George H. Ford Lecture Series

November 15, 2016

Please mark your calendars for this Fall's installment in the George Ford Lecture Series:
The Jane Austen Quotation Book
Deidre Lynch
Tuesday, November 15, 2016 at 5 p.m.
Welles-Brown Room

English Professors Sarah Higley and Jeffrey Tucker featured in "Star Trek’s Half-Century Voyage"

September 8, 2016

Excerpt from Star Trek’s Half-Century Voyage by Karen McCally ’02 (PhD) via Atavist, September 4, 2016

New book brings shadow into the light

July 22, 2016

Daily speech is shot through with metaphors of shade and shadow: a shadow of a doubt, a shadow of a smile, standing in someone’s shadow. A new book, edited by Kenneth Gross, the Alan F. Hilfiker Distinguished Professor of English, traces shadow’s literary history from ancient to modern times.

UR students help adults write their stories (D&C)

May 21, 2016

Excerpt from UR students help adults write their stories
by Jeff Spevak via the Democrat & Chronicle, May 21, 2016

New Faculty Publication: Ken Gross, "The Substance of Shadow" (Editor)

May 16, 2016

John Hollander, poet and scholar, was a master whose work joined luminous learning and imaginative risk. This book, based on the unpublished Clark Lectures Hollander delivered in 1999 at Cambridge University, witnesses his power to shift the horizons of our thinking, as he traces the history of shadow in British and American poetry from the Renaissance to the end of the twentieth century.

English Week 2016 runs April 18-22

April 14, 2016

Tanenbaum Award applications due April 18th

March 23, 2016

In 2004 University alumnus John Tanenbaum ’85 began a funded internship to help English majors subsidize their housing, transportation, and other expenses in a summer independent study. Since 2006 the Tanenbaum Scholarship has helped make internships possible at an academic publishing house in Pittsburgh, a TV production team in Los Angeles, the American Red Cross, and the Legal Aid Society of Rochester. For more information, contact thomas.hahn@rochester.edu.

2015-16 George H. Ford Lecture with Leonard Tennenhouse scheduled for March 24th

March 17, 2016

Join us on Thursday, March 24th for "Style in the Time of Epidemic Writing," a Ford Lecture with Leonard Tennenhouse. Tennenhouse, Professor of English at Duke University, is the author, most recently, of The Importance of Feeling English: American Literature and the English Diaspora, 1750-1850 (Princeton UP, 2007). His talk on Thursday will be drawn from his forthcoming book (co-authored with Nancy Armstrong) The Conversion Effect: Aspects of the Early American Novel.

Artist Nate Hodge Receives Lillian Fairchild Award

March 4, 2016

The Department of English at the University of Rochester named artist Nate Hodge as the recipient of the 2015 Lillian Fairchild Memorial Award, during a ceremony on Monday, Feb. 29. The award is given annually to a local visual artist, writer, choreographer, or composer for his or her commitment to the arts in the Rochester community. In 2015, Hodge participated in WALL/THERAPY, a public art project that uses murals as a way to provide new life and energy to blank walls in downtown areas.

From Uncle Tom to Aunt Phillis: Professor sheds new light on race, slavery in American literature

March 2, 2016

The cultural impact of slavery is one of the most important topics for students and teachers of American studies. Yet to date, there is no collection of essays that provide an overview of its significance in American literature for classroom use. This is why Ezra Tawil, associate professor of English, decided to take on the role as editor for the forthcoming publication, Cambridge Companion to Slavery in American Literature.

Exhibition Reception for "Language Architects Through the Ages" to be held February 25th

February 19, 2016

"Language Architects Through the Ages," an exhibit prepared by Professor Sarah Higley, showcases new and old examples of the imaginative use of strange alphabets, ciphers, asemic writing, and invented languages from medieval to modern times, with a special emphasis on the original artwork and calligraphy donated by outsiders. Items are collected from Rare Books, Robbins Library, Rush Rhees stacks; Sarah's students; and some of her own possessions. This exhibit dovetails with Professor Higley's Spring course, "Magic Language in the Middle Ages," as well as a visit in mid-April by David J. Peterson, author of Dothraki for Game of Thrones. Sarah will give a brief presentation during the event, and refreshments will be served.

Professor Jennifer Grotz featured at Writers & Books on February 11th

January 25, 2016

Via Writers & Books: Join us for this wonderful reading featuring two bright talents, Jennifer Grotz and Elizabeth Gray. Two incredible poets who will be reading from their latest work.