Department of English

The English Department at Georgetown University has one of the largest undergraduate majors in the College of Arts and Sciences and houses one of the few stand-alone English Masters programs at a nationally ranked university. With its small classes, the department emphasizes close work with students and teaching excellence. Our faculty boasts a robust and diverse record of publication, and many have won major university teaching prizes. Reflecting a broadening of the field in recent years, our department offers courses in canonical and non-canonical literature and film in English – produced in the Americas, Great Britain, and the rest of the English-speaking world. Many courses are interdisciplinary and our faculty have played a major role in founding the interdisciplinary programs of the College: American Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, Medieval Studies, Catholic Studies, Program on Justice and Peace, African-American Studies, the Program for Jewish Civilization. The Department is the home of the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice, the Shakespeare Association of America, the University Writing Program, and the College’s undergraduate Journalism Program.

Quick Links:

Declaring an English Major

MA Program in English

Awards & Prizes

The Honor System

Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice

Header image from left to right: English seminar with Sarah McNamer, Zora Neale Hurston on drum, William Blake's Satan Watching the Caresses of Adam and Eve (Art Object: Detail, Photograph © 1808 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), William Shakespeare, fountain in front of Dahlgren Chapel.