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The English Honors Program is open to applicants who have shown exceptional ability in English. English Honors is designed to expand and intensify the academic experiences of advanced English majors through completion of a three-quarter, cohort-based, senior-year progam.. The program builds a community of undergraduate scholars within the English Department, providing them with opportunities to work closely with UW professors in independent study and research, and with special events such as lectures and receptions.
Admission to the English Honors Program is competitive; fulfillment of minimum eligibility requirements, or membership in the College Honors program, does not guarantee admission. All students hoping to enter the English Honors Program (including College Honors students) must apply during the first three weeks of Spring Quarter for the following academic year. More information about admission can be found below.
Contents:
2009-2010 Honors: Aesthetics and Politics
This year's honors sequence explores the historical relationship between aesthetics
and politics. Aesthetics is a term used to describe a wide variety of experiences:
sometimes it refers to sensory responses to objects (pleasure, disgust, wonder)
and at other times to qualities attributed to the objects themselves (beauty,
truth, elegance). Critics have been arguing over the meaning of “aesthetics” for
many hundreds of years: does the power of an object lie in the object itself?
Or is it bestowed on the object by the viewer? Are there universal conditions
or standards of aesthetic judgment, or are objects and audiences always situated
in historically specific conditions and politically conditioned circumstances
of reception? This year’s honors sequence explores how various artists
and activists have struggled within and against conventions of aesthetic judgment.
In so doing, students and faculty alike will be asked to consider how we, as
literary critics, learn to discern and engage these struggles as they are encoded
on the page, screen, street, and scene (including scenes of education).
Each course in this sequence explores how a given grouping of texts—1980s
South African fiction, family romances, neo-slave narratives, and noir novels
and films—interrogates and intervenes in historically specific systems
of aesthetics and politics, including diverse modes of capitalism, imperialism,
nationalism, sex/gender systems, and racial formations. In her fall class, Laura
Chrisman asks how “States of Emergency” impacted aesthetic and political
struggles in 1980s South Africa, a decade when rigid racial segregation erupted
into open confrontation against the racist state and an explosion of literary
creativity created fervent critical debate about aesthetics among academics,
activists and creative writers. Also in fall, Gillian Harkins explores the tensions
between “Family/Romance” across a wide range of texts treating the
intersection of family and state, working to understand how and why “romance” promises
to wed family and state in bonds of love.
In winter, Alys Weinbaum examines contemporary novels that revisit
the experience of American racial slavery (work by Toni Morrison
and Charles Johnson are two
well known examples) in order to re-imagine the violent destruction of life
itself and to retell the story of dehumanization, accommodation,
resistance and revolt.
The course considers how these narratives form a genre and how this genre functions
politically in our time. In particular the course explores the aesthetics of
violence and memory. Also in the winter Eva Cherniavsky explores the politics
of style in hardboiled fiction and film noir, two (closely related) types of
narrative (one literary; one cinematic), that have had a remarkably long and
varied career, ranging from the detective novels of Dashiell Hammett, forged
in the contexts of popular socialism and labor militancy in the 1930s, to the
McCarthyite sensibilities of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer in the 1950s, to
contemporary 'neo-noir,' such as Walter Mosley's Devil in a
Blue Dress or Joel and Ethan
Coen's Fargo. This course considers how a hardboiled/noir aesthetic
aligns with widely differing political sensibilities and cultural politics.
2009-2010 Honors Faculty
For detailed information on 2009-10 ENGL 494 Honors seminars, consult the quarterly course descriptions.
2008-2009: "History and Imagination" (Faculty: Herbert Blau, Sydney Kaplan, Tom Lockwood, Michelle Liu)
2007-2008: "Reading Genres of (Post)Modernity" (Faculty: Carolyn Allen, Tom Foster, Charles LaPorte, Nikolai Popov)
2006-2007: "The Object(s) of Literature" (Faculty: Sydney Kaplan, Mark Patterson, Shawn Wong, Laura Chrisman)
2005-2006: "Aesthetics and Politics" (Faculty: Alys Weinbaum, Mark Patterson,
Chandan Reddy, Zahid Chaudhary)
For further
details on prior year honors seminars, see the Department's quarterly
course descriptions.
Applications to the English Honors Cohort is competitive. All students (including College Honors students) must apply to the English Honors Program and be selected through the competitive admission process.
Applications are accepted annually after Winter Quarter grades have been posted, and are due by the third Friday of Spring Quarter to begin the program the following Autumn. Space is limited. Meeting minimum eligibility requirements, or being a member of the College Honors Program, does not guarantee admission.
Students usually enter English Honors when they have Junior standing, with an average of 115-135 credits earned. A cohort of approximately 40 students will be admitted during Spring Quarter, and must complete the program over Autumn, Winter, and Spring quarters of the following academic year. Potential Honors students are identified during quarterly admission to the English major, and invitations to apply are mailed, although qualified students may submit an application at any time. Applications are available in the English Undergraduate Programs Office (PDL A-11) or English Advising (PDL A-2-B). After admission in Spring, the new English Honors students will be invited to a reception where they will have the opportunity to meet the Honors faculty team for the upcoming year and learn more about upcoming seminar topics.
To be eligible for English Honors, all students, including students in the University Honors program, must be declared English majors who apply in Spring Quarter for the following Autumn's English Honors cohort, and must have::
View/print the honors application
(or go directly to the Acrobat
download page by clicking on the following image). Please follow
their instructions for installation on your computer.
All new English Honors students are encouraged to meet and consult with the English Department faculty and staff members who administer the Honors Program:
Professor Gillian Harkins,
Director of Undergraduate Programs and English Honors
Padelford A-2H; gharkins@u.washington.edu
Mel Wensel, English Honors Adviser
Padelford A-2-B; 543-3528; wensel@u.washington.edu
Linda Ahern, English Honors Secretary
Padelford A-2-B; 543-2408; lahern@u.washington.edu
Linda Ahern identifies potential Honors students, issues invitations to apply to Honors and to attend special events, approves applications and notifies students of acceptance, receives copies of thesis projects for the Honors Essay competition, and provides other support services. Mel Wensel also receives and approves applications, maintains academic progress files for Honors students, issues add codes and provides supplemental registration assistance and academic planning. Professor Gillian Harkins is available to discuss intellectual topics, scholarly activities, and academic interests and plans with students, makes decisions regarding student requests for exceptions to Honors policies and procedures, and reviews applications for readmission after dismissal.
Students who successfully complete both Arts and Sciences and English Honors will be graduated with College Honors and With Distinction in English. Students successfully completing English Honors only will be graduated With Distinction in English. These Honors are posted to the UW transcript and noted on the diploma. To graduate With Distinction in English, students must complete all required Honors courses and maintain a minimum UW cumulative GPA of 3.3 and UW English GPA of 3.7.
WARNING: Students who have not completed all Honors requirements by their scheduled graduation date must request that the graduation date be postponed. Courses required for Honors only are not listed on the graduation application. If all B.A. requirements are complete, even if the student has outstanding Honors course work to do, the degree will be granted unless the student has officially changed his/her graduation date. Once the degree is posted, no changes can be made to the transcript, and Honors will be forfeited.
English Honors course work consists of two honors seminars (ENGL 494), one taken in Autumn and one in Winter, followed by the writing of an honors thesis in the Spring (ENGL 496).
A total of four honors seminars are offered each year, two in Autumn and two in Winter, taught by a total of four faculty members. The four seminars are linked by a theme of question, to be decided on by the participating faculty. Examples of the broadest themes or questions include" "Literature of Empire"; "Textual Studies"; "Literature and Other Arts"; "What is Modern?"; "What is Literary History?"
Two of the four honors faculty will elect to be available in the Spring to oversee the approximately 40 honors essays. (Students may also choose to work with other professors as well, either because of an existing mentoring relationship, or because of scholarly expertise. Students completing the creative writing pathway may also choose to do a creative project under the direction of an appropriate faculty member.) There will be a meeting time and room scheduled for the thesis course(s), though the supervising faculty are free to organize the course as they would like.
Honors course work may not be “doubled up,” nor may the courses be taken out of sequence. Requests to substitute other courses (e.g. graduate courses or Honors courses in other departments such as Comparative Literature) must be approved by the Director of Undergraduate Programs, Professor Gillian Harkins. These rules reflect the coordinated and developmental nature of the program and the demonstrated truth of the proposition that intellectual maturation is a process and cannot be “crammed” into existence during the last days of a student’s education.
An add code for the following course in the Honors sequence will not be issued if there is an incomplete grade or failing grade on the student’s record for the previous Honors course. For example, if an “I” appears for ENGL 494 in Autumn Quarter, an add code for ENGL 494 for the upcoming Winter Quarter will not be issued until the incomplete grade is resolved. This may result in being shut out of a desired seminar or being dismissed from the program if the incomplete converts to a 0.0. If at any time after admission a student’s grades fall below these minimum standards, he or she will be dismissed from the program. Students who have been dropped for unsatisfactory scholarship may reapply for admission at a later date if minimum GPA requirements are attained. All second applications must be accompanied by a letter of petition and two letters of recommendation from English faculty.
Registration for English Honors courses is by add code only. Add codes may be obtained from Mel Wensel in English Advising, A-2B Padelford. Add codes for honors couress are generally issued in person on a first-come, first-served basis on the first day of regular senior registration.
Honors courses may be applied to major requirements in a number of ways. Any Honors course may be used to satisfy English major elective requirements, although this works most efficiently for students following the major with an emphasis in literature. For creative writing students following the pre-2005 major requirements, ENGL 495 may be used as 5 of the 15 credits in required upper-division writing courses. Any Honors Seminar, if defined appropriately, may be used to satisfy requirements in any track in the English major. For example, if the topic of one of your Senior Seminars is “Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group,” it is very likely that it satisfies a Period 5 requirement for the pre-2005 major. Honors seminars may always be used as 400-level electives, or may satisfy core requirements as appropriate. For approval of Honors courses for specific requirements, consult the Honors Adviser, Mel Wensel (PDL A-2-B).
Honors students enrolled in the "new" honors program described here (effective Autumn 2005), but who are following the pre-Autumn 2005 major requirements (the "Old" major), may use 5 credits of ENGL 494 in place of ENGL 498, the senior seminar requirement.
Honors students following the major requirements effective Autumn 2005 (the "New" major) will use ENGL 495 or ENGL 496 as their 400-level capstone course.
The Major Conference for Honors in Creative Writing requires students to produce an "Honors Portfolio," which can consist of a number of different things, including: a collection of poetry, a collection of short fiction, a novella, a novel, novel chapters, etc. The length of the project and the nature of the work will be determined jointly by the student and the supervising faculty member. The portfolio should be the culmination of a student’s best work that represents a clearly conceived and well integrated whole (either a single, well developed work, or a coherent group of texts that make a collection). It should aspire to the level of creative work expected of graduate students in M.F.A. programs in creative writing. To achieve that level of accomplishment, the portfolio should have the following characteristics:
Every Spring quarter a particular creative writing faculty member is assigned responsibility for ENGL 495. Check with the English Advising Office (PDL A-2-B), the Creative Writing Office (PDL B-25), or check the English Department course descriptions on the web to see who is in charge of ENGL 495 each spring. That faculty member will help students choose a thesis director. The faculty member in charge of ENGL 495 will also be available to supervise projects. Students working with someone besides the instructor in charge of ENGL 495 should submit the name of that person to the designated ENGL 495 instructor. Only regular faculty members or Acting Instructors are allowed to supervise Honors projects, not graduate students (T.A.s). To register for ENGL 495, obtain an Honors Essay permission form from the Honors Adviser, Mel Wensel, in English Advising (PDL A-2-B). This form must be signed by the faculty supervisor and returned to Advising for registration.
The Major Conference for Honors requires a thesis project, a substantive essay, usually 20-30 pages, but sometimes longer. Broadly speaking, the thesis is a complex piece of research-based literary analysis, criticism, theory, or other critical work related to English. Although most people choose literary topics, students are also welcome to do thesis work in English language study (linguistics), rhetoric and composition, cultural studies, film studies, and other emerging areas of the discipline. The Honors thesis should aspire to the level of a good graduate term paper. To approach this level of competence, it should have the following characteristics:
Two of the four faculty who teach Honors Seminars during the year will be available to suvervise the honors theses. A regular meeting time and room will be scheduled for the thesis course to meet, and students will be provided with an opportunity to discuss their work -- whether a revision of past work or a newer project -- with the professor on a regular basis.
Before deciding to embark on English Honors, many students want to know what benefits the program confers. Naturally, successful completion of departmental honors means receiving an impressive additional credential. Particularly for students applying to graduate or professional school, graduating With Distinction in English puts another attractive line on the curriculum vitae. However, this should not be the sole motivation for entering the Honors program, nor is it the most significant benefit.
Building community: The Honors Program is a means
for students to build community within one of the largest and most diverse
departments in the College of Arts and
Sciences. Honors students inevitably share the common characteristics
of active intellectual engagement, curiosity and a willingness to explore
new topics and perspectives, and a strong belief in the intrinsic value of
scholarship in our discipline. One of the goals of Honors is learning how
to work effectively within a community of scholars, how to engage in a critical
conversation
with one's peers, how to negotiate a multiplicity of perspectives and intelligently
stake out intellectual commitments. Honors should provide a more intimate "home" within
the larger, vaguer framework of our rather ungainly major. By bringing 40
students together into a cohort and giving them multiple opportunities to
meet and work together and with the 4-person faculty team, we hope that a
strong sense of community will emerge.
Program coherence: The Honors program provides a coherent and cumulative program of study for students by focusing them on a defined area of inquiry or debate. Because the content and concerns of the honors courses are coordinated, students should build a strong sense of a topic or issue. By the end of the year, students should have a firm understanding of what it means to carry on a sustained conversation, to push the lines of inquiry to a new kind of depth and sophistication, and to appreciate questions from a multiplicity of critical perspectives. The topic of the Honors program in any given year will be defined in broad enough terms that every student will find an appealing point of entry rather than feeling as if they're being forced to study a narrow subject.
Graduate School preparation: Although Honors can be of great value to any English major, the program is particularly beneficial to prospective graduate students. The advanced skills described above are precisely those needed by applicants to graduate and professional school. Honors also puts students in an ideal position to fulfill the requirements of a successful graduate school application. Strong letters of recommendation are sometimes difficult for UW students to get, even if they are intellectually gifted, because their professors simply don’t know them well enough. Two quarters of seminar work and a term of intensive independent study means that faculty members get a very clear, detailed picture of their students’ abilities and accomplishments. This can translate into the effective letters of recommendation. Most graduate programs in English also require a critical writing sample, an essay of 12-20 pages, that is an extremely important part of the application. The Honors Program provides ample opportunities for producing essays suitable for use as a critical writing sample. For students applying to M.F.A. programs, the thesis quarter is an excellent time to develop a highly polished manuscript that will serve as a creative writing sample.
Students hoping to complete graduate degrees in English sometimes ask if it is “necessary” to do English Honors to be competitive. The answer to this question is: No. Many eligible students have compelling reasons for choosing not to participate in the program. Talent reveals itself in numerous ways to graduate admissions committees. The absence of Honors course work on the transcript will not damage the prospects of a student with a clear record of academic excellence.
English Honors students are frequently eligible for other categories of honors at the UW. However, one type of honor does not necessarily imply the others. It is important to distinguish English Honors from
University Honors
High Scholarship Recognition
Baccalaureate Honors
Medals
Phi Beta Kappa
Golden Key
University Honors is an umbrella term to designate all UW Honors programs, including College Honors and Departmental Honors. A student in the Honors Program includes special Honors courses in his/her program of study, usually one per quarter. In general, the honors sections of courses are smaller than the corresponding "regular" sections, allowing for more individualized instruction, and Honors sections may be more sophisticated and demanding. In addition, there are many special courses designed for Honors students, offered under the department heading "Honors Arts and Sciences" (H A&S). At present, Honors curricula are available in the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Engineering.
Honors Courses: In any given quarter, the Honors student may select one or more Honors courses from a variety of offerings.
1. Several basic science sequences have Honors sections, including the first two years of calculus, the first year of physics, and the first three years of chemistry. These courses are open to well prepared non-Honors students as well as students in the Honors Program.
2. A variety of humanities and social science courses, both introductory and advanced, are offered each quarter. For example, in past quarters Honors sections of SP CMU 220, HIST 111, 112, 113, SIS 200, 201, 202 and ECON 200, 201 have been offered.
3. Honors Arts and Sciences (H A&S) courses include several established core sequences as well as seminars and special topics courses. Non-Honors students are admitted only at the discretion of the Honors Adviser, after all Honors students have had an opportunity to register.
4. Ad-hoc Honors courses are those in which a student contracts with an instructor to obtain Honors credit for a course not designated as an Honors course. Ad-hoc credits are normally taken at the upper-division level and, commonly, in a student’s major. Underlying ad-hoc is the assumption that an Honors student who exercises this option is interested in pursuing the course to a greater depth and with more intensity than s/he could do within the framework of the regular class, and is prepared to undertake the extra work and expend the extra energy to do so. The ad-hoc option must be requested by the end of the third week of the quarter. Forms are available from the Honors adviser. Ad-hoc Honors courses are available to Honors students only.
College Honors students complete a different form of general education/distribution, normally during the first three years of study.
Arts and Sciences: Honors students in the College of Arts and Sciences complete a core curriculum of 45 credits organized, as sequenced courses, around three areas of knowledge: World Civilization, Western Civilization, and Natural Science. Any student who completely fulfills the Honors core curriculum is exempt from the 75-credit Arts and Sciences Areas of Knowledge requirement and the Additional Writing (“W”) requirement.
Engineering: Honors students in the College of Engineering also complete three core sequences but have the option of substituting a second Honors Natural Science sequence, in lieu of the second Civilization sequence, toward partial fulfillment of their Engineering Areas of Knowledge requirements.
Students who drop out of the Honors Program before completing the core curriculum must complete the entire regular general education requirement of their college. A student who has completed one or more courses of the Honors core may count the course(s) toward the Arts and Sciences Areas of Knowledge requirement. Students who complete double majors, one of which is Honors, may claim Honors general education.
Departmental Honors: Most Arts and Sciences majors (e.g. English) have developed departmental Honors programs students may complete in the junior and senior years. Such programs usually involve special Honors seminars and/or required independent research and many culminate in a senior Honors thesis or project. A student who did not participate in the College Honors Program may complete a departmental Honors program, but is not eligible to claim Honors general education. Engineering Honors students do not complete a specific departmental Honors program but rather a number of Honors Engineering seminars.
Students may enter the University Honors Program at several points:
1) Freshman Admission: Entering freshmen may apply to the Honors Program at the time that they apply to the University by submitting an additional Honors Essay and letter of recommendation.
2) Late Admission: Freshmen who did not apply from high school, and transfer students, may apply directly to the Honors Program by bringing unofficial copies of their transcripts when they meet with the Associate Director.
3) Departmental Admission: Still other students who have distinguished themselves in their disciplines may be invited by their major departments to participate in the Departmental Honors Program, with or without participating in the College Honors core.
Although grades are not the sole criterion for continuation in Honors, students are expected to maintain a cumulative GPA of 3.3. They are also expected to evidence an active participation in the Program by making normal progress toward satisfying Honors course requirements. A student may drop from the Honors Program at any time and apply appropriate Honors courses toward regular college and University graduation requirements.
Honors courses are listed with the “H” appearing at the beginning
of the course title on the transcript (e.g. H-INTRO ECON). Students
who fulfill the lower-division requirements of the College Honors Program
and who subsequently satisfy their department’s Honors requirements earn
the bachelor’s degree “With College Honors.” Students who enter the
Program in the junior or senior year by departmental invitation and who fulfill
the departmental Honors requirements become eligible to graduate “With Distinction.”
On the diploma, contrary to usual practice, the student’s major is indicated,
e.g., “B.A. in English/With College Honors.” (Completion
of only the lower-division College Honors Program is not recognized on the
transcript
or the diploma.)
The following forms of recognition are awarded to first baccalaureate degree, matriculated students in residence. Undergraduate students in all colleges of the University are eligible regardless of membership in the Honors Program.
Quarterly Dean’s List: A high scholarship notation is made on the transcript of each undergraduate student who attains a quarterly GPA of at least 3.50 for 12 UW graded credits. “Dean’s List” is entered on the line below the quarter’s courses on the transcript and a congratulatory letter is sent from the dean of the student’s home school or college.
Yearly Dean’s List: The following undergraduates receive yearly high scholarship recognition in the form of a certificate:
Such students are recognized by the notation “Annual Dean’s List” following the last quarter’s grades for the year, and by a certificate of recognition from the dean of the student’s home school or college.
Baccalaureate honors (summa cum laude, magna cum
laude, cum laude) are awarded at graduation based on GPA
and other factors (see the Registrar's
Office website for criteria). The
University’s Faculty Council on Academic Standards Honors Subcommittee
determines annually the proportions of the graduating class to receive baccalaureate
honors. GPAs are then determined by the Committee and the Registrar's
Office to yield the specified proportions within each undergraduate college. University
minimum GPAs are specified for each baccalaureate honors level, and college
GPA minima must at least equal annually stipulated University
minima. (For the most recent GPA requirements for the Seattle
campus, see http://www.washington.edu/students/reg/HonorsReqS.html.)
Freshman Medal. Annually, the sophomore having the most distinguished academic record for the first year of his or her program receives the freshman medal. The notation "Freshman Medalist" is made on the transcript. Selection is based primarily on GPA, but the rigor and quality of the student's program are also considered. Only students who have earned 36 or more graded credits in residence at the UW will be considered for this honor.
Sophomore and Junior Medals. Annually, the junior having the most distinguished academic record for the first two years of his or her program receives the sophomore medal. The senior having the most distinguished academic record for the first three years of his or her program receives the junior medal. The notation "Sophomore Medalist" or "Junior Medalist" is made on the transcript. Selection is based primarily on GPA, but the rigor and quality of the student's program are also considered. Only students who have earned 40 or more graded credits in residence at the UW will be considered for these honors.
President's Medal. The President's Medal, which is conferred at commencement, recognizes the graduating senior who has the most distinguished academic record. Only students who have earned at least 90 credits at the UW may be considered. The notation "President's Medalist" is made on the transcript, under the name of the degree awarded.
Phi Beta Kappa is a national
honorary organization whose purpose is to recognize and honor students
with excellent undergraduate academic records. Requirements for election
are established by each local
chapter. The requirements are meant to ensure that members have
had a quality liberal education; at the UW students in all colleges are
welcomed if they meet these standards.
Election: Students do not apply to Phi Beta Kappa.
Instead, the Registrar’s Office provides the UW chapter with the transcripts
of all students who meet the credit and GPA requirements. The chapter
then determines whether the general education and upper-division breadth
requirements are met. If so, the student is mailed an offer of election.
Golden Key is a national
interdisciplinary academic honors organization whose purpose is to recognize
and encourage scholastic achievement in all undergraduate fields of study. Golden
Key seeks to bring together undergraduates, college faculty, and administrators
in developing and maintaining high standards of education
and in promoting voluntary service to school and community.
Election: Students are normally invited into
Golden Key each Fall quarter on the basis of meeting credit and class rank
criteria. At other times, students who have subsequently become eligible
may contact the UW
Golden Key chapter office for information.
Members of the UW
chapter of Sigma
Tau Delta, an international English honor society, note that the society's
purpose is to "confer
distinction upon students of the English language and literature, while
also providing an opportunity
to create a sense of community in the department."
