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Pardee Hall, Lafayette College, Easton, PA 18042; phone 610-330-5234.
Department Head: Suzanne Westfall


Our Assumptions and Goals

Members of the English department regard language and literary study as fundamental components of a Lafayette education, to be studied seriously as both a means of communication and a medium of thought. We encourage reading and writing as life-long pursuits. We believe that our discipline includes not only the critical study of literary texts, but also the production of many kinds of text—performances, films, new media, and other materials.

We offer a major with four tracks: general literary study, writing, drama/theater, and film. Our primary goal, in all our activities, is to promote all facets of literacy. To that end, we try to present language and literary study in the contexts of the historical, social, philosophical, and critical conditions of meaning.

Affiliated Programs

Members of the English Department direct the College-wide College Writing Program.

In addition to our courses and degree programs in theater, we are closely affiliated with the College Theater Program.

Several department faculty also teach in and administer the American Studies program.



Prizes Administered by the Department of English

  • The Gilbert Prize, established in 1894, is awarded "to students who have demonstrated superiority in English" during the prior calendar year, for seniors and juniors, or during the prior three semesters, for sophomores.
  • Class of 1883 Prize, established in 1883, is awarded to "a senior who has demonstrated excellence in English" (over the student's entire career at Lafayette).
  • I. Clinton Kline Prize, "awarded to the senior who has demonstrated excellence in acting, directing or technical theater."
  • H. MacKnight Black Poetry and Literature Prize, established in 1945 for a poem or group of poems by a senior. A poet of national or international distinction judges the contest.
  • Jean Corrie Poetry Prize, awarded for best poem by a first-year student, sophomore, or junior. Sponsored by the Department of English and the Academy of American Poets.

Programming

Annual events include the MacKnight Black reading by a distinguished poet who also judges the H. MacKnight Black competition (described above) and the Closs Writer-in-Residence program. The Closs residency has been held by Sherman Alexie, Peter Carey, Ping Chong, Maxine Clair, Marie Howe, George Saunders, James Tate, and S. L. Wisenberg; playwright Tina Howe will be the Closs Visiting-Writer-in-Residence for 2006-07.  Recent MacKnight Black Poets and Judges have been Gillian Conoley, Mark Doty, Lynn Emanuel, Lawrence Joseph, Yusef Konunyakaa, William Matthews, Campbell McGrath, Heather McHugh, Paul Muldoon, Alicia Ostriker, Molly Peacock, and Gerald Stern.

For recent and upcoming readings, performances, and talks, see the Events page.

Our Past

In his history of literary studies in the United States, Gerald Graff writes that the “pioneering program in English [was] begun at Lafayette College in 1855.” Its founder, Francis A. March (pictured above), was “the first to hold the title ‘Professor of English Language and Literature’ anywhere in the United States or Europe.… He formulated concepts about the teaching of English in college and about the role of liberal arts colleges that still resonate with relevance and original insights,” according to the editors of a recent collection of March's essays.