Description:

This certificate combines the tools of literary and cultural criticism to provide students with fundamental knowledge in how the production and analysis of texts from minoritized groups (in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, and sexuality) in North America shaped individual identity formation and cultural communities broadly.  The courses in this certificate provide essential knowledge that will productively inform discussions of minoritized identities and cultures in English students’ other coursework, as well as areas of their future academic careers or professional lives that benefit from familiarity with cultural distinction. This certificate program will give you an essential understanding of how to read, analyze, engage with, and teach texts across these diverse cultural traditions.

What Can This Certificate Do for You?

• For Majors and Minors in English Language and Literature and students in English more generally, the certificate will inform potential employers and graduate program committee members that you are knowledgeable in the literature and cultural contexts of minoritized groups.
• For those going into educational sectors, this certificate will signal to future employers and graduate committees that you possess the basic mechanisms needed to explain and engage with diverse narratives and apply this knowledge to their pedagogical practices.
• This certificate will demonstrate that you are engaged in methods of communication like deliberation, which require critical thinking and thoughtful assessment; that you can draw on literary precedents to explain the histories of marginalization, institutional racism, and the oppression of those marginalized due to their gender or sexuality in North America and elsewhere; and that you have a foundation from which to teach future students how these literary traditions inspired social and political change.
• It will address the fundamental role that diverse texts have played in shaping these histories and experiences of individuals from varied backgrounds.
• It will specifically introduce you to methods for analyzing literary approaches to power differentials in cultures, the ways that sociopolitical contexts inform works of literature, and the interactions between literary studies and cultural practices across the globe.
• This certificate will be beneficial for those outside the discipline seeking additional competency in the analysis of cultural production and narratives of identity as they relate to diverse and historically underrepresented communities. 
• It will familiarize you with the sociopolitical and historical contexts of global cultures across different periods.

Course Requirements:

Required Courses (5 credits):

• ENG 329 – Cultural Studies in Literature (5)

Electives (10 credits):

• ENG 330 – African American Literature (5)
• ENG 331 – Latina/o Literature (5)
• ENG 332 – American Indian Literature (5)
• ENG 333 – Asian American Literature (5)
• ENG 334 – American Indian Oral and Nonfiction Literature (5)
• ENG 335 – Women’s Literature (5)
• ENG 336 – Race and Literature (5)
• ENG 337 – LGBTQ+ Literature (5)

Total: 15 credits

Program Learner Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this program, students will be able to:

• Identify how the production and analysis of texts from minoritized groups (in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, and sexuality) in North America shaped individual identity formation and cultural communities broadly,
• Apply conceptual tools from the fields of literary and cultural criticism to understand the ways that cultural communities create solidarity networks, illuminate the struggle for rights, speak back to earlier cultural representations, and equip individuals with the means to combat exclusion.
• Synthesize, through literary texts and criticism, works from writers outside the traditional Western literary canon to build new repositories of key terms and theories across a range of cultures and backgrounds.
• Develop the basic mechanisms needed to explain and engage with diverse literary narratives to help prepare students to teach and discuss historical and contemporary issues of race, ethnicity, and sexuality in literary contexts.
• Demonstrate to employers and graduate programs the ability to draw on literary precedents to explain the histories of marginalization, institutional racism, and the oppression of those marginalized due to their gender or sexuality in North America and elsewhere.

Complete the online application for the Cultural Studies and Literature Certificate