The Department of English was founded on 11 November 1971, as one of the seven units of the newly founded Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Niš. In the beginning, it had two professors (Ljiljana Mihailović and Vida Marković) and one lector (Damjan Karapandžić). A decade later, six teaching assistants obtained doctoral degrees, which facilitated the teaching process and development of the Department.
During the period of nearly four decades, the Department hosted numerous British and American lectors: Helen Goodluck, David Cunliffe, David Hill, Peter Sexton, Gloria Jones, Ian Cotton, Mollie Heckel, David Read, Brooke Ricker, Lauren Schumate, Cleyera Martin, Kelsey Montzka, Jessica Collins, Danbi Lee, Joshua Popkin, Hannah Wilson, Katherine Hahn, Abijah Ahern, Abigail Melbourne, Alexandra Colwell and Sonja Dix Stojanović.
Members of the staff of the Department of English have either studied or done research at reputable universities in the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia. Moreover, the Department constantly maintains the existing connections and establishes new forms of cooperation with other higher education institutions in the country and abroad, while the list of visiting lecturers includes the following professors: Ranko Bugarski, Ljubomir Mihajlović, Diane Larsen-Freeman, Colin Nicholson, Terry Eagleton, Jim Scrivener, Todd Oakley, Kenneth Cushner, Mark Turner, Ray Jackendoff, Marshall Toman, and others.
The Department of English has successfully licensed the study programs of Bachelor studies of English (a four-year program) and Master studies in English (a one-year program), and together with other philological departments at the Faculty, the Department participates in the Doctoral studies of Philology (a three-year program). All of these programs have a considerable number of elective courses, which allow students to tailor their educational profiles. Students who complete the BA and MA programs obtain the professional title of a Bachelor with Honors in Philology and Master in Philology, respectively.
Members of the Department of English actively contribute to scientific research activities in several ways: as participants at national and international scientific conferences, as visiting lecturers at universities in the country and abroad, as participants in projects funded by the Republic of Serbia, as well as other numerous international scientific and administrative projects. Their publishing activity consists of issuing monographs and textbooks, books of proceedings, and publishing articles in domestic and international journals.
The Department of English has organized a series of scientific conferences dedicated to the problems of studying languages, literature and culture. The first such conference was named Language, Literature, Politics (2007), but the conference theme and the third item in its name changed every year. In 2008 this was Globalization, and later Identity (2009), Change (2010), Communication (2011), Values (2012), Marginalization (2013), Discourse (2014), Meaning (2015), Time (2016), Space (2017), Theory (2018), Context (2019), Alternatives (2021), Power (2022), Process (2023), Intersectionality (2024), and Future (2025). The Department has also organized a biannual conference called Teaching Languages and Cultures Conference in the Post-Method Era, and the previous topics include: Issues and Developments (2014), Developing Competencies, Re-thinking Practices (2016), Challenges and Perspectives (2018), and New Insights and Innovations (2023). In addition to the mentioned conferences, the Department also participated in organizing conferences of the Serbian Association for Canadian Studies (SACS), as well as a series of interdepartmental conferences (with other departments of English from the region).
The Heads of Department of English have so far been: Vida Marković, Ljiljana Mihailović, Sonja Janoski, Gordana Opačić, Ratomir Ristić, Brankica Pacić, Mladen Jovanović, Đorđe Vidanović, Dragana Mašović, Lena Petrović, Vesna Lopičić, Biljana Mišić Ilić, Slobodanka Kitić, Vladimir Ž. Jovanović, Mihailo Antović, Milica Živković, Dušan Stamenković, Milena Kaličanin, Violeta Stojičić and Vladan Pavlović (the current Head of Department).
In June of 2025, the Department had nine full professors (Biljana Mišić Ilić, Tatjana Paunović, Vladimir Ž. Jovanović, Milica Živković, Mihailo Antović, Vladan Pavlović, Violeta Stojičić, Milena Kaličanin, Dušan Stamenković), four associate professors (Ana Kocić Stanković, Danijela Petković, Milica Radulović, Nataša Tučev), four assistant professors (Vladimir Figar, Ljiljana Janković, Sanja Ignjatović, Marta Veličković), three senior lectors (Ljiljana Mihajlović, Ljiljana Marković, Aleksandar Pejčić), one lector (Ema Živković Nikolić), two teaching assistants (Dejan Pavlović, Marko Mitić), and one researcher (Mladen Popović).