The study of literature at UC Santa Cruz is organized as an interdisciplinary field coordinated through a single Department of Literature, rather than through separate departments of English, modern languages, and classics. This structure fosters innovative and comparative approaches to literature among both faculty and students. Courses in the major encompass traditional literary history and interpretation as well as cross-cultural inquiry and current theoretical debates.

Study and Research Opportunities

• B.A. with the concentrations listed below; M.A.; Ph.D.
• In the Creative Writing concentration, students work with faculty in upper-division workshops to improve their creative writing skills. In the senior year, each student produces a senior project consisting of a significant body of creative work. Admission to this concentration is selective.

Literature08.pdf

High School Preparation
In addition to completing the courses required for UC admission, high school students planning to major in literature at UC Santa Cruz should emphasize reading and writing skills in high school. Some background in a foreign language is helpful.

Transfer students are urged to declare the major in their first quarter at UC Santa Cruz. Students must successfully complete Literature 1 (Literary Interpretation) or its equivalent prior to declaring the literature major or minor. A student may petition to receive credit toward the lower-division requirements of the major for up to three courses taken at other institutions. An introduction to literature course may be used to satisfy the Literary Interpretation course requirement. Two literature courses may be applied toward the Literature 61 series and the Literature 80 series course requirements.

UC Santa Cruz lower-division requirements in literature are:
• Literary Interpretation: close reading and analysis of literary texts
• One Literature 61-series course: categories, methodologies, and problems of literary study
• One Literature 80-series course: topical, thematic, and comparative study of literary texts

Standard literature major: Thirteen courses are required: three lower-division and 10 upper-division courses. One of the latter may be a Senior Seminar, which may be used to satisfy the campus comprehensive (exit) requirement. In exceptional cases, and with faculty permission, students may write a senior thesis to satisfy the exit requirement. Students must successfully complete Literature 1 (Literary Interpretation) or its equivalent prior to declaring the literature major or minor.

Intensive literature major: Fifteen courses are required: three lower-division and 12 upper-division courses. One of the upper-division courses may be a Senior Seminar, which may be used to satisfy the campus comprehensive (exit) requirement. Students who choose the intensive literature major are required to achieve competence in a second language literature. Upper-division literature course work may require completion of a lower-division language sequence or the equivalent.

Transfer course agreements and articulation between the University of California and California community colleges can be accessed on the ASSIST web site.

Careers

Advertising
Civil service
Communications
Editing
Journalism
Law
Library science
Literary criticism
Literary research
Professional writing
Publishing
Teaching
Translation

These are only samples of the field’s many possibilities.

Recognition
Professor of literature Nathaniel Mackey is a prolific author of poetry and prose who was elected to the Board of Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets. Professor Mackey received the 2006 National Book Award in Poetry for his book Splay Anthem. He was also named the 2007 recipient of UCSD’s Roy Harvey Pearce Prize, and in 2008, he earned the Stephen Henderson Award of the African American Literature and Culture Society in San Francisco.

Professor Sharon Kinoshita received an honorable mention award from The Modern Language Association of America (MLA) in 2007 for her book, Medieval Boundaries: Rethinking Difference in Old French Literature.

Associate professor of literature Louis Chude-Sokei was named a finalist for the 2007 Hurston/Wright Legacy award in nonfiction for his book The Last "Darky": Bert Williams, Black-on-Black Minstrelsy, and the African Diaspora.

In 2007, associate professor of literature and creative writing program co-director Micah Perks was awarded a $25,000 Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).

The Concentrations
The purpose of the upper-division area of concentration is to help students shape a coherent program of study. The department provides several defined concentrations, described below. For all concentrations except national/transnational literatures, texts may be read in the original or in translation.

National/Transnational Literatures
These concentrations examine literature within the frameworks of particular languages or national and regional traditions. National/transnational concentrations require that texts be read in the original language.

• English-language literatures
The study of American and British literature, as well as literatures of other English-speaking peoples around the world.
• French literature
The study of French and Francophone literatures, languages, and cultural practices of France, Africa, and the Caribbean.
• German literature
The study of the literature, language, and cultural practices of the German-speaking areas of central Europe including Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
• Greek and Latin literatures
The study of the literature, languages, and cultural practices of ancient Greece and Rome. Students may choose to concentrate in Greek or Latin or both.
• Italian literature
The study of Italian literature, language, and cultural practices from the Middle Ages to the present.
• Spanish/Latin American/Latino literatures
The study of literatures, language, and cultural practices of Spain, Latin America, and Latino populations in the United States.

Creative Writing
The Department of Literature offers a sequence of workshops from introductory through advanced levels in both poetry and fiction. Other activities available to interested students include participation in the production of literary journals on campus, attendance at readings by visiting writers, and use of a creative writing reading room.

Admission to this concentration is selective. Interested students are required to take one lower-division workshop at UC Santa Cruz before applying to the creative writing concentration.

Students accepted into the concentration must complete three advanced writing workshops and a senior project (e.g., a group of stories, a significant portion of a novel, a collection of poems). To apply for admission to the creative writing concentration, students should submit a completed application form (available at the Literature Department Office) and a thoughtful selection from their work (8–10 pages of poetry or fiction). Once accepted into the concentration, students are required to declare (or redeclare) the major in literature. At that time, students should meet with their adviser to discuss plans for a senior project.

Pre- and Early Modern Studies
The interdisciplinary study of literatures and cultures from antiquity through the early 18th century, especially in Europe. Study of popular culture and everyday life as well as readings in masterpieces of classical, medieval, early modern (Renaissance), and neo-classical literature.

Modern Literary Studies
The study of literature of the 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. This concentration examines ways in which modernity in general and literary modernism and postmodernism in particular emerge and develop in different countries and cultures.

World Literature and Cultural Studies
The study of literature and cultural production both within a global context and within specific histories and economies. Courses move beyond the literary text to include nonverbal forms of representation such as social movements and everyday life practices.