Welcome from department chair Professor Anja Wanner

Welcome to the Department of English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison!

As department chair, I am privileged to work with outstanding faculty, staff, and students to shape humanistic inquiry and deep learning at one of the world’s leading public research universities.

Our department is central to the mission of the College of Letters at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. We provide gateway instruction in literature and composition to more than 10,000 undergraduates every year, both in large lecture classes and in small writing-intensive classes for first-year students. Our students learn from the best – no department on campus has more teaching award winners than the Department of English. We are also proud to be the home of the Writing Center, which offers individualized instruction to more than 6000 students every year, the Global English Language Learning and Teaching program, which supports international students and offers opportunities to teach English abroad, and the Writing Fellows program, which trains students from many different disciplines to be writing tutors. We believe that writing is as much about organizing ideas, evaluating data, looking at a topic from multiple perspectives as it is about the production of text. Faculty and staff from our department are taking active roles in the university’s discussion of how we should interact with generative AI.

Our English Major, with its tracks in literary studies, creative writing, and English language and linguistics, teaches students to use the English language and literature written in different varieties of English for critical thinking, effective communication, and purposeful action. Students can take classes on a wide range of subjects, including environmental humanities, rhetoric of health, literature and law, global Black literatures, theory of social media, language variation and change, as well as workshops in poetry and fiction. Our average time to degree in 2025-26 was 3.76 years (shorter than that of our peers, which is 3.93 years). Our department is also home to two research labs that study language acquisition. Our graduates have successful careers as writers, teachers, analysts, managers, community organizers, or communication specialists. Many go on to graduate school, including Law School. As a student in our department, you will work with our fantastic advisors, including a career advisor, to find your path through the major. Thanks to generous donors, we are in the position to provide writing awards, scholarships, and paid internships in publishing and editing.

The graduate Program in English is consistently ranked as one of the best in the country and offers an experience that is both rigorous and supportive. It offers distinct tracks focused on Literary Studies, Linguistics, and Composition and Rhetoric. Our MFA program in Creative Writing, ranked among the top five in the nation, connects students with a vibrant community of writers in Madison and a wide network of fellows and alums. Our students are fully funded through a mix of fellowships, teaching appointments, and project assistantships. Former students teach at top colleges and research universities, nationally and internationally; they direct writing centers, administer humanities centers, work as teaching consultants or analysts in higher education.

If you are thinking about joining us, do not hesitate to get in touch.

Sincerely,

Anja Wanner

Enid H. Anderson Professor of English and Department Chair
https://www.linkedin.com/in/anjawanner
awanner@wisc.edu