The Department of English offers a curriculum that traverses historical eras and global boundaries to explore various literatures and critical approaches to them. The Department has reimagined what it means to teach the humanities by integrating eight multidisciplinary research centers into its courses and programs. These research clusters provide an innovative complement to the classroom, allowing undergraduate students to collaborate with faculty and post-doctoral and visiting scholars.
Our undergraduate programs are research-intensive and production-based. As part of our research-hub model, we encourage students to choose from seven specializations: American Cultures; Early Modern Studies; Literatures & Cultures of Information; Literature & the Environment; Literature & the Mind; Medieval Literature; and Modern Literature and Critical Theory. On all these fronts, we prepare our students to study, write, design, and perform the imaginative arts to transform everyday worlds.
Ben Olguín, a professor in UC Santa Barbara's English Department, discusses the department's interdisciplinary studies in art and politics across time and place. This video was produced by UCSB Instructional Development.

The UCSB Department of English is proud to foster an inclusive, interdisciplinary culture that challenges students to do their best work with the support and guidance of stellar faculty mentors. Watch our impressive students in action as they explain what they love about UCSB English.
The English Broadside Ballad Archive has digitized over 7000 Broadside Ballads that were produced between the 16th and 19th centuries. Not only do they transcribe and photograph the artwork, they also record the ballads as they would have been sung during the time of their mass popularity.
Follow these links to the work of our undergraduates in two publications: Emergence, a journal associated with a research fellowship, and the student-run zine The Catalyst.
Related Programs
The Early Modern Center is the English Department's locus for students and faculty working in sixteenth- through eighteenth-century studies, offering courses, conferences, and special events, and supporting collaborative on-line projects, including EBBA.
The Center builds upon our campus’s considerable strengths in American Studies by offering an interdisciplinary setting for new research and teaching initiatives.
English News & Features
Christina Han, an associate professor of history at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada, visited UCSB to present on the 17th-century Korean Sihwa ch'ongnim 詩話叢林 Compendium of Poetry Talks and the importance of collaborative, transnational scholarship in digital humanities.
UCSB alumna Alexandra Goldberg turned her passion for journalism into a career in broadcast news. From reporting at UCSB to working at WHAS11, an ABC-affiliated TV station in Louisville, Kentucky, Goldberg believes her time at UCSB helped her develop key journalism skills. Now, she shares how her college experience shaped her path to the professional newsroom.
University of Washington humanities scholar Kathleen Woodward shared the literary connections she has made between both aging and the Anthropocene last week at a Key Passages talk held by UCSB’s Interdisciplinary Humanities Center.
UCSB English student and actor-turned-director Curran Seth made his directorial debut with Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, collaborating with the UCSB Music Department and Shrunken Heads Production Company to bring the dark, character-driven story to life. Emphasizing emotional depth over technical precision, Seth guided his cast—many of whom were primarily singers—to tap into their characters' psychology, resulting in a raw and immersive production.
Shoshana Medved, a graduating student, has already begun refining her creative expertise in the professional world, gaining hands-on experience with top entertainment brands such as Beats by Dre and Paramount’s Pluto TV. In an interview, she shares insights into her internships and the lessons she’s learned.
Meena Ki Kahani (Stories of Meena), a beloved animated series created by UNICEF in 1993, has become a cultural phenomenon in South Asia, addressing critical issues like gender inequality, child labor, and trafficking. Speaking at a UCSB Interdisciplinary Humanities event, Indian scholar Jawa Jha highlighted the series’ profound societal impact. Jha believes the series shows how media can inspire social change.
This fall, UC Santa Barbara's MultiCultural Center hosted Echoes of Empowerment, a student-led art exhibit showcasing creative work such as poems, collages, and paintings. The pieces in this collection convey resilience, hope, and the transformative power of art to mend and uplift the human spirit, a space for connection and inspiration for students of color and others who feel marginalized.
Movies and media shape children’s understanding of culture and morality, but the “Disneyfication” of literature often raises questions about what is gained or lost in the process. Martina Mattei, a Comparative Literature Ph.D. student at UC Santa Barbara, examined Disney’s adaptations of Pinocchio and The Little Mermaid. She noted how Disney simplified the dark moral complexity of Pinocchio into a more uplifting tale and highlighted the backlash against Halle Bailey’s casting in the 2023 remake of The Little Mermaid, reflecting nostalgia for Disney’s earlier portrayal. Mattei argues that simplified adaptations can risk erasing the cultural richness of the originals, shaping how future generations understand these tales.
Julia Lupton was hosted by UCSB’s Interdisciplinary Humanities Center for her talk When Life is a Shipwreck: Key Passages in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and discussed Shakespearean themes of transition, exile, and crisis, along with the role of dual identity in regards to queerness and the gender spectrum.
UCSB Film and Media Studies professor Mona Damluji recently discussed her journey into children's literature and the inspiration behind her socially-conscious works. Damluji published her debut children’s book, Together, in 2021, emphasizing the power of collective action. Her upcoming book, I Want You to Know, dives deeper into personal and political narratives. Written as a poem for her children, the book reflects on the generational effects of war, particularly in the Middle East, and explores themes of displacement and resilience. Damluji aims to open dialogue about complex histories, colonialism, and intergenerational trauma.
At an HFA Speaks event “Post-Election Reflection,” three UCSB faculty panelists gathered to discuss the threats America faces in human rights, academic freedom, and democracy under a Trump administration.
As part of his senior directing concentration, UCSB student Alex Guaydacan tackled his biggest project yet: solo directing “The Incident Report” for the Fall One Acts. In an interview, he reflects on the directing process, from navigating friendships with cast members to building confidence as a director. Guaydacan speaks about the process of bringing his vision to life for UCSB’s annual theater showcase.
UC Davis professor Kathleen Cruz was hosted by UCSB Classice for a lecture on modern Latine writers who draw on classical mythology, particularly the story of Ariadne, to explore themes of ethnic identity, feminism, and social exclusion. In her lecture, Cruz highlighted works by Chicana poet Analicia Sotelo and Puerto Rican poet Etnairis Rivera, showing how these poets use Ariadne’s myth to reflect on experiences of “othering,” reclaiming identity, and the challenges of diasporic life.
In a lecture last week, English professor Sowon Park spoke about how human writing is born from creativity and a need to make sense of the world, whereas AI-based writing can only be formed from a prompt and cannot pull from real emotion. Park explored the notion of AI replacing human writing through her own experience as a judge in the UCSB Mellichamp Initiative’s AI and Human Writing Competition.
As both an accomplished poet and a Continuing Lecturer in UC Santa Barbara’s Writing Program, Robert Krut balances his career passions, finding inspiration in both his teaching and creative pursuits. He says his work with students is a source of motivation which fuels his enthusiasm for writing, which he explains in a conversational Q & A.