English Studies Concentration

You’ll construct knowledge in close collaboration directly with your classmates and faculty members who boast impressive publication records. Your professors will bring to the classroom their excitement for researching and interpreting the cultural force of literature.

For example, Professor Joyce Huff brings her interdisciplinary specializations in Victorian Literature and Fat Studies to the graduate classroom in her recent Victorian Studies seminar titled, “Victorian Appetites.”

Professor Charlotte Kupsh’s position as Writing Center Director informs her Writing Center Administration course about the best practices for successful administration, alongside her experience training graduate student tutors.

Professor Katy Didden, author of The Glacier’s Wake, brings her interest in the relationship between poetry and the environment to her graduate workshop on “Ecopoetics.”

Because this concentration draws upon all the subdisciplines in English, you might work with any member of our graduate faculty.

Read profiles of our faculty.

You’ll have the opportunity to attend the annual Practical Criticism Midwest (PCM) Conference, which gives you practice with academic professionalization.

Past PCM panels have included topics such as Language and Alterity, Canons and Margins, and Constructing Narratives. Participants also have the opportunity to attend keynote addresses from English department alumni now using their graduate degrees in a variety of professions.

This degree emphasizes pedagogy and includes a three-credit class devoted to teaching literature in higher education.

You may also pursue a graduate assistantship with the Freshman Writing Program, which has its own robust pedagogy-training program.