<p>How is the english department at Brown?</p>
<p>The English department at Brown, from what I know, is very good. I am familiar with some of the work of one of the professors there (Nancy Armstrong). To tell you the truth, I am not so sure of the quality of the graduate program, because if you look at the faculty pages of English Departments at other top schools, comparatively very few of the tenure-track and tenured faculty are Brown Ph.D.'s.</p>
<p>But the department is ranked very well. You might want to e-mail some other professors at other schools to find out how Brown's department is regarded in general.</p>
<p>But Nancy Armstrong is famous (at least in the world of Nineteenth-century Novel studies, Victorian literature and culture, and English studies in general). For an undergrad, though, I have no doubts that the department will be fantastic, because the aims of an undergraduate program and a graduate program are slightly different.</p>