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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
  • Examining society through scholarship and fostering inclusion
  • The history and future of English(es)
  • The interdependency of form and content

 

 

Upcoming Events

Cecily Hill
August 25, 2025

Cecily Hill: Advocacy and Coalition Building for Humanists Now

Event Start Time: 1:00 pm
Event Location: Smith 1005
Left: Angus Fletcher, middle: Primal Intellegence by Angus Fletcher, right: James Clear
August 27, 2025

Prof. Angus Fletcher in Conversation with James Clear

Event Start Time: 7:00 pm
Event Location: Columbus College of Art & Design, Canzani Auditorium (60 Cleveland Avenue Columbus, OH 43215)
A scene from the The Faithful Shepherdess
September 3, 2025

LDP presents The Faithful Shepherdess: the Film!

Event Start Time: 7:00 pm
Event Location: 311 Denney Hall
Oval in autumn
September 4, 2025

Welcome (Back) English Majors!

Event Start Time: 3:00 pm
Event Location: 311 Denney Hall

Recent News

Four 3D printed projects: a black dragon; purple cabin and trees; collaged photo and word tiles; and a Scrabble board

3D-printing Frankenstein: critical making in the digital media classroom 

By Reem Kadimi-Skalli

“Everything is Frankenstein,” Senior Lecturer Calvin Olsen exclaims. “Everything is made of smaller parts that are pieced together that somehow work and eventually do something.”  …

Kelsey Stratman

Kelsey Stratman awarded Graduate Student Engaged Scholar Seed Grant

By Audrey Williams

The Department of English is excited to announce that Kelsey Stratman, PhD student in writing, rhetoric, and literacy, has been awarded a 2025-2026 Graduate Student Engaged Scholar Seed Grant to…

Within a scarlet border, the message "we're hiring" is repeated three times in block letters

Undergrads: come work for English!

The Department of English is seeking undergraduate student workers to join two teams: Front Desk/Department Ambassadors and the Digital Media Project. Multiple positions are open on each team, and…

Headshot of Dr. Corrine Sugino

Research Spotlight: Corinne Sugino

By Audrey Williams

Periodically the Communications Team reaches out to members of the Department of English faculty and graduate program and asks them to elaborate on a current research or creative project…

People Directory

Emerita, College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of English