English Department

The English Department seeks to help students improve their abilities to read, write, and think critically and creatively.

Through the study of literature and the instruction of writing in various forms, we endeavor to promote in our majors and minors both a deep understanding of our discipline and an active use of its practices. As a faculty, we recognize and encourage among ourselves a variety of pedagogical and critical approaches to literature and writing. Moreover, we feel that our students should experience and comprehend these different schools of theory and application. Thus, in the course of their studies with our department, students will be exposed to the traditional canon of British and American literature as well as to non-canonical texts in the Anglophone tradition; be asked to apply a variety of literary theories from traditional close reading to recent postmodern methods of investigation; be required to write with style and acumen in every class they take; and be motivated always to examine, to question, and to challenge their own moment and situation in literary and cultural history.