Welcome to the Stanford University Department of English

Main content start

Congratulations, Class of 2024!

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.

Front entrance of the quad from Jordan Hall to Hoover Tower, on Serra Street. From a series of images intended to "recreate" historical images from the Stanford Archives. bicycle

 

Linda A. Cicero / Stanford News Service

Undergraduate Program

To study English is to master the power of language.

On the first day of summer, junior Chaz Curet takes a break to read in the sun. The English major found a comfortable spot in the SEQ to read from 'Our Story Begins,' a collection of short stories by Stanford professor Tobias Wolff.

Linda A. Cicero / Stanford News Service

Coterminal Master of Arts

If you are an advanced undergraduate who wants to take the study of literature to a higher level, then the coterminal M.A. program is for you.

Ato Quayson speaking with Ramon Saldivar and Paula Moya

Paul Keitz

Check out our courses

Stanford English offers a wide variety of interdisciplinary courses taught by world-class faculty

A photo of Ato Quayson and Adam Johnson attending the Creative Writing Welcome Back Dinner.

Views from the Department

Professor Ato Quayson with Professor Adam Johnson at the Creative Writing program Welcome Dinner

 

 

Recent News

Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn’s Comrade. by Shelley Fisher Fishkin, will be published April 15th. by Yale University Press, in their “Black Lives” book series (edited by David Blight, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Jacquelyn Goldsby) Mark Twain’s Jim, introduced in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), is a shrewd, self‑aware, and...
“A frank love letter to modern Jewish life.” — MERVE EMRE, contributing writer, The New YorkerAn intimate memoir in essays seeking familial history and personal memory against the backdrop of the lost world of North American Jewry.What is the past? How can we let it speak on its own terms, without forcing it into the categories of history? In The...
Congratulations to Professor Nicholas Jenkins for winning the 2024 Warren-Brooks Award for Outstanding Literary Criticism for his book, The Island: War and Belonging in Auden's England!His book is available for purchase through Harvard University Press.

Upcoming Events

April
23
Date
Wed April 23rd 2025, 12:00pm - 1:15pm
Location
Building 260, Pigott Hall
450 Jane Stanford Way, Building 260, Stanford, CA 94305
252

Organized and hosted by the Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (CMEMS).

Shu-han Luo (UC Berkeley) will give a talk titled…

April
25
Date
Fri April 25th 2025, 9:00am - Sat April 26th 2025, 6:00pm
Location
Humanities Center
424 Santa Teresa Street, Stanford, CA 94305

Join us for the first ever conference of Kurdish Literature at Stanford!

The title question, Kî ne em?Who are we?, could…

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.

 Browse the entire Bookshelf