Reading Lists One exit examination is required for the student who chooses to do a thesis. Thesis writers must take an exam in an area different from that of the thesis: e.g., someone writing a thesis on Dickens couldn't take the exam in nineteenth-century British literature. For the student who does not write a thesis, two exit examinations are required. Following are the readings lists for the various historical periods compiled by instructors expert in those periods. Selections are somewhat negotiable in the event that a student has a particular interest in an author or genre not present or well-represented on a particular list. • Composition • Medieval Literature • Renaissance Literature • 18th-Century British Literature • 19th-Century British Literature • American Literature before 1900 • 20th-Century American Literature • African-American Literature • 20th-Century British Literature