Table of Contents - Hartwick College

English
Our mission is to lead students to a deep appreciation of literature and
the quality of writing that ensures its beauty and endurance.
The love of words and joy in the creative use of language form the basis of
literary study. That study emphasizes the rich heritage and diversity of
American and British literature and includes works from other cultures.
The department teaches a disciplined approach to reading this literature
and writing about it, from a wide range of critical perspectives.
Students come to realize that language and the imagination can create
worlds which, like ours, delight, disturb and challenge. The study of
literature, therefore, helps students understand the world in which they
live and their places in it. Exploring our diverse literary heritage requires
students to engage in a sensitive, subtle search for meanings. Through
analysis, debate, critique and dissent, they become better able to
formulate and express their own ideas.
The study of literature reminds us that all people have voices and that
much of our greatest literature has challenged prevailing cultural norms.
The individual’s encounter with literature has always been a crucial part
of the process of transformation, of self-definition; for poems, stories,
novels and plays record our blindness, our follies and our crimes just as
surely as they record our insights, our virtues and, occasionally, our
genius. We study literature, literary theory, writing, and culture-history
not just to affirm our beliefs and traditions, but to examine them
critically.
In keeping with its emphasis on written expression, the department offers
a variety of courses in creative and expository writing. Creative writing
courses use literary study, workshops and individual conferences to help
student poets, novelists, essayists and playwrights understand the creative
process and create afresh imagined worlds. Courses in the Writing
Competency Program employ several rhetorical and pedagogical
strategies to ensure that students graduate knowing how to write well.
The Writing Center works in concert with writing and literature courses
and across the disciplines, helping students from all majors achieve skill,
precision, and grace in their writing.
Our mission includes maintaining and staffing the following programs:
Program I Literature Courses for Majors: a wide range of courses,
including period surveys, major author courses and topic-oriented
courses.
Program II Intermediate and Advanced Expository Writing: courses
in essay writing, business writing and journalism for students who
aspire to become professional writers. These courses support a writing
minor and the English major with emphasis in writing.
Program III Creative Writing: basic, intermediate and advanced
courses in the writing of fiction and poetry, which meet the creative and
performing arts requirements of Curriculum XXI. They support the
writing minor and English major with a concentration in creative
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