The College of William and Mary English Department

The Department of English is dedicated to promoting an understanding and appreciation of the ways in which men and women have represented their worlds, real or imagined, in literature. As a lively community of teaching scholars, we are committed to engaging our students in the richness and variety of English poetry, drama and prose fiction, from the canon of traditional English literature to marginalized, avant-garde and experimental literary works. The diversity of our program encourages students to explore the aesthetic, rhetorical, historical, philosophical, cultural and ideological dimensions of English literature, to discover the power of literary art.

The English department is strongly committed to interdisciplinary study, and many of our students take courses in Film Studies, Literary and Cultural Studies, Women's Studies, Africana Studies and American Studies. Linguists in the department offer courses in the history, structure and social bases of language. The department also includes an extensive and rewarding program in creative and expository writing. Our thriving Writer in Residence program and Writers Series bring distinguished poets, playwrights and fiction-writers to campus each year to teach and study with us.