CHAIR OF THE DEPARTMENT:
Professor John D. Guillory

DIRECTOR OF GRADUATE STUDIES:
Associate Professor Cyrus R. K. Patell

DIRECTOR OF THE CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM:
Deborah Landau

A leading national center for the study of literature, language, and writing, the Department of English welcomes qualified applicants who wish to pursue advanced study. Students take a varied curriculum to earn an M.A. or a Ph.D. degree in English and American literature, emphasizing literary history and criticism. The department offers creative writing students in fiction and poetry a choice between an M.A. degree in English and American literature with a concentration in creative writing or an M.F.A. degree in creative writing.

The department's distinguished faculty members have received international recognition for the excellence of their publications. In recent years, faculty in literature have won the Guggenheim, National Endowment for the Humanities, and American Council of Learned Societies Fellowships; the Explicator Award; and the National Book Award. Faculty in creative writing have won the National Medal of Arts, the MacArthur Fellowship, the Pulitzer Prize, the American Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and several Lamont Prizes.

Students attend lectures, forums, readings, and discussions. Many advanced graduate students receive support to present their research and writing at national conventions and publish papers and creative writing in scholarly and literary journals and national magazines.

Faculty

John M. Archer, Professor. Ph.D. 1988 (English), Princeton; M.A. 1983, B.A. 1982 (English), Toronto.
Early modern English literature and culture; Renaissance drama; literary and cultural theory.

Thomas E. Augst, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1996 (American civilization), M.A. 1992 (history), Harvard; B.A. 1987 (literature and history), Yale.
Nineteenth-century American literature and culture; history of literacy and communication; modern ethics and civic life.

Jennifer J. Baker, Assistant Professor. Ph.D. 2000 (English), Pennsylvania; B.A. 1990 (English), Georgetown.
American literature; colonial, early national, and antebellum literary and intellectual history; American romanticism.

Mary J. Carruthers, Erich Maria Remarque Professor of Literature. Ph.D. 1965 (English), Yale; B.A. 1961 (English), Wellesley College.
Medieval literature and rhetoric; memory and mnemonic technique; the history of spirituality.

Una Chaudhuri, Professor, English (Drama). Ph.D. 1982 (English and comparative literature), M.Phil. 1977, M.A. 1975, Columbia; M.A. 1973 (English literature), B.A. 1971, Delhi (India).
Modern drama; performance theory; animal studies.

Christopher Collins, Professor. Ph.D. 1964 (comparative literature), Columbia; M.A. 1959 (Latin), California (Berkeley); B.A. 1958 (English), St. Anselm’s College.
Cognitive poetics and American poetry.

Patricia Crain, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1996 (English and comparative literature), M.Phil. 1991, M.A. 1991, Columbia; B.A. 1970, Bennington College.
Nineteenth-century U.S. literature and culture; history of books and reading; literary studies; childhood studies; critical pedagogy and civic engagement.

Patrick Deer, Assistant Professor. Ph.D. 2000 (English literature), M.Phil. 1995, M.A. 1989, Columbia; B.A. 1988, Oxford.
Modernism; war culture; 20th-century British novel; Anglophone literature; postcolonial and cultural studies.

Carolyn Dinshaw, Professor. Ph.D. 1982 (English literature), Princeton; B.A. 1978, Bryn Mawr College.
Middle English literature and culture; postcolonial studies; feminist studies; lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender studies.

E. L. Doctorow, Lewis and Loretta Glucksman Professor of American Letters. B.A. 1952 (philosophy), Kenyon College. Honorary degrees: D.H.L. 1989, Brandeis; D.Litt. 1979, Hobart and William Smith College; D.H.L. 1976, Kenyon College.
Fiction writing; literature.

Denis Donoghue, Henry James Professor of English and American Letters; University Professor. M.A. 1964 (American and Irish literature), Cambridge; Ph.D. 1957, M.A. 1952, B.A. 1949, National (Ireland). Honorary degree: D.Litt. 1989, National (Ireland).
Modern English, Irish, and American literature; aesthetics and the practice of reading.

Elaine Freedgood, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1996 (English and comparative literature), M.Phil. 1992, M.A. 1990 (English), Columbia; B.A. 1989 (summa cum laude), Hunter College (CUNY).
Victorian literature and culture; history of the novel; postcolonial literature; critical theory, especially of gender and sexuality.

Toral J. Gajarawala, Assistant Professor, English, Comparative Literature. Ph.D. 2004 (comparative literature), California (Berkeley); M.A. 1999 (comparative literature), New York; B.A. 1997, Tufts.
Postcolonial literature and theory.

Ernest B. Gilman, Professor. Ph.D. 1976 (English and comparative literature), M.A. 1971, B.A. 1968 (English), Columbia.
English Renaissance literature; interrelationships of literature and the visual arts; literature and medicine.

Dustin Griffin, Professor. Ph.D. 1969 (English), Yale; M.A. 1967 (English language and literature), Oxford; B.A. 1965 (English), Williams College.
Authorship; literature and national identity; Samuel Johnson; literary patronage; satire.

John D. Guillory, Professor; Chair, Department of English. Ph.D. 1979 (Renaissance literature), Yale; B.A. 1974, Tulane.
Renaissance poetry; Shakespeare; Milton; literature and science in the Renaissance; history of criticism; sociology of literary study; 20th-century literary theory.

Phillip Brian Harper, Professor, English (American Studies). Ph.D. 1988 (English), M.A. 1986, M.F.A. 1985 (creative writing), Cornell; B.A. 1981 (creative writing/literature), Michigan.
Twentieth-century English and U.S. literature; contemporary U.S. cultural studies; African American literature and culture; gender and sexuality theory.

Martin Harries, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1995 (comparative literature), Yale; B.A. 1987, Columbia.
Modern drama; film; Shakespeare; theory; spectatorship.

Anselm Haverkamp, Professor; Director, Program in Poetics and Thoery. Dr.Phil.Habil. 1983 (German and comparative literature), Konstanz; Dr.Phil. 1975 (medieval literature and literary theory), Heidelberg; M.A. 1968 (literature, history, and philosophy), Konstanz.
Critical theory; literature of the 16th through the 18th centuries.

Josephine Gattuso Hendin, Professor. Ph.D. 1968 (English and American literature), M.A. 1965, Columbia; B.A. 1964 (English language and literature), City College (CUNY).
Contemporary American literature and culture; psychology and literature; ethnicity and literature; creative writing.

David L. Hoover, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1980 (English language), M.A. 1974, Indiana; B.A. 1971 (English and philosophy), Manchester College.
Linguistic stylistics; computers and the humanities; human and animal language and cognition; Old English meter.

Pat C. Hoy, Professor; Director, Expository Writing Program. Ph.D. 1979, M.A. 1968, Pennsylvania; B.S. 1961, United States Military Academy.
The essay; writing pedagogy; Forster, Woolf, Lawrence, and Conrad.

Yusef Komunyakaa, Professor, English (Creative Writing). Ph.D. 1980, California (Irvine); M.A. 1978, Colorado State; B.A. 1975, Colorado.
Poetry; creative writing.

Laurence S. Lockridge, Professor. Ph.D. 1969 (English and American literature), M.A. 1968, Harvard; B.A. 1964 (English), Indiana.
Romantic literature; philosophical criticism; biography; American cultural studies.

Paule Marshall, Helen Gould Sheppard Professor of Literature and Culture. B.A. 1953, Brooklyn College (CUNY).
Creative writing, fiction.

John Maynard, Professor. Ph.D. 1970 (English), B.A. 1963 (history and literature), Harvard.
Reader theory; biography; sexuality and literature; cultural studies; Victorian literature; modern literature.

Paula McDowell, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1991, Stanford; B.A. 1982, British Columbia.
Eighteenth-century literature and cultural history; history of the book; media ecology.

Elizabeth McHenry, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1993 (English), Stanford; B.A. 1987 (English), Columbia.
African American literature, culture, and intellectual history; 19th- and 20th-century American literature, especially ethnic or "minority" literatures; comparative women's narratives; history of the book.

Perry Meisel, Professor. Ph.D. 1975 (English), M.Phil. 1974, B.A. 1970 (English and history), Yale.
Modern literature; critical theory.

Haruko Momma, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1992 (medieval studies), M.A. 1986, Toronto; M.A. 1983 (English), B.A. 1981, Hokkaido (Japan).
Old English language and literature; medieval studies; philology; linguistic historiography.

Karen Newman, Professor. Ph.D. 1978 (comparative literature), M.A. 1972 (comparative literature), California (Berkeley); B.A. 1970 (English), Randolph College.
Shakespeare and Renaissance drama; early modern literature and culture, English and continental; literary theory; gender studies; cultural translation.

Sharon Olds, Professor. Ph.D. 1972 (English), Columbia; B.A. 1964, Stanford.
Poetry; community outreach; creative writing.

Crystal Parikh, Assistant Professor, English Social and Cultural Analysis (American Studies). Ph.D. 2000 (English language and literature), M.A. 1995, Maryland (College Park); B.A. 1992 (English and religious studies), Miami.
Asian American literature and studies; Latino/Chicano literature and studies; feminist and race theory; postcolonial studies; 20th-century American literature.

Cyrus R. K. Patell, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1991 (English and American literature and language), M.A. 1986, B.A. 1983, Harvard.
American literature and culture; minority discourse; cultural studies; literary historiography.

Mary L. Poovey, Professor; Director, Institute for the History of the Production of Knowledge. Ph.D. 1976 (English), M.A. 1976, Virginia; B.A. 1972, Oberlin College.
Victorian literature and culture.

Martha Rust, Assistant Professor. Ph.D. 2000 (English), California (Berkeley); M.A. 1994, California Polytechnic State; B.A. 1976, California (Berkeley).
Middle English language and literature; paleography and codicology; medieval manuscript culture.

Martha Rust, Assistant Professor. Ph.D. 2000 (English), California (Berkeley); M.A. 1994, California Polytechnic State; B.A. 1976, California (Berkeley).
Middle English language and literature; paleography and codicology; medieval manuscript culture.

Sukhdev Sandhu, Assistant Professor, English (Asian/Pacific/American Studies). D.Phil. 1997 (English literature), Oxford; M.A. (with distinction) 1994, Warwick; B.A. 1993, Oxford.
Popular and techno studies; metropolitan and immigrant cultures; critical geographies; cinema; black and Asian literatures; poetics and sociology of sport.

Lytle Shaw, Assistant Professor. Ph.D. 2000 (English), California (Berkeley); B.A. (English) 1991, Cornell.
Contemporary literature, art, and urban culture; poetry and poetics.

Clifford Siskin, Professor. Ph.D. 1978, M.A. 1975, Virginia; B.A. 1972, Stanford.
Literary, social, and technological change, 1700-1850 (British); print culture and digital culture; literary theory and genre theory; the organization of knowledge.

Jeffrey L. Spear, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1975 (English), Minnesota; B.A. 1965 (English), Washington.
Victorian studies.

G. Gabrielle Starr, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1999 (English), M.A. 1993, Harvard; B.A. 1993, Emory.
Eighteenth-century literature; interrelationship of novel and lyric; neural aesthetics; genre theory; poetry and poetics; history of aesthetics; philosophy and literature.

Catharine R. Stimpson, Professor; University Professor; Dean, Graduate School of Arts and Science. Ph.D. (with distinction) 1967, Columbia; M.A. 1966, B.A. (honors) 1960, Cambridge; B.A. (magna cum laude) 1958, Bryn Mawr College.
Modern literature and culture; women in culture and society; Anglo-American literature.

Bryan Waterman, Assistant Professor. Ph.D. 2000 (American studies), Boston; B.A. (honors) 1994 (English), Brigham Young.
Early American literature and culture; gender; religion; literature and the professions.

John P. Waters, Assistant Professor, English (Irish Studies). Ph.D. 1995, Duke; M.Phil. 1987, Trinity College (Dublin); B.A. 1986, Johns Hopkins.
Eighteenth-century British and Irish culture; British romantic literature; Irish studies.

Jini Kim Watson, Assistant Professor, English, Comparative Literature. Ph.D. 2006 (literature), Duke; B.A. 1997 (English), Queensland; B.P.D. 1994 (architecture), Melbourne.
Asia-Pacific literature and cultural studies; postcolonial studies; spatial and architectural theory.

Robert J. C. Young, Professor. Ph.D. 1979 (English and critical theory), B.A. (honors)/M.A. 1977 (English language and literature), Oxford.

AFFILIATED FACULTY IN OTHER DEPARTMENTS

Emily Apter, French; Ulrich Baer, German; John Chioles, Comparative Literature; Manthia Diawara, Comparative Literature; Ana Dopico, Comparative Literature; Sybille Fischer, Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literatures; Ed Guerrero, Cinema Studies; Daniel Javitch, Comparative Literature; José Esteban Muñoz, Performance Studies; Avital Ronell, German; Nancy Ruttenburg, Comparative Literature; Richard Sieburth, Comparative Literature.

VISITING FACULTY

Breyten Breytenbach, Global Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing.

Philip Levine, Distinguished Poet-in-Residence, Creative Writing Program.

Rajeswari Sunder Rajan, Distinguished Visiting Global Professor. Ph.D. 1983 (English), George Washington; M.A. 1971 (English), B.A. 1969 (English), Bombay.

Chuck Wachtel, Clinical Associate Professor, Creative Writing Program.