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English Department

English Literature and Writing

English Literature

Bethel's English Department offers both a major and a minor in English Literature with courses ranging from World Literature to Shakespeare to The Harlem Renaissance.  The English Literature major is just 36 credits which allows students to easily combine it with other majors or courses of study.  In this major, you will meet professors like Dr. Thomas Becknell, an American Literature scholar and published author who has strong interest in the environmental sciences as well.  Dr. Dan Ritchie is a British Literature scholar who established Bethel's four semester Humanities general education option. Access an audio file of his lecture at the McLaurin Institute here.  Dr. Mark Bruce is a Bethel graduate who has returned to teach courses like Chaucer, Shakespeare, and World Literature.  His passion is medieval studies--see a sample of his interactive Beowulf here.
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"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn
Credits for English Literature Major: 35-36
Credits for English Literature Minor: 18
    
     

English Literature and Writing

    The Literature and Writing major gives students the opportunity to both read and create literature.  It includes most of the literature study required for the English Literature major but includes significant coursework in writing as well.  There are over fifteen writing courses from which to choose, ranging from Poetry Writing to Principles of Editing and Design.  In this major you will meet Dr. Joey Horstman, an essayist who also directs Bethel's Film Studies program.   Here is a review of Joey's work written by a departmental graduate who has his own freelance writing business. Professor Angela Shannon is a poet who was recently nominated for a Minnesota Book Award and teaches Introduction to Creative Writing and Poetry Writing.  She also is the faculty advisor to the Coeval, Bethel's literary journal. Read a sample poem here courtesy of PoemHunter.com.  Dr. Marion Larson brings an expertise in Japanese literature to the department's World Literature course as well as directing Bethel's Honors Program.  Dr. Dan Taylor has written a number of books including The Myth of Certainty and Letters to My Children
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 "...the well of true wit is truth itself, the gathering of the precious drops of right reason, wisdom's lightning; and no soul possessing and dispensing it can justly be a target for the world, however well armed the world confronting her."
George Meredith, Diana of the Crossways
Credits for Major:49-50
Credits for Creative Writing Minor: 19-22
    
     
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 Recent England Termers pose for a
picture on the set of the Royal Shakespeare
Company's Comedy of Errors. 		 
     

Other Off-Campus Opportunities


The department offers Travel Writing each January so students get the opportunity to explore the intersection of culture and writing as well as to learn specific strategies for this genre.  Groups have recently traveled to Australia and Costa Rica with Dr. Dan Taylor.

In Interim 2010, Dr. Daniel Taylor will be taking students to Brazil and Argentina to study that art and craft of travel writing. For more information, click here.

    
 To see the English Department section of the academic catalog, click here.