Department of English - Northwestern University

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Chris Abani has won the 2023 UNT Rilke Prize for Smoking The Bible, his 2022 poetry collection. He is also a finalist for the 2024 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the winner of which will be announced in October.

Paulina Jones-Torregrosa, doctoral candidate in the English Department, has been selected as a 2023 Presidential Fellow and new member of the Northwestern University Society of Fellows. Jones-Torregrosa works at the intersections of literary, ethnic, and feminist studies, and her dissertation, “We’re All on the Line’: Women of Color Print Solidarities, 1970-1991,” analyzes U.S. women of color feminists’ rigorous critique of transnational inequalities.

Sarah Schulman’s play, The Lady Hamlet, which premiered at the Provincetown Theater in Massachusetts, has received two 2022 BroadwayWorld Boston awards: one for “Best New Play or Musical (Professional)” and one for “Best Performer in a Play (Professional),” given to Jennifer Van Dyck for her turn as Miss Margo Stayden Burns.

Kelly Wisecup’s book, Assembled for Use: Indigenous Compilation and the Archives of Early Native American Literatures, has been awarded the St. Louis Mercantile Library Prize from the Bibliographic Society of America.

The citation describes Assembled for Use as a “fine exampl[e] of critical bibliographical practice drawing heavily on traditional bibliographical sources, especially those (like subscription lists and scrapbooks) which have been commonly overlooked, until now.” The prize criteria include “rigorous bibliographical merit, future impact, and use in classroom or research settings.”

New York University has awarded the 2022 Callaway Prize for the Best Book on Drama and Theatre to Common Understandings, Poetic Confusion: Playhouses and Playgoers in Elizabethan England by William N. West. The Callaway Prize is given by NYU’s Department of English for the best book on drama or theatre published during the previous two years by an American author. The prize was established in 1990 by Joe A. Callaway—an actor, drama lecturer, and supporter of theatrical causes.

Kelly Wisecup and English Department graduate student alumnae Sara Černe and Bonnie Etherington launched a website featuring their collaborations on a Humanities without Walls grant, “Indigenous Art and Activism in Changing Climates: The Mississippi River Valley, Colonialism, and Environmental Change.” Indigenous Mississippi is a digital archive of the work created by an interdisciplinary, multi-university, multi-year research project on Indigenous art and activism about the Mississippi River. Over the course of several years, professors, grad students, artists, and activists collaborated to tell stories that follow the flow of the Mississippi River in order to study how Indigenous peoples confront life and make art in the midst of changing climates.

Our Programs

Undergraduate

Creative Writing

The Creative Writing Major is one of the first and finest undergraduate programs of its kind in the country. Its reputation is based on accomplishments of its graduates, the generosity of its professors, and a pedagogy that creates a fruitful symbiosis between close reading and inventive writing.

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English Literature

Being an English literature major at Northwestern means reading literature that’s been circulating across more than 1000 years of history and nearly every the continent of the globe, and the skills you learn will help prepare you for virtually any career you can think of.

Why Study English?
The Major and Minor in English literature
English Literature Advisors
Pursuing Honors in English

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Graduate

Litowitz MFA+MA in English and Creative Writing

This program offers intimate classes, the opportunity to pursue both creative and critical writing, and close mentorship by renowned faculty in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Our three-year curriculum gives students time to deepen both their creative writing and their study of literature. Students complete two degrees concurrently --an MFA in Creative Writing and an MA in English.

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MA in English Literature

Designed to be completed in one year and flexible in its requirements, our Master's in Literature allows students considerable freedom in choosing courses in English and in related disciplines. Most are planning to move on to Doctoral study elsewhere, improve their credentials as teachers in secondary schools and community colleges, or to take their experience into the business and publishing sectors.

About the Master's degree program

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PhD in English Literature

Our PhD program offers advanced study and research in literary history, criticism, and theory, with excellent opportunities for study between both disciplines and departments. Courses within the department cover major genres, periods, authors, and a broad range of methodological and theoretical approaches. Significant support in professional development and on the job market are cornerstones of the program.