Department of English

Students specializing in African American/African Diaspora (AA/AD) literature and culture understand the intersection of history, literature, and cultural studies and how each affects our sociopolitical interactions in a global society. The rising interest in womanist thought (here and in academia as a whole) and critical race theory give our students an edge in all areas of academia. Students gain specific theoretical expertise, cultural and diversity competence, and an understanding of how class, race, ethnicity, and gender function in literature, film, and pop culture, as well as the sociocultural experience as modes (or central foci) of American acculturation. Students can merge their interests in AA/AD with other areas of emphasis in our program (for example, black girl magic, Afrofuturism and comics, womanist thought and creative writing, critical race theory and global blackness, digital and new media studies, diaspora studies, disability studies, etc.). Students can also enrich their study of AA/AD through electives in other programs or departments, including the Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies, public humanities projects (in partnership with the the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere), and oral history (in conjunction with the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, https://oral.history.ufl.edu/).

We study American literature and culture in national, global, and hemispheric contexts. Our innovative, non-traditional curriculum has notable strengths in early to contemporary print culture, comics and visual culture, African American literature, children’s literature, cultural studies, indigenous studies, US empire studies, Asian-American studies, Latinx studies, disability studies, science studies, prison studies, labor and left studies, and gender studies (including womanism). Students in this area take advantage of resources across the UF campus, including History; Latin American Studies; Center for the Study of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies; Museum Studies; College of the Arts; College of Education, and the UF Libraries Special Collections.

The British Literature and Culture Area Group brings historical depth, innovation, and collaboration to our graduate curriculum. With key strengths in Early Modern Culture, Victorian Studies, and post-1900 literature, our faculty also collaborate on dissertations about American studies, eighteenth-century literature and culture, children’s literature, critical theory, film and media studies, and postcolonial studies. Our program in Comics Studies originated through our late colleague Donald Ault, and several members are active in Digital Humanities. On campus our British Studies faculty frequently engage with the Center for European Studies; the Center for Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies; the College of the Arts; the Harn Museum of Art; UF Libraries; and Medical Humanities.

The Department has long been a leader in children’s literature studies, broadly construed, and faculty and graduate student research spans a wide range of topics and areas, from international and comparative children’s literature to the interdisplinary/multidisciplinary history and theory of children’s and young adult literature to the intersections of writing for the young with intellectual history, popular culture, transcultural media, and fanwork. Recent dissertations by PhD students in this area have taken up topics as diverse as Bengali children’s publishing, Harry Potter fandom, Cold War/atomic children’s literature, rape culture and YA fantasy, Puerto Rican children’s literature, American historical series fiction for girls, and multimedia Hindu mythological narratives. The children’s literature area is supported further by the Center for Children’s Literature and Culture, which hosts talks and other events, and by UF’s Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature, one of the largest such collections in the world. Students and faculty in the area are actively involved in national and international professional organizations and networks.

The Department of English has had a long history of being a national leader in the fields of theory and cultural studies, and students working in these areas will have opportunities to take courses from and study with some of our most distinguished faculty. Theory and cultural studies are at the foundation of our creative labors as readers, teachers, scholars, and intellectuals, and hence all of the areas of research and scholarship in the department. Rather than focusing exclusively on specific methods, practices, or traditions, the study of theory at UF cuts across traditional disciplinary boundaries to produce a rigorous self-awareness and critical reflection upon the form of what we do when we read, listen to, look at, and talk about cultural texts, the latter understood in the most expansive sense possible, as well as the institutional contexts within which such labors take place. Comparative and interdisciplinary work in cultural studies likewise expands the range of practices and forms that we take up in our vocation as scholars, critics, and teachers to include not only diverse media and popular forms but also the practices of audiences and a diverse range of cultural and subcultural communities. Work in theory and cultural studies is supported by the Working Group for the Study of Critical Theory (SCT@UF), and a number of the graduate student directed reading groups, annual conferences, and online journals.

The Feminisms, Genders & Sexualities area group brings diversity to our graduate curriculum through our courses, research, and community work. We are especially strong in feminist and womanist theories, masculinity studies, Queer studies, LGBT literary and cultural studies (eighteenth century to contemporary), popular culture, and women’s writing. Several faculty are affiliated with UF’s Center for Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies Research. FGS faculty also collaborate with African American Studies, Latin American Studies, the Center for European Studies, and Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere. Our faculty have served on the editorial boards of Feminist Studies and Contemporary Women’s Writing.

UF archives conducive to research in feminisms, genders, and sexualities include the Zora Neale Hurston Papers, the Johns Committee Collection, and editorial papers for the journal Kalliope.

Please visit the Film & Media Studies Homepage for more information.

The postcolonial area group dynamically combines the study of literature, film, rhetoric and digital media with theoretical, social, and political analyses addressing past and present forms of colonialism. Our strengths in African, Caribbean, Latin American and Latinx, South Asian and US and British empire studies attract a diverse group of students.  We have a vibrant intellectual culture with annual symposia and an ongoing study group.  We foster interdisciplinary links with the Center for African Studies, The Center for Latin American Studies, and the digital library of the Caribbean.