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Providing a world-class humanities experience at the #1 university for innovation.
In the Department of English at Arizona State University, find your place in a community of award winning writers, makers, scholars and national leaders who explore and create meaning across language and media. We offer engaging study in diverse disciplines on campus and online.
Areas of study
Excellence, inclusivity and accessibility
We explore global expressions of the English language in all media — preparing citizens who are fluent in creative problem-solving and able to communicate across cultures.
Award-winning faculty
including Pulitzer, Guggenheim, MacArthur and British and American Academy honors.
Robust internship program
with remote and in-person career development opportunities.
30 academic programs
prepare you for creative, cultural and career success.
Cross-humanities learning
Affiliated research centers
on pre-modern studies, science and the imagination, worldbuilding and more.
TomorrowTalks
virtual engagement series featuring thought leaders such as Michael Eric Dyson, Melinda Gates and Jane Goodall.
Skills for today’s — and tomorrow’s — world
Our goal is to educate citizens who can think, read, write, imagine and act in robust and significant ways to meet new challenges. The skills you learn in the Department of English at ASU prepare you for a variety of existing and future paths and career fields.
Advertising
Communications
Continuity writing
Copywriting
Corporate brand strategy
Editing
Film/radio/podcast/television research
Freelance writing
Instructional design
Journalism
Marketing
Nonprofit work
Policy analysis
Social media management
Technical writing
A writer’s oasis
Students in creative writing at ASU have access to two Pulitzer Prize-winning faculty members – fiction writer/essayist Mitchell Jackson and poet Natalie Diaz.
The program also offers a range of opportunities for civic, social and artistic engagement and generous scholarship and award competitions.
Where stories have sway
Regents Professor Devoney Looser is the author or editor of ten books on literature by women.
A first-generation college graduate, Looser champions higher education and is committed to elevating forgotten voices. Her latest work is a biography of the Porter sisters, once celebrated and long neglected writers who were contemporaries of Jane Austen.
At the forefront of premodern studies
Regents Professor of English Ayanna Thompson directs the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at ASU.
Dubbed the “Othello whisperer” for her insights on race and performance, Thompson uses her academic platform and her work as a consultant and dramaturg to broaden inclusivity and access within pre-modern studies.
Toward a sustainable future
Sir Jonathan Bate is an international leader in green thinking and applied humanities.
At ASU, the former Oxford dean has a joint appointment as Foundation Professor in English and sustainability and teaches ecocritical and therapeutic approaches to literature. Bate led a working group on the creation of a new pan-humanities ASU degree in culture, technology and environment.