The Major
Students majoring in English are encouraged to explore the department’s wide range of offerings in literature, film, culture and creative writing.
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Tools
Through courses in literature, film, poetry, culture and creative writing, our students learn to read closely, think critically and write well. Our faculty incorporate an increasing number of perspectives and traditions into their teaching and research.
Department Highlights
Notable Writers
The Amherst English Department has been home to many renowned writers, including Robert Frost, Richard Wilbur, Eve Sedgwick, James Merrill, David Ferry, Dan Chiasson, Lauren Groff and David Foster Wallace.
After Amherst
Our alumni go on to careers in writing, publishing, business, government, the economic sector, nonprofits, academia and more. They are an excellent resource for current students.
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Folger Library
Amherst’s Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., offers opportunities to study and engage in cultural and arts programs, including scholarships to conduct research there during summer and interterm breaks.
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Emily Dickinson Museum
Several of our poetry courses take advantage of the College’s Emily Dickinson Museum, which is located just across the street from campus.
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Student Steering Committee
This independent body of students is responsible for organizing events, advising the department on curricular matters and in general representing the needs and views of English majors to the faculty.
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Rare Books in our Classrooms
Amherst students are able to examine Wordworth’s own books, as well as Medieval manuscripts, theatrical holdings, Native American literature, and books by and about Robert Frost held in our archival collections.
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Our Building
The English Department is housed in the College’s iconic Johnson Chapel, built in 1827.
Our History
The Amherst English department has changed a lot over the course of the last century. We’ve put together a brief history of our department here.
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Current Courses
ENGL 120
Engaging Literature: Craft, Conversation, Community
Description
Read European lyrics from the 12th through 17th centuries. Witness the dawn of romantic love poetry in several languages, and the invention of new forms like the sonnet and the lyric “anthology.”
ENGL 441
Medieval and Renaissance Lyric
Description
Shakespeare plays and their afterlives in literature and performance illuminate the fate of culture over centuries of global mobility. Why are these works so adaptable to intercultural conflict, borrowing and fusion?
ENGL 471
Corporeal States: Body, Nation, Text in Modern African Literature
Description
Examine how modern African writers use ethnographic writing, Kung Fu movies, pornography, traditional epic and graffiti to challenge our notions of what counts as a body, a nation or a text.
A Major Change
The English Department ends its comp exam, and launches a dynamic student symposium instead.
For some six decades, each senior English major, in order to graduate, had to pass the department’s Comprehensive Exam. Until something better came along.
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Prizes & Awards
Our department offers annual prizes for student essays, poetry, fiction and other writing.
Featured Article
Breaking the Language Barrier
“Translation is the art of failure,” said Umberto Eco. But these two students found success and connection by gathering resonant, hard-to-translate phrases from across campus.
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