Welcome to the Vassar English Department, a diverse group of intellectually wide-ranging and constantly evolving teachers, scholars, and writers as well as one of the largest and most engaged groups of majors at Vassar.

Whether you are interested in the course streams and correlate sequences that let students craft diverse, multidisciplinary courses of study, or want to learn about the prizes for writers and scholars sponsored by the department or what courses we accept toward our major from other departments and languages, or simply want to explore our creative writing program or any other part of our rich, changing curriculum, this is where to start.

Stories

Symbol of the Stockbridge-Munsee band of Mohicans—Muhheaconneok “People of the Waters that are Never Still.”

Lev Winickoff ’25 received a 2024 Barnabas McHenry Award to create a video project in collaboration with the Stockbridge band of Mohicans. The video will document a Munsee story told by an elder (in English) with contributions by children in the tribe (in Mohican) and incorporate paintings reflecting the natural beauty of the Hudson River Valley along with Munsee symbolism.

A magazine cover with a painting of a person sitting. The cover has the text “Fourteen Hills: The San Francisco State University Review. No. 29 / 2023”

Hiram Perez, Associate Professor of English and Women, Feminist, and Queer Studies Faculty member, is the author of “John Travolta vs. Farrah Fawcett,” a work of memoir published by the literary magazine Fourteen Hills in their Summer 2023 issue. Fourteen Hills recently nominated the piece for a Pushcart Prize in Nonfiction.

Person sitting at a table on a porch in the shade with a laptop, writing pad and a book smiling

More than 30 Vassar students conducted humanities research projects under the auspices of the College’s Ford Scholars program.

Events

The Vassar Critical Journal. The Vassar College English Department Student Journal of Critical Essays

The Vassar Critical Journal provides students with publishing experience at every stage of the process. Students may begin as writers, submitting their own work to the journal. They then act as literary agents, reading all submissions and deciding which essays they enjoy and which will proceed to the editing level. Read more

The Vassar Review is an international, multidisciplinary literary arts journal that fosters working relationships between faculty, students, and published writers and artists in order to engage its annual theme with care and reflective insight. Read more