Rice English integrates creative and critical practice through training in close reading, analytical writing, cultural history and theory, and craft/form. Our faculty research and pedagogy cover the breadth of the study of British and American literatures and cultures ranging from the medieval era to the present. The curriculum emphasizes literature and literary history, race and ethnicity studies, feminist and gender studies, queer theory and the history of sexuality, visual culture and comparative media studies, and the Anglophone literature of the postcolonial world. Faculty have particular strengths in the newer interdisciplinary areas of medical humanities, ecocriticism, post-humanism, and environmental humanities. Recent research and writing in the public humanities innovates the departmental mission as faculty and students engage new audiences. Rice English is also home to a vibrant creative writing program offering a range of courses in fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, podcasting, translation, and publishing. At the undergraduate level, the department offers a major in English, as well as a major in English with a major concentration in Creative Writing.

The department also offers two undergraduate minors for students who wish to pursue English as a secondary field outside the major focus of study at Rice: 1) the minor in English, in which students practice the methods, theories, and research practices common to the fields of literary and cultural studies; and 2) the minor in Creative Writing, which emphasizes close reading, creative process, cross-genre training, writing craft, and editorial technique.

The core of graduate study in English is the PhD; the program trains students to develop advanced knowledge of literary, cultural, and critical studies, including: critical reading, thinking, and writing; professional methodologies; literary and cultural histories, and theoretical and interdisciplinary perspectives.