Mark Edmundson on the Ideal English Major, CHE
Professor Mark Edmundson's piece on the "Ideal English Major" was recently featured in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Professor Mark Edmundson's piece on the "Ideal English Major" was recently featured in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Commonwealth Professor Rita Dove published her new poem "Trayvon, Redux" on July 16, 2013 in the online magazine The Root.
Professor Lisa Russ Spaar was awarded the 2013 Jefferson Scholars Faculty Prize.
Professor Gregory Orr discussed his latest collection of poems, River Inside the River, on the PBS NewsHour. Read the full article and listen to excerpts from Professor Orr's interview here.
Professors Elizabeth Fowler, Clare Kinney, and A. C. Spearing went on the air October 9th to talk about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight on WTJU's "Soundboard." Professor Kinney read her own translation of a passage, Professor Spearing read from the original, and all discussed the powerful resonances that the fourteenth-century work still has for us today.
Charles Tyson, a fourth-year student majoring in Political and Social Thought and English, became one of two University of Virginia undergraduates to win a 2014 Rhodes Scholarship. Tyson, who has previously won Wagenheim and Pruden scholarships through the English Department, plans to pursue two one-years master's programs in Victorian literature and history of science before returning to the U.S. for a Ph.D. in English literature.
Mary Szybist, a graduate of the University of Virginia and former English major, has been awarded the 2013 National Book Award for poetry. Read more about Szybist and her winning work Incarnadine here.
James Seitz, the new director of UVA's academic writing program, spoke to UVA Today about undergraduate writing requirements and the ways they might further enhance the university's educational goals. Seitz, who joined the English department faculty this semester, sees in small undergraduate writing courses abundant potential for thoughtful academic inquiry and rewarding student-teacher interaction.
Read more about these ideas and Seitz's own work here.
Jahan Ramazani, Edgar F. Shannon Professor of English, talked to UVA Today about his recent professional accomplishments and service. Ramazani served as one of five judges for this year's National Book Award for Poetry, which was ultimately awarded to UVA English graduate Mary Szybist's Incarnadine. Ramazani also discussed his new book, Poetry and Its Others: News, Prayer, Song, and the Dialogue of Genres, which explores poetry's interactions with other forms of writing.
English Department doctoral candidate William Rhodes has been awarded the 2014 Schallek Fellowship by the Medieval Academy of America. Rhodes is working with Professor Elizabeth Fowler on a dissertation entitled "The Ecology of Reform: Land and Labor from Piers Plowman to Edmund Spenser." This fellowship, which is supported by the Richard III Society, American Branch, provides a one-year grant of $30,000 to support Ph.D. dissertation research in any relevant discipline dealing with late-medieval Britain (c.1350-1500).