The English major is an important foundation for a wide variety of careers. As an English major, you build analytical and communications skills that make you an attractive job candidate, especially in today’s dynamic, global economy dependent on flexibility, critical thinking, and fast and accurate communication. And if you are interested in pursuing graduate study in English in a literature or MFA program, a top-notch faculty and flexible curriculum will provide you with the ability to tailor your studies to your academic goals.
The English Department fosters curiosity about language and culture. In English courses, pleasurable reading is the foundation for developing skills in writing, speaking, and analytical thinking.
The Creative Writing Concentration encourages the comprehensive study and practice of more than one genre, and at the upper-level, students have the opportunity to specialize in a genre of writing in rigorous, advanced genre-specific workshops. Along with working alongside talented and publishing authors, our students enjoy an impressive annual Poets & Writers Reading Series, which brings in award-winning authors and lecturers for readings, writing salons, and classroom visits.
The English for Educators Concentration prepares students who are interested in teaching English in middle or high school with an easy-to-navigate path designed specifically to meet their needs. Through a rigorous and wide-ranging course of study that includes literature, language, writing, and multimedia narratives, students will acquire essential skills and cultural competencies while meeting licensure requirements for teaching English grades 7-12.
The Literature concentration focuses on reading and analyzing a variety of English-language literatures from around the world, both historic and contemporary. Students gain important skills in research, critical thinking, and written and oral expression. Through spirited discussion and debate of complex issues such as race, power, and identity, students study the ways in which historical and cultural contexts impact literary traditions, genres, and modes of expression.
The English minor consists of five units of literature and writing. Minors must take ENG 150 and four electives. All prospective minors are encouraged to take ENG 150 before enrolling in an upper-level course. A course taken credit/no entry may not be counted toward the minor. At least three of the five required courses must be taken at Ohio Wesleyan. NOTE: ENG 105 and 495 do not count toward the minor.
Professor Butcher is the Director of Creative Writing and the author of Mothertrucker, forthcoming from Little A Books and recently acquired for a film adaptation by Makeready with Joey Soloway directing and Julianne Moore in a starring role. Additional essays appear in Harper's, Granta, The New York Times Modern Love and Opinion Pages, Literary Hub, and Brevity, among others. She teaches courses in the essay.
Professor Comorau’s specialty is postcolonial British literature. She is working on a book on postcolonial reworkings of canonical novels. She has traveled with students on numerous occasions to England, Ireland, and New York.
Professor Long teaches literature of the English Renaissance. His specialty is Shakespeare but he also loves teaching sixteenth- and seventeenth-century lyric poetry, fiction, essays, epic--all of it! He can also be found moonlighting in courses on film, literary theory, and Harry Potter.
A past recipient of the Shankland Award for outstanding teaching, medievalist Professor DeMarco is working on a book on changing literary depictions of war and changing ideas of vengeance in the chivalric classes. Her work has appeared in journals such as Speculum and Studies in the Age of Chaucer. She serves as Director of Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies.
Professor Allison specializes in nineteenth-century Britain literature. He also teaches and publishes in the areas of utopian literature, the novel, and literary theory. He is finishing a book on the literature and aesthetics of British socialism.
Students in Professor Butcher's advanced creative writing workshop and literary editing course tour the offices of the Kenyon Review to learn more about careers in editing and publishing.
Bestselling author Donovan Hohn visits English Department classrooms with the four plastic toys that inspired his book to discuss sustainability, research, and publishing. He is the author of Moby Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists, and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them. In addition to visiting classrooms, Hohn presented a public lecture entitled "The Blind Oceanographer: Lessons From The Hunt For Moby Duck."
Kerry Howley, author of MMA-fighting book Thrown—a New York Times’ Notable Book of 2014, NPR’s Best Book of 2014, Time Magazine’s #2 Nonfiction Book of the Year, Salon’s Critics’ Choice Top 10 Books of 2014, and & a Slate staff pick for Best Book of the Year—joined students and faculty for a reading and writing salon in October 2016. During her writing salon, Howley described the power of associative elements in contemporary nonfiction.
Along with Dr. Poremski, students explored the importance of storytelling to Native American culture at the 2015 Mohican Pow Wow with storyteller Lance White Eagle.
Students in Professor Bob Olmstead's 'Writing Fiction' course made a trip to the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida to partake in a writing residency, where they immersed themselves in their manuscripts, workshopped new material, and discussed writing in the sun.
Award-winning writer Elena Passarello joined Ohio Wesleyan University students on Thursday, October 26th for a reading and classroom visits. Passarello is the author of the essay collections Let Me Clear My Throat and, most recently, Animals Strike Curious Poses. Her work has been awarded the Independent Publishers’ gold medal for nonfiction and was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. The recipient of a Whiting Award as well as fellowships from the Center for the Humanities, the MacDowell Colony, the Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts, and the University of Iowa Museum of Art, she teaches at Oregon State University.
Students, faculty, and community members joined together to welcome Poet Laureate of the U.K., Carol Ann Duffy, the first woman, first Scottish, and first LGBTQIA+ Poet Laureate to the United Kingdom. In addition to a reading of her work, Duffy engaged in a spirited Q&A and signed books for students.
OWU students Emily Burns ('18) and Chase Smith ('17) take in the scenery high above the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge in Northern Ireland on a recent trip to further explore The Troubles and examine the role of personal narrative in conflict transformation.
A former Ohio Wesleyan University theater and English double-major, Ryan J. Haddad ('15) developed his debut solo play "Hi, Are You Single?" in various departmental creative nonfiction workshops before performing it three times in New York City to sold out audiences. The play first earned him Ohio Wesleyan's 2015 Excellence in Performance Award and the Huffington Post has since it called it "a stirring work of theater...that should and needs to be seen." In April 2016, he will appear in a small guest role on Season 2 of the Netflix series "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt."
Nearly fifty students gather at Fresh Start Bakery for the first ever Speak/Easy, a new undergraduate open-mic reading series. Held once a month downtown, the event showcases the best in student writing, and often includes readings from faculty and local community members.
Students in Professor Long’s “Shakespeare at the Globe” class examined Shakespeare’s plays in the context of early modern theatrical culture, and they saw three plays at the reconstructed Globe Theatre in London.
John D'Agata, award-winning essayist and director of the University of Iowa's Nonfiction Writing Program, joined students in a writing salon and reading. D'Agata's writing salon explored the use of lists in contemporary literature and how these devices reveal our inherent nature to form narrative from life. During his reading, which included excerpts of About A Mountain and new work, D'Agata described the essay as “an art form that tracks the evolution of consciousness as it rolls over the folds of a new idea, memory, or emotion.”
Students in Dr. Lynette Carpenter’s 'American Images' literature class pose in front of the Ripley House, a famous stop on the Underground Railroad that figured in the actual event on which Eliza's escape in Uncle Tom’s Cabin was based.
Students celebrate the authors they love most with literary-themed Valentine's Day cupcakes, featuring the familiar faces of Joan Didion, David Foster Wallace, James Baldwin, Michel de Montaigne, Annie Dillard, Virginia Woolf, Brian Doyle, Sei Shonagon and more.
Led by English professor Nancy Comorau, OWU students spent a semester reading poetry and prose by black British and postcolonial authors and then traveled to London, Liverpool, and Manchester to explore the black British and postcolonial arts scene and examine the ways in which the UK represents its national identity to visitors.
Chloe Dyer ’18 has her book signed by Anne Enright, the fiction laureate of Ireland and winner of the Booker Prize. “Our travels across Ireland and Northern Ireland transformed what we’d read from words on the page and abstract concepts in the classroom to concrete, real-life experiences.”
Our students go on to do great things, pursuing exciting careers in teaching, writing, and public policy, to name a few. Here, recent alum Katalyn Kuivila ('14) poses before the Ohio House of Representatives, where she serves as a Legislative Aide. During her time as an English and Government & Politics major, Katalyn traveled to England to study black British literature, to Puerto Rico to explore nationalism and citizenship, and twice to Ireland, where she examined postcolonial narratives and healthcare policy, better shaping her for a career in law.
English major John Keller '20 envisions what life may have looked like on this high Bronze Age hillfort 3,000 years ago in Wales. John and three students from other disciplines received a Theory-to-Practice Grant to walk the 177-mile Offa's Dyke Path along the England-Wales border while studying the literature, history, geology, and environmental policies and practices of the region.
While you may know that you prefer writing fiction, poetry, essays, screenplays or screenwriting, the English Department strengthens your creative abilities and skills through multi-genre writing workshops, readings, classroom visits and writing salons with visiting authors. Can you make room in your heart for another genre?
In October 2015, Leslie Jamison, award winning essayist and author of The New York Times bestselling essay collection The Empathy Exams, joined Ohio Wesleyan University English students for a discussion on craft and the connections between reported and personal material in journalism. Jamison's visit, which included readings of both published and new work, was sponsored by the Department of English’s Katherine Kearney Carpenter Lecture Series, established in 1967.