About

At the Department of English Studies, we engage with texts that traverse local and global landscapes, offering elective courses in literary, film, and cultural studies, as well as creative writing.

For over three centuries, the Cape has served as a crossroads where East meets West and North meets South—a confluence of time and place that directly shapes our goals at Stellenbosch University. Our teaching and research interrogate the diverse ways in which reading, representation, and textuality are formed across different histories, geographies, and communities.

We see the discipline of English as a space of transformative encounters—between worlds, between words—an ongoing process of reading, debating, imagining, and writing. These encounters not only expand our students’ understanding of the field but equip them to critically engage with Stellenbosch itself, a site where economic and racial disparities remain deeply inscribed. Texts like Akwaeke Emezi’s novels, Abdulrazak Gurnah’s fiction, Caribbean poetry, or Njabulo S. Ndebele’s essays reimagine identities shaped by race, culture, and gender. Meanwhile, works by Olive Schreiner or Walt Whitman challenge conventional ways of seeing the intersections of identity, ideology, and locality. Our research spans diverse fields—queer theory, diaspora studies, ecocriticism, visual activism, Neo-Victorian fiction, and contemporary poetry—all of which deepen our understanding of literature as a vehicle for thought, expression, and action.

Our graduates leave with conceptual and compositional tools applicable to careers in media, education, NGOs, public service, and law. More fundamentally, we believe the skills nurtured through critical thinking are essential to fostering democracy, transformation, and a just society.

The Department is home to a collegial and inclusive research community—one where staff, students, postgraduates, visiting fellows, and emeritus professors come together to produce original and innovative scholarship. Our programme of events includes research seminars featuring regional and international scholars, workshops on proposal writing, research methodologies, and creative writing, as well as a variety of active reading and writing groups, including the Nature Critical: Environmental Humanities Reading Group.

Our undergraduate core courses are designed to take students on a journey across periods, genres, and geographies. Alongside traditional areas of literary study, we emphasize postcolonial and cultural studies, with small-group seminars in the third year allowing students to shape their studies according to their passions. Hybrid learning initiatives at third-year and Honours level offer opportunities to collaborate with students from India and the UK, fostering global dialogue and diverse perspectives.

The Honours programme builds on undergraduate foundations with a compulsory course in twentieth-century theory and a research essay that prepares students for Masters-level study. Students explore a range of topics, from East African literature to ecocriticism, from love in the global south to narrative theory, with staff teaching in their own areas of expertise.

At postgraduate level, we have cultivated a vibrant community of Masters and doctoral students from around the world, who work with supervisory teams and actively participate in our seminars, reading groups, and interdisciplinary workshops such as those offered by the African Doctoral Academy. Collaborative projects like our NIHSS-funded partnership with Mumbai universities (South-South Feminisms) have further enriched our research environment, creating dynamic transnational exchanges and broadening our understanding of global literatures.

The Department comprises fifteen full-time staff members and a team of qualified first- and second-year tutors, many of whom are postgraduates themselves. Together, we foster a space where critical thinking and imagination thrive—an environment committed to rigorous scholarship, creativity, and mutual support. It’s our aim to not only enrich our students academically but to offer a place where intellectual and personal growth can flourish as Stellenbosch continues to reimagine itself.