“Literature is news that STAYS news.”
Ezra Pound 

“False history gets made all day, any day,
the truth of the new is never on the news"
Adrienne Rich

“Variety,” “flexibility,” and “interaction” are three words that perhaps best describe our degree programs in literature and literary theory. Undergraduate majors, for instance, can choose from among period specific courses ranging from “Studies in Medieval British Literature” to “Studies in Postmodernism,” as well as from among genre and topic oriented classes such as “Popular Fiction” and “Literature and Other Disciplines.” Our graduate curriculum is designed to enable students to tailor a course of study that fits their specific research interests while also providing them with the kind of more general preparation required for viability on the current job market.

Ours is a faculty committed to scholarship. Members of the department have demonstrated expertise in such broad areas of research as life writing; literature, science, and medicine; literature and the visual arts; multicultural studies; and Native American studies. Students have the opportunity to work with nationally or internationally recognized authorities on such writers

as Milton, Defoe, Cooper, Ruskin, Henry Adams, George Moore, Marianne Moore, Pound, and Silko.

Our faculty as a whole is dedicated to instruction, and over the years has accrued a number of teaching awards.

Because our class sizes are relatively small for a state university, and because faculty members make a point of making themselves available, students have ample opportunity to interact with their peers and their instructors both in and out of the classroom.