Introduction

Welcome to the home page of the English department - a place that believes deeply in the power of literature and the act of creative expression to teach us something about the things that matter in our lives and in our world. Students in our major are encouraged to experiment, to risk and to grow. Our classrooms see instruction and learning as bound up in the big Conversation that is the discipline of English - a conversation about history and social values, about literary style and insight, about power and why people do what they do, about beauty and fear and love and difference, and ultimately, about moral truth and ethical conduct. In our major, you will encounter the questions that increase our capacity for critical thinking and creative insight, for empathy and joy. These questions might include: Do you have to tell the truth in a nonfiction memoir? Did Edgar Allan Poe drink himself to death or did he die from lost, forbidden love? Why did Charlotte Brontë place a madwoman in the attic of the man that Jane Eyre is about to marry? What is the difference between a prose poem and a short story? How should we judge the infanticide in Toni Morrison's Beloved?

Our program offers two concentrations: literary studies and creative writing. Independent thinking, discovery, and curricular innovation lie at the cornerstones of both. (Click on the course offerings link to see upcoming or recent offerings in Screenwriting, Travel Writing, Nathaniel Hawthorne, the Environmental Imagination, and Matter and Mind in 18th century Literature, to name just a few) If you have some poems or short stories or a novel or a screenplay you have always wanted to write, or if you have always wanted to learn more about a famous author or a significant period in literary history, we are the major for you. Regardless of which concentration you choose, you will have the opportunity as an English major at Otterbein to come into voice - to immerse yourself in texts and conversations that will fire your brain and ignite your creative imagination.

Our minds - and our office doors - are open to your ideas. We are warm, dynamic, and personable teachers who are committed to challenging and helping you to grow and produce your best work. We think, as I said above, of English as one great, big Conversation, and we are enthusiastic about your becoming part of it!

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