The study of English language and literature at the University of Kansas fosters self-knowledge and cultural understanding. The Department of English teaches students to write clearly and effectively and to read good literature with understanding and pleasure. We offer courses in three general divisions.

1. Literature:
   Through reading, discussion, and writing, students develop powers of appreciation and criticism.
2. Language:
   Language studies promotes students’ understanding of the historical development of English, its current structural traits, and its various uses and functions in American society and around the world.
   
3. Writing:
   Through reading, discussion, and practice, students learn to write imaginative works in several genres, including fiction, poetry, playwriting, screenwriting, and nonfiction prose. We also offer courses in critical, argumentative, and professional writing, as well as courses in rhetoric and composition.

Faculty in the Department of English have published numerous books and articles in a variety of fields and have won university and national awards to recognize excellence in both teaching and research. In 2009-2010, English Department faculty members received prestigious external funding in the form of two NEH summer seminar grants, an NEH special editions grant, a Smithsonian Institution fellowship, an American Philosophical Society Franklin Research Grant, and a Newberry Library fellowship, among others. In the past five years, English Department faculty members have also received major research funding from the University of Kansas, including four Hall Center for the Humanities Research fellowships and four Keeler Intra-University Fellowships for interdisciplinary work.

Our department is also renowned for its tradition of excellence in teaching. In the last six years, faculty members in the department of English have won seven Kemper Fellowships for Excellence in Teaching, two Chancellors Club Teaching Professorships, a Career Achievement Teaching Award, and a wide variety of other university teaching and advising awards. In 2003, our department won the Center of Teaching Excellence (CTE) award for Department Excellence in Teaching at the University of Kansas.

The department regularly hosts lectures by distinguished writers and scholars from other parts of the country.