Welcome to the English Department at Northeastern!
We foster a vision of English as a pluriversal field open to translingualism, diversity, and intersecting local, national, and transnational traditions. We analyze expression in language across multiple historical periods and media, from medieval manuscripts to the latest memes. Whether we are looking at a poem or a post, we ask how the words we use define, interpret, and change the world.
The English Department houses both the English Programs and the Writing Program. The English Programs include the Undergraduate major (BA), the combined majors, and the minors in English, Writing, and Rhetoric and the Graduate PlusOne, MA, and PhD. The Writing Program supports writing across the university through First-Year Writing and Advanced Writing in the Disciplines and the Writing Center.
A distinctive feature of the English Department is the highly personalized environment of our classes. In the dynamic exchange of our many discussion-based seminars, students’ voices and perspectives shape our investigations. From day one, you are at the center of critical issues that resonate between the past and the present, unpacking crucial concepts such as identity, voice, expression, and opinion and testing out the myriad ways that individual lives and social concerns are defined, developed, and transformed through language.
This year, we are conducting a series of events on the Environmental Crisis, asking how literature, writing, and rhetoric can help us move to a sustainable future for the planet.
