English Lit vs. Cultural Studies?

[Stormborn]

Hello!

I am currently in the process of sorting out what I would like to go to graduate school for. (I know, I know.) I would like to go back for some combination of literature, media, the environment, dystopia, and possibly internet subcultures but am not totally sure what cohesive form all of those would take (and, moreover, if all of them will make the final cut). One thing I *do* know is that I would like my ultimate focus to be on the written word.

I was an English undergrad (and absolutely loved it!) but am wondering if my desire to stray beyond specific literature periods and into more digital materials means I should look into less formal programs. 

[cowgirlsdontcry]

16 hours ago, Stormborn said:

Hello!

I am currently in the process of sorting out what I would like to go to graduate school for. (I know, I know.) I would like to go back for some combination of literature, media, the environment, dystopia, and possibly internet subcultures but am not totally sure what cohesive form all of those would take (and, moreover, if all of them will make the final cut). One thing I *do* know is that I would like my ultimate focus to be on the written word.

I was an English undergrad (and absolutely loved it!) but am wondering if my desire to stray beyond specific literature periods and into more digital materials means I should look into less formal programs. 

My own personal opinion about this is that there is no need to look into less formal programs, unless that is what you want to do. Literature encompasses many types of media in the 21st C and most of us (lit majors that is) have strayed into the different realms. I have taken film classes and on my final paper in one, compared Defoe's early modern novel A Journal of the Plague Year with the rage movie 28 Days Later--same basic plot. I was RA to a film professor (and TA to an Americanist) and did a lot of research on various film techniques and producers (i.e. Coen Brothers). In my MA thesis, I had to delve into how movies have helped create a divergence in what was really the Old West into what the vision of it has become now, when I wrote the chapter on McCarthy's Blood Meridian. I took part in writing and creating a video about the girl sleuth Nancy Drew in a literature class that featured various incarnations of Sherlock Holmes. I have written a cookbook as the final project for my Southern Renaissance Class in the spring semester just ended, finding and using quotes about food to illustrate how the authors were able to envision class/race through representations of food, as well as including recipes to those foods. Food is a big thing in Southern lit and it is also seen fairly often in other genres of literature to illustrate culture. We can like a lot of different things and they bring knowledge to us that we then use in other ways. It's all just part of finding your way in your scholarly interests.