Ohio Wesleyan offers three different concentrations in English to meet your individual interests and goals. In all of these concentrations, you will develop valuable skills in writing and oral expression, critical thinking, research, and analysis.
Undergraduate research, performed under the mentorship of expert faculty, is a central component of The OWU Connection.
We emphasize intellectual curiosity, creativity, initiative, and synthesis. OWU provides opportunities, including traveling abroad, for you to explore an existing problem or develop a totally new avenue of exploration. You can work with a faculty mentor and apply for grant funding—and present your research at the Student Symposium in the spring.
From your first year on campus, you can get off campus with Travel-Learning Courses and Study Abroad. Journey to a distant land and immerse yourself in another culture. Learn how classroom theory truly connects with real-world experience.
Recent Travel-Learning Courses and Study Abroad programs have taken English students to Hawai'i, Ireland, England, and New Orleans.
Students in Dr. Nancy Comorau's "Re-Placing Great Britain" Travel-Learning Course study museum narrative, architecture, theatre, poetry and novels in the classroom and on-site in London, Liverpool and Manchester.
Build your experience and connections to the professional world with internships both on and off campus. OWU English faculty use their connections in the field to help students secure valuable internships.
English students have also received University-funded Theory-to-Practice Grants for research projects from New York to Thailand.
Students in a fiction-writing course participated in a writing residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida, where they immersed themselves in their manuscripts, workshopped new material, and discussed writing in the sun.
In addition to learning from publishing writers, students studying creative writing have ample opportunity to attend readings, lectures, and engage in lively discussions in intimate classroom settings with some of the world's leading writers. Recent guests include New York Times bestselling authors, National Book Award winners, Guggenheim Foundation recipients, National Endowment for the Arts recipients, and MacArthur Genius Grant recipients, including Ta-Nehisi Coates, Terese Marie Mailhot, Leslie Jamison, Dave Lucas, Kiese Laymon, Alissa Nutting, Donovan Hohn, Maggie Smith, Traci Brimhall, Kerry Howley, Jennifer Percy, Damien Ober, John D'Agata, Adrian Matejka, and Poet Laureate of the U.K. Carol Ann Duffy.
OWU faculty are outstanding scholars and researchers—and passionate teachers. They will push you, challenge you, inspire you, and work with you on your own research and creative projects.
They can even pack a 3-minute lecture with ideas, insight, and imagination. Check out our unique I³ lectures.
Students can spend a semester living and working in New York City with OWU's renowned New York Arts Program. Recent graduates Shannon Dean '14 had an editorial internship at a fantasy and science fiction publishing house called DAW Books, and Kathleen Dalton '13 interned with Dance Magazine.
OWU's student-run literary journals, The OWL and its online version, Night OWL, publish work by students, alums, and other writers. The magazine accepts submissions for poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, academic writing, plays for both stage and screen, and fine art. Students who serve as OWL editors earn one unit of course credit.
Students and faculty post writing, photography, memes, and more in "The Sturges Script," the OWU English Department blog. Read what's happening with OWU English students in their own words.
To become more involved in the English Department, you may apply to be on the English Student Board, which is the bridge between faculty and students. They distribute faculty evaluations, plan department events, and choose the Laureate Awards for freshman writing.
Lee is teaching and working toward her MFA in Creative Writing at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.
Ohio Wesleyan Graduate to Return Oct. 24 to Read From New Poetry Collection
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Philosopher, Game Designer to Discuss 'How to Live Playfully' at Oct. 17 Ohio Wesleyan Lecture
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Students tour the area around Shakespeare's Globe Theater in London.
Cara Harris '18 (left) and Anna L. Davies '19 (right) used a Theory-to-Practice Grant to compare the narratives of sectarianism in Belfast, Northern Ireland to racism in America.
Students hear a presentation in Shakespeare's home in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Students on Travel-Learning Courses may take walking tours, go to museums, attend local music and theatre performances, attend lectures from top scholars or conduct their own research on-site wherever their course takes them.
Dr. Long's class visits performance spaces around Stratford-Upon-Avon to talk to local students.
The "Shakespeare and the Sites of Performance" class visit Shakespeare's hometown.
Students come together for Speak/Easy, a monthly open mic night where student writers share their work aloud to an audience of community members, faculty, and students. Held at Fresh Start Bakery downtown, the series unites local writers and helps student gain confidence sharing their work.
Zack Long's "Shakespeare and Sites of Performance" class visits The Globe theater in London.
Students in Dr. Comorau's Slouching Towards Empire class spend time in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland on the travel component of the course.
Students visit the castle in Warwickshire, England, said to have been an inspiration for A Midsummer Night's Dream.
