Are you a lover of language and words?
As a student in the Indiana University Bachelor of Arts (BA) in English program at IUPUC, you may add a concentration in literature to your studies. If you are a student in another degree program, you may minor in literature.
As a literature student at IUPUC, you will read, discuss, and analyze a range of written works, for example:
- Historical complexities of Elizabethan drama in the plays of Shakespeare
- The golden age of high society and aristocracy in novels by Edith Wharton and Henry James
- Views of American transcendentalists in New England like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman
- Life in the southern United States by writers like William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, and Flannery O’Connor
- The nuanced detail of modernist poetry
In reading and analyzing these works, you will develop broad, deep understandings of the human condition across many cultures. You will also hone critical thinking skills that will serve you well, both personally and professionally, in the future.
To get a better feel for whether a concentration or minor or in literature is right for you, explore our course descriptions.
Career Options
One career that students of literature often pursue is teaching in the humanities at a university, college, or high school. If this describes you, you’ll pursue graduate study to earn a master’s or doctoral degree.
If graduate study isn’t what you had in mind, careers in these fields are possibilities:
- Computer and information technology, including social media management, Web development, and graphic design
- Business administration in public and private sectors
- Publishing, editing, writing, English translation, etc.
- The arts, including music, dance, performing arts companies, or museums and cultural organizations, including nonprofits
- Fundraising, politics, or broadcasting
- Teaching English as a second language overseas