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.
Our Creative Writing program will develop your talents in a broad range of genres, including Fiction, Playwriting, Creative Non-Fiction, and Poetry. 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 Major and 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.
This workshop focuses on writing literary short fiction. After examining a diverse selection of exemplary forms of the craft and learning techniques for their own writing, students will generate and share their own stories with the workshop. Along the way, the course will help students develop a common language for discussing and critiquing the creative work of their peers. Beyond that, the workshop asks students to interrogate their own point of view and how it informs their artistic principles, while also seeking to understand and embrace the unique stories of their peers.
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.
All our current courses are listed here.
Requirements for the Major in English
Requirements for the Minor in Shakespeare Studies | Website
Requirements for the Major in Creative Writing: Fiction Track, Playwriting Track, Poetry Track
Requirements for the Certificate in Creative Writing | Website
Kevin Wilson has been teaching at Sewanee since 2006. He is the author of two collections, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth (Ecco/Harper Perennial, 2009), which received an Alex Award from the American Library Association and the Shirley Jackson Award, and Baby You’re Gonna Be Mine (Ecco, 2018), and three novels, The Family Fang (Ecco, 2011), Perfect Little World (Ecco, 2017) and Nothing to See Here (Ecco, 2019), a New York Times bestseller and a Read with Jenna book club selection. His fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, Southern Review, One Story, A Public Space, and elsewhere, and has appeared in Best American Short Stories 2020 and 2021, as well as The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2012.
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.
Dr. Ross Macdonald will explore the influences of English poet John Milton on Matthew Ritchie: A Garden in the Flood in a gallery talk at the Frist, Thursday, January 26, 7:00–7:30 p.m. Drawing from passages in Milton’s Paradise Lost, Dr. Macdonald will discuss Milton’s examination of order and chaos in the epic poem and its thematic relevance to Ritchie’s work.
Image: Matthew Ritchie. Harbinger, 2022. Oil and ink on canvas; 58 x 72 in. Courtesy of the artist and James Cohan, New York. © Matthew Ritchie 2022. Image courtesy the artist and James Cohan, New York. Photo: Phoebe D’Heurle
In an article on 2022 being the "Year of Gossip," Dr. Jafri, an expert on the uses of gossip in Victorian literature, helped explain why Covid-19 intensified the desire for gossip last year: “I’m not surprised that years of social crisis—in a society that barely qualifies as such—have created an audience for low-stakes sensationalism with a human-interest angle.” So...tell your friends!
In celebration of Native American Heritage Month, Debra Earling, author of Perma Red and the forthcoming novel The Lost Journals of Sacajewea, will give a reading in Convocation Hall on Wednesday, Nov. 16 at 4:30 p.m. In addition, she will be making classroom, workshop, and other program visits. She has received both a National Endowment for the Arts grant and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Dennis Kezar, who has taught Renaissance Literature at both Vanderbilt University and the University of Utah, will give a lecture entitled, Seeing Feelingly - The Alchemy of Shakespeare's Skeptical Empathy, at 4:30 PM, November 9, in Gailor Auditorium.
Dr. Anna Foy has received a Sewanee Research Grant to travel to Scotland to examine the extant legal papers of a man named Joseph Knight, an important but mysterious figure from African and Scottish legal history who was granted freedom from enslavement from the Scottish high court in 1788. Born in Guinea, transported as a child to Jamaica, and sold into slavery to John Wedderburn (a Scotsman), Knight eventually met and fell in love with Ann Thompson, a white servant of Wedderburn with whom Knight had a child. After several rounds of appeal, the monumental Knight v. Wedderburn case effectively declared slavery illegal within Scottish borders, even as slavery remained legal in the British colonies. The central goal of Dr. Foy’s project is to examine and transcribe the 40-odd pages of Knight’s legal “memorial” (a kind of autobiographical petition) with an eye to eventual publication. Knight’s case deserves to be better known.
Read a new interview with Kevin Wilson in the New York Times Book Review section!
Isabel Duarte-Gray, Visiting Assistant Professor of English, will read from her poetry, November 3 at 4:30 PM in Gailor Auditorium. Her reading will include new poetry from her forthcoming collection.
This year, our Haines Lecturer will be the poet Natasha Trethewey. She will deliver the 29th Haines Lecture on October 25, 2022 at 4:30 PM PM, in Convocation Hall. It will also be livestreamed on the Sewanee English and Creative Writing Department's YouTube Channel.
English faculty have been hard at work writing and editing criticism - here are some of our recent publications!
The Sewanee Review presents the 2022 Aiken Taylor Award, October 12-13. Critic Christopher Spaide will lecture on the work of Garrett Hongo, the recipient of the 2022 Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry, on October 11th at 4:30 PM in Guerry Auditorium; Hongo will receive his award and read from his work on Wednesday, October 12th at 5 PM, in Convocation Hall.
Dr. Jiwei Xiao, who formerly taught Chinese at Sewanee, will deliver a talk entitled "What is a detail?: Reading Chinese Fiction as World Literature." In addition to the lecture, Dr. Xiao will be at the Tower Room upstairs in McClurg at noon for a discussion over lunch.
Novelist Katie Kitamura, whose novel Intimacies was a favorite of best-book lists in 2021, will read at 4:30 PM on Tuesday, August 30th, in Gailor Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public. Start the semester off with a reading from one of the nation's best novelists! The event will also be livestreamed - click to find out more.
Memoirist and novelist Justin Taylor will read from his work on September 29th, at 4:30 PM in Gailor Auditorium. Mr. Taylor is also the Director of the Sewanee School of Letters, and, as a Brown Foundation Fellow, is currently teaching The Beginning Narrative Nonfiction Workshop for Sewanee's Creative Writing Program. The event is free and open to the public.
The English Department invites you, on Monday afternoon, at 4:30 p.m. in Gailor 224, to a "Talk Back" with Dakota Collins and the cast of his Much Ado About Nothing, whose final performance unfolds this (Thursday) evening at 6 p.m. in Angel Park.
On March 23, 2022, at 4:30 PM, the English Department presents a lecture-workshop with Ralph Cohen, the co-founder of the American Shakespeare Center, a Shakespeare-centered performance group based in Staunton, VA, in the world's only recreation of the Blackfriars Theatre, Shakespeare's indoor performance space. He and actors from ASC will lead students in discussion and performance workshops. No prior acting experience required!
Ciona Rouse, a Nashville poet teaching African-American Literary Societies this semester at Sewanee, will read from her poetry at 4:30 PM on Wednesday, April 6, at 4:30 PM in Gailor Auditorium. An award-winning poet, Rouse is also well-known for her electrifying readings.
As part of the Sewanee Medieval Colloquium, poet Jos Charles will read from her poetry, including from feeld, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. The reading will take place April 9, at 1 PM in Gailor Auditorium. Her poems, whose language blend together the ambiguity of Middle English and the punch of text-speak, reckon with youth, desire, and trans experience. In addition to the reading, she will be in conversation with medievalist and trans scholar Dr. Gabriel M.W. Bychowski. This event is co-sponsored by the English Department, the Sewanee Review, and the University Lectures Committee.
Mandy Moe Pwint Tu, a 2021 graduate of Sewanee (an English major with a Certificate in Creative Writing) just published her first chapbook, Monsoon Daughter from Thirty West Publishing. Mandy is currently a graduate student at University of Wisconsin - Madison, working towards her MFA in poetry. At Sewanee, Mandy was President of the Order of Gown and wrote for the Sewanee Purple, The Mountain Goat Journal, and won a Watson Fellowship. You can purchase the chapbook here.
Kevin Wilson's new novel, Now Is Not the Time to Panic, will be published on November 8, by Ecco. A coming-of-age story, the book focuses on two kids named Frankie and Zeke over the course of a summer.
Dr. Jennifer Michael (also C'89), in addition to teaching Romantic literature at Sewanee, has recently published some new poetry, including a new chapbook from Finishing Line Press.
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).
On February 17 at 4:30 in Gailor Auditorium, Dr. Gwen Kirby will be reading from her debut story collection Shit Cassandra Saw. It's been getting rave reviews, everywhere from Publishers Weekly to National Public Radio.
On February 8 at 4:30 in Gailor Auditorium, PEN/Faulkner Award-winning novelist Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi will read from her work. The reading will be followed by a reception and book-signing.
The English Department and the University Bookstore are joining forces to feature our favorite titles, with reviews from Sewanee students! Come find new titles to read, February 11!
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, 6 PM February 1, at the Social Lodge.
In February, Clemson University Press will publish Dr. Lauryl Tucker's book, Unexpected Pleasures: Parody, Queerness, and Genre in 20th-Century British Fiction. The book dives into Dr. Tucker's interests in humor, especially the humor that queers conventions both social and literary. You can find the book here, and Dr. Tucker will discuss it at a Dean's Faculty Research Presentation on January 27, at McGriff Alumni Hall.
Mr. Radney Foster, C’82, Nashville singer, songwriter, author, and actor (and Sewanee English major) will be the Babson Center’s 2022 Humphreys Entrepreneur-in-Residence. Navigating the fluid nature of the music industry, Mr. Foster will share insights of his journey from West Texas to Sewanee to the Music City and will offer wisdom to his success. He will speak in Convocation Hall at 4:30 on January 20.
Celebrated poet and honorary degree recipient Nikki Giovanni will give a reading from her writings at 4 PM in Convocation Hall, January 13; she will receive her honorary degree the next day during Winter Convocation.
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.
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!
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 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!
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.
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.
