At the Department of English at UNL, we’re conscious of our important role in a 21st-century Humanities discipline — we embrace the great responsibility of ensuring that the humanities includes all of its "voices," including those of ethnicity, gender and sexuality.

Our devotion to providing an intellectual climate of respect for, even affirmation of, difference is embodied in a faculty and curriculum that fosters these values on a daily basis. One of our faculty's great strengths, indeed, is the wide-ranging diversity of our teaching and scholarly talents and interests: We take pride in our course offerings in Women's literature and rhetoric, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender literature, African and African American literature, Latina/Latino literature, Native American literature and Cultural Studies in general.

In close coordination with the Institute for Ethnic Studies and the Women's and Gender Studies Program, the Department of English will continue on the forefront in acknowledging the human in all of its complexity. And as part of our ongoing commitment to diversity, we’ll encourage our students and staff every day to “Read the World, Write Your Future.”

English & Film Studies Faculty

A Diversity of Teaching & Research Interests

  • Joy Castro - U.S. ethnic literatures; women's literatures
  • Amelia María de la Luz Montes – Chicana/Chicano and U.S. Latina/Latino literature and theory; queer studies; LGBTQ literature
  • Kwakiutl L. Dreher – African American literature, including contemporary literature, autobiography, mass marketed popular literature, film and visual culture
  • Gregory E. Rutledge – African American literature and culture, including speculative fiction, literary history, the African American epic aesthetic, folklore
  • Kwame Dawes - postcolonial literature and theory; African American literature; Caribbean literature; African literature; reggae aesthetics
  • Chigozie Obioma - African literature; postcolonial literature
  • Hope Wabuke - African and African American literature; Women's and Gender Studies
  • Ng’ang’a Wahu-Mũchiri - African & African diaspora literature; African Digital Humanities; Caribbean literature
  • Tom Gannon – Native American literature, including Plains Indian literatures and Native eco/animal rights

Course Offerings - Majors

  • 212: Lesbian & Gay Literature
  • 215: Introduction to Women's Literature
  • 239: Film Directors: Gay and Lesbian Directors
  • 239B: Women Filmmakers
  • 244: African American Literature
  • 244A: Introduction to African Literature
  • 244E: Early African American Literature
  • 245A: Asian American Literature
  • 245J: Jewish-American Literature
  • 245N: Introduction to Native American Literature
  • 285: Introduction to Comparative Literature
  • 315A: Survey of Women's Literature
  • 315B: Women in Pop Culture
  • 333A: American Authors Since 1900: Willa Cather and Her World
  • 344: Ethnicity and Film
  • 344B: Black Women Authors
  • 344D: Caribbean Literature
  • 345D: Chicana and/or Chicano Literature
  • 345N: Native American Women Writers
  • 349: National Cinemas
  • 401K/801K: Gay and Lesbian Drama
  • 405K/805K: Canadian Fiction
  • 414/814: Women's Literature
  • 414B/814B: Modern and Contemporary Women Writers
  • 445/845: Ethnic Literature (incl. Latina/o Literature)
  • 445B/845B: Topics in African American Literature
  • 445K/845K: Topics in African Literature
  • 445N/845N: Topics in Native American Literature
  • 462A/862A: Ideas of Ethnicity in Medieval Literature
  • 475A/875A: Rhetorical Theory: Rhetoric of Women Writers
  • 914: Seminar in Women Writers
  • 940: Seminar in African American Literature
  • 940A: African Literature in English
  • 945: Seminar in Ethnic Literature