English

The Department of English features one of the top-ranked programs in Victorian literature and culture alongside a rich concentration of research in gender studies. The department has attracted top students from across the nation and abroad, including two Presidential Scholars, and such faculty members as Kirsten Ostherr, who brings fresh perspectives to our offerings in visual culture and will work with art and art history chair Hamid Naficy to develop a film studies program.

Our creative writing program, although modest in size, remains one of the best with a faculty that includes renowned poet Susan Wood, who was awarded a prize from the Texas Institute of Letters for her most recent book of poetry, Asunder, and writer-in-residence Marsha Recknagel, whose memoir If Nights Could Talk has attracted national critical and popular acclaim. Visiting fiction writers each semester help round out the curriculum, and we currently are searching for a nationally prominent fiction writer to fill the place left by Max Apple’s retirement.