English, Language, Literature, and Culture Option | Department of English

The English major in Language, Literature, and Culture offers a highly adaptable course of study, grounding students in a range of methods, approaches, periods, and genres while providing the freedom to pursue their individual interests. Effective writing, analytical ability, research skills, and a broadened perspective on the world are among the practical accomplishments majors can expect to acquire, all of which can be applied to a range of careers.

Note! The requirements described below took effect in Summer 2022. Students who declared the major before that time should consult the old requirements. If you have questions about which version of the major applies to you, please contact HAS.

The English major in language, literature, and culture is structured around three key perspectives:

Historical Depth
Power and Difference
Genre, Method, and Language

These three overlapping areas of study help students understand how language, literature, and culture are always intertwined with the movement of history, bound up with questions of power and difference, and dynamically shaped by form, genre, and grammar. By giving students the tools to think critically and reflectively about these concepts, the major prepares them to be engaged readers, writers, and thinkers throughout their lives.

Please note: this page describes the English major in Language, Literature, and Culture. For the major's other option, see the Concentration in Creative Writing. Unsure of which to choose? Here is a helpful document: English Major Pathways.

The English major consists of 60 ENGL Credits, at least 30 of which must be completed in residence at the University of Washington. A maximum of 20 credits in 200-level courses may count toward the English major, and may be used to fulfill the distribution requirements.

Students must complete a Core Sequence, consisting of: English 202 (Introduction to English Language and Literature), 302 (Critical Practice), and a Senior Capstone. The remaining courses must be distributed across three areas: Historical Depth; Power and Difference; and Genre, Method, and Language, with 15 credits in each. These areas will overlap, with some courses listed under multiple categories, allowing students to specialize in one area if they so choose. However, each course can ultimately only be used to fulfill one requirement.

For example, ENGL 351 is listed under both “Historical Depth” and “Power and Difference.” However, it will only count in one of those categories in a student's degree progress. The student may choose (and can change their mind, shuffling courses as long as they are enrolled). Students noticing issues with how these classes are applying to the distribution areas in their degree audit can contact an advisor at Humanities Academic Services Center (HAS), A-2-B Padelford Hall for support.

Classes in the core sequence (202, 302, Capstone) do not fulfill the distribution areas, nor does ENGL 201, "Introduction to the Study of English in the Humanities."

Except for students completing the Creative Writing concentration, no more than 5 credits in Creative Writing may be applied toward the major.

Admission to the English Major:

Students currently enrolled at the University of Washington may declare the English major at any time by meeting with an adviser in the Humanities Academic Services Center (HAS), A-2-B Padelford Hall. Students from historically underrepresented groups are especially encouraged to apply.

See the Creative Writing application information for separate, additional requirements and procedures for applying to the Creative Writing option within the English major.

To be eligible to declare the English major, you must:

have an overall UW grade point average of at least a 2.00;
have an English grade point average of at least 2.50 among all English coursework completed at the college level.

To declare the English major, students should:

meet with a HAS adviser in A-2-B Padelford Hall. At that meeting, the student and adviser will sign a Change of Major form (PDF) to add the English major to the student's official UW record.

Students may declare the major during the first two weeks of any quarter. After declaring the English major, students will be eligible to register for courses open only to English majors during Registration Period 1.

To maintain satisfactory progress in the English major students must take ENGL 202 within one quarter of declaring the English major. Additionally, students must earn a 2.0 or higher in the course. If students do not earn a 2.0 or higher they must repeat the course to remain in the English major. This course can be repeated one time only.

Students who are denied admission because they do not meet the minimum requirements above may petition by writing to the English Department's Undergraduate Education Committee. Petitions should give full particulars, including any extenuating circumstances the student believes the Department should consider.

English Major Requirements

English 202: Introduction to the Study of English Language and Literature

This lecture course offers an introduction to the English major at the University of Washington. Combining lecture with discussion sections, it is open to all students, but must be completed within one quarter of declaring the English major.

English 302: Critical Practice

This small, writing-intensive course introduces students to literary theory and the practice of critical writing. It must be completed the quarter after ENGL 202.

A Senior Capstone

The capstone must be completed in a student's final year. Capstones offer advanced study of a special topic, and involve independent research that enables students to build on the skills and expertise they have gained in English major courses.
As an alternative to the special topics courses, "ENGL 490: Professionalization and Public Life" focuses on the role of the humanities in the world and helps students prepare for the job market, graduate school, and other post-graduation plans.
Students in the English Department Honors program do not have to complete a separate capstone, as the senior thesis fulfills this requirement.
One course chosen from the capstone list:
- ENGL 407 (Special Topics in Cultural Studies)
- ENGL 430 (British Writers: Studies in Major Authors)
- ENGL 431 (Topics in British Literature)
- ENGL 440 (Special Studies in Literature)
- ENGL 442 (The Novel: Special Studies)
- ENGL 443 (Poetry: Special Studies)
- ENGL 444 (Dramatic Literature: Special Studies)
- ENGL 451 (American Writers: Studies in Major Authors)
- ENGL 452 (Topics in American Literature)
- ENGL 473 (Current Development in English Studies)
- ENGL 490 Professionalization capstone)
- ENGL 496 (English Honors Thesis) - available to English Honors Program students only
- ENGL 498 (Senior Seminar)

English Majors must also take at least 15 credits in each of the following areas:

Historical Depth
Power and Difference
Genre, Method, and Language

Distribution Areas:

The majority of English courses are distributed among three overlapping areas: Historical Depth, Power and Difference, and Genre, Method, and Language. All upper-division English courses fulfill at least one of these areas. However, the categories also overlap, allowing students to specialize in a particular area if they so choose. Descriptions of each area, along with the courses fulfilling it, are available below.

Historical Depth:

People have been speaking, reading, and writing in English for more than a thousand years, producing literature that is at once timeless and deeply informed by the time in which it was written. Cultural artifacts from the English-speaking world have shaped, and been shaped by, social movements and historical conditions around the globe, as has the language itself. With this in mind, English majors are required to take 15 credits focused on materials produced before 1945, with at least 5 of those credits focused on materials produced before 1700. Distributing coursework in this way helps students to understand the depth, richness, and variability of English literature, language, and culture across time, and dramatizes how the ways we organize history affect the stories we tell about it. These courses open up past worlds that are in some ways totally alien and in others very similar to our own, revealing that what seems real and true to us can radically alter over time. Entering into these past realities offers a new perspective on the present and develops our capacity to imagine alternative futures.

Historical Depth Courses:

Pre-1700

ENGL 210 Medieval and Early Modern Literature, 400 to 1600
ENGL 211 Literature, 1500-1800
ENGL 225 Shakespeare
ENGL 310 The Bible as Literature
ENGL 320 English Literature: The Middle Ages
ENGL 321 Chaucer
ENGL 322 Medieval & Early Modern Literatures of Encounter (P&D)
ENGL 323 Shakespeare to 1603
ENGL 324 Shakespeare after 1603
ENGL 325 Early Modern English Literature
ENGL 326 Milton (GML)
ENGL 351: Writing in the Contact Zone: North America 1492 - 1800 (P&D)
ENGL 376: Introduction to Middle English Language (HD)
ENGL 422 Arthurian Legends (GML)

Pre-1945

ENGL 212 Literature, 1700-1900
ENGL 300: Reading Major Texts (can also count as pre-1700 depending on texts)
ENGL 303 History of Literary Criticism and Theory I (GML)
ENGL 312 Jewish Literature: Biblical to Modern (P&D)
ENGL 314: Transatlantic Literature and Culture (P&D)
ENGL 315: Literary Modernism (GML)
ENGL 327 Narratives of Bondage & Freedom (P&D)
ENGL 328 Eighteenth Century Literature & Culture
ENGL 329 Rise of the English Novel (GML)
ENGL 330 English Literature: The Romantic Age
ENGL 331 Globalization & Nationalism in the Age of Empire (P&D)
ENGL 332 Nineteenth Century Poetry (GML)
ENGL 333 Nineteenth Century Novel (GML)
ENGL 335 English Literature: The Victorian Age
ENGL 336 English Literature: Early Twentieth Century
ENGL 337 The Modern Novel (GML)
ENGL 338 Modern Poetry (GML)
ENGL 352 Literatures of the United States to 1865 (P&D)
ENGL 353 American Literature: Later Nineteenth Century
ENGL 354 American Literature: Early Twentieth Century
ENGL 373: History of the English Language (GML)
ENGL 380: Special Topics in History
ENGL 385: Global Modernism (P&D)

Power and Difference

Literature, language, and culture have been shaped by and in turn shape systems of power. Such systems include capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, and hierarchies of race, status, caste, sex, gender, and sexuality. Over time, systems of power elevate some voices and stories and marginalize and silence others. English majors are required to take at least 15 credits focused on how systems of power operate in and through literature, language, and culture. These courses explore the evolving relationship of literature, language, and culture to structures of violence and dispossession and center critical perspectives that have been marginalized or silenced. They embrace alternative ways of learning about the past and present, and the impress of the former on the latter. They highlight the complex, sometimes contradictory ways in which literature and culture mediate systems of power. In so doing, Power and Difference courses foster our imagination of more just and equitable futures.

Power and Difference Courses

ENGL 207: Introduction to Cultural Studies (GML)
ENGL 208: Data and Narrative (GML)
ENGL 251: Literature & American Political Culture
ENGL 256: Introduction to Queer Cultural Studies (DIV) (GML)
ENGL 257: Introduction to Asian American Literature (DIV)
ENGL 258: Introduction to African American Literature (DIV)
ENGL 259: Literature and Social Difference (DIV)
ENGL 265: Introduction to Environmental Humanities (DIV, GML)
ENGL 307: Cultural Studies
ENGL 308: Marxism and Literary Theory
ENGL 311: Modern Jewish Literature in Translation
ENGL 312: Jewish Literature: Biblical to Modern (HD)
ENGL 314: Transatlantic Literature and Culture (HD)
ENGL 316: Postcolonial Literature and Culture (DIV)
ENGL 317: Literature of the Americas (DIV)
ENGL 318: Black Literary Genres (DIV, GML)
ENGL 319: African Literatures (DIV)
ENGL 322 Medieval & Early Modern Literatures of Encounter (HD)
ENGL 327 Narratives of Bondage & Freedom (HD)
ENGL 331 Globalization & Nationalism in the Age of Empire (HD)
ENGL 339: Globalization & Contemporary World Literature (GML)
ENGL 340: Irish Literature (P&D)
ENGL 349: Science Fiction & Fantasy
ENGL 351: Writing in the Contact Zone: North America to 1800 (HD)
ENGL 352: American Literatures to 1865 (HD)
ENGL 355: Contemporary American Literature
ENGL 357: Jewish American Literature and Culture (DIV)
ENGL 358: African American Literature (DIV)
ENGL 359: Contemporary American Indian Literature (DIV)
ENGL 360: American Literature & Culture
ENGL 361: American Political Culture After 1865 (DIV)
ENGL 362: Latino Literary Genres (DIV, GML)
ENGL 364: Literature & Medicine
ENGL 365: Literature & Environment (GML, DIV)
ENGL 366: Literature & Law
ENGL 367: Gender Studies in Literature (DIV)
ENGL 368: Women Writers (DIV)
ENGL 372: World Englishes (DIV) (GML)
ENGL 379: Special Topics in Power & Difference
ENGL 385: Global Modernism (HD)
ENGL 386: Asian American Literature (DIV)
ENGL 466: Queer and LGBT Literature (DIV)
ENGL 478: Language and Social Policy (DIV) (GML)
ENGL 479: Language Variation and Language Policy in North America (DIV, GML)

Genre, Method, and Language:

Language and literature provide the infrastructure for human thought, mediating the interactions of culture and history. In order to understand this mediation, English majors are required to take at least 15 credits organized by form, genre, or methodological framework. The courses gathered in this area provide a tool kit for examining and producing structures in writing, literature, language, and culture. This diverse array offers breadth across disciplinary approaches in English and writing studies. By exploring forms or genres, methods and/or theoretical orientations, and the study of language itself, these classes offer strategies to communicate in a complex world, opening up a global perspective on varieties of English across different registers and communities of practice. They also illustrate how structure plays a vibrant role in meaning; introduce a range of literary styles and forms; offer rich experiences in reading, theorizing, writing and collaborating; help students understand how different methodologies are rooted historically and are contested; and offer different ways of knowing, listening, learning, and communicating.

Genre, Method, and Language Courses:

Genre:

ENGL 200: Reading Literary Forms
ENGL 204: Popular Fiction & Media
ENGL 242: Reading Prose Fiction
ENGL 243: Reading Poetry
ENGL 244: Reading Drama
ENGL 250: American Literature
ENGL 277: Introduction to Children’s and Young Adult Literature
ENGL 318: Black Literary Genres (DIV, P&D)
ENGL 326: Milton (HD)
ENGL 329: Rise of the English Novel (HD)
ENGL 332 Nineteenth Century Poetry (HD)
ENGL 333: Nineteenth Century Novel (HD)
ENGL 337: The Modern Novel (HD)
ENGL 338: Modern Poetry (HD)
ENGL 339: Globalization & Contemporary World Literature (P&D)
ENGL 341: Studies in the Novel
ENGL 342: Contemporary Novel
ENGL 343: Contemporary Poetry
ENGL 344: Studies in Drama
ENGL 345: Studies in Film
ENGL 346: Studies in Short Fiction
ENGL 347: Studies in Nonfiction Prose
ENGL 348: Studies in Popular Culture
ENGL 349: Science Fiction and Fantasy (P&D)
ENGL 350: American Fiction
ENGL 356: American Poetry
ENGL 362: Latino Literary Genres (DIV, P&D)
ENGL 411: Introduction to the Folktale
ENGL 453: Introduction to American Folklore
ENGL 422: Arthurian Legends (HD)
ENGL 457: Pacific Northwest Literature
ENGL 477: Children’s Literature

Method:

ENGL 205: Method, Imagination, and Inquiry
ENGL 206: Rhetoric in Everyday Life
ENGL 207: Introduction to Cultural Studies (P&D)
ENGL 208: Data and Narrative (P&D)
ENGL 256: Introduction to Queer Cultural Studies (DIV, P&D)
ENGL 259: Literature and Social Difference (DIV, P&D)
ENGL 265: Introduction to Environmental Humanities (DIV, P&D)
ENGL 266: Literature and Technology
ENGL 281: Intermediate Expository Writing
ENGL 282: Intermediate Multimodal Composition
ENGL 288: Introduction to Professional and Technical Writing
ENGL 296: Critical Literacy in the Natural Sciences
ENGL 297: Intermediate Interdisciplinary Writing - Humanities
ENGL 298: Intermediate Interdisciplinary Writing - Social Sciences
ENGL 299: Intermediate Interdisciplinary Writing - Natural Sciences
ENGL 303: History of Literary Criticism and Theory I (HD)
ENGL 304: History of Literary Criticism and Theory II
ENGL 306: Introduction to Rhetoric
ENGL 307: Cultural Studies (P&D)
ENGL 309: Theories of Reading
ENGL 313: Modern European Literature in Translation
ENGL 364: Literature and Medicine (P&D)
ENGL 365: Literature and Environment (P&D)
ENGL 366: Literature and Law (P&D)
ENGL 369: Research Methods in Language and Rhetoric
ENGL 378: Special Topics in Genre, Method, & Language
ENGL 381: Advanced Expository Writing
ENGL 382: Special Topics in Multimodal Composition
ENGL 388: Professional and Technical Writing
ENGL 375: Rhetorical Genre Theory and Practice
ENGL 363: Literature and Other Arts and Disciplines
ENGL 470: Theory and Practice of Teaching Literature
ENGL 471: Theory and Practice of Teaching Writing
ENGL 474: Special Topics in English for Teachers
ENGL 481: Special Studies in Expository Writing

Language:

ENGL 270: The Uses of the English Language
ENGL 370: English Language Study
ENGL 371: English Syntax
ENGL 373: History of the English Language
ENGL 374: The Language of Literature
ENGL 376: Introduction to Middle English Language (HD)
ENGL 472: Language Learning
ENGL 478: Language and Social Policy (DIV, P&D)
ENGL 479: Language Variation and Language Policy in North America (DIV, P&D)

Creative Writing:

ENGL 283: Beginning Verse Writing
ENGL 284: Beginning Short Story Writing
ENGL 285: Writers on Writing
ENGL 383: The Craft of Verse
ENGL 384: The Craft of Prose
ENGL 387: Screenwriting
ENGL 483: Advanced Verse Workshop
ENGL 484: Advanced Prose Workshop
ENGL 485: Novel Writing
ENGL 486: Playwriting