English Department Welcome message from the Chair
One of the founding departments of Stanford University in 1891, the English Department is the cornerstone of the humanities at Stanford. The pioneer faculty of English was an eclectic group of writers, comparativists, and literary scholars.

Views from the Department
Professor Ato Quayson with Professor Adam Johnson at Creative Writing Welcome Dinner
Recent News
In The Underwater Eye, Margaret Cohen tells the fascinating story of how the development of modern diving equipment and movie camera technology has allowed documentary and narrative filmmakers to take human vision into the depths, creating new imagery of the seas and the underwater realm, and expanding the scope of popular imagination. Innovating...
Blair Hoxby’s new collection of essays, Shadows of the Enlightenment: Tragic Drama during Europe’s Age of Reason (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2022) has appeared in print.About the book:
To refer to the Enlightenment is to teeter on the brink of paradox. The eighteenth century is famous for its celebration of ideals such as optimism...
About the book:
Ever since T.B. Macaulay leveled the accusation in 1835 that 'a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India,' South Asian literature has served as the imagined battleground between local linguistic multiplicity and a rapidly globalizing English. In response to this endless polemic, Indian...
Upcoming Events
Please stay tuned for announcements regarding upcoming Departmental, and Co-sponsored events!
Department Bookshelf
English remains a top-ranked department nationally because of the strength and variety of our faculty publications, both in scholarly research and creative writing. Browse the Bookshelf to explore our many interests.
2022
Stephen Orgel
2021
Elaine Treharne
2021
Marjorie Perloff