English

In the English department at Dickinson College, we study texts and our relation to them as readers and writers. The text might be an epic poem by John Milton or Derek Walcott; a novel by Jane Austen or Cormac McCarthy; a Shakespeare play or a Chris Ware graphic novel; a Clint Eastwood film or an Elizabeth Bishop lyric. Our common work is to learn to view these texts through multiple lenses: historical, cultural, biographical, linguistic, psychological and political. To aid students in becoming independent thinkers and articulate writers, we offer courses in rhetoric, language, and expository or creative writing. In a yearlong senior experience, majors write a 35-50 page thesis on a textual subject of their choosing. Because our graduates know how to think critically and write fluently, they flourish in a variety of professions and vocations: they become writers and bankers, teachers and politicians, lawyers and environmentalists, journalists and college professors, activists and world travelers. As we read, think, and write, our goal is to learn to live reflectively and imaginatively, to lead thoughtful, examined lives. Long after the last paper is written and course credit recorded, reading literature and writing continue to give our graduates the imaginative space Thoreau found at Walden—the space where, in his words, he learned how “to live deliberately.”

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