FACULTY:
Daniel Bourne, Chair
Bryan Alkemeyer
John Barnard (on leave Fall 2016)
Nancy Grace (on leave 2016-2017)
Jennifer Hayward (on leave 2016-2017)
Priyanka Jacob
Leah Mirakhor (on leave 2016-2017)
Maria Prendergast
Thomas Prendergast
Debra Shostak (on leave 2016-2017)
Leslie Wingard
The South African writer Nadine Gordimer once said that “writing is making sense of life.” The challenge and pleasure for both writers and readers is to make sense of the writing that makes sense of life. The English Department offers the student a unique opportunity to encounter a rich variety of texts in which English, American, and Anglophone writers inscribe meaning into our world. Students discover their own relationship with the world as they hone their skills in reading imaginatively, thinking analytically, and expressing their thoughts clearly, creatively, and persuasively both orally and in writing.
Courses in English are designed to explore texts across historical periods, cultures, geographical regions and theoretical approaches so as to invite students to ask a wide and diverse range of questions. The curriculum is organized according to those questions-whether they aim to illuminate the cultural construction of gender, sexuality, race, or ethnicity, the career of a single writer, a period in literary history, a literary genre, a reader’s response to texts, or creative writing in fictional and non-fictional forms.