American University in Bulgaria

Literature (Secondary Major)*

The Literature Major is a rigorous, critical, academic program that pairs close textual analysis and theoretical perspectives. Students who major in Literature will engage with a wide variety of texts in order to develop skills in close reading and textual analysis.  They will also develop an understanding of literary history, genre conventions  and modern practices in literary theory and research. 

Literature majors will learn to develop, support, and articulate complex arguments about texts and to present those arguments and insights in a well-crafted, articulate, and responsive manner.  The Literature Major also promotes the development of a sense of literary, cultural and social history across multiple nations, ethnicities and eras.

The Literature Major is designed to enable all graduates to meet the following outcomes:

• demonstrate an understanding of major works of British, American and World literatures.
• demonstrate an understanding of the ways in which meaning is created and crafted in literary works.
• develop close reading skills and an understanding of literary and rhetorical conventions.
• produce logically developed, rhetorically coherent, thoroughly researched papers that are both convincing and creative.
• demonstrate literary knowledge, both theoretical and practical, necessary to flourish in liberal arts professions and/or future graduate studies.

Literature majors will thus be well-prepared for careers in such areas as writing, publishing, public relations, library sciences and teaching; for graduate programs in the liberal arts; and for professional programs leading to the study of law.

* Secondary majors are those that are accredited in the United States and result in an American diploma only.