Department of History, English Literature, and Culture

Study History, English Literature, and Culture at RWU

At Roger Williams University, students of History, English Literature, and Culture do more than read books, and faculty do more than teach classic texts (though we do that too!). Our faculty understand that History, English Literature, and Culture students are highly sought after candidates in a range of professions and careers, and we design courses that focus on transferable skills like critical thinking, research and analysis, oral and written communication.

History, English Literature, and Culture Majors and Minors build Powerful Combinations by mixing and matching other RWU academic programs that feed their interests and serve their goals, like Creative Writing, Journalism and Media Studies, Secondary Education or Educational Studies, Graphic Design, Film, and Legal Studies.

Students are encouraged to participate in community engagement and experiential learning opportunities including internships, study abroad, and off-campus programs. On our Bristol campus, we are involved with the Community Partnership Center (CPC) where local organizations work with Roger Williams University to submit requests for assistance to advance their needs. Our students have been an integral part of numerous CPC projects including working numerous museums, foundations and societies on a wide range of initiatives. History students are also involved with the Foundation for the International Medical Relief for Children (FIRMC), an organization that offers free medical care to children and mothers.

Simultaneously, we engage students in lively and important conversations about ideas, culture, creativity and the roles that language and communication play across our diverse worlds. RWU History, English Literature, and Culture students become smart consumers of culture, engaged with issues of language, media, and representation from varied contexts and in various forms. Fully prepared to use their skills and knowledge in a wide range of professional settings when they graduate, our students are closely mentored and guided toward expanding their passion for reading and research into personally meaningful careers.

Program Highlights

• Our two-semester capstone experience, in which each student produces a professional-quality research paper under the close mentorship of faculty.
• Our small faculty to student ratio means we all know each other in this program, and we have many events and projects that help us maintain our inclusive, welcoming, and supportive community.
• Our Experiential Learning requirement asks students to apply  the skills and abilities embedded in all their classes in a range of experiences, including:
  • off-campus internships,
  • fellowships in the Roger Williams University Writing Center,
  • presentations at renowned national conferences, Community Partnerships Center projects, and the Department’s “FITZ” Internship program, in which students earn work study wages while managing department events, publishing an online magazine, and facilitating communications and outreach. 

Student Magazine

Our student magazine, Voices, gives you the chance to submit your work and get published. Whether its poetry, fiction, nonfiction, or just snippets of daily life, we want to hear from you.

RWU Voices Magazine

Black Lives Matter.

Faculty in the Department of History, English Literature, and Culture support people's right to protest against oppressive systems, to find ways to make their voices heard when they are ignored, silenced, or erased by those who hold power. As faculty who study the past and its ramifications for our present, we know that effective protests have not always been peaceful, and that "civility" is often a word deployed as a tactic to control people's behaviors. In "More Devoted to Order Than to Justice," Ibram X. Kendi wrote: "If my ideological ancestors did not harass their political opponents, I would still be enslaved. I would still be segregated by law. I would still be one traffic stop away from death without any sustained movement insisting that my black life matters...Constructive confrontation is love."

As educators, our front line is the classroom, and our tool is knowledge. In our classes, students will learn about oppression, power, and privilege in history and in our present, in order to have a critical understanding of the origins of systemic and institutional racism in the U.S. and the world, and the mechanisms by which they are enabled and maintained.

Dismantling oppression and doing anti-racism work requires us to reflect on ourselves, listen to the experience of others, and know history so that we do not continue to repeat it. In that spirit, we are providing resources to foster awareness, understanding, growth, and action.