English: From Page to Digital Age
The Department of English is the center for reading and writing at Santa Clara University. You'll work with best selling authors, ground-breaking scholars, and award winning teachers to make your mark. You’ll analyze and interpret through different lenses like race, gender, sexuality, and more. You'll go beyond the page, learning from experience through community-based coursework, internships, and independent research. We will nurture your development as a whole person, not just as a student, and encourage you to contribute to a more compassionate and equitable society.
About Our Program
The Department of English affords students a rich undergraduate education in the liberal arts centered on literature, cultural studies, and writing. Critical, professional, or creative writing projects are integral to every course in the English major. Students and faculty in the English Department discuss and write about British, American, and global literatures, rhetoric, technical and professional communication, new media, and film. A range of theoretical approaches are used, sometimes with a focus on visual rhetoric and cultural studies. The department also offers the Creative Writing Program, which provides students with a coherent course of study in the writing of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction and the Professional Writing Program, which focuses on the theories, ethics, and practice of writing in industry and public contexts. The English major prepares students to read and write critically, to bring intellectual flexibility to academic and professional problems, and to enter the workforce as individuals with trained skills in analysis and self-expression.
Join our Community of Writers and Readers
Fellow Samuel Cao discusses his current project with the Center for Arts and Humanities
Senior Ruby Gutierrez combined her passions for creative writing and education in a transformative REAL Program experience teaching marginalized students in Los Angeles to explore their identities and express themselves through literature.
Faculty & Staff
- Associate Professor and Chair
Professor Juan Velasco-Moreno Leads SCU Students in Developing Buddhist Mindfulness YouTube Content for Incarcerated Individuals.
An interview with Professor Claudia McIsaac
Beyond the Classroom
News & Events
Professor Juan Velasco-Moreno Leads SCU Students in Developing Buddhist Mindfulness YouTube Content for Incarcerated Individuals.
An interview with Professor Claudia McIsaac
An Interview with Dr. Cruz Medina on his new book Sanctuary: Exclusion, Violence, and Indigenous Migrants in the East Bay
- More pages:
Coming Events
Life After SCU

An interview with English Department alum Teresa Contino ’23 on her experiences this past year as a Fulbright Scholar in Náchod, Czech Republic

Fulbright Scholar Octavio De Leon ‘23 on Connecting with the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico