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Department of English

1500 N. Warner St. #1045
Tacoma, WA 98416-1045

Wyatt 335

Interim Chair

Tiffany Aldrich MacBain

Administrative Support Coordinator

Rutie MacKenzie-Margulies
What's New in English
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Second Callout
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WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

  • To read perceptively and critically
  • To write with clarity and sophistication
  • To speak persuasively and from a position of knowledge

WHO YOU COULD BE

  • Editor, publisher
  • Communications director
  • Digital marketing strategist
  • Radio producer, digital producer
  • Associate professor, teacher
  • Research analyst, chief strategist

OVERVIEW

Why study English? There’s never been a better time to study English, especially here at Puget Sound. Our department brings together the traditional values of the liberal arts education with some of the most exciting new developments in literary, cultural, and new media studies. Course offerings provide you the opportunity to become an informed and innovative reader of a variety of print, visual, and digital texts—from Chaucerian poetry to graphic novels, from Shakespearean drama to Bollywood film, from the autobiography of Black Hawk to social media.

Workshops in creative writing allow you to hone your craft in a variety of genres, while courses in rhetoric, language, and literacy studies ask you to consider the history and workings of nonliterary texts, or to explore the politics inherent to language usage and different forms of literacy—past, present, and future. We emphasize the interconnectedness of English studies, not only by incorporating craft and analysis into many of our courses but also attending to the ways our discipline influences and is influenced by an array of fields.

 

Matt Folensbee '16
Alumni
Matt Folensbee ’16

"Studying English made me a more persuasive writer, critical reader, and creative thinker; along with that, engaging with the lived experience of diverse writers gave me two of the most transportable skills a person can have: self-awareness and an ability to empathize with others."

SAMPLE COURSES

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING

Our students gain experience in a variety of ways:

  • Summer research grants, such as Sigrun Eide-Payne ‘23, “Women of Color in Speculative Fiction,” Ainsley Feeney ‘25, “Blake and Analytic Idealism,” and Austyn Smith ’24, “The Liberatory Nature of Language”
  • Editing Crosscurrents, Puget Sound’s literary arts magazine, such as Editors-in-Chief Andrew Ellison ’24 and Maia Nilsson ’24
  • ENGL 397: The Writing Internship, such as Henry Rohmer ’22, who interned as a content writer for ecomadic, a sustainable tourism magazine; Navi Esparza ’22, who was a film analyst and writer for Katch Entertainment; and Olivia McSweeny ’24, who was a content writer for Green and Prosperous.
  • “Events in English” activity unit, for which students brainstorm, plan, and coordinate events for English majors and minors, and balance a budget.

JOBS

Where our graduates work:

  • Hulu (Release Communications Manager)
  • Concur Technologies (Sr. Global Product Communications Manager)
  • King County Department of Public Defense (Lawyer)
  • Niantic (Technical Program Manager)
  • University of Washington Libraries (Assessment and Data Visualization Librarian)
  • Premier Media Group (Writer)
  • Portland Ovations (Director of Sales and Marketing)
  • Tacoma Public Schools (Teacher)

CONTINUE STUDYING

Where our students continue their studies:

  • Cambridge University (archaeology)
  • Oxford University (computer science)
  • Stanford University (literature)
  • University of Michigan (law)
  • Northwestern University (journalism)
  • George Washington University (anthropology)

FACILITIES

Rare book in the Archives & Special Collections section of the library.
ARCHIVES & SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

Collins Memorial Library has more than 500,000 volumes, as well as the Archives and Special Collections area, which includes manuscripts, rare books, and more.

Makerspace
MAKER SPACE

Located in Collins Memorial Library, the Makerspace allows Puget Sound community members to make, create, collaborate, learn, and share.

Rausch Auditorium
RAUSCH AUDITORIUM

Rausch Auditorium is the site of a variety of presentations and events, including Campus Films screenings, the Entrepreneurship Summit, classroom presentations, and more.