We understand that words matter.
English students listen to a diversity of voices and discover their own. They read and write across genres and media. They join a community of scholars and artists in conversation with the past and present to speak clearly about the future.
The Stories of Our Lives
We know the world around us through the stories that we hear and tell about it.
English faculty at OHIO help shape the stories of their fields through scholarship and creative writing that produce knowledge, revise old narratives, and reveal new perspectives.
And they bring students into the conversations that matter: Who is this story for? What does it mean? Why is it important? How does it change the stories that we already know, and how will it affect the stories we tell next?
What We Do
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Creative Writing
Crafting poetry, fiction and nonfiction to reframe human connections and the world around us.
The program in creative writing hosts visiting writers, the annual Spring Literary Festival , and three literary journals .
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Literature
Understanding the stories we tell ourselves about being human.
Our scholars in literary studies map literary history, theory, and genres to illuminate how texts from medieval manuscripts to video games work to shape us and our society.
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Rhetoric & Composition
Composing arguments for the purposes and contexts that matter.
Composition studies at OHIO examines and teaches the practice of writing from pencil to screen to AI.
Rhetoric & Composition Faculty
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Areas of Collaborative Focus
Joining strengths to address new topics and emerging challenges.
Drawing on expertise across and even beyond the English Department, our faculty’s research and teaching spotlight areas such as speculative fiction and popular culture, medical humanities, regional literature and culture, and book history.
English Student Experiences — Here and Abroad
With the Ohio University Press. In London, In Germany. Just a few places you might get hands-on English experience.
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Visit Berlin Wall and Nuremburg to Study 'Remembrance'Students have the opportunity in May to study how contemporary societies use remembrance as a cultural tool while visiting sites in Germany and the Czech Republic connected to the Holocaust and World War II.
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Explore Modern Literature in London over Spring BreakStudents in the Suffragettes and Soldiers in the Literature of London program tour London sites on foot and by hop-on-hop-off bus.
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Intern with a Publishing Company or Ohio University PressHannah Koerner '17BA interned with two publishing companies as a student. Now she's living her dream working for a book publisher in New York City.
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Deepen Your Involvement with Student OrganizationsEnglish student organizations allow you to learn while doing and give students the opportunity earn credit for leadership.
Careers with an English Degree
Alumni Engagement & Giving Opportunities
Congratulations to Our Faculty, Alumni & Students
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Talinn Phillips Selected by U.S. Department of State for Prestigious ProjectThe U.S. Department of State selected Dr. Talinn Phillips for an English Language Specialist project focusing on academic publishing in Moscow, Russia.
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Breaking Barriers with Beep Baseball: David Wanczyk's journey to SenegalBased on "Beep," his book on the accessible form of baseball for the visually impaired, Dr. David Wanczyk partnered with the U.S. Embassy and embarked on an inspiring trip to Senegal to teach poetry and baseball.
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Her Debut Novel Interweaves Mother-Daughter Relationships, Vietnamese ZodiacIn "Daughters of the New Year," alumna E.M. Tran '20Ph.D. writes about the vivid, fraught, wry web of relationships between generations of mothers and daughters in a Vietnamese-American family.
