We are a vibrant center for teaching, learning, and research, offering courses on literature, communication, writing, rhetoric, journalism, creative writing, and digital media. The Master of Arts in Texts, Technologies, and Literature provides an opportunity for advanced students to further their understanding of literature and a broad array of other texts, including digital, academic, and those that function in everyday use, in relation to both historical and contemporary culture.
Undergraduates choose between two major tracks: the Literature Track, which explores the broad range and diverse traditions of literature written in English, and the Communication and Technology Track, which focuses on the theory and practice of rhetoric, composition, communication, and digital media. Our equally successful minors include: literature, communication and technology, creative writing, journalism, rhetoric and communication, and professional writing.
Students may also choose an interdisciplinary minor in Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS).
Our department also hosts Bartleby, the university’s creative arts journal, and supports the student newspaper, The Retriever. Recent students have served as editors of The UMBC Review, the university’s journal of undergraduate research. Advanced students may choose to apply to the English Honors program, in order to work one-on-one with a professor on an extended project.
The English Department takes great pride in our combination of award-winning research and deep commitment to students and teaching. Our faculty are among the most productive researchers at UMBC and have interests in a wide range of specialties in literature, writing, communication, and technology. UMBC’s outstanding English faculty past and present includes winners of the Guggenheim, Fulbright, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell Colony, and Yaddo fellowships, as well as recipients of the American Book Award, the American Studies Network Prize, the James N. Britten Award for Inquiry in the Language Arts, the James Thurber Prize for Comic Fiction, the Society for Professional Journalists’ Award for commentary, the City and Regional Magazine Award for column writing, and Baltimore Magazine‘s Best of the Web award.
Our faculty are also deeply committed to teaching, from first-year seminars to senior capstone research courses, and to mentoring students at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Our courses emphasize student engagement in reading, discussion, and writing and encourage active learning. We pride ourselves on our accessibility and every English Department course offers an opportunity for close contact between students and faculty.