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.
Students majoring in English are encouraged to explore the department’s wide range of offerings in literature, film, culture and creative writing.
Learn More About the Major
The English Department is housed in the College’s iconic Johnson Chapel, built in 1827.
Amherst is one of the world’s premier writing colleges, with an enviable literary legacy. Our outstanding faculty and alumni include influential and award-winning novelists, poets, journalists and critics, and our renowned literary publications are read around the world.
Learn More About Literature at Amherst
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.
Amherst students are able to examine Wordsworth’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.
Learn More About Rare Book Holdings
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.
Learn More About the Folger Library
Several of our poetry courses take advantage of the College’s Emily Dickinson Museum, which is located just across the street from campus.
Learn More About the Emily Dickinson Museum
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.
Why do we laugh at some jokes but not others? What makes something funny? This class explores humor as a core rhetorical concept to study audience, genre, purpose, context, and exigency. Students will build their critical reading and writing skills.
In this course, we will study the origins and range of podcasts as a medium for writing and performance, and consider how this medium has absorbed genres from other media and combined them in innovative ways.
This course investigates the many meanings and itineraries of the confession, focusing on the various institutional sites that have shaped confessional regimes of truth, as well as the role of media forms.
We teach students how to analyze, critique, and create work in all different media and modes. We teach poetry and film, novels and television shows, drama, memoir, digital culture.
Our department offers annual prizes for student essays, poetry, fiction and other writing.
A page from "A Beastiary," one of the books from the archive and manuscript collection of Dr. Richard Wilbur, located in the Frost Library.
Richard Wilbur at Amherst College
Every year students gather for the annual Voices of the Voiceless, New England's largest, free spoken word concert presented by La Causa. The poets are all members of ALANA, an acronym for African/Latinx/Asian/Native American identities. VOICES is meant to uplift ALANA narratives and shine light on their work.
Majoring in English requires the completion of ten courses offered or approved by the Department.
All about the major
The Ulysess bathroom, in Johnson Chapel, is only one of several bathrooms found around campus covered, floor to ceiling, with famous literary quotes.
The Real Story of the Ulysses bathroom
Sofia Aklog ’19 presenting at the 3rd annual English major capstone symposium, a series of concurrent panels by senior English majors presenting critical or creative work from a 400-level seminar or their thesis project.
The book is alive and well in the Pioneer Valley! From bookstores, to cafes, to public benches, everywhere you look in Amherst you're going to see someone reading a book. English majors feel right at home.