<p>so i majored in engilsh, because i wanted their skills: communication, writing, analyzing, etc. (or is this major just praised because i live in a white man country?) see, i enjoy how they do stuff, but i don't really like what they're doing (strange issues i don't get, and people who write things i don't generally care for). just looking to see if any other majors offer these skills as well.</p>
<p>Classics and Philosophy. You could also do a spin-off of English (IE, Comparative Literature).</p>
<p>Any of those place a lot of value of analyzing and communication.</p>
<p>But at least neither of those majors embrace postmodernism like English does...which would be enough to deter me from an English major altogether. :P</p>
<p>what is that btw? i couldn't stand the thought of having to compare postmodernism to modernism</p>
<p>art history, says my english major friends</p>
<p>Postmodernism basically says that the reader gives meaning to a text. So John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath isn't about a family going to California during the Great Depression. It's about environmentalism, as the car breaks down it represents the depleating oil reserves and each member of the family represents a different kind of tree...</p>
<p>You take my meaning?</p>
<p>It's really ridiculous, and no one in philosophy really takes it seriously. But it's huge in English departments.</p>
<p>Haha yeah. My eyes enlarged with disbelief. Some of them analyze it way too deeply. I'm taking my first Philosophy class, which is very interesting. But after going for an English major, I'm not used to reading Philosophy text at all. I might even have done better if I didn't go for English. I'm too used to the English writing style, which is also very different from Philosophy writing. In fact, I found out the English writing style is really only good within their department. Marketing don't really dig that style either. Don't know about History papers though.</p>
<p>It's not even that they're "over analyzing"--post modernism is about how the READER gives MEANING to the TEXT. So this post I'm writing has no meaning until you read and interpret it. It's not about what I'm actually trying to say at all.</p>
<p>Some people are just crazy. That's all I've got to say about THAT. ;P</p>
<p>Hm. Postmodernism grew out of movements in Continental philosophy. Some philosophy departments take phenomenology, structuralism and poststructuralism seriously; others don't.</p>
<p>Postmodern theory is a bit outmoded for some English departments; others are still centered in this type of criticism.</p>
<p>The idea behind postmodernism is not the one given. No, it's that the teller is the tale. In other words, there is no content without point-of-view. Postmodernism also recycles styles and narrative strategies from the past and self-consciously employs them. This gesture was borrowed from architechture, the field in which the term postmodernism first appears to refer to work that left behind international modernism and made reference to architectural styles of the past.</p>
<p>Postmodernism also refers to the lack of continuous narrative and reacts against the heroic aspects of modernism.</p>
<p>golddustwoman: You are referring to Reader Response Theory, and oversimplifying it at that. Postmodernism is not the same thing.</p>
<p>I'm refering to the fact that most postmodernists subscribe to these hermeneutics and it is a part (certainly not the whole) of postmodern philosophy--a sort of incredulity towards meaning. They denounce the fact that there is a "correct" interpretation. This includes reader-response criticism, though more radical than what you are suggesting, which is very dominant in English departments in Universities and colleges across America.</p>
<p>Public policy analysis may be similar. My D is majoring in both Public Policy and Englsh.</p>
<p>I would suggest Linguistics. Its close enough that a background in English (grammar anyway) will really help you out. Linguistics is definitely more analytical though. I like to think of it as a cross between English and Philosophy (logic for the most part) as well as some Psychology, which varies for different subfields from where it practically is a branch of Psychology to where the questions and theory comes from psychology (such as the theory generative grammar).</p>
<p>By the way I apologize if my post is incoherent. It's 3:33 in the morning and I just finished two major problem analyses.</p>
<p>do you not like english because it's mostly literature based? if you like the more technical stuff, journalism might interest you.</p>
<p>"communication, writing, analyzing, etc."</p>
<p>Why not history? It's less about these sort of abstract literary concepts than English is.</p>
<p>I took one Art History class and was under the impression that the structure of the course may be similar to English. However, it's naturally a far more visual major than English or History. Thus, while you will write papers, they may not be of the kind you want to write. Also, the reading you do will be of very dry textbooks, which many students choose not to read at all. Thus, you can go through Art History while hardly reading depending on the department and professors.</p>