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20
Average class size for English majors
25
Courses for majors per semester
20
Graduate seminars per semester

Our Mission

The Department of English creates and teaches knowledge about literature, poetics, writing, media, language and cultures in the English-speaking world. The Department serves constituents both inside and outside the university — including interdisciplinary programs, service-learning projects and the discipline at large — and prepares students for careers inside and outside of academia. We believe that the analytical study of our sub-disciplines helps develop logical thought, awareness of the complexity of texts and of value judgments, apprehension of others’ points of view, and imagination. English studies can expand creative, communicative and cognitive capacities; can sharpen the ability to make difficult judgments; and can help us understand societies, times and cultures different from our own.

 

What We Care About

  • Human connection: community and communication
  • Finding meaning(s) in life
  • Making a difference in the world
  • Active, participatory learning
  • Textual production, creation and expression
  • Artifacts of language: books, media, writing, comics, talk
  • The arts of persuasion
  • The pleasures of analysis
  • The ways language structures the world and the self
  • Structural change for social justice
  • The history and future of English(es)
  • The interdependency of form and content

 

 

Recent News

Left: Headshot of author Thao Thai. Right: Headshot of author Jess Everlee

Everything is Romantic ft. Alumni Jess Everlee and Thao Thai

By Reem Kadimi-Skalli

From chart-topping songs to box office hits and best-selling books, everyone is looking to get a little taste of romance. To date, romance novels remain the highest-grossing genre worldwide, but…

Cover of the book: Trust the Circle depicting Castilla Herrera besides a photo of Paloma Martinez-Cruz

Paloma Martinez-Cruz wins silver medal for Trust the Circle

By Sydney Friedt

The Department of English is excited to announce that Professor Paloma Martinez-Cruz was awarded a silver medal in the Best Biography category at the International Latino Book Awards on October 19…

Split screen image. Left: Cover of Crip Spacetime  by Margaret Price. Right: Headshot of Margaret Price.

Margaret Price awarded Alison Piepmeier Book Prize for Crip Spacetime

By Reem Kadimi-Skalli

The English Department is thrilled to congratulate Associate Professor Margaret Price, who has been awarded the Alison Piepmeier Book Prize from the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) for…

Professional headshot of Sara Cleto and Brittany Warman

English alums make magic real at Carterhaugh School

By Audrey Williams

Does magic only exist within the pages of fairy tales? Alumni Sara Cleto and Brittany Warman (both PhD ‘18) say no. To them, magic exists all around us, as folklore is the “stories we tell and the…

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