Welcome to the University of Kansas's graduate program in English, which offers the Ph.D., M.A., and M.F.A. degrees. Our program prides itself on its comprehensive coverage of the field, from medieval studies to contemporary postcolonial literatures, and from the history of the English language to the intersection of ethnicity and rhetoric.
Particular strengths of the department include Renaissance/Early Modern Studies, Twentieth-Century American literature, Postcolonial Literatures, African-American literature, Gender Studies, Rhetoric and Composition, and Creative Writing. In recent years, we have supplemented our course offerings in traditional fields with courses in Irish studies, postcolonial theory, African and Caribbean literatures, Latino literature, cultural rhetorics, jazz studies, American Indian literature, and cultural studies.
KU's newly established MFA program offers students tracks in fiction writing, poetry writing, playwriting, and creative nonfiction. The full-time creative writing faculty of seven has been widely published and anthologized and has been awarded such distinctions as the Gertrude Stein Award, the Kenyon Review Prize, the Sue Kaufman Prize, the Kennedy Center Gold Medallion, and the Pushcart Prize. Students who finish their course work in two years may have the third year devoted almost entirely to the writing of the thesis. Internships are available with Cottonwood, KU's nationally recognized literary review, as well as the department's award-winning English Alternative Theater, and students with assistantships have the opportunity to teach a course in creative writing. In recent years, writers Salman Rushdie, Rita Dove, Cristina Garcia, Kent Haruf, Ted Kooser, Sherman Alexie, Cherrie Moraga, Nuruddin Farah, Diane Williams, Paul Muldoon and many others have come to the campus to give seminars and readings.
Our faculty boasts an outstanding publication record, having produced 17 single-authored books in the past five years alone. The department combines this scholarly success with a deep concern for teaching and mentoring. Our faculty have won numerous university-wide and national teaching awards (thirteen in ten years), and the department as a whole was given an award for outstanding teaching by the University's Center for Teaching Excellence in 2003.
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