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Graduate students at CU Boulder pursue MA, MFA, or Doctoral degrees in an intimate community of committed scholars and writers.

Students work closely with outstanding faculty as they develop their knowledge of literatures from throughout the English-speaking world. Masters students study a broad range of English-language literatures. Creative Writing students can work in poetry, fiction, or across genres in a program known for its commitment to innovation. PhD students pursue concentrated study and original scholarship in their chosen area of specialization. The CU Boulder English department supports interdisciplinary work as many students engage secondary interests in digital humanities, women and gender studies, critical theory, ethnic studies, history, philosophy and other fields.

Diversity Statement

The Graduate Program in the Department of English at the University of Colorado, Boulder, is committed to creating a place of belonging for our graduate students; we welcome all students, regardless of race, national origin, color, disability, religion, political philosophy, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. Social justice or its absence have consistently and permanently been a theme in the literature we analyze. Thus, the department is especially sensitive to studying how varied and complicated human experience is. In our teaching and research, we focus on how, throughout history, oppression has adversely—painfully and sometimes irrevocably—impacted so many people. And yet as we chart these histories, we also emphasize the resilience of individuals and communities who, for too long, have not been acknowledged, represented, and studied—or admitted into graduate programs. This focus is crucial, for, in advancing diversity, equity, and antiracism, we strive to develop a whole program, and we strive to tell whole histories, those from multiple points of view. Such an approach benefits everyone by nurturing subtle and complex understandings in our writing and pedagogy. Our faculty and graduate students—ethnically, racially, nationally, and sexually diverse—teach a range of classes on the intersections of the global and the local, the role of culture in producing social norms and identities, and the means and ends of diversity—subjects of study that are integral to becoming engaged as both world and national citizens. Thus, inherent in our pledge is also the goal of developing ways that graduate students can develop their pedagogical skills and complement their studies in outreach work to help promote equity in the world outside the academy. A further aspect essential in our program is encouraging community—groups of scholars who work together, promote each other’s research and teaching, and who join faculty in events that help us share our ideas and hopes.