Welcome to the Department of English at the University of Maryland. Our department offers comprehensive programs in undergraduate and graduate education, with a wide range of courses, degrees, and innovative opportunities for students, scholars, and creative writers of all kinds. With 60 tenure-track faculty members, the English department boasts excellence in many areas and sponsors a huge variety of activities in a vibrant, collegial atmosphere. The department hosts a range of exciting events throughout the year for undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and the public, including readings by poets and novelists; lectures, panels, and conferences with visiting scholars; discussion groups for students and alumni; play readings and performances; literary publications and prizes; and many more. The department’s Center for Literary and Comparative Studies is the hub for scholarly inquiry and partnership with other campus programs. Undergraduates can enjoy a rich course of study broadly based in literary history, but with considerable flexibility and the opportunity to pursue concentrations in their areas of special interest. Undergraduate students regularly engage in their own research projects and assist faculty in research as well. Students have many opportunities to study abroad, pursue workplace internships, and get involved in literary reviews, readings, and writing groups. A selective honors program offers specialized seminars and one-on-one work with a faculty member on a student’s honors thesis. Graduate students can choose from an array of seminars and readings courses taught by some of the most accomplished scholars and creative writers in their fields. As testament to the excellence of this program, the English department has had notable success in placing its graduates in desirable positions. The department offers courses and curricula in all areas and periods of American, British, and Anglophone literary history; literature of the African diaspora; the study of language, writing, and rhetoric; creative writing; literary theory; film, media, digital, and textual studies; gender, feminist, and sexuality studies; comparative studies; and many more subject areas.
