Department of English

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Featured Stories

Jeffrey Masten is among the 2022 Guggenheim Fellows recently named by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. The award will help support Masten’s research into early printed copies of literary texts and the changing histories of gender and sexuality registered by the readers who owned, marked up and read them across time.

Julia Stern launched her new book Bette Davis Black and White in a January 14 virtual conversation with Nick Davis, Miriam Petty, Jim Hodge, and Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece, hosted by University of Chicago Press.

INHUMAN FIGURES: ROBOTS, CLONES, AND ALIENS, a film essay by Michelle N. Huang and CA Davis, can now be viewed through the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center. INHUMAN FIGURES excavates three popular science-fictional archetypes—the robot, clone, and alien—to reveal how imagined futures are produced from a long history of treating Asian Americans as tireless workers, indistinguishable copies, and forever foreigners.

view the film

Reginald Gibbons was selected as the tenth recipient of the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame's Fuller Award, an honor conferred in October of 2021 in recognition of his lifetime achievements as an author, scholar, teacher, and institution builder.

Ivy Wilson and Laura Brueck (Department of Asian Languages and Cultures) have received a large grant from the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs to support a two-year initiative on “Race, Caste, and Colorism,” which will look comparatively at India, the Caribbean, and the US and engage faculty from several units. This grant continues Ivy’s long-term work catalyzing new research collaborations across units in ethnic studies and the humanities, a role that also defines his current work as Director of the Black Arts Consortium.

Natasha Trethewey was announced as one of the winners of The Cleveland Foundation’s 86^th annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards for her book, Memorial Drive. The awards recognize books that have made important contributions to the understanding of racism and human diversity. Cleveland poet and philanthropist Edith Anisfield Wolf established the book awards in 1935, in honor of her father, John Anisfield, and husband, Eugene Wolf, to reflect her family’s passion for social justice.

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.