A year after gaining its independence, the writing-intensive literary arts concentration has drawn positive student reaction, though it still suffers from resource limitations.
Formerly a subset of the Department of English, the Literary Arts Program became a stand-alone concentration in March of last year. "It was a defensive move on the part of writers to define their own destiny," said Adjunct Professor of Literary Arts Robert Coover, one of about 14 faculty members in the Literary Arts Program.
The new program is "truly a balance between the writing-intensive and reading," said Peter Gale Nelson, assistant director and primary concentration adviser of the Literary Arts Program. When the class of 2006 graduates in May, 21 students will have graduated with a degree in literary arts, and 33 are scheduled to graduate from the concentration next year.
For the most part, students interested in writing and literature seem pleased with the new concentration. Felicity Rose '06, a co-coordinator of the Literary Arts Departmental Undergraduate Group, immediately changed her concentration from English to literary arts when the new program was announced. Rose, who wanted to get credit for writing classes, said "it was pretty easy" to change her concentration during her junior year.
"The literary arts requirement is much more accepting of lots of different kinds of classes," she said. "You can pretty much take classes in any department ... where you have to read literary books. I kind of like it, because it gives you a lot of room to create your own interest."
Alison Nguyen '08, who was planning to concentrate in English before the literary arts concentration was created, also stressed the flexibility of the new requirement. "My experience with literary arts has not taken me on an organized, clear-cut path," said Nguyen, who has taken classes ranging from LR 101: "Advanced Poetry" with Professor of English Michael Harper to EL 119, Sec. 1: "Writing the Southeast Asian War" with Senior Lecturer in English Elizabeth Taylor. "But maybe that's the beauty of the concentration - it's compatible to you going on your own weird odyssey as a writer," she added.
Andrew Fox '06, another co-coordinator of the Literary Arts DUG, changed his major from philosophy to literary arts when the new concentration became available. "My experience with the literary arts department has ranged. My poetry class last semester was easily the best class I've taken at Brown ... while (other literary arts classes) are not as stimulating," he said.
Though he is generally pleased with the literary arts concentration, Fox said if he could start again as a first-year he would have concentrated in English because the department's introductory classes, despite their shortcomings, cover valuable background material, he said.
The creation of the new concentration has also highlighted certain needs of the literary arts program going forward. The department is currently searching for a new professor of fiction in order to increase the program's course offerings in fiction and narrative areas, according to Nelson.
Another common complaint about the program is the small number of literature and theory classes offered, a problem that will not be addressed by the faculty search. One reason for the scarcity of such classes, according to Nelson, is the fact that the literary arts concentration allows literature classes offered in other departments to count toward its graduation requirements.
The dearth of literature classes is also a resource issue, Coover said. "We used to teach literature classes all the time ... (but there is) no room in our program for these classes," he said. "I'd rather have writers study with writers ... but we don't have the resources to expand classes."
Students also noted the difficulties of dealing with a department staffed by professors who sometimes seem to put writing above teaching. "A lot of people in the department are not professors so much as writers. So they are much more interested in themselves and what they are writing than they are in students," Rose said. She quickly added that this was far from true of all literary arts professors, but that "it's an adjustment process for them to be their own department where people are actually going to expect things from them."
As the literary arts program transitions from being a subset of the Department of English to a stand-alone department, it has continued to develop public programs. "What the literary arts department does is present Brown in its most entertaining form," Coover said, citing the "Writing for Satellites: Brown E-Fest 2006" electronic writing festival held last month and the upcoming gathering of writers from McSweeney's Quarterly. "Although we must address our fragility in terms of numbers, I think now, as the literary arts department and not as part of the English department, the work we do (for the campus) will be more transparent," he said.
Besides the possibility of an addition to the faculty, the literary arts concentration will retain the same structure for the 2006-2007 academic year. "The literary arts department faculty will likely meet next academic year to discern whether any updates or adjustments need to be made," Nelson said. "But so far the concentration requirements will remain the same."
