About Us

Thank you for visiting our website where we hope you will discover the breadth and depth of English Studies at UNC Charlotte. Not only does the department offer an array of options that will allow you to create your own educational path to the BA or the MA in English, we offer four exciting undergraduate concentrations that give you the opportunity to study an area of English in depth. The concentrations are: Creative Writing; Language and Digital Technology; Literature and Culture; and Pedagogy. You can also pursue a general course of study in the major. Our faculty members include linguists, technical writing scholars, creative writers, literature specialists, and rhetoric/composition scholars. We publish a broad variety of scholarly and creative writing: ranging from studies of slavery in children’s literature, to politeness on YouTube, to ecocritical approaches to early modern literature, to the literacy of electronic gaming, and to the impact of the graphic novel. Our courses are diverse, provocative, and intellectually engaging. English majors graduate with at least six skills that are essential in today’s world:

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• An awareness of and respect for diverse ideas and viewpoints
• The ability to analyze and understand complex ideas and texts
• Experience in inventing drafting, editing, and publishing both printed
and electronic texts
• A knowledge of the history of spoken language, written literature, rhetoric,
and communication technologies
• The ability to collaborate on complex research and writing tasks

A very recent report by the Association of Departments of English (ADE) is both helpful and positive about the careers pursued by English Majors which may help as you contemplate our our curriculum. Our Department Newsletter will give you information and news about our people: faculty, staff, current and former students. And you can explore our undergraduate and graduate degree programs through the menus on this page. Please feel free to contact our administrators, our faculty, and our staff to learn more about how we can help you.

Department Profile

• Undergraduate BA program offers four concentrations in Creative Writing,
Language and Digital Technology, Literature and Culture, and Pedagogy.

• Graduate MA program offers concentrations in Children’s Literature and
Technical/Professional Writing, as well as emphases in
Applied Linguistics, Rhetoric/Composition, Creative Writing,
English for Specific Purposes, and Literature. We also offer
a Certificate in Technical Communication and a Masters of Arts
in English Education. Additionally, the department offers the
English literacy strand of the Ph.D. in Curriculum and
Instruction, housed in the College of Education.

• Sponsors undergraduate minors in English as well as in Children’s
Literature and Childhood Studies, Diverse Literatures and Cultural
Studies, and Technical/Professional Writing.

• Enrolls over 400 undergraduate and 80 graduate students.

Scholarship
English Department faculty members have been well recognized for their scholarship along with their editorial and creative work. Their achievements include:

• Books over the past ten years published by such presses as Ashgate;
Duke UP; Harvard UP; Heinemann; Johns Hopkins UP; MLA;
Michigan State UP; Palgrave Macmillan; Pearson/Longman;
Peter Lang; Reaktion; Routledge; Rutgers UP; Springer;
U of Georgia P; U of Iowa P; U of Tennessee P; and W.W. Norton.

• Editorships of a leading international journal:
Journal of Language of Aggression and Conflict.
Editorship of the Book Series: Intersections in Science and
Literature (U. Wales Press)

• Awards including the First Citizens Bank Scholars Medal; Bernstein
Award; Steve Cahir Excellence in Early Scholarship Award;
Award for Contributions to Revitalizing the Catawba Language;
Jack Dyer Fiction Prize; Outstanding book of the year by the
Georgia Writer’s Association; Jay R. Gould Excellence in
Teaching Technical Communication Award; North American
Review’s Kurt Vonnegut Fiction Prize for an original
short story; Nell Ann Picket Award Best Article of the Year in
Technical Communication Quarterly; Starcherone Press book prize;
The Anne Devereaux Jordan Award, presented by the Children’s
Literature Association for “significant contributions in scholarship.”

• Fellowships from The Advanced Institute in the Humanities; University of
Edinburgh; Boston Athenæum; Centre for Research in the Arts,
Social Sciences, and Humanities, Cambridge University; Trent Dames
Fellowship in the History of Civil Engineering; Huntington Library;
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library; Yale University; The Folger
Shakespeare Library; American Philosophical Society; Christopher
Isherwood Foundation; Gilder Lehrman Institute of American Studies;
New York Public Library; NEH; Dibner Library of the History of
Science and Technology, Smithsonian Institute; Lemelson Center for
the Study of Invention and Innovation; Harry Ransom Research Center,
University of Texas; the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities;
and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation

Teaching
Faculty members have received a number of teaching awards, including the Bonnie E. Cone Distinguished Professor for Teaching; the Bank of America Teaching Award; and the Harshini V. de Silva Award. The department collectively was selected for the Provost’s Award for Teaching Excellence in 1996.

Service
Faculty community service is also strong and includes working with The Arts and Sciences Council; Cabarrus County Natural Heritage Advisory Board; Central Piedmont Community College; Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public Library; Coastal Carolina Indian Center; Eastern Cabarrus Historical Society; Foundation For The Carolinas; Johnson C Smith University; Johnson YMCA; The Light Factory, A Contemporary Museum Of Photography And Film; National Museum Of The American Indian; NC Gerontology Consortium; NC Humanities Council; On Q Productions; The Scholars’ Council For The UNC Tomorrow Commission; SC State Native American Recognition Committee; The Women’s Impact Fund; and the YWCA’s Downtown Child Development Center.