Concentration in Literary Arts and Studies

2025 - 2026 | LAS Concentration Requirements

Concentration Coordinator: Mairéad Byrne (mbyrne@risd.edu)

All RISD undergraduate candidates are eligible to add this concentration to their program of study. Interested students should contact the Literary Arts and Studies Concentration Coordinator, Mairéad Byrne (mbyrne@risd.edu) or (401) 454-6268.

RISD offers a 24-credit undergraduate concentration in Literary Arts and Studies (LAS) designed for students who wish to complement a studio major with more in-depth studies in literature, critical theory, and creative writing. The LAS concentration at RISD affords students the opportunity to create their own individualized programs by drawing on our rich and innovative curriculum. The Department offers courses in a broad range of literary histories and traditions, critical theory, and creative writing (including workshops in poetry and fiction), all of which emphasize strong critical thinking, writing, research and communication skills. The undergraduate LAS concentration can be completed within a 4 or 5-year degree program.

The Department curriculum therefore accommodates many possible avenues of study: students may opt to take as many different types of courses as possible, or choose to focus on one particular area of inquiry; they may also develop their own interdisciplinary course of study in dialogue with their studio major. Possible areas of concentration include:

• Global Literatures (including Postcolonial Literatures and Cultures)

• Theater and Performance Arts

• Film, Cultures, Theories and Criticism

• Environmental literature and Eco-Criticism

• The Politics of Identity: Race, Gender and Sexuality

• Creative Writing

Typically, concentrators meet or communicate with the concentration coordinator once or twice a year to discuss course options and to update their records. As part of the process, LAS concentrators may preregister for up to two Literary Arts and Studies courses in the fall and spring semesters. The concentration coordinator will contact all concentrators with the relevant instructions shortly before the official registration period.

notes:

*Three credits from relevant THAD, HPSS, liberal arts elective, or studio courses may be counted toward the Literary Arts and Studies electives requirement for the concentration provided that the course is approved by the concentration coordinator as part of a student’s particular program of study.

• All Literary Arts and Studies courses are labeled “LAS.”

• Students who elect the concentration must fulfill all existing Liberal Arts distribution requirements for graduation. (The nine Literary Arts and Studies credits currently required for graduation will count as part of the twenty-four comprising the concentration.)

• Concentrators must study contemporary critical theory so that they are better able to participate in current critical discussions, and they must take at least one seminar or advanced studio workshop course to experience in-depth, focused study of a specific topic or genre, which culminates in a longer written project.

Learning outcomes

Graduating LAS Concentrators are able to:

• use research- and evidence-based iterative writing methodologies and disciplinary conventions to closely read, and evaluate literary and cultural texts and media in a range of genres, traditions, time periods, and cultural contexts

• apply, modulate, and synthesize relevant critical and theoretical discourse to deepen and frame analysis and interpretation of literary and cultural texts and media

• develop an integrative and interdisciplinary program across literary arts and studies, studio art and design, and relevant humanities courses, making thematic, conceptual and applied connections across disciplines to generate creative, scholarly, and/or material projects

• evaluate spoken and written language as a dynamic of power, differentiating and managing its rhetorical, social, political and ethical functions

• build through continued practice a clear and effective scholarly and/or creative writing style to produce original work that engages other texts, practices, and contemporary culture in an informed and considered way