
The Major
Students majoring in English are encouraged to explore the department’s wide range of offerings in literature, film, culture and creative writing.
Learn MoreThrough 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 MoreThe 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.
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.
Learn MoreAmherst’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 moreSeveral of our poetry courses take advantage of the College’s Emily Dickinson Museum, which is located just across the street from campus.
Learn MoreThis 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.
Learn MoreAmherst 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 moreThe English Department is housed in the College’s iconic Johnson Chapel, built in 1827.
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.
Learn MoreAmherst 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 MoreA study in reading films and writing about them, partly to illustrate the main elements of film language and partly to pose challenging texts for reading and writing.
Learn about the rudiments of craft through weekly writing exercises. Read and discuss your classmates’ work as you study the elements of prosody: line, stanza forms, meter, free verse and more.
What was magic in the early modern world before 1800? Examine competing ideas about magic as they ran through the imagination of artists, playwrights, and preachers from medieval Germany to Puritan Massachusetts.
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.
Read moreOur department offers annual prizes for student essays, poetry, fiction and other writing.
Judith Frank, the Eliza J. Clark Folger Professor of English, talks about what it takes to succeed as a writer and touches on what students can expect from the creative writing program at Amherst College.