The English Department has numerous events, talks, and workshops throughout the year, for students, alumni, and community members.
The English Department, in collaboration with The Sewanee Review, the Mountain Goat Literary Journal, the Sewanee Literary Society, and the Sewanee Writing House, are pleased to offer lots to do in Sewanee, and remotely!
Please check at our event calendar and subscribe (Google calendar: english@sewanee.edu):
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.
In celebration of Native American Heritage Month, Debra Magpie 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.
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 here!
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.
Our English and Creative Writing has been creating fiction, poetry, and drama. Below is some of their most recent work.
English faculty have been hard at work writing and editing criticism - here are some of our recent publications! Click to see what has just come out in print.
English Professor Bill Engel has a chapter in the collection Animals in the American Classics: How Natural History Inspired Great Fiction
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.
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.
English Professor Bill Engel has a new book out with Cambridge, The Death Arts in Renaissance England: A Critical Anthology
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.
English Professor Bill Engel has written a book on The Printer as Author in Early Modern English Book History: John Day and the Fabrication of a Protestant Memory Art.
Sewanee English Professor Bill Engel has edited a new collection of critical essays, The Shakespearean Death Arts, for Palgrave Macmillan.
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.
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.
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. Macfie, the Samuel R. Williamson Distinguished University Professor at Sewanee, is working on a memoir, Unlettered, a part of which has been published in the Sewanee Review. Hear her read new material on Thursday, April 7, at 4:30 PM in Gailor Auditorium.
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.
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.
On March 23, 2022, at 4:30 PM in Gailor Auditorium, 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!
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.
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, from 12:30-1:30 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.
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.
The Mountain Goat is back from break! You can submit online here - and come to their reading every first Tuesday of the month, this month at 6 PM, at the Social Lodge!
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!
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.
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.
Are you interested in publishing your work, or working in publishing? Wondering how publishing works in different ways for fiction, poetry, translations, or academic texts? Come to a roundtable on October 22 at 4 PM at the Writing House, 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. This event is organized by the Writing House!
We are very pleased to present Michelle Zauner (aka Japanese Breakfast) in concert and conversation Sunday, April 25 at 4:30 PM. Recording as Japanese Breakfast, Michelle Zauner has released two critically-acclaimed albums, Psychopomp and Soft Sounds from Another Planet; her third album, Jubilee, will be released June 4, 2021. She is also the author of Crying in H-Mart, a memoir that develops her essay of the same name in the New Yorker. You can read more about the memoir here. This concert is presented by The Mountain Goat Literary Journal, the Writing House, the Asian Languages and Culture House, the Wick, Campus Activities, the Sewanee Review/Dakin Fund, and the Departments of English and Music.
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.
Recent Sewanee graduates and English Majors Sydney Leibfritz C'20, Briana Wheeler C'20 and Carlos Zayas-Pons C'20 have founded a new literary journal entitled Ample Remains.
A new Sewanee student run podcast bringing you weekly doses of the medieval world with guest appearances from experts and scholars.
