Welcome to the Stanford University Department of English

Congratulations, Class of 2025!

English Diploma Ceremony Highlights

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

Please stay tuned for announcements regarding upcoming Departmental, and Co-sponsored events!

Here are some great events that we have held in the past

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

Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn’s Comrade

2025
Shelley Fisher Fishkin

The Cambridge History of the British Essay

2024
Denise Gigante and Jason Childs

Digital Philology

2024
Elaine Treharne

The Globe In Print

2024
Stephen Orgel

Disrupting Categories, 1050-1250

2024
Elaine Treharne

The Island: War and Belonging in Auden's England

2024
Nicholas Jenkins
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