<p>Is anyone either a) a current student in the Literature/English program or b) plans to major in Lit/Eng at Duke and has some info on those majors?</p>
<p>I was wondering what the difference between the Literature major and English major is. Also, what are both majors like (teachers, how interesting are the classes, how many classes there are to select from, workload, classmates, how many people are in the major, etc etc)?</p>
<p>Any input would be awesome. Thanks :)</p>
<p>I'm an English major!!</p>
<p>Here's the differences: Literature is more cultural, I guess you can say. English is more taking American and British lit courses, courses on writing poetry/fiction/whatever. </p>
<p>Requirements for Lit: general intro course, 3 core courses (intro to film, intro to cultural studies, intro to the art of reading), you must take 1 film or lit class with a world or national focus (like indian cinema-- they got video ipods!), you also must take 1 class devoted to the study of race, class, sexuality or culture. for the rest of your classes, they can be anything in the department, but typically they're in a cluster based on one of the core classes you took. a lot of literature majors have a film/tv focus (what i was going to do) and some have a cultural studies.</p>
<p>as for the english major: you need to take general intro course (a "gateway course" -- it's english 90 which is readings in genre or reading historically. i chose readings in genre about NYC, then you have to take 1 class from each of these 4 historical periods: pre-1500, a class between 1500-1660, 1660-1860 and 1860-present. you also have to take a "criticism, theory, methodology course" which is like: intro to film, intro to linguistics, intro to cultural studies and literary theory. then you can choose your other classes freely.</p>
<p>i think both departments are great, but i ultimately chose the english one because i'm very into 20th century american lit, and then shakespeare... and the department allowed me to study both. a lot of english classes are based in film (that's my unofficial focus) and theatre and writing. it's a great department.</p>
<p>being biased, i think that the english faculty is absolutely amazing and probably has a leg up on the literature faculty. the english faculty is just very well regarded nationally-- we have reynolds price and a bunch of other "names" in the world of academia. there's always a bunch of classes to choose from and i can never decide which to take (i think on average, there's always more english classes than literature classes). workload varies from class to class. i'm in a shakespeare class now where i have to read a play per week. i took an english class last semester where i had to read like 40 pages a week. expect a couple of papers a semester (less when you have exams-- not all english courses have typical midterms and finals). i've never seen an english class with less than 5 or 6 books on the syllabus-- but i've also seen them with as many as 12. the ones with 12 books are generally shortish (at least some) and good books that you probably have a familiarity with already, though. i mean-- i love to read and write so for me having to read a lot in a week is less of a chore than doing a problem set, while other non-majors will obviously feel very differently.</p>
<p>the english major has more students than the literature major does, but it's not a HUGE HUGE number though. they take care of us and know who we all are.</p>