English BA

Barton’s English faculty are experienced professionals who believe in challenging and developing students. Many have received the Jefferson- Pilot Faculty Member of the Year Award, the highest award for teaching at the college.

By majoring in English, you’ll have opportunities for active participation in your learning in classes and in extracurricular activities. Our students have recently studied in London and China, and you’ll be able to follow your own interests through special internships and independent studies. In addition, you can choose to participate in one of the frequent travel courses to England, Ireland, Italy or Greece sponsored by the English and Theatre programs.

Along with bringing visiting writers to campus each semester through our Boone Southern Authors Series and Victor R Small Writers Series, we sponsor special programs such as Writing Center tutoring and the English Club, which produces its own literary publication, LifeLines. Classes participate in field trips to plays and other cultural events in nearby cities.

The English major offers two tracks: Creative Writing or Literature. The literature track provides a strong foundation in literature, covering all major areas of British and American literature as well as women writers, African-American literature, and non-western works. We’ve also just introduced a focus in Literature of the American South to complement the various writing series we sponsor.

If you’re interested in writing, our recently revamped creative writing track is a great option. Here you’ll find courses on writing for many different genres, from creative writing to journalism to technical writing. We’ve recently added Poetry writing, Fiction writing, as well as a course on publishing to our offerings.