The University of Michigans English department is dedicated to four related endeavors: surveying and analyzing the diverse range of texts in the English language; researching and teaching the rich history of that language; fostering exceptional creative as well as critical writing; and studying texts in relation to other cultural phenomena. Our mission as educators is to enable students to become the finest readers and writers of literary texts that they can be. Because those texts in their infinite variety take as their subjects our fellow humans, our histories, and our cultures, we aim in effect to equip our students both to read the world, and write the future, with subtlety, acumen and precision.