When you study English at Sewanee, you will be part of a truly storied program. Our vibrant range of courses and our generous and engaging faculty will guide your exploration of literature from Ancient Greek epic to the contemporary African novel. You will also be immersed in Sewanee's long literary tradition, including The Sewanee Review, the country's oldest continuously published literary quarterly, and the Sewanee Writers' Conference, a yearly gathering of writers that has included Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winners.
At the center of our practice is a concern with form – that is, what makes literature different from other kinds of writing and communication? Our faculty and students explore big questions that literature poses: Dr. Virginia Craighill asks, How does literature define the human? Dr. Matthew Irvin asks, How does language create emotion, and does that emotion change with language? Claire Crow, C’ 21, asks, How has medieval literature given us the terms to understand modern ideas of race and gender? Playwright Elizabeth Wilder asks, How does writing produce rituals that bind communities? Dr. Maha Jafri asks, What can a narrative do?
Professors and students share in these explorations: they inspire classroom discussions, creative projects, and undergraduate research. But they are also part of the life of our community, in our hallways, at Stirlings, and also in places like the Writing House, the Sewanee Literary Society, and the Mountain Goat Literary Journal. We also bring others in to help us answer them: writers and academics, artists and entrepreneurs, journalists and philosophers. While Sewanee has a long and proud literary tradition, we also look outward, to new voices, new approaches, and new literatures.
So how can you get involved? See what classes we are offering this semester, upcoming events, our faculty, and check out the major in English, the minor in Shakespeare Studies, and the certificate in Creative Writing!
This course explores the contemporary Anglophone novel since 1989. Written largely from transnational perspectives that defy traditional national boundaries, the novels in this course share a concern with capturing global experience and analyzing the cultural and economic impact of globalization. Potential readings include works by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Teju Cole, Amitav Ghosh, Michael Ondaatje, and Ruth Ozeki.
A study of the major dramatic works of Tennessee Williams, as well as his poetry and fiction. The course also examines Williams' life and his impact on 20th-century American literature and theatre.
By turns terrifying, melancholy, and bizarre, gothic literature channels real anxieties in monstrous forms. This course features literature of the mysterious, uncanny, supernatural, and grotesque. The specific focus of the class may vary from year to year (e.g., a special focus on American gothic fiction or literature of the sublime, or others).
An exploration of the development of modern drama from Ibsen's groundbreaking naturalism to contemporary drama's new variations. The course emphasizes the relationship between the theater and society and issues of performance, as well as close study of the plays themselves. Authors covered may include Wilde, Shaw, Beckett, Williams, Stoppard, and others.
A study of writings from the colonial era to our own day reflecting diverse ways of imagining humanity's relation to the natural environment. Readings include both traditional literary texts by authors such as Thoreau, Cather, and Frost and seminal nonfiction by figures such as Aldo Leopold, John Muir, Rachel Carson, and Wendell Berry.
Requirements for the Major in English
Requirements for the Minor in Shakespeare Studies | Website
Requirements for the Certificate in Creative Writing | Website
Virginia Ottley Craighill has been teaching at Sewanee since 2001 and is also a graduate of the University of the South, C’82, the University of Georgia, and the University of Texas at Austin. Her interests range from 19th-century and modern American literature to literary journalism, creative nonfiction, and women’s literature.
Professor Engel received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and specializes in medieval and Renaissance literature with an eye toward the history of ideas. He has published chapters in collections of essays on topics that include Chaucer’s use of Boethius, Shakespeare’s historical context, Milton’s use of Anglo-Saxon, and Poe’s cryptography.
Maha Jafri received a Ph.D. from Northwestern University and a B.A. from Johns Hopkins University. She specializes in Victorian literature, with research and teaching interests in the history of the novel and narrative, psychology, ethics, and intellectual history.
The English Comprehensive Examination will be held Saturday, March 26 (Super Saturday), starting at 8 AM. There will be a review session scheduled for next semester before Spring Break. You can find a sample comprehensive exam on our website, and the best way to prepare is to review the texts you have read which appear on our reading list (but we will have lots of guidance and tips for you in our review session).
If you've ever wondered (or been asked) what you can do with an English degree (besides being a teacher or a writer), we have answers for you from alumna and English major Caroline Morton Huffman (C'86), who has had a long career in business and is looking forward to helping answer your questions. Come chat at 7 PM, Wednesday, Nov 3 at the Social Lodge. This event is sponsored by the English Department and the Babson Center.
The English Department and the University Bookstore are joining forces to feature our favorite titles, just in time for holiday shopping! Come to the opening, November 4, from 5-7 PM, and get discounts on books and the Blue Chair Tavern!
Come watch David Lowery's stunning new film from A24 (starring Dev Patel) and hear about how it adapts the late 14th century poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Wondering how publishing works in different ways for fiction, poetry, translations, or academic texts? Come to a roundtable on October 22 at 4 PM in Gailor Auditorium, featuring William Engel of the English Department, Stephanie McCarter of the Classics Department, Matthew Mitchell of the History Department, Gwen Kirby of the Sewanee Writers Conference, and Eric Smith of The Sewanee Review. They will discuss their publishing journeys, share tips and tricks they've learned along the way, and answer any questions you have in the Q&A session following the panel. This event is organized by the Writing House!
Members of Jim Crawford's Hamlet cast will reflect on what acting in the play tells them about its characters. Professor Crawford will be present too to talk about directing this most famous of plays; conversation will be informal and fueled by savory biscuits. This is the first of a continuing series, "Conversations in Literature."
On October 26th at 4:30 PM in Convocation Hall, Alice McDermott will give the 28th Haines Lecture, including reading from new fiction. McDermott is the author of eight novels, and won the National Book Award for Charming Billy. Sewanee's masking and social distancing policies will be in effect. (Photo credit: Beowulf Sheehan)
Professor Kevin Wilson's most recent novel, Nothing to See Here, was selected by the National Endowment for the Arts as part of their Big Read program, where they select 15 books for the year and offer grants to communities to discuss the book that they choose. His short story, "Biology" was selected by Jesmyn Ward for this year's Best American Short Stories.
Gwen Kirby's book of short stories, Shit Cassandra Saw, will be coming out from Penguin Books in January, 2022. Gwen has been working at the Sewanee Writers' Conference since 2014, where she is now Associate Director of Programs and Finance. She has been teaching fiction courses at Sewanee since 2020
Poet and critic Phillip B. Williams will lecture on the work of Vievee Francis, the recipient of the 2021 Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry, on October 12th; Francis will receive her award and read from her work on Wednesday, October 13th.
The Writing House is hosting a National Novel Writing Month club to help you meet your writing goals.
You do not have to write a novel to participate! Many people set their own word count, want to write a certain number of poems, or work on their creative writing certificate capstone projects alongside others.
We will meet throughout October for planning and outlining and throughout November to write with one another and celebrate each other's accomplishments. Come to our first meeting this Wednesday, October 6th at 6pm in the Social Lodge to check it out and see what NaNoWriMo is all about!
The annual Southern Festival of Books will be all online October 9 and 10, and will feature a conversation with Dr. Destiny Birdsong, who teaches poetry at Sewanee. Many other authors are involved in conversations that can be seen on YouTube Live!
The Mountain Goat Journal, Sewanee’s oldest student-run literary journal, is excited to move from its traditional yearly print issue to a monthly online publication in the 2021-22 year. Our monthly issue will launch the first Thursday of every month beginning in September, and coincide with a public reading every first Tuesday. Our goal is that, by keeping with a regular publication schedule and a rolling submission period, the Journal will serve as a supportive outlet for Sewanee students to showcase and share their creative work, and that our regular public readings and events will help to foster more opportunities for Sewanee’s undergraduate creatives to form a community with and among one another.
Submit to the Mountain Goat here: https://www.themountaingoatjournal.com/, and come to our next reading, October 5, at 5 PM at the University Farm.
Jonathan Meiburg, C’97, will have a conversation on Zoom with Prof. David Haskell about Meiburg's new book, A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the World’s Smartest Birds of Prey. This book, in progress for several years, draws together the humanities, the arts, and the sciences in a way that will appeal to people with interests in a wide range of academic disciplines. Through a focus on a particular species, the caracara, it raises questions about what evolution means and about our role as human beings in a changing climate.
Out of over 550 applicants, English major, Claire Crow, was offered (and accepted) one of 3 positions in the Ph.D. Program in English at Yale to continue her work on depictions of race in medieval romance. She was also accepted with full funding into the Ph.D. program in Medieval Studies at Cornell and into the English Ph.D. programs at Indiana University, The Ohio State University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Fordham University. In addition, she was offered positions in the M.A. program in English at NYU and at the University of Birminhgam (UK), the M.A. program in Comparative Literature at Dartmouth, and the M.A. program in the Humanities at the University of Chicago.
Bramwell Atkins and Mandy Tu have been awarded the prestigious Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, a one-year grant for purposeful, independent exploration outside the United States. Bramwell's study, How Can We Sing?: Music and Displacement will take him to Russia, Ukraine, Laos, Vietnam, Greece, and Germany to study how music helps displaced people to cope. Through her study, Voices in Verse: Perspectives on Postcolonial Women Writing, Mandy will travel to the Bahamas, Jamaica, Singapore, Malaysia, South Africa, Nigeria, and the U.K. to learn about women writing in the shadow of the British Empire.
Dr. Ben Mangrum's article, "Market Segmentation and Shirley Jackson's Domestic Humor" appears in the Spring 2021 edition of American Literary History.
Need help with a paper? The Writing Center provides you with objective peer support and instruction for writing projects. The student tutors represent a wide range of majors, and they can help you at any stage in the writing process—topic development, rough drafts, final drafts, revisions, etc. They’re basically your cheerleader from brainstorming to final draft.
Shakespeare studies is a complementary minor for many programs. There’s a reason Shakespeare’s poems and plays have endured the test of time. His colorful characters give us a glimpse into specific and universal human experiences.
The Mountain Goat, Sewanee's student-run literary magazine, is a periodical in which students can display their talent in creative writing. Featuring poetry, fiction, playwriting, and creative nonfiction, each issue of the magazine is available online. The final printed issue is the culmination of the year's submissions and immortalizes all of the pieces that were accepted.
Founded in 1892, the Sewanee Review is America’s oldest continuously published literary quarterly. Many of the 20th-century’s great writers, including T.S. Eliot, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, and Ezra Pound, have appeared in the magazine. The Sewanee Review also has a long tradition of cultivating emerging talent—like publishing some of Flannery O’Connor’s first work.
