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English Department

Language surrounds and defines us. Culture, history and even your own personality are shaped and shared through language. At the broadest level, the study of English literature and language involves close inquiry into everything from human psychology to cultural history. Reading Chaucer, Shakespeare, Mary Shelley, Jack Kerouac, and Toni Morrison, the English major at Regis effectively pursues the evolving character of humanity. How do language, society and the self alter as they are reconceived in feudal, scientific or multi-cultural contexts? Ask a student of English.

In narrower terms, the study of English consists of reading, analysis and writing. Reading is, in the first place, an exercise of the imagination. Poems, plays, stories, novels and essays are but words on a page: it is the act of reading that creates the feelings, characters, settings, actions and ideas the words seem to express. At Regis, English majors learn how to perform the act of reading consciously and critically, not only imagining the world the words signify but also understanding how and why the words produce such imaginative meanings and how those meanings differ from writer to writer, age to age. In other words, our students learn to read analytically, to see the whole text in terms of its parts and to interpret one text in terms of many others.

Along with reading and analysis, the study of English at Regis involves intensive training in writing. As literary texts insistently show, successful writing begins as a process of self-discovery and ends as a product of communication. Our majors practice various kinds of writing– expository, argumentative, creative – but, in one sense, always with the same purpose: to articulate their own ideas and express them with persuasive force.

Because it produces broadly educated students who can think critically and write persuasively, the English major or minor at Regis is an excellent preparation for careers in law and politics, marketing and public relations, education, publishing and journalism, technical and freelance writing and the arts and culture industries. It is also, we hope, an end in itself, an imaginative and intellectual experience that will enlarge, enrich and otherwise redefine your very self.

Woman studying in library
Additional Areas of Study
  • Writing Concentration
  • English Minor
  • Writing Minor
  • Cognitive Literary Studies Minor
  • English Film Studies Minor
student journal publications

Student Publications

The English Department is home to Regis's student-edited academic journal, 3333, and literary arts journal, Loophole. Debuting every spring, these journals publish student writing from across Regis University, and provide valuable professional experience for students interested in editing and publishing careers.

Faculty Spotlight

In the past four years, faculty members Mark Bruhn, Scott Dimovitz, Alyse Knorr, and Daryl Palmer (not pictured) have published critically acclaimed books:

Dr. Palmer’s book, Becoming Willa Cather: Creation and Career, is a groundbreaking literary biography that offers a provocative new look at Willa Cather’s evolution as a writer, paying unprecedented attention to Cather’s early short stories.

mark bruhn new book

Dr. Bruhn's book, Wordsworth Before Coleridge: The Growth of the Poet’s Philosophical Mind, 1785-1797, presents for the first time a fully nuanced account of William Wordsworth’s intellectual formation prior to the advent of Samuel Taylor Coleridge as his close companion and creative collaborator.

Scott Dimovitz and Alyse Knorr showcasing their new books

Prof. Knorr’s book of poetry, Mega-City Redux, a modern-day update of a 15th-century feminist allegory, won the 2017 Green Mountains Review Poetry Prize. Her most recent chapbook is I Love You Bye Bye Bye Bye.

Dr. Dimovitz’s book, Angela Carter: Surrealist, Psychologist, Moral Pornographer, draws on thousands of pages of Carter’s journals, letters, and other works from the British Library’s archives to unlock the secrets of her bizarre and wondrous worlds.

Meet the English Faculty

Alyse  Knorr
Alyse Knorr

Associate Professor

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Frank McGill, Ph.D.
Frank McGill, Ph.D.

Senior Term Instructor

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Scott Dimovitz, Ph.D.
Scott Dimovitz, Ph.D.

Chair and Professor

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Lara Narcisi, Ph.D.
Lara Narcisi, Ph.D.

Associate Director of Honors and Professor

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