Welcome!

If you enjoy studying and creating texts, film, and multimedia compositions, you’ve come to the right department. In our courses, minors, and majors, you will analyze and critically engage many kinds of texts for their craft and meaning in their cultural contexts. Many of our courses involve written, visual, and auditory texts, challenging students to develop 21st century digital literacy skills and exploring new ways to create and seek meaning.

Whether you seek to take courses in our program as a major, minor, or elective, our award-winning faculty members are committed to supporting you. We are active writers and scholars who publish and teach about literature, cinema, memoir, nonfiction, poetry, teacher education, multimodal communication, antiracist pedagogy, digital rhetorics and literature, environmental literature and rhetoric, Appalachian studies, and many other timely topics.

We offer a B.A. program with specializations in Creative Writing, Film Studies, Literary Studies and Professional Writing, a B.S. in English Education, and minors in English and Film Studies. Our graduate program is being redesigned to offer concentrations in Literary Studies, Rhetoric and Composition, and Teaching Literature and Writing.

Our department’s goal is to contribute to students’ success in their professional aspirations. Our graduates frequently teach at the secondary and postsecondary levels, go on to complete graduate degrees, and pursue fruitful careers in creative and technical writing, business, medicine, entertainment, publishing, broadcasting, advertising, journalism, government, and the law.

If you are interested in taking courses, becoming an English major, or doing a minor within our department, you might:

  • Explore our website for information about our diverse, engaging programs.

  • Reach out to a program’s director about your interest as a potential major, minor, or student taking elective courses.

  • Check out our course promos, so you can see how some of the courses are taught.

  • Discuss your interest in our courses with your academic advisor.

Indigenous Land Acknowledgement

The English Department acknowledges and honors the ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯ (Cherokee), the yeh is-WAH h’reh (Catawba), and other Indigenous peoples whose ancestral lands we occupy.

Please read our full acknowledgement here.

Our Statement on Diversity

Education is transformative, and open intellectual inquiry is the foundation of a university education and a democratic society. In the spirit of shared humanity and concern for our community and world, the Department of English faculty celebrate diversity as central to our mission and affirm our solidarity with those individuals and groups most at risk. In line with our departmental goals, we disavow all racism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, classism, ableism, and hate speech or actions that attempt to silence, threaten, and degrade others.

As educators, we affirm that language and texts, films and stories help us to understand the experiences of others whose lives are different from ours. We value critical reasoning, evidence-based arguments, self-reflection, and the imagination. Building on these capacities, we hope to inspire empathy, social and environmental justice, and an ethical framework for our actions. We advocate for a diverse campus, community, and nation inclusive of racial minorities, women, immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community, and people of all religious faiths.

As part of ongoing efforts to improve our inclusivity, the English Department recently approved the following resolution on the use of the n-word in our classes.

Latest News

Fall 2023: Online ENG 2060.106 Great Books (Global North Carolina) with Melissa Birkhofer

Fall 2023: Online ENG 2060.106 Great Books (Global North Carolina) with Melissa Birkhofer

In this section of ENG 2060.106 Great Books: Global North Carolina, students will read, engage with, and analyze great books and their cultural produc...

Fall 2023: ENG 5865: Eighteenth-Century British Studies (Crime and Celebrity) with Dr. Jennifer Wilson

ENG 5865: Crime and CelebrityMW 2-3:15 p.m.Dr. Jennifer Wilson: wilsonjp@appstate.eduDuring fall 2023 semester, we will learn about the lives of trait...

Fall 2023 ENG 2130 section 101 MW 3:30-4:45 SH 206 with Melissa Birkhofer

Fall 2023: ENG 2130-101 MW 3:30-4:45 SH 206 (Intersections of Latinx and Native American Literatures) with Melissa Birkhofer

ENG 2130 section 101 MW 3:30-4:45 SH 206This course will center Latinx and Native American U.S. literary voices from 1600 to the present. The purpose ...

Fall 2023: Online ENG 2130 sections 102 and 103: Ethnic American Literature with Melissa Birkhofer

Fall 2023: Online ENG 2130-102 and 103: Ethnic American Literature (Intersections of Latinx and Native American Literatures) with Melissa Birkhofer

This course will center Latinx and Native American U.S. literary voices from 1600 to the present. The purpose of this course is to provide a literary ...

Enter your creative work! The Truman Capote Literary Trust Scholarships will be awarded for 2023-24 in both Poetry and Creative Prose (complete short story, memoir, creative nonfiction piece, play, or screenplay).

APPLICATIONS ACCEPTED April 6-14The Truman Capote Literary Trust Scholarships will be awarded for 2023-24 in both Poetry and Creative Prose (complete ...

Fall 2023: ENG 5880: Victorian Literature with Dr. Jill Ehnenn

ENG 5880 Victorian Literature W 5-8pm Dr. Jill EhnennArt Objects and English Words: Ekphrasis and the Making of the Nineteenth-Century “World”&nbs...

Fall 2023 Eby - Hemingway Passport Photo

Fall 2023: ENG 4508: Junior/Senior Honors Seminar: Ernest Hemingway with Dr. Carl Eby

ENG 4508: Junior/Senior Honors Seminar: Ernest HemingwayTR 11:00am-12:15pmDr. Carl EbyHow does your understanding of a work of literature change ...

Manfred on the Jungfrau by Madox Brown

Fall 2023: Natural and Supernatural Romanticism ENG 4870: Literature of the British Romantic Period, with Dr. William Brewer

Natural and Supernatural RomanticismENG 4870: Literature of the British Romantic PeriodFall 2023, MW 2:00 pm–3:15 pm, Sanford 208In ENG 4870, we wil...