Cornell University
never heard of it.
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English Literature(s) implies that the writings being covered are English, which not all would be. Literatures in English is perhaps not as nice to read or see but its more accurate if that department is actively covering writings from other languages and cultures.
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So you are suggesting that the better name would have been “Department of subsets of literature in English?”
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They could have changed the name in “Iaith a Llenyddiaeth Saesneg” as they did in Cardiff.
Or “Département de littératures et de langue anglais”, as they do in Quebec…
About the prural, I think that there’s for sure a Canadian english literature, an Irish English literature, a Great Britain English literature, an Australian English literature, and indo-anglian literature and so on.
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Do people not understand that the difficulty with “English Literature” is that the word “English” is ambiguous between “having the nationality of England” and “written in the English language”? “English Literatures” for example, doesn’t solve this ambiguity.
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Gotta keep the subalterns in their place by establishing a rigid hierarchy, apparently. Who’s at your center? Who’s pushed to your margins?
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Technically it still does, though. England itself has many subcultures much as the US has, So you could still have “English Literatures” within England itself. Edit: You are actually making this point, sorry
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That was the part I did understand.
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Mincéir literature! Technically this wouldn’t be in English though.
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Crazy interesting though, I bet.
I am not really suggesting anything actually 
But
- “Department of Literature in English” or
- “Department of English-Language Literature”
would be OK for me…
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I suspect the purpose of the pluralized “literatures” is to respect that there are different bodies of related works that utilize the English language in a way that makes it logical to associate them. Irish literature in English is different from Haitian literature in English is different from Nigerian literature in English is different from Scottish literature in English, etc. Students might choose to focus on one of these specific groupings. And this linguistic decision to recognize plural literatures helps to de-emphasize the “English” part and focus on the individual literary category.
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The Department of Literatures in English at Cornell On-the-Gorges
Seriously, good idea, but maybe just drop the word “English” and be done with it?
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Thought about it as well, which i’d also be for. I presume that in some instances someone might be inclined to read/study a work in its original language but oh well.
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Why not both? Why can’t some people focus on the specific families of related diasporic literature, while some people focus on the global diversity of the language, and then we all recognize together that there can be and is value to both of those things?
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I agree (I think we all do) that this is what is is supposed to mean.
Certainly, you are right with this:
Irish literature in English is different from Haitian literature in English is different from Nigerian literature in English is different from Scottish literature in English, etc.
But every literature you give is still part of literature.
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I published a short story about an Irish Traveller who mostly spoke in Gammons … yet, it wasn’t until literally yesterday that I learned “Mincéir” as the indigenous name the Travellers use for themselves. (I had heard “Pavee” though I wasn’t sure if that was derogatory like some of the other more popular names for them.)
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I think it’s not an argument against the former!
Actually, quite the opposite: introducing the plural makes it sound like we needed a “new” word (emphasizing the differentness) and at the same time removed the all-encompassing meaning of the singular.
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The Department of Literatures in at Cornell On-the-Gorges?
You can’t just have two prepositions commingling like that!
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