On behalf of the entire English Department, I welcome you to our website.

If you are considering the study of writing, literature, or language, you will find something to interest you here, including descriptions of our undergraduate and graduate degree programs in Applied Linguistics, Composition Studies, Creative Writing, Literature, Professional Writing, and Textual Studies. Courses in these programs are taught by 50 faculty members, many of whom have received national recognition for their work.

Our Creative Writing program publishes the literary journal The Pinch and hosts the annual River City Writers Series, both of which have provided venues for many of the best writers in America.

Internships in Professional Writing offer work experience in writing and editing, and program graduates are employed across the Mid-South region and beyond. Graduates in literature and linguistics have gone on to secondary and university teaching careers, and to graduate programs in business and law. On the Memphis campus, our department enrolls over three hundred undergraduate majors and more than one hundred M.A., M.F.A., and Ph.D. students. In addition, our Applied Linguistics concentration has a summer program in the Czech Republic.

While numbers are impressive, as English teachers we know that the most important things about our department cannot be quantified: our love of teaching and research, and the mutual support that exists among all members of the department here. We will do everything possible to make your experience with us a beneficial and enjoyable one, and if we hear that we are not doing something well, you can be sure that we'll try to improve it. So please enter the site and look around, and call our department at 901-678-2651 if you have any questions. We'll be happy to answer them.