Mission

The Literature, Writing and Publishing department recruits, supports, and retains faculty members who are active scholars and accomplished instructors to pursue a study and a discussion of humane ideas as they are found in the literature and culture of societies where English is the dominant or colonizing language. By association and membership in professional organizations, LWP faculty regularly participate in and contribute to the wider community of scholarship, research, and pedagogical theory in the disciplines of literature, writing, and cultural studies. We seek to serve the larger academic community and the local Brooklyn community through event programming and collaborative projects.

We provide our students with an education of the highest quality in American, British, and world literature and cultural studies. In writing, we integrate breadth with depth, recognizing tradition’s place in contemporary expression. We look to have our students become independent, self-motivated learners, confident in their research and synthesizing skills; we attract students from diverse geographical, professional, racial, and ethical backgrounds; and we encourage minority and foreign applicants as well as returning and adult learners.

To achieve these general goals, the Department of Literature, Writing and Publishing operates three groups of programs: The Writing Program, The General Education Program Courses and Electives in English Language and Literature, The Major and Minor Programs.

The Writing Program

• Students will improve upon inadequate writing preparation and poor written expression by enrolling in courses designed to remediate writing problems while allowing students to demonstrate competence in written expression..
• Students will develop skills, confidence and competence in written expression.
• In their writing, students will develop sound organization of thought, clarity in the structure of sentences and paragraphs, forceful, energetic prose and critical thinking.
• Students with second language and dialect interference problems will be able to move into the mainstream of standard written edited English.

The General Education Program Courses and Electives

• Students will increase their understanding of traditional genres by study in courses in major authors and in special topics courses on contemporary authors and trends.
• Students will refine their interpretive skills by being introduced to a variety of critical methods in courses on critical topics and the nature of literary analysis.
• Students will be able to discuss literary and cultural theories, enriching their understanding of a work.
• Students will be able to explain the richness and diversity of the social and ethical values in literature and their response to those values.
• Students will be able to demonstrate sine if their sensitivity to language and to literary structure in their own writing through the cognitive and affective aims of the required writing component of each course.

The Major and Minor Programs

• Students will be able to discuss and explain a variety of critical methods in courses on critical topics and the nature of literary analysis.
• Students will strengthen their response to literature upon completion of courses that focus on British, American, and international literary and cultural motifs.
• Through practice in careful, critical reading, students will develop a sense of literary and cultural theories, enriching their understanding of the texts they are examining.
• Students will develop skills, confidence, and competence in written expression through the required writing component of each course, by courses offered in advanced writing and research, and through courses in creative writing.
• Students will participate in internship opportunities and career counseling for both majors and minors to prepare them for graduate studies in English, as well as a wide range of careers.