writing
  • Technical Writing
  • Web Content Development
  • Web Design
Courses Offered
Beyond the common core requirements and several courses required of all Literary Studies majors, students in Literary Studies have a wide array of choices within the curriculum. To give students the opportunity to fit their studies to their individual strengths and interests, Literary Studies courses have been categorized under four modes of inquiry: History/Culture, Figure/Author, Genre, and Thematics/Theory, assuring that students have a strong base in the most current approaches to literary studies. Students can choose from a range of courses within each mode. In addition to survey courses in American, British, and European literature, other popular courses regularly offered in the department include the following:
  • African-American Literature
  • The Bible as Literature
  • Popular Literature
  • Literature of Terror
  • The Comic Tradition
  • Shakespeare
  • Women in Literature
  • 20th Century British Literature
  • Love and Sex in Literature
  • The Short Story
  • Poetry
  • Literature and Psychology
  • Literary Theory
In addition to these regular course offerings, faculty develop Special Topics courses that may be offered once or on a periodic basis. Recent special topics courses have included Fantasy Literature, Early Modern Religious Genres, Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett, The American Novel, Jane Austen, and Arthurian Romance.

Alumni Record
Jessica Kyle, '07, Ph.D. Program, SUNY Binghamton

John Braught, '06, M.A. program, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL) in Leuven, Belgium

Brian Medina, '06, Residential Life Director, Franklin Pierce College

Evan Smith, '05, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship

Aaron Arndt, '04, Ph.D. Program, Michigan State University

Brian Lonergan, '04 M.A. Program, West Chester University

Margaret Staunton, '04, Routledge Publishing Co.

Erin Weber, '04, Editorial Coordinator TechBooks/GTS, York, PA

Bonnie Eskridge, '03, M.A. Program in Literacy, Technology, and Professional Writing at Northern Arizona University

Julie Schneider, '02, Spanish Instructor, M.Ed. Program, Saint Joseph's University

Marc Miller, '00, Archivist for Philadelphia Fight MLA Program, University of Pennsylvania

Samuel Waddell, '00, Adjunct Writing Instructor, York College

Scott Seufert, '98, Attorney at Law, Mette Evans and Woodside

Maureen Bradley, '98, AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps

Wade Holden, '98, Analyst, Kagan Research, Carmel, CA

Steven Barnhart, '96, Intelligence Communications Senior Airman, U.S. Air Force

Jamie Ray, '96, Center for Disability Law and Policy

Sharon Pavlosky Mitzel, '79, Vice President, Human Resources, York Graphic Services York, PA

Faculty Highlights
Gabriel Abudu, B.A., University of Ghana; Ph.D., Temple University, an authority on twentieth-century Afro-Cuban poetry, frequently publishes on Nancy Morejon, a major literary figure of our time.

Julie S. Amberg, B.A., Boston University, Ph.D., Tulane University, has research interests in early American literature, women's literature, and linguistics. She is currently completing work on a textbook under contract on language and linguistics.

Mary Boldt, B.A. Wilson College, M.A. and Ph.D. Brown University, teaches French and German and has interests in foreign language across the curriculum, second language acquisition, and international studies.

Dominic Delli Carpini, B.A., University of Pennsylvania; Ph.D., Penn State University, is a frequent presenter at national conferences on composition pedagogy and civic participation. He also does work on early modern literature, focusing especially upon Shakespeare, Milton, and Spenser.

James McGhee, A.B., Montclair State College, Ph.D.; Bowling Green State University, is the Director of Theatre and has published Sonnets From the Surd as well as books on modern American dramatists Sam Shepard and Don Nigro.

Cindy Doutrich, B.A. and Ph.D., Penn State University, is coordinator for Foreign Languages and author of the McGraw-Hill text, Nuevos Destinos (New Destinations), now in its second edition.

Rory Kraft, B.A., Arizona State University, M.A., American University, Ph.D., Michigan State University, specializes in ethical theory and applied ethics and is interested in aesthetics and the history of western philosophy.

William R. Miller, B.A., Eckerd College; Ph.D., State University of New York (Binghamton), is a nationally known poet and award-winning author of multicultural children's books.

Alexander Ian Olney, B.A., Rhodes College; Ph.D., University of Nebraska-Lincoln, is a film studies scholar who is interested in European cinema, horror cinema, film and literature, and dramatic literature.

Colbey Reid, B.A., University of Florida, M.A. and Ph.D., University of Washington, takes an interdisciplinary approach to American and British modern literature, exploring the connections in modernist literature between glamour, style, and the notion of "mistake."

Gerald Siegel, B.A. Western Maryland College; M.A. Texas Christian University; M.Phil, Ph.D., George Washington University. His research interests include American and popular literature, especially horror literature, about which he has written.

Victor Taylor, B.A., Le Moyne College; Ph.D., Syracuse University, is widely published in post modernism. He is the author of (Para) Inquiry: Postmodern Religion and Culture (Routledge 2000), The Religious Pray, The Profane Swear (PenMark 2002), and The Routledge Encyclopedia of Postmodernism (2001).

Deborah Vause, B.A., North Carolina State University; Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is a medievalist with wide-ranging interests in Arthurian and fantasy literature, as well as in the study of the English language.

Dennis Weiss, B.A., Emory University; Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin, has done major research in metaphysics, the philosophy of human nature, and the digital culture. He is the editor of Interpreting Man and has authored essays on science fiction, philosophical anthropology, and philosophy of technology. He is department chair.

Janet Zepernick, B.A., Bowling Green State University; Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University, is a rhetoric and composition specialist with an interest in the discourse of public policy-making.

Michael J. Zerbe, B.S., James Madison University; Ph.D., Purdue University, is a specialist in rhetoric and composition and has a research interest in the application of rhetorical theory to medical and scientific writing.

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