'The mythical allure of "Ithaca" reminded me of Odysseus’ epic return home'
Sarah Young is an English major.
Read moreThe Cornell Literatures in English Department retains the pluralistic ideals of the university’s founders and continues to respond to and embody a constantly evolving discipline. Within the department, ongoing debates about the role of critical theory or cultural studies, the status of popular culture, the relevance of film studies and hip hop, or the definition of the words “English” and “literature” themselves have led to new understandings of the discipline, as well as a range of textual productivity, from producing critical editions to writing poetry.
Outside the department, the growth of interdisciplinary work has led to a range of connections across the humanities at Cornell, from comparative literature to medieval studies, from Asian-American Studies to feminist, gender and sexuality studies, with English faculty maintaining affiliations in all of these disciplines.
Along with teaching more than a third of the Freshman Writing Seminars offered by Cornell’s Knight Institute of Writing in the Disciplines, the Literatures in English Department’s nourishing of this wide range of scholarly and creative writing has maintained the department’s central importance in the humanities at Cornell and world-wide.
Sarah Young is an English major.
Read moreRebecca Sparacio is an English and government major.
Read moreJulia Nagel is an English major.
Read moreHannah Drexler is a College Scholar and English major.
Read moreThe creative team have worked for decades across music, text and visual art to explore complex histories and social tensions.
Read moreProfessor of Africana studies Riché Richardson says reclaiming country music for the Black community and rebranding the genre as an inclusive space are triumphs of Beyoncé’s new album, “Cowboy Carter.”
Read moreOrganized by trans Cornellians, the event will address issues and harms facing the community from a trans perspective.
Read moreSpeakers at “Dissident Writers: A Conversation” explored how writers keep freedoms open for others by taking risks to criticize governments or societies in environments where there is a cost.
Read more"If you read quickly to get through a poem to what it means, you have missed the body of the poem."
— M.H. Abrams, Class of 1916 Professor Emeritus