The Value of English and Theatre Studies

This subject brings together English and Theatre Studies majors for a culminating experience that explores the value of these disciplines and their place within the humanities, while allowing students to explore an independent project of their own devising. It will demonstrate the specific disciplinary skills and academic rigour that distinguish the study of literature and theatre, with an exploration of methods such as close reading, historicism and performance study. Each week students will engage with the history and future of our disciplines through a range of speakers and critical positions. Students will return to key genres, ideas, and approaches to studying literature and performance in ways that challenge and extend their knowledge and skills and inform their own independent projects. Informed by practical and methodological lectures, they will choose, plan and execute on a project, with guidance from staff, that showcases their investment in their major in original and exciting contexts, whether they be conceptual and research-based or practical and industry-facing. Students will decide on the most appropriate form for communicating their research to their desired audiences (essays, reviews, websites, podcasts, policy, etc.). An end-of-semester conference will offer the opportunity to share the results of the students’ projects and celebrate the completion of the major.