When the University of Iowa was established in 1847, the idea of formally studying English-language literature was looked down upon as lowbrow by the academic elite, who favored the philological study of classical Greek and Latin. That began to change in 1861, when UI President Silas Totten organized the university into distinct departments, and taught the first English studies course. His successor, President Oliver M. Spencer—a professor of ancient and modern languages—then took over the course for several years. By the 1890s, a loosely organized English department had begun to take shape. Its chair, George W. Wauchope, wrote in the 1895-96 course catalog that the department's courses treated English-language literature as "an expression in artistic form of the mind and soul of a great people.”

In 1900, President George MacLean created the College of Liberal Arts, with the Department of English Language and Literature at its core. Freshmen and sophomores were required to take composition and English literature courses, the seeds of Iowa’s General Education program. Then, under Graduate College Dean Carl Seashore, the university started accepting creative projects as theses for advanced degrees in 1922. Blending the academic study of literature with the teaching of creative writing—an expression of the "Iowa Idea" that brought the study of art history and the creation of art together in one program during this period—was revolutionary. Iowa started attracting students in poetry, fiction, and playwriting from across the country, eager to experience this innovation in higher education.

In 1936, the Writers' Workshop was established within the department. Initially led by Wilbur Schramm, the program received enthusiastic support from the newly hired Director of the School of Letters, Norman Foerster, an adherent of Irving Babbitt’s New Humanism. In 1941, the poet Paul Engle would assume the directorship and over the next twenty years build it into the most prestigious program in the country. Foerster and Engle made Iowa into a prominent midwestern destination for both creative writers and new critics, who would enhance Iowa’s growing reputation in the literary world.

The sixties witnessed a major expansion of the English Department under chairman John Gerber, who would reap the benefits of the postwar boom with numerous hires, soon to be centrally located in the newly built English-Philosophy Building. Gerber had the full support of the upper administration, including President Virgil Hancher, and his hiring spree strengthened the department’s offerings in both scholarly research and creative writing. Gerber was particularly keen to maintain the department’s reputation in literary criticism, established in the previous decade by Rene Wellek and Austin Warren, authors of the foundational Theory of Literature. Gerber also oversaw the establishment of a Center for Textual Studies and a Center for Modern Letters, as well as laying the groundwork for the Center for the Book with the hire of printer Kim Merker. The sixties also saw the department housing and hosting the Midwest Modern Language Association (MMLA) under the directorship of Carl Klaus.

This decade also saw the departure of Paul Engle as Director of the Writers’ Workshop, who would go on to found the International Writing Program with his new partner Nieh Hualing. Nieh would in turn be central to the establishment of a Translation Workshop, which facilitated extensive cooperation between visiting writers and Writers’ Workshop faculty and students. One prominent early product of these developments would be the landmark translation of Jacques Derrida’s Of Grammatology by Gayatri Spivak, whose work established Iowa as a vital participant in the rise of Literary Theory.

In 1970, the novelists John Leggett succeeded the poet George Starbuck as Director of the Writers’ Workshop and oversaw both its demographic diversification and national consecration as the premier program in the country. The seventies would also see the development of a new writing program called the Master of Arts in Expository Writing (MAW), which would eventually develop into the Nonfiction Writing Program. The program was championed by Richard (Jix) Lloyd-Jones, who would replace Gerber as chair in 1976. It initially focused on rhetoric and writing pedagogy and only later came to focus on creative nonfiction. It would begin granting an MFA in the mid-nineties.

In 1987, Frank Conroy was hired as Director of the Writers’ Workshop and over the next 20 years he would facilitate the program’s gradual separation from the English Department and its relocation to Dey House in 2001. Both the Writers’ Workshop and the Nonfiction Writing Program were strictly graduate programs, but undergraduates were beginning to express interest in the discipline and disappointment in their lack of access to faculty. So, in 2007, the English Department established a track in creative writing which would grow into a free-standing major in English and Creative Writing in 2012.

With two undergraduate majors, a publishing track, a PhD program with creative options, an MFA in Creative Nonfiction, and a premiere location in a UNESCO designated City of Literature, the University of Iowa English Department continues to flourish at the vital intersection of critical and creative writing.