UB English Department
306 Clemens Hall
Buffalo, NY 14260
Phone: 716-645-2575
FAX: 716-645-5980
The English Major
The English Major at the University at Buffalo offers students the opportunity to work in small classroom settings with nationally and internationally renowned faculty on the skills of reading closely, writing lucidly, and thinking analytically. It is the only nationally ranked English Department in the SUNY system, and currently ranks within the top 25% of all university English Departments in the nation. English is also one of UB’s most popular, useful, and comprehensive majors. The study of literature is the study of life in all its dimensions, and English Department professors teach their courses in that spirit: a study of literature enables fuller comprehension and enjoyment of language and life, across a spectrum of centuries, genres, and literary traditions.
For over half a century, the English Department at the University at Buffalo has been at the forefront of innovative writing and cultural criticism and it is internationally renowned as a place where the exploration of new ideas happens. Faculty have included poets and novelists who have helped shape contemporary writing—including Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Susan Howe, and John Barth. The department’s scholarly faculty has been similarly ground-breaking in bringing new ideas to the field—asking what literature is, how it matters to our lives, how it intersects with multiple aspects of culture, and what makes the study of literature vital for local and global understanding. Students in the program work with faculty at all levels—from introductory classes to advanced seminars, independent studies, and honors theses. Current faculty and students continue the department’s tradition of being on the cutting edge of thinking about the study of literature and culture in all of their rich variety.
Want to find out more about the English Major? Go here:
Department Officers
Cristanne Miller
Department Chair
Office: 320 Clemens Hall
View the full list of department officers.
Recent News and This Week's Events
Congratulations to our 2008 Writing Prize winners:
Marina Blitshteyn, George Knight Houpt Prize and the Arthur Axlerod Award
Alex Johnston, English Department Essay Prize
Jungmin Kim, Scribbler's Prize
Dan Lesniak, The Albert Cook, The Mac Hammond, the John Logan Prize, and the Joyce Carol Oates Fiction Prize
Maura Pellettieri, The Albert Cook, The Mac Hammond, and the John Logan Prize
Professor Andy Stott has won the 2007 Royal Society of Literature's RSL/Jerwood award, for a "first major commissioned work of non-fiction" for his biography of the Regency clown, Joseph Grimaldi, to be published by Canongate. Andy will be traveling to London to collect his award. Congratulations, Andy! You can find the official announcement on the Royal Society of Literature's website. ( http://www.rslit.org/jerwood.htm)
Douglas Basford, the English Department's Assistant Director of Composition, has been awarded the 2008 Der-Hovanessian Translation Award by the New England Poetry Club, judged by Marge Piercy, for a translation of a poem by the 20th-century Italian writer Silvio D'Arzo. The poem appeared in issue 6 of the journal Subtropics. Congratulations, Douglas!
October 14
Poetics Plus
Bruce Andrews
12:30 p.m., Poetry Collection
420 Capen
October 15
Poetics Plus
Karpeles Manuscript Museum
453 Porter Ave.
October, 16, Thursday
Juxtapositions Lecture Series
Lauren Goodlad, U of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign,
"The Victorian Geopolitical Aesthetic"
October 18
Poetics Plus
Raymond Federman
Federman @ 80: from Surfiction to Critifiction
A Celebration
1:00 - 2:30 p.m., Poetry Collection
420 Capen
and
8:00 p.m.,
An Evening of Laughterature, Surfiction, and Playgiarism in Honor of Raymond Federman (Location TBA).
