English creates an environment fostering lively intellectual exchange, as students investigate the role of the arts and humanities in the context of the larger culture. The mission of the Department of English is to promote exploration, analysis, discussion, and understanding of English language and texts, broadly defined to include theater, performance, film, and new media. Students in English learn to respond thoughtfully and critically to texts from across the English-speaking world and to articulate their responses in clear and fluent language. We encourage students to develop an understanding of the scholarly and critical practices of the field and a mastery of reading, writing, critical thinking, and creative expression.
Literature
Studying literature doesn’t just mean encounters with Shakespeare and Austen and Frost. We are committed not only to British and American literature but also to an ever-expanding horizon of inquiry, including African-American literature, Irish literature, and Caribbean literature, and to works in all genres.
Literature
Theater
Students involved in theater at Lafayette cross boundaries that teach them about the stage but even more about themselves. Dedicated theater faculty and adventurous students are at the center of collaboration across disciplines that guarantees the very best liberal arts education anywhere—on stage or off.
Theater
Writing
Students in writing produce sophisticated texts through diverse methods of composition, including creative writing, journalism, rhetoric, screen writing, nonfiction prose, new media, and literature.
Writing
