Welcome to the Department of English at the University of Kentucky.  I hope you enjoy exploring our new website.

English is one of the largest and most diverse departments in the College of Arts and Sciences. Our faculty engage in American and British literary studies, non-fiction writing, film studies, linguistics, and imaginative writing. We administer the Writing Program, the Writing Center, and the Center for English as a Second Language.  We contribute to the Committee on Social Theory and to the programs in Gender and Women’s Studies, Indian Culture, and Cognitive Science, among others.  We offer classes on Shakespeare, film history, sociolinguistics, Victorian novels, critical theory, fiction writing—and many, many other subjects. Please take a moment and glance through the profile pages of the accomplished English faculty who pursue this scholarship, run these programs, and teach these classes.

Are you an undergraduate interested in English? So were Sally Ride, Bob Woodward, Mario Cuomo, Michael Eisner, Joe Paterno, and Sigourney Weaver. Like them, you could take an undergraduate degree in English into journalism, government and politics, the entertainment industry, football, or outer space—or into careers in publishing, business, education, or the law. The Professional Organization of English Majors notwithstanding, you might even host a radio program, like Garrison Keillor (BA, English, University of Minnesota). Please peruse our undergraduate major, and if you’re interested, write our Director of Undergraduate Studies, Armando Prats.

Are you interested in graduate study in English? If so, please review our master’s programs in literature, film, and linguistics, and our Ph.D. program in literature. As a graduate faculty, we celebrate a strength in American literature and film of the long 20th century, but our professors are as diverse as the titles of some of our recent books imply. Prodigal Daughters: Susanna Rowson’s Early American Women; Parliament and Literature in Late Medieval England; Cities of Affluence and Anger: A Literary Geography of Modern Englishness; and Strange Concepts and the Stories They Make Possible suggest some of the areas in which you could work with our graduate faculty. If you would like to learn more, please write Michael Trask, our Director of Graduate Studies, or Morgan Richardson, president of our English Graduate Student Organization.

Thank you for visiting our webpage. Please write any of our directors for more information on your particular area of interest, or write me directly. We look forward to answering your questions and to helping you achieve your goals in the Department of English.

Thomas Clayton
Professor and Chair
Department of English