Student-Faculty Collaborations

The Department of English emphasizes individual mentoring throughout the course of the major. Intense conversations in class often spill out into the hallways and garden. Students also have opportunities for extended research, often in collaboration with Dept. faculty.

Senior essay:

In her senior essay, the student takes the lead in choosing her intellectual path. Working closely with faculty advisors, seniors spend the fall semester (398) exploring a research topic: pursuing leads in the library, reading widely around the topic, and brainstorming different paths a long essay project might take in the spring semester (399). Essays may include a creative component (see Dept. Guidelines for the senior essay for more details).

Extended research:

Some students seek a longer horizon and a chance to dig even deeper into their research interests. Rising juniors and seniors may apply for fellowship support from the Hanna Holborn Gray program, to pursue original research projects over the summer and/or through the year. The projects may be stand-alone or may lead into a senior essay. In either case, students work closely with faculty advisors in the same field to define the goals, methods, and potential outcomes of their research. Where there is a good fit between a Fellow's expertise and the courses taught by her advisor, she may join her advisor in the classroom as an apprentice teacher.

Recent extended research projects in the English Dept.:

• Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass : Ethnicity and American Liberal Theory.
• The Pamela Pamphlets: Popular Responses to Samual Richardson's Pamela .
• The role of Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene in the formation of the Western Literary Canon.