Department of English, Tufts University

Department of English, Tufts University
Name	Department of English, Tufts University
Established	1852
Type	Private
City	Medford
State	Massachusetts
Country	United States

Contents

Department of English, Tufts University is the English department of Tufts University, a private research university located near Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts. The department offers undergraduate and graduate degrees and participates in interdisciplinary programs connected to institutions such as Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Boston Athenaeum. Courses frequently engage with archives and collections tied to Library of Congress, Houghton Library, and regional museums.

History

The department traces its origins to curricular developments at Tufts University in the mid-19th century, contemporaneous with expansions at Yale University, Columbia University, and Brown University. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, faculty exchanges and visiting lecturers from Oxford University, University of Cambridge, and the École Normale Supérieure influenced course offerings alongside rising scholarly networks linked to the Modern Language Association, American Historical Association, and American Philosophical Society. In the postwar era the department diversified subject areas, paralleling shifts at University of Chicago, Stanford University, and Princeton University toward modernist studies, comparative literature, and critical theory inspired by figures connected to the Frankfurt School, New Criticism, and Postcolonialism.

The department administers undergraduate majors and minors, collaborative programs with Tufts University School of Arts and Sciences, and graduate degrees including an MA and PhD that intersect with programs at Boston University, Brandeis University, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Course clusters cover historical and thematic concentrations such as Shakespearean studies informed by resources at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Romanticism situated alongside holdings from the British Library, and contemporary poetry linked to archives of Poetry Magazine and the Library of Congress. Interdisciplinary initiatives connect students with programs in Latin American Studies, African American Studies, Women's and Gender Studies, and digital humanities centers modeled after initiatives at Northeastern University and University of Virginia.

Faculty research spans medieval literature engaging with manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Renaissance drama in dialogue with folios at the Folger Shakespeare Library, eighteenth-century print culture related to collections at the Harry Ransom Center, nineteenth-century American studies in conversation with materials at the Morgan Library & Museum, modernist poetics linked to archives of T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, and contemporary theory intersecting with scholarship at Columbia University and New York University. Professors have received awards from institutions such as the Guggenheim Fellowship, MacArthur Fellowship, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Pulitzer Prize committees. Collaborative grants have been awarded in partnership with centers like the American Antiquarian Society, the Watson Institute, and the Social Science Research Council.

Students participate in literary societies patterned after historic clubs at Harvard University and Yale University, contribute to journals in the tradition of The Paris Review and Ploughshares, and volunteer with community literacy programs affiliated with the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the Boston Public Library. Student organizations include reading groups that emulate models from the New School, editorial boards akin to those at University of Pennsylvania, and theater ensembles collaborating with companies such as American Repertory Theater and Shakespeare & Company. Career advising connects majors to internships at publishers like Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, and Hachette Book Group.

The department draws on university libraries and regional archives including the Tufts University Library, holdings that coordinate with the Boston Athenaeum, the Peabody Essex Museum, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Digital humanities labs mirror platforms used at Stanford University and King's College London, supporting projects linked to the Digital Public Library of America and the HathiTrust Digital Library. Performance spaces and seminar rooms support collaborations with venues such as the Boston Center for the Arts and archives like the Schlesinger Library.

Alumni and faculty have included poets, novelists, and scholars associated with awards and institutions such as the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the MacArthur Fellowship, and appointments at universities including Princeton University, Yale University, Harvard University, Columbia University, and Brown University. Writers among its network have published with presses like Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Knopf, and University of Chicago Press and have participated in festivals such as the Brooklyn Book Festival and the Hay Festival.

Category:Tufts University Category:English departments in the United States