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Learning and Research

Undergraduate Program

Undergraduates who major or minor in English explore literature as readers and writers in small classes that focus on the individual student. For those who choose to Major in English, we offer concentrations in Creative Writing and Publishing. With help from our wide array of course topics and intellectual approaches, alumni of the English department have succeeded in top-notch graduate programs in law, business and medicine as well as in English and creative writing.

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Teaching and Research

Graduate Studies

The department is home to one of the best and most generously funded English PhD programs in North America. It is dedicated to training superb scholars and well-rounded teachers of literature able to meet the expectations of the challenging academic job market and to pursue rewarding alternative careers.

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A Statement from the Department of English

In the wake of the slaying of George Floyd, and of so many African Americans before him, the department of English at Washington University in St. Louis maintains that Black books and Black Lives Matter. Current circumstance also compels us...

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Our Community

We are a community of readers and writers, scholars and teachers. We range across the literatures of English in space as well as time, combining global diversity with broad historical coverage. This resource opens for you as students under the guidance of faculty who are committed to their roles as teachers and mentors. In our department, you will feel at once welcomed and challenged—starting with the openness of our faculty, staff, and students and stretching to the novel encounters with language your peers and instructors will help to spark.

About our Department

English is one of the most storied departments in the College of Arts & Sciences. Our recent history includes two U.S. Poet Laureates and multiple National Book Award winners as well as noted scholars in many fields of literary history. Our accomplishments as a faculty become an invitation, for you as students, to reach the level of excellence you expect of yourselves, whether in the form of a national award or an essay or poem well written. We have been recognized as exceptional in this respect: USA Today has ranked us as the sixth-best home in the nation for undergraduate authors, while College Magazine has placed us at number eight. Such recognition testifies to the tradition of collaboration in our department, where we share the experience of literature’s power to enlighten, inspire, challenge, and lead.

Concentrations in Creative Writing and Publishing

Undergraduate English majors have the opportunity to pursue a concentration in one of two specializations: Creative Writing and Publishing.

The Creative Writing program at WUSTL is one of the premier programs in the country. As undergraduate concentrators, students can pursue their interest in creative writing, and specialize in one of three workshop genres: fiction, creative nonfiction, or poetry. The program also offers a wide array of electives in the craft of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, including microfiction, humor writing, prose poetry, place, dialogue, experimental writing and much more. More information on the requirements for the concentration can be found here. 

The Publishing concentration offers undergraduate students a chance to explore both the business and artistic sides of book publishing. The program throws a wide net, with courses focused on various areas of publishing, its history and contexts. Concentrators also engage with publishing from a practical perspective, with regular course visits by publishing professionals and opportunities to work on publications affiliated with WUSTL, such as the magazine The Spectacle and the feminist publisher Dorothy. The program allows for limited coursework in the Art and Business schools, and we work to place interested students in professional internships.

Both concentrations involve an additional six credit hours to the requirements of the English major. More information on both programs and their requirements can be found here. 

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Recent News

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