Here you can learn out about research opportunities in the English Department, including places to present and publish your work, and the research interests of faculty, as well as potential programs for graduate study.

 

Faculty Research Profiles

Stephane Batkie: Medieval Aesthetics and Politics

My work is interested in how medieval literature in England uses, creates, and extends aesthetic values and structures in the political sphere. I look at Middle English and Anglo-Latin poetics to understand how form and textual surfaces generate a sense of political agency in the period. To this end, I consider matters of what I call the ethics of attention, poetics of sound and perception, manuscript culture, and the experimental nature of inter-linguistic context in the 12th-15th centuries. 

Benjamin Mangrum: Computational Thinking and Environmental Rights

I'm at work on two book projects. The first book considers how literary studies can help us understand "computational thinking," an idea that has become increasingly important in computer science. The second book is a cultural history of the idea of environmental rights. Before the environment became an object of legal studies in the 1970s, writers, artists, film makers, and other intellectuals associated "rights" and the environment in widely influential ways.

Jennifer Michael: Poetry and Silence

My second poetry chapbook is forthcoming next year, and I am thinking about a full-length collection to be entitled "Bodies at Rest." My current book project, "Poetry at the Edge of Silence," considers the paradoxical relationship between silence (especially contemplative silence) and poetic utterance. I also have several William Blake-related articles either in progress or in mind, considering on the one hand his overlooked debts to Aphra Behn, and on the other, his role in the fiction of Polish author Olga Tokarczuk.

William Engel: Death Arts in the Renaissance

I'm currently part of several projects involving the "death arts" in Early Modern (1500-1660) England - that is, tracing the way that people prepared for death, and made that preparation into an art - and how artists (like Shakespeare) adapted these practices in literature. If some students want to help, I'm also looking to develop a course on the Early Modern book-trade: Shakespeare's best-sellers (that is, the books that were most popular in Shakespeare's day)!

Matthew Irvin: Alternatives to Pity

I'm working on a book, tentatively entitled, Ruthless Reading: Refusing Pity in Late Medieval English Literature. In it, I examine ways of reading highly emotional literature (and a lot of medieval literature is very emotional), and suggest that responding with pity or compassion can help violent, dominant forces maintain power. I particularly like reading medieval literature alongside Marxist and Black Radical theorists. 

Student Research and Publishing Opportunities

The Allegheny Review

6:00 PM

The Allegheny Review publishes poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and artwork; it is a nationwide publication, and exclusively for undergraduate writers. The deadline to submit for 2022 edition is October 15, 2021, and submissions must be in PDF or Microsoft Word. Fiction and creative nonfiction submissions should be double-spaced, and not exceed 20 pages; up to five poems may be submitted. 

 

Details

Carnegie Mellon University Grad Program

4:00 PM

Join our alumni as they discuss school, work, life, and more. The panelists will share their professional stories and answer your questions. Register to attend and get advice from the experts.

Alternative Academic Information Session - for those applying or interested in the Ph.D. 

Monday, October 25 at 5:00 p.m. EST

To receive the Zoom link, and to read the panel bios, RSVP by Thursday, October 21.  

Life After English: M.A. LCS and Rhetoric Alumni Panel Discussion and Q&A

Tuesday, October 26 at 5:00 p.m. EST 

To receive the Zoom link, and to read the alumni bios, RSVP by Friday, October 22. 

 Ask Our MAPW Alumni: Virtual Panel

Thursday, October 28 at 5:00 p.m. EST

To receive the Zoom link, and to read the alumni bios, RSVP by Friday, October 22.

 

Fall 2022 Application Deadlines: 

PhD and MA (first/preferred): Wednesday, January 5, 2022

GCAT (first/preferred): Wednesday, January 26, 2022

Second MA + GCAT: Wednesday, March 2, 2022- if space is available

Final MA + GCAT: Wednesday, May 4, 2022- if space is available 

Analecta

11:59 PM

Analecta publishes poetry, essays, fiction, dramatic works, and visual arts; it takes submissions of all kinds. The deadline to submit for the 43rd issue is Friday, December 16, 2021 before midnight. 

 

Details

Collision Literary Magazine

6:00 PM

Collision Literary Magazine at the University of Pittsburgh is currently open for submissions of undergraduate fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art, and welcome all students to submit! By submitting to the annual magazine, students will be considered for their writing and cover art contests. The deadline is February 25, but submissions are read on a rolling basis. 

Collision Literary Magazine

The Oswald Review

6:00 PM

This journal publishes exclusively undergraduate criticism and research in the field of English. The annual submission deadline is March 1.Essays must be 10-25 pages and you must also have a professor’s endorsement.

Details

Northwest Undergraduate Conference on Literature

6:00 PM

This is an annual undergraduate conference held at the University of Portland. Papers must be under 10 pages, and range from 15-18 (a short suite of poems is also acceptable for those wishing to present creative work). Prize are given, and students can submit individual papers or a full panel composed of three to four students presenting. 

NUCL

Young Scholars in Writing

6:00 PM

This journal publishes papers on rhetoric, writing, discourse, language, etc. and is open to undergraduates of any major. Submissions open December 15, 2021, due April 15, 2022. There are three types of submission: Comment and Response submission (1500-3000 words) Methodological Reflection (2000-5000 words) and Original Research article  (4000-7000 words). 

 

Details

Scholarship Sewanee

6:00 PM

Scholarship Sewanee is Sewanee's own conference, where undergraduates can present research in either poster or paper form. English students often present papers here; paper should be about 20 minutes in length (or about 2500 words). 

Scholarship Sewanee Website

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Criterion publishes essays on texts from any time period, and prioritizes undergraduate submissions. The Winter 2021 issue is coming out shortly, but they will be taking submissions again soon. Generally, submissions are between 3000-6000 words.

 

Details

The Madison Journal of Literary Criticism

This journal publishes literary criticism of any kind, and exclusively undergraduate writing. It takes submissions on a rolling basis. Essays should be 8-20 pages, double spaced, and engage with at least 2 critical sources outside of the analyzed text(s).

 

Details