Contact Information
138 Duns Scotus Hall
phone: (716) 839-8541
daemen.edu/english
Blog: http://daemencollegeenglish.blogspot.com/
Chair
Hamish Dalley
138-2 Duns Scotus Hall
(716) 839-8416
Degrees Offered
Minors
Career Field Experience
An English major can best begin to see the broad range of applications for the skills developed in coursework by engaging in a Career Field Experience, which places students as interns in local businesses and organizations. One recent intern reports that her placement confirmed her choice of major: “my studies are heading me in the right direction because my job did not seem like work to me, but rather a welcoming community where I could put my skills to use every day.”
Mission Statement
The Daemen University English Department prepares students for life in a complex, globally-interconnected world. Our three major programs (English, Adolescent Education in English, and Professional Writing and Rhetoric) cultivate critical thinking, imagination, and problem-solving skills by emphasizing close reading, writing as a process, and oral communication. We aim not only to impart skills but provoke transformation.
English department faculty are nationally and internationally recognized experts in literature, film, and writing. We place a strong emphasis on ideas and experiences that open new horizons. We are focused on helping students gain a broader understanding of the world and appreciation of diversity by encountering new concepts, nationalities, and cultures. Our faculty work closely with students inside and outside the classroom. Taking students to local sites, lectures by important authors, and international research, trips help us reinforce material introduced in the classroom. Our students are encouraged to publish in Insight, our campus newspaper, and Iconoclast, our creative writing journal.
We believe that whether your goal is to work in law, education, business, library science, nonprofits, publishing, or elsewhere, a strong grasp of reading and writing in diverse settings is the key to a successful career. Further, we know critical and rhetorical skills translate well across professional contexts, so if you switch career paths you will do so with the confidence that you are prepared.
In addition to our three major programs, we offer minors in literature, literature and composition, professional writing, public relations, and political communication. These shorter programs add breadth and distinction and can be integrated with a professional degree or major in another discipline. A minor in English provides a point of differentiation that sets our students apart from their peers.
We challenge our students to analyze texts they otherwise wouldn’t encounter and consider ideas that are new and sometimes disorienting. We believe a rigorous educational experience and supportive faculty mentoring help our students reach their maximum potential.
Departmental Learning Objectives
Through this program of study, English majors will:
- demonstrate a sustained and critical analysis of elements that shape texts, including the role of audience, purpose, and culture in their production and reception.
- articulate an understanding of multiple ways of reading (understanding) and of the range of interpretive and communicative strategies available in particular contexts.
- identify and respond to textual conventions, appropriately adjusting reading and composing strategies to suit social, rhetorical, and/or aesthetic functions.
- evaluate the significance of texts, reflecting an awareness of how aesthetic values, historical and cultural context, rhetorical orientation, and critical approach convey authority and relevance.
- compose strategically, effectively, and ethically across modalities (e.g., essays, visuals, graphics, presentations, creative works, etc.) and for a range of audiences and purposes.
- discuss and write about texts so as to engage meaningfully in ongoing scholarly, disciplinary, or civic conversations.
- recognize that perspectives are shaped by context and be able to articulate how diversity manifests in texts with reference to inequalities of power.
- engage experiences outside of the classroom (life experiences and academic experiences such as internships and global programs abroad) related to course work in order to better understand the field(s) of study.
- identify and evaluate major literary periods and movements, tracing the influence of previous trends and styles on later authors and texts.