Fields of Study

student writing.

In the UB English Department, we promote scholarship and writing that questions and expands conventional disciplinary boundaries, and we encourage dialogue and cross-fertilization between different areas of specialization.

  • Medieval and Early Modern Literature
    10/11/17
    Medieval and Early Modern Studies covers historical and textual fundamentals of the period as well as interdisciplinary, cutting-edge theoretical study.
  • 18th- and 19th-century British and Irish Literature
    10/11/17
    18th and 19th Century British Studies focuses on literary, cultural and political histories of modern Britain and Ireland.
  • 20th-century British Literature
    10/17/18
    20th Century British Studies covers canonical texts as well as popular culture, postcolonial studies and cultural studies.
  • Modernism
    10/12/17
    Modernism focuses on early 20th century literature, art and film in relation to textual/archival resources, postcolonial studies, popular culture, politics and aesthetics.
  • Transnational Irish Studies
    1/25/24
    Transnational Irish Studies focuses on the rich, diverse and highly politicized literature and cultural traditions of Ireland in relation to other national traditions and in global context.
  • Early and 19th-Century American Literature
    10/11/17
    Early and 19th Century American literary studies explores the American experience through history, visual studies, philosophy, textual studies and race and gender theory.
  • 20th- and 21st-Century American Literature
    10/17/18
    20th and 21st Century American literary studies explores the intersections of technological and culture innovation with aesthetic practices.
  • Poetics
    10/11/17
    Poetics engages with the art of writing and theories of writing and performing practices.
  • Psychoanalysis
    2/1/18
    The CSPC is one of the premiere places to study psychoanalysis, culture, and language in North America.
  • Rhetoric and Writing
    10/17/18
    Rhetoric is a foundation of the humanities focused on understanding the practices of human communication.
  • Cultural Studies
    10/17/18
    Cultural studies brings literary and critical theory to bear on the study of a wide variety of cultural phenomena.
  • Postcolonial and Transnational Studies
    10/17/18
    Postcolonial and Transnational Studies examines the effects of the mobility of peoples on cultural and literary practices.
  • Gender and Sexuality
    10/17/18
    Gender & Sexuality Studies combines feminist traditions, masculinity studies and queer theory to examine cultural practices, texts and social movements.
  • Ecocriticism
    10/11/17
    Scholars at UB working on ecocriticism explore intersections of the humanities and the environment.  Department critics teach and study such topics as ecopoetics, environmentalist literature, new materialism, postcolonial ecologies, environmental justice, food politics, animal studies, and the social construction of nature. Faculty have recently published on such topics as biopolitics and ecology, landscape poetics, disaster politics, and science writing.
  • Creative Writing
    11/7/18
    The Creative Writing Certificate is designed to help students shape their worlds in words—to share their unique imaginative universe in writing.