Why Study Here?

The SMU Department of English faculty help students think and write with clarity and grace as they prepare to work in a world where communication has become the signature endeavor.

Our undergraduate majors and minors will enter the arenas of government, law, business, public service, the arts, education, and every other field, mindful of the importance of language and imagination in effecting change. At the same time, the graduate students in our Ph.D. program are being prepared to join faculties at the best universities in the world.

Department Features

Faculty Gregg Brownderville at TEDXSMU

Faculty

Listen to Professor Greg Brownderville's TEDxSMU talk "How to Make Up Your Mind."

Graduate Programs students in classroom

Graduate Programs

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education the English Ph.D. program has the highest teaching assistantship available among 111 universities surveyed across the U.S.
Coursework students learning outside

Coursework

Creative writing at SMU allows undergraduate students to practice the arts of writing poetry and fiction under the guidance of widely published writers.

Get involved

  • faculty teaching

    Faculty Expertise

    The Department of English houses the Writing and Reasoning Program. Faculty from the WRTR also staff the Writing Center, a component of the Altshuler Learning Enhancement Center.

  • desks in a circle

    Confident and Articulate Writers

    We help produce confident, articulate, and imaginative writers who will take their places in the world. Many of our graduates include published writers whose work has appeared in a wide range of literary and professional venues.

  • Creative Writing student writing

    Creative Writing

    Students who earn the English major with a creative writing emphasis add broad knowledge of literature, analytic writing and research to their own writing.

  • Gilbert Lecture Series faculty

    Gilbert Lecture Series

    The SMU Literary Festival, in conjunction with the Department of English's Gilbert Lectures, annually brings many of the nation's prominent writers to campus.