A classroom in Goldwin Smith Hall with the Arts Quad reflected in a window

A history of critical and methodological openness

Welcome to Literatures in English

Welcome! Literatures in English as a department teaches students how to read and write about literary cultures. Supported by excellent libraries and in connection with a number of interdisciplinary programs at Cornell, Literatures in English invites students and scholars to engage in conversations about global cultures as they develop skills for the future.

Upcoming Events

Feb 20

Thursday 05:00 PM

Writing Otherwise: Toward an Unconventional Academic Career: Lette Bragg, Ph.D. '18

A. D. White House

Feb 22

Saturday 08:30 AM

Medieval Studies Student Colloquium (MSSC)

A. D. White House

Mar 04

Tuesday 12:30 PM

Q&A with Prof. Andrew Piper on using Large Language Models for Humanities Research

Goldwin Smith Hall Literatures in English Lounge, GSH 258

Mar 05

Wednesday 05:00 PM

Is Fat Female? Evolution, Feminism, and Getting the Story Right

Goldwin Smith Hall Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, G132

Mar 06

Thursday 05:00 PM

Reading by Justin Torres

Klarman Hall Rhodes-Rawlings Auditorium, KG70

Mar 06

Thursday 05:00 PM

Roundtable | Kate Bajorek: "Consuming Identities: Gender and Diet across the Medieval Life Course"

Olin Library 703

Mar 11

Tuesday 04:30 PM

Coffee & Chat: Career Development for English Majors!

Career Development Office 172 Goldwin Smith Hall

Mar 12

Wednesday 09:00 AM

The Right on, Write In Workshop

Rockefeller Hall 190

All Events

Recent Highlights from the Department

Prof’s new novel imagines a U.S. without Texas

Charlie Green’s new novel, “The Shah of Texas,” published Feb. 18 from Gold Wake Press.

Brittani Samuel, head tilted to the right, smiling broadly, with long hair in small tight braids, wearing a flowered sleeveless dress

Freelance Theater Critic and Editor Brittani Samuel Wins George Jean Nathan Award

The award committee praised Samuel for her “impressive breadth of address to the playgoing public,” foregrounding “the critic’s own social position in an effort to promote more thoughtful and empathetic theatergoing.”

Alumna playwright honored with Dramatists Guild award

Playwright Gloria Oladipo '21 is also an award-winning cultural critic and journalist with The Guardian.

promotional poster showing a blue ball marked with black cross-hatches and the words "Media Objects

Media Objects podcast releases 'sonic essays' based at Cornell

Beginning Feb. 6 with the drop of the episode, “Extensions," the five-episode series features the voices and research of thirteen Cornell faculty members, more than half of them from A&S.

Frederick Ahl, innovative classics scholar, dies at 83

A scholar of Greek and Roman epic and drama and the intellectual history of Greece and Rome, Ahl was a member of the Cornell faculty for more than 52 years.

Two people wearing fashionable red, white and black winter clothing sit back to back on a large rock, each holding a book. They are surrounded by snow

Your January 2025 reads

This month’s featured titles – most by A&S authors – include a work of nonfiction about honeybees, a kids’ picture book, and a novel set in rural Nova Scotia.

Magazine cover, "Cornell Review," bearing an abstract design in red, blue and yellow

The ‘marvelous, turbulent times’ when a literary magazine was born

A fellow alum’s passing sparked vivid memories of launching the Cornell Review, a cutting-edge journal of ideas, in the late 1970s.

Barry Adams, former vice provost and literature scholar, dies at 89

Barry Banfield Adams, professor of literatures of English emeritus in the College of Arts and Sciences, died Dec. 31 at home in Brooktondale, New York. He was 89.

See more news from Literatures in English

Literatures in English Destinations

Creative Writing Undergraduate Study Graduate Study Faculty Give to Literatures in English

Recent Books by Department of Literatures in English Faculty

Department faculty continually publish important works of criticism, fiction, poetry, and essays. Visit Literatures in English Faculty: Recent Books to learn more.

Land Acknowledgment

Cornell University is located on the traditional homelands of the Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' (the Cayuga Nation). The Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' are members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, an alliance of six sovereign Nations with a historic and contemporary presence on this land. The Confederacy precedes the establishment of Cornell University, New York state, and the United States of America. We acknowledge the painful history of Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' dispossession, and honor the ongoing connection of Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' people, past and present, to these lands and waters.

This land acknowledgment has been reviewed and approved by the traditional Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' leadership.

Statement from the Department of Literatures in English

We, the faculty and staff of the Cornell Literatures in English department, pledge to support and do our utmost to protect members of our community who are discriminated against, unjustly treated, or otherwise targeted because of race, religion, gender identification, sexuality, immigration status, ability, and other forms of difference.

Recognizing that words and symbols can be manipulated into violence, we renew our commitment to direct the force of language toward large and small acts of learning, alliance, imagination, and justice.