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Because we teach the arts of rhetoric, English faculty have a special obligation to defend and promote the open exchange of ideas, and to expose and resist deliberate misrepresentations of the past. We honor the right to free speech and will oppose the intrusion of hate speech and hateful symbols of oppression on our campus. Since we recognize that the College of Charleston, like the rest of the country, has yet to shed the vestiges of our racist history, we stand committed to working toward a fully diverse and inclusive educational environment. Read More.

Read our faculty and staff's Statement of Solidarity and Commitment to Antiracism here

Why English?

If you are a student reading this page, you probably already know why you want to study English.

You already feel the pull of the word and the image. You already know the pleasure afforded by language shaped into stories, poems, memoirs, and essays. You already experience the thrill of entering other worlds, adopting other perspectives, and grappling with big questions. You already experience the satisfaction of getting a sentence just right, expressing your idea, articulating your vision.

What you might not yet know is that English represents a pragmatic course of study as well as a fulfilling one. After all, there are some widespread misconceptions about how English majors fare on the job market. When you tell friends that you want to study English, some of them might have asked, “what are you going to do with that – teach?”...[Read more...]

Spring 2021 registration 

Advising season for Spring 2021 registration has begun! It’s time to get your plans in place, and meet with your advisor!

 Our Spring offerings include a number of exciting special topics courses, alongside returning favorites.

 You’ll find 300-level classes on: 

• Poetry II
• Fiction Writing II
• Extra/Ordinary: Writing Surreal and Speculative Fiction
• The Environmental Imagination: Writing Nature
• Writing Across Context
• Technical Writing
• Milton
• Advanced Composition
• Making End-User Documentation
• The Female Gothic     
• Studies in American Film
• Black Women Writers
• Young Adult Literature
• Mark Twain

We also offer ENGL 290: Nation of Immigrants: American Literature & Identity (taught by Prof. Duvall), along with our regular 200-level classes in Poetry Writing; Fiction Writing; Intro to Writing Studies; Cinema History and Criticism; and the Core Curriculum (201, 202, 207, 299).

The Spring 2021 English department list of courses, including detailed descriptions, is now available, along with a listing of classes and the requirements they fulfill. They are also listed according to their instructional mode (on campus face-to-face hybrid; online synchronous; online asynchronous [a.k.a."Online Exclusively"]). 

To determine your registration entry time, you can check this schedule. You will need to know your current number of credits, which you can find in DegreeWorks. Registration begins for seniors on November 5.

Study Abroad

Find out about study abroad opportunites within the English Department and beyond. 

Have you heard about the new concentration ELFC (“elfs”), Literature, Film, and Cultural Studies?

The concentration in Literature, Film, and Cultural Studies provides a rigorous education in writing and analysis through the study of a wide variety of literary and cultural texts, from medieval manuscripts to modern films. Strong writing and incisive thinking are increasingly specialized skills that are in demand in a wide variety of professional fields. Graduates of this program have gone on to careers in education, academia, journalism, marketing, publishing, copywriting, law, and medicine.

FILM PROFESSORS OFFER UP THEIR TOP 10 FILMS FOR SELF-ISOLATION on REEL NEWS CofC's Film Studies Blog. 

English Department “In the news”

Professor Bret Lott's 1991 novel Jewel was featured February 10th in New York Times book section "50 States of Love: From sea to shining sea, here’s a tour of unforgettable fiction that explores matters of the heart."

Professor Anthony Varallo featured in Charleston City Paper!

Professor Gary Jackson on the Academy of American Poets, “Poem-a-Day"!

Learn More

Faculty Spotlight: Joe Kelly

English professor Joe Kelly didn’t start out writing a book about the history of Jamestown, Virginia. His project started out as an investigation of stories about shipwrecked castaways marooned on desert islands.

But the wreck of the sailing vessel Sea Venture in the Bermuda islands as it was heading for Jamestown in 1609 got Kelly thinking about the metaphorical marooning of the original settlers that landed on the shores of the James River in 1607. Culturally, socially and economically cut-off from life as they knew it in England a full 13 years before the pilgrims sailed across the Atlantic in the Mayflower to found Plymouth Rock, Kelly, in his new book Marooned: Jamestown, Shipwreck and a New History of America’s Origin, takes a closer look at one of America’s earliest settlements and how the settlers of Jamestown survived a life marooned in the Virginia wilderness. It was the grit and determination of those settlers at Jamestown that Kelly argues laid the groundwork for the American values we hold dear today.

 The College Today caught up with Kelly ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday – which is based around America’s founding myth of the Pilgrims fleeing religious persecution to settle Plymouth Rock – to talk about why the Jamestown settlement should be elevated to the pantheon of   American folklore.

Alumni Spotlight: Evan Berke

Everyone loves a good story: not just the kind you study in fiction courses, like Evan Berke did, but the ones created and shared everyday between people. The kind that he says “show the genuine humor, goodness, evil, crazy, and beauty in people.” And it’s the English Department at the College of Charleston that honed his skill and peaked his interest in the act of storytelling—both on and off the page, in Charleston and beyond.

As a New York based Associate Field Producer, much of that storytelling takes place on screen: whether for TMZ on TV, TMZ Live, TMZ Sports, or TMZ.com, Berke’s job “is to have thoughtful and engaging conversations with actors, athletes, musicians, politicians and other public figures about the latest news.” These conversations include interviews with people like Kevin Hart, Whoopi Goldberg, Jon Stewart, Mark Cuban, Al Sharpton, Allen Iverson, and Bryan Cranston. “It is my job,” Berke says, “to persuade an A-Lister to talk to me.”

Read the rest of Evan's feature article in Folio where you'll find more feature stories about alumni in our ongoing "Sequel" series.

Student Spotlight: McKayla Conahan

As the former Editor-in-Chief at College of Charleston’s National Literary and Arts Journal Miscellany, and current Design Assistant for Cistern Yard News, Senior McKayla Conahan has always been interested in and in love with Creative Writing–only it hasn’t always been so sophisticated. “I loved reading Jan Brett books with my mom when I was six years old,” she says. It’s how she became fascinated with the marriage of writing and pictures, and how her mother came to tell her if you want more books, you’ll have to make them.

Read the rest of McKayla's feature article in Folio where you'll find more feature stories about our students in our ongoing "Find Your Voice" feature series.

Folio: The Department Blog

The Department of English's department blog, Folio, features stories on alumni, current students, new professors, department events, and faculty accomplishments. If you would have an accomplishment, event, or information that you would like the department to share through Folio, tell us about it.