Department of English

The English Department offers students an array of degree programs, exciting courses, and opportunities for faculty/student interaction. Guided by the conviction that language and literature shape lives and cultures, department faculty offer both traditional and contemporary courses. Students can study anything from Shakespeare to Multicultural California Literature, from courses in Milton to courses in Gender and Sexuality, Early American Captivity Narratives, Horror in Literature and Culture, Film, Screenwriting, Pulp Detective Fiction, or Children's Literature.

You'll leave Stanislaus State grounded in both the classical and the contemporary, and you'll be well-prepared to move towards graduate school or a career having fortified your analytical and communicative skills and imaginative powers. English Majors can earn a degree in Literature, TESOL, or Teacher Education. We enjoy a low faculty to student ratio, allowing us to be available to students and innovative in our delivery of courses. Feel free to contact any of the faculty with questions or for more information about a degree in English from Stanislaus State.

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Antiracism Commitment Statement

As educators in an institution dedicated to serving a diverse population of students, the Stanislaus State English Department recognizes and is committed to ensuring that our department continues to encourage and support inclusion and diversity. These efforts are an important foundation. 

We acknowledge and oppose the historical and structural barriers to equity in society: the legacies of white supremacy, slavery, colonialism, and other forms of racial violence and injustice--legacies that affect educational practices and life beyond the university. We oppose racism and racist ideologies. We also recognize that university curricula, including that of our own department, have often sidelined the narratives and experiences of Black communities and people of color. 

Going forward, we want to intensify our efforts in and beyond the university to be inclusive, diverse, and reflective of our students’ realities and will create supportive and nurturing spaces for Black students and students of color. Within our department and programs, we are committed to action-driven momentum toward lasting change and support for community efforts to achieve racial equity. We affirm that Black lives matter.

We agree with Cornelius Minor that "This is immense work, but this work of ensuring equity and access is doable." We are here to listen, learn, and act in ways that support racial equity at Stan State. 

Adopted as an expression of department sentiment December 2020  

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