Literature
Introduction to the Major
Professors talk about what you can learn through this major.
Mission Statement
The Literature major fosters the development of critical thinking, imagination, and creativity, and aims to create graduates capable of logical thinking, interdisciplinary thinking, and sensitivity. Through its unique language act, literature mixes the worlds of imagination and reality. Literature continually derives new meanings from human experience, and continually creates and adds new meanings to human experience. Literature revolutionizes the way humans express themselves.
The mission of literary research in a Liberal Arts education is to investigate the semantic richness of human beings and their world through textual experiences. For this to be done, we must be able to read the world critically, and to accept its emotional dimensions, which are not necessarily explicable through logic alone. We must therefore learn how to apply an approach to reading and research that integrates a wide range of disciplines. In short, students of literature are students of everything: everything that exists, or can be imagined to exist.
While current educational trends prioritize rationality and practicality, a major mission for literary research is to appreciate and investigate irrationality, which tends to be rejected as troublesome. Literature also aims to understand and recognize the symbolism inherent in everyday life. These aspects of existence tend to be disregarded because we are prone to be satisfied by the consumption of superficial or material things, rather than enriching our minds with more enduring, but sometimes abstract, ideas and feelings.
The Literature major covers various literary forms, extending from Eastern and Western classical literature to more modern popular culture. The Literature major also teaches--and encourages the development of--practical skills in the creative arts, including creative writing, drama, and filmmaking.
Learning Goals
Learning goals for students majoring in Literature are as follows.
- To cultivate a heightened sensitivity towards words and verbal expression, and to gain a deep understanding of metaphoric and polysemous words. To analyze texts using critical thinking skills; to interpret texts from different critical standpoints, supported by theoretical reasoning and scholarly research; to acquire both traditional and modern analytical research skills in the field of literature. To produce well-researched critical writing that advances ideas open to others in the spirit of communal knowledge and interdisciplinary study. To practice literary creativity (including creative writing, acting, dramatic production, and filmmaking) through a strong understanding of technical skills, ancient and modern traditions, and recent innovations.