Fall 2009 Department Headlines...
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2009/2010 Readings and Lectures...
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Welcome
Welcome to the Penn State Department of English, a thriving academic community of scholars, teachers, and students dedicated to excellence in English Studies. The members of our distinguished faculty are well-published leaders in their academic and creative fields, and are committed to providing the best possible education for our undergraduate and graduate students.
The strengths of our department are both wide and deep. The English Department at Penn State offers students training in Medieval Studies, Renaissance Studies, 18th-, 19th-, and 20th-Century British literatures and culture, 18th-, 19th-, and 20th-Century American literatures and culture, Modernist Studies, Contemporary literatures and culture, African American literatures and culture, Latino/a Studies, literary theory and Cultural Studies, and Rhetoric and Composition Studies. Our Master of Fine Arts program offers emerging creative writers the opportunity to hone the crafts of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. Our prolific faculty members in all areas of English Studies have published more books and articles in top presses and journals than the faculties of any other institution in the Big Ten.
The Penn State Department of English is an acknowledged leader in the teaching of writing and the study of rhetoric. The department boasts the top-ranked graduate program in Rhetoric and Composition studies in the United States and our graduate placement record in that area is the best in the nation. The writing instruction we offer our undergraduate students at all levels is well tested and unparalleled.
Penn State has a distinguished tradition in American literary studies. Our program in African American literatures and culture is ranked in the top ten in the nation. Our Center for American Literary Studies, dedicated to supporting the study, teaching, and reading of American literatures, is unique in our university cohort and offers exceptional research and fellowship opportunities for faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students.
Our department offers its undergraduates a varied and outward looking curriculum. Our undergraduate majors have access to one of the best teaching faculties at Penn State. Our faculty members have won all of Penn State’s top teaching prizes, including the G. W. Atherton award and the Milton J. Eisenhower award. Our faculty members provide students with innovative classes, such as our nationally recognized Adventure Literature courses, in which students learn by doing in the outdoors, and our many service learning classes, in which students use their reading and writing skills to help members of our community. Penn State English majors also have access to a premier internship program that grants them “real world” experience in a variety of positions across the country and abroad, and a wide variety of study abroad opportunities.
I hope you will join us in our quest for excellence.
Together, we are Penn State.
