About the Department
The Department of English at the University of Florida is committed to rigor, diversity, innovation, and excellence. This is reflected in the range and depth of our graduate and undergraduate programs and the research and publications of the faculty, which was ranked 8th among all graduate English faculties surveyed in the 2005 Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index.
Home to UF’s programs in Creative Writing and Film and Media Studies, The Center for Children’s Literature and Culture, and The Institute for the Psychological Study of the Arts, the Department’s areas of emphasis bridge traditional literary studies with new critical and theoretical disciplines. These include: critical theory and cultural studies; creative writing, rhetoric and composition; and emerging areas of investigation such as children’s and young adult literature, contact period and postcolonial studies, film studies/film and video production, gender studies and feminist theory, new media, psychology and literature, and visual culture.
Our academic programs take full advantage of faculty research to introduce scholarly innovation directly to the classroom. At every level of instruction, students are challenged and supported in their growth as scholars through individualized programs of study that balance focus with flexibility. Our open curriculum spans periods, genres, and media, fostering careful analysis across disciplines and methodologies. Received traditions are renovated and new and creative intersections of critical and literary practice are fostered within the framework of our track system. This insures that the disciplinary freedom of the open curriculum is balanced within broadly-defined rubrics of study.
Within most courses, as in the development of their individual programs of study, students are encouraged to define and pursue original research and are guided in their progress by faculty mentors, advisors, and models. Recent Undergraduate Honors theses, University Scholars Program projects, MA and MFA Theses, and PhD dissertations reflect the informed and independent thinking we foster through challenging and creative pedagogies. Our faculty have received numerous honors from professional societies in their disciplines and are well represented in College and University teaching awards and in the University’s Academy of Distinguished Teaching Scholars.
The scholarly journals and other media based in the Department similarly reflect our reputation for diversity and innovation: American Imago, an international journal of psychoanalysis; Exemplaria: A Journal of Theory in Medieval and Renaissance Studies; ImageTexT, an online journal of scholarship in comics and imagetext studies; PsyArt: An Online Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts; Recess!, a nationally syndicated radio program on children’s culture; and Subtropics, a magazine of fiction and poetry featuring new and translated work by internationally-celebrated authors.