Oklahoma City University
English Department

INTRODUCTION

When you enter the world of English studies you join the rich interaction of writers and readers and texts through time and place. At Oklahoma City University, you can study classic texts and increase your command of the fundamentals, but you can also gain a deeper understanding of reading and writing processes through the study of literature, rhetoric, critical theory, and creative writing, learning not only what and who but also how, why, and why not. You can dive into the rich tradition of British and American literature and study the Gothic and cyberliteracy, investigate the rhetorics of Ancient Greece and the visual rhetorics of the twenty-first century; you can examine the characters of Narnia and Middle Earth and Verona and learn about German and Chinese film; you can write sonnets and villanelles and essays and scripts and get a start in editing and publishing. Our students and faculty have wide-ranging interests and many opportunities to explore them.

Members of the English faculty work closely with students from all majors. We offer a larger number and a greater variety of general education courses than any other department in the university, courses such as Issues in Contemporary Literature, Critical Reading and Writing, Spirituality and Literature, and Composition I and II. Our department contributes courses to the Honors Program , the Moving Image Arts Program, the women’s studies minor, the rhetoric minor, and the American studies minor. Our faculty supports OCU Serves by including service learning courses in our curriculum, and we encourage our students to participate in internships and study abroad. We also work to create significant co-curricular activities for students at OCU—our annual creative writing festival, OCU Reads, the annual visit of a distinguished poet, and the OCU Film Institute.

Because five English faculty members have been selected as Priddy Fellows, our curriculum is increasingly including arts integration courses. Priddy Fellowships are one-year grants designed to strengthen teaching and learning in all disciplines and to infuse the arts throughout the curriculum. Jointly administered by the Fine Arts Institute and the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, these fellowships allow faculty to work closely with each other and with nationally and internationally respected experts in arts education and the scholarship of teaching and learning.

DEGREE PROGRAMS

ENGLISH (B.A.)
ENGLISH/EDUCATION DOUBLE MAJOR (B.A.)
ENGLISH MINOR

MASTER OF LIBERAL ARTS IN CREATIVE WRITING
MASTER OF LIBERAL ARTS IN LITERATURE

INVITATION

We invite you to visit our classes and to come to English department events. If you would like a first-hand look at what we are doing, please contact Marsha Keller, English Department Chair, at (405) 208-5359 or mkeller@okcu.edu.