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Why Major in Literature?—–What We Say to Our Students

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Extract

What better time could there be to major in literature than now? The corpus of texts available, thanks to translation, is that of the world. The boundaries of the literary are allinclusive, embracing high and low culture. Reading lists are always a surprise. You can be a literature major and work with film, with computer-generated texts and hypertexts. You can cross over into creative writing and communications. The skills you will learn are easily transferable and will enable you to be a candidate in a variety of areas when you enter the job market, especially if you have had an internship. Humanities majors are more likely to attain leadership positions during their careers than are students in narrow technical fields. A literature major can even be combined with premed and prelaw if you are thinking about graduate school.

Type
The Changing Profession
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2002

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References

Works Cited

Baucom, Ian. “Globalit, Inc.; or, The Cultural Logic of Global Literary Studies.” PMLA 116 (2001): 158–72.Google Scholar
Booth, Wayne C. The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction. Berkeley: U of California P, 1988.Google Scholar
Palmer, Parker J. The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998.Google Scholar
Plutarch. The Age of Alexander. Trans. Ian Scott-Kilvert. London: Penguin, 1973.Google Scholar