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20
Average class size for English majors
25
Courses for majors per semester
22
Graduate seminars per semester

 

White circle with red outline and black and red speckles, with Our Mission written in handwritten font

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

Sean O'Sullivan (1965–2023)

We honor the life of Sean O'Sullivan, associate professor of English, who died October 17 in Columbus, Ohio, after surviving 16 months with brain cancer. Sean was a dedicated teacher, colleague and friend; read more about him and our other departed colleagues at our In Memoriam page.

 

 

Upcoming Events

December 4, 2023
TBD
December 6, 2023
Research Commons, 18th Avenue Library
December 7, 2023
324 Denney Hall
December 7, 2023
160 Pomerene Hall

Recent News

Each month, the Communications Team reaches out to members of the Department of English faculty and graduate program and asks them to elaborate on a current…

The Department of English is excited to announce Professor Simone Drake’s inclusion in the 2023 edition of Who’s Who in Black Columbus.  

Who’s Who in…

By Han Chen

From entering The Ohio State University without a declared major to completing an externship at the Supreme Court of Ohio, third-year English student Richa…

The Department of English is excited to announce that Associate Professor Marcus Jackson has received one of the 2023 Greater Columbus Arts Council’s Artists…

People Directory

Shawna  Green
MFA in Creative Writing Student
Nicole Pizarro
PhD in English Student
Daniel  Keller
Associate Professor