CSSH
and Humanities
Chair's Welcome
Peter Burton Hanson Awards
Graduate Essay Contest
Affiliated and Emeritus Faculty
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English Department Newsletter Archive
We prepare students to enter fields wherever reading, writing, and communicating are valued.
Letters of Ignatius Sancho offer window to life of black man in 18th-century London
How queer comics made their mark on history
News@Northeastern
Dialogues of Civilization
Food and Culture in Vietnam and Cambodia
in Vietnam & Cambodia
Led by
Caitlin Thornbrugh
Ireland, Literature and Film
in Republic of Ireland
Patrick Mullen
Representing Israel in Law and Literature
in Israel and Palestine
Lori Lefkovitz
Simon Rabinovitch
New England and Old England: Coast, Country, City
Kathleen Coyne Kelly
Cecelia Musselman
Student Pathways
Sarah Connell
Was introduced to early modern Irish literature in Prof. Patrick Mullen's Irish Film & Literature course. Her dissertation topic was inspired by a paper she wrote for the class.
Had faculty mentors from fields such as Irish culture, early modern literature, gender studies, text encoding, and more to shape her intellectual and professional development.
Became involved with the Digital Scholarship Group, first as an encoder for the Women Writers Project and then as a project team member with the Early Caribbean Digital Archive.
Took on more leadership for the Women Writers Project throughout her program and eventually became their Assistant Director following graduation.
Found a network of colleagues for research, teaching, and the development of programs in digital scholarship through the larger academic community in Boston.
Wrote her dissertation on the ways in which early modern writers used medieval legends and forms to construct national identity.
Currently engaged in research into applying digital tools and methodologies to pre-Victorian texts, with a particular interest in examining how people wrote about the past. ..
Leah Lapszynski
Discovered rhetoric and composition studies through coursework with Profs. Mya Poe and Chris Gallagher, which resonated with Leah's passion to help people access and share ideas.
Realized how she could use the MA in English to go further with cultural heritage site work after working alongside Professor Julia Flanders for the Women Writers Project.
Collaborated with the Boston City Archives to digitally transpose texts for the Our Marathon project, engaging in experiential learning as well as shared healing/thinking/grieving.
Connected research on digital humanities and disability studies for her Master's thesis on improving museum accessibility with digital technology, supervised by Prof. Mya Poe.
Found a graduate community through faculty mentors as well as personal friendships with fellow students, something that stuck with Leah long after her departure from Northeastern.
Worked as an Education and Public Programs Coordinator for an art museum following graduation, and currently works as a university academic administrator.
Savita Maharaj
Savita is from Boston and is a graduate of the Boston Latin School.
Originally a Cultural Anthropology major, Savita later became an English major with minors in Africana Studies and Writing Studies.
Through the service-learning course, Boston in Literature, Savita volunteered with 826 Boston to tutor in English. She is now a service-learning teaching assistant.
For her final project in Post-Colonial Women's Writers with Professor Aljoe, she researched Carnival and its cultural significance to Trinidad and Tobago.
Inspired by Professor Aljoe, Savita joined the Early Caribbean Digital Archive, working on an exhibit about Caribbean Carnival and creating and gathering teaching materials.
In 2020, she began a co-op with the Africana Studies program to learn more about the field of Black Studies.
Savita wants to work to better her own community. In the future, she hopes to become a high school teacher or a college professor. ..
Chinma Nnadozie-Okananwa
Law school is a big investment. That's why Chinma was attracted to NU and the co-op process, which has allowed her to experience the legal environment before committing to the practice.
Chinma's long-held love of reading and writing, specifically poetry, led to her to decision to major in English for her undergraduate education.
In her first year, Chinma took Early African American Literature with Professor Nicole Aljoe. It was the first time she had a Black professor and the opportunity to share lived experiences in a new way.
Chinma took Contemporary Poetry with Professor Eunsong Kim which explored readings that Chinma still uses today. She learned how poetry and art can affect real change, like through the Black Arts Movement.
Chinma is co-president of Our Voices: Women of Color, which is run through the Social Justice Resource Center and the Center for Intercultural Engagement and allows her to facilitate vital conversations.
Through Our Voices: Women of Color, Chinma attended Northeastern's EMPOWER conference for students of color in 2019, where she gave a presentation about intersectionality.
In her second year, Chinma took Intro to Law, Policy, and Society with Professor Daniel Urman, which gave her the chance to explore the intersection between current events and law, furthering her interest...
Laura spent their first semester studying in London and volunteering at the Charles Dickens Museum through NU.In.
They took Technologies of Texts with Professor Ryan Cordell, learning several markdown languages and R, which they later used in their co-ops.
They participated in a Dialogue of Civilizations to France and studied French language and film.
They took Literature & Digital Diversity with Professor Elizabeth Dillon, studying digital methods to analyze and archive literary texts.
Laura collaborated with Professor Erika Boeckeler to translate and digitize Northeastern's only medieval manuscript, the Dragon Prayer Book.
They created Decoding the Dragon, an exhibit on the project shown in Snell Library.
Laura had a co-op at Cengage and used markdown languages to complete documentation and automate processes...
Welcome to the Department of English
We offer Bachelor's, Master's, and doctoral degrees. Our courses span the range of American and English literature and writing studies, with particular expertise in American and transatlantic literatures (early and contemporary), writing studies, and digital humanities. Our faculty are also involved in research and teaching in African-American Studies, Jewish Studies, Linguistics, and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
For undergraduates, the department provides a flexible, intellectually challenging liberal arts experience that will serve as a basis for advanced study, for continuing self-development, and for meaningful employment. At the graduate level, the department enables students to engage in independent scholarly inquiry and impart knowledge about the continually evolving terrain of English literary and writing studies, including emerging areas such as new media and digital humanities.
Misson Statement
Plan your Spring 2023 schedule today!
Africana Studies Program
American Sign Language & Interpreting Education
Asian Studies Program
Cultures, Societies, and Global Studies
Human Services Program
Politics, Philosophy, and Economics
School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs
Sociology and Anthropology
Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program
World Languages Center
The English Department aims at preserving and generating knowledge while engaging students in the study and practice of writing and rhetoric in English.
405 Lake Hall
360 Huntington Ave