The Literature/Culture Track enables students to design a course of study in the history, meaning, function, and aesthetics of texts of all kinds. A student who completes this major will be able to identify the unique material, symbolic, formal, and aesthetic qualities of texts; apply the analytical skills and methods best suited to comprehend the significance of texts; analyze the ways that texts interact with audience, culture, medium, and ideology; evaluate the role of theory—its methods, history, politics, and functions—in textual analysis; and examine the ways in which questions of race, gender, sexual orientation, and identity affect interactions with both traditional and nontraditional texts and theory. The Literature/Culture Track prepares students for any profession that requires strong analytic, communication, cultural, and aesthetic skills, and for academic study in literary and cultural studies.