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

Abstract

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.