Literature teaches us to engage with the past and with others. Whether we are looking at sonnets by Shakespeare, Science Fiction short stories, or novels by Chinua Achebe, Virginia Woolf, or Rigoberto Gonzalez, we are moving across imaginative boundaries: into the past or into the literary culture of a different society. The study of literature makes us aware of our own distinctiveness, as well as the uniqueness of these other places and times.
The study of literature at UNL is varied and cosmopolitan. A UNL literary student might work one semester on Milton or Renaissance London; another on the poetry of contemporary Africa; and then move back to the United States, to read Native American writing or the Harlem Renaissance.
Literary study is a bridge into different imaginative realms; it encourages us to read closely and to read deeply, to lose ourselves in a created world, but then to come back to our current realities with fresh eyes.
Undergraduate Literary and Cultural Studies
Undergraduate students with interests in literature have a variety of opportunities to develop their interests in:
- British Literature
- American Literature
- Ethnic Literatures (including African American, Irish, Chicana(o) American, Asian, Native American, and Jewish American)
- World Literatures (including Canadian, African, Caribbean, and European)
- Film History, Theory, and Criticism
- Literary History
- Literary Criticism and Theory
- Literary Genres (such as poetry, drama, fiction, life-writing, and environmental literature)
Literature students may also pursue a Literary and Cultural Studies concentration.
UNL students who graduate with an English major in literature pursue a variety of career and professional work, including
- Graduate and professional school (including law, graduate study in English, and graduate school in education)
- Advertising
- Publishing and editing
- Teaching
Graduate Literary and Cultural Studies
The Department of English offers formal M.A. and Ph.D. specializations Literary and Cultural Studies. Graduate students who wish to pursue Literary and Cultural Studies have opportunities to work closely with faculty and design individualized programs of study. Graduate Faculty members in Literary and Cultural Studies work on varied scholarly projects, share a commitment to the analysis of literature within larger cultural, social and political contexts, and utilize a wide range of critical methodologies, such as textual recovery, archival work, digital scholarship, and theoretical analyses.
Marco Abel
Willa Cather Professor of English and Film Studies and Department Chair
Courtesy Professor in Department of Communication Studies
Stephen Behrendt
George Holmes Distinguished Professor of English
Caterina Bernardini
Lecturer
James Lowell Brunton
Assistant Professor of Practice and Coordinator of Film Studies
Stephen Buhler
Aaron Douglas Professor of English
Peter J. Capuano
Associate Professor, Director of Literary and Cultural Studies, and Director of the Nineteenth-Century Studies Program
Joy Castro
Willa Cather Professor of English and Ethnic Studies
Director of Institute for Ethnic Studies
Rachel Cochran
Lecturer
Matt Cohen
Professor, Co-Director of the Walt Whitman Archive, Co-Director of the Charles W. Chesnutt Archive, and Affiliate Faculty in Native American Studies
Kwame Dawes
George Holmes Distinguished Professor of English and Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner
Kwakiutl Dreher
Associate Professor
Tom Gannon
Associate Professor of English and Ethnic Studies
Associate Director of Ethnic Studies
Scott Guild
Lecturer
Chris Harding Thornton
Lecturer
Melissa J. Homestead
Professor of English and Director of the Cather Project
Kathleen Lacey
Academic Advisor
Yulia Levchenko
Lecturer
Kevin McMullen
Research Assistant Professor
Nick Monk
Director of the Center for Transformative Teaching
Courtesy Professor of English
Amelia María de la Luz Montes
Associate Professor of English and Ethnic Studies
Elva Moreno Del Rio
Lecturer
Ng’ang’a Wahu-Mũchiri
Assistant Professor
Gabrielle Owen
Assistant Professor
Michael Page
Assistant Professor of Practice and Coordinator of Curriculum
Lydia Presley
Lecturer
Kenneth M. Price
Hillegass University Professor of American Literature, Co-Director of the Walt Whitman Archive, and Co-Director of the Charles W. Chesnutt Archive
Guy Reynolds
Professor and Chair of the Undergraduate Program and Curriculum Committee
Gregory E. Rutledge
(그레고리 유진 러틀레지)Associate Professor of English and Ethnic Studies
Julia Schleck
Associate Professor and Vice Chair
Elizabeth Spiller
Professor
Kelly Stage
Associate Professor and Director of the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program
Pascha Sotolongo Stevenson
Assistant Professor of Practice
Roland Végső
Professor of English
Courtesy Professor in Department of Communication Studies
Laura White
John E. Weaver Professor of English
Adrian S. Wisnicki
Associate Professor and Digital Humanities Program Coordinator