In the English Department, students have the opportunity to read widely across different genres and periods of English, American, and Anglophone literature and to explore numerous approaches to literary study with a distinguished, internationally renowned faculty.  Our strength is our range and the excitement we bring to our reading: we have among us historicists and formalists, theorists and poets, postcolonialists and feminists; our teaching and writing concern not just poetry, drama and prose, but film, music, art, architecture, and technology.  We share a passion for talking about the works that inspire and fascinate us and for thinking about what and how they mean. 

A typical program of study embraces the most hallowed texts of the western literary tradition as well as new or newly- rediscovered works.  Students acquire a common critical vocabulary and join faculty in debating enduring questions regarding the interactions of art, society, and language.

Our students graduate as incisive readers, cogent thinkers, and powerful writers, well-prepared for any profession requiring a rigorous understanding and mastery of language and the meanings and powers of culture.  While some graduates pursue careers in teaching, many go on to become leaders in such fields as law, medicine, business, and the creative arts.