A C Spearing, William R Kenan, Jr Professor of English, has been awarded the Doctor of Letters (Litt.D) from the University of Cambridge, an honor conferred on those who have achieved the highest national or international prominence in their field.
Professor John O'Brien of the English Department has been awarded the Daniels Family National Endowment for the Humanities Distinguished Teaching Professorship, a three-year appointment. O'Brien describes his project in part thus:
Congratulations to the following English majors who have just been elected to the UVa chapter of Phi Beta Kappa!
Abigail McKenzie Meredith
Emily Rose Sullivan
Kevin Christian Hermann
Morgan Alayna Dresner
Seyed-Sassan Mousavi-Vapouri
Elizabeth Barrott Bickley
Katherine Todd Hutto
Laura Ritland Gaul
Sarah Elizabeth Angelo
This year, the UVA quizbowl team consisting of Matt Bollinger (undergrad, English), Tommy Casalaspi (undergrad, English), Evan Adams (grad, law), and Dennis Loo (grad, math) performed the rare feat of uniting the sport's two national titles. On March 29 they won the NAQT Intercollegiate Championship Tournament.
At its 313th Commencement on Monday, May 19, 2014, Yale University bestowed an Honorary Doctor of Letters on Rita Dove, Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia.
Anna Ioanes, a PhD candidate in the English Department, has won this year's Zora Neale Hurston prize for best graduate student essay. The competition was held by the department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality. Ioanes's essay is titled "Disgustingly Beautiful: Affect and Aesthetics in Sula and Kara Walker's 'Silhouettes'."
An interview with Professor Bruce Holsinger will air on With Good Reason beginning May 31st to June 6th. You can find broadcast times posted here.
The 2014-2015 Scholars' Lab graduate fellows include three graduate students from the English Department- Jennifer Foy, Amy Boyd, and Andrew Ferguson.
Rita Dove, Commonwealth Professor of English, has released the following statement on Maya Angelou's life and work:
Maya Angelou was indeed a phenomenal woman – rising from the ashes of a childhood that would have rendered many of us mute and enraged, she made her way in a world that all too often despised her kind – a black woman, tall, fierce, and most fearsome of all, unafraid.
Professor Andrew Stauffer traveled to Greece as a representative of the Byron Society of America, where he gave a lecture on Byron’s poetry to approximately 200 local citizens of Messolonghi.
![MOSQUITOES [by William Faulkner]](https://english.as.virginia.edu/sites/english.as.virginia.edu/files/styles/publication_crop__180x250_/public/vander2.jpg?itok=CRKFR0a2)
Friday, October 2nd
