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Graduate Studies
The National Research Council ranks our English PhD program among the best in the country.
Research
Our faculty and students participate in numerous individual and collaborative research projects.
FACULTY IN THE NEWS
The Work of horror films
“Sometimes I wonder what it was exactly, that led me to pull The Dead Zone by Stephen King off of my parents’ bookshelf when I was in fourth grade,” says Jason Middleton. “It was the first ‘grown-up’ novel I ever read. There were certainly parts of it that I found kind of upsetting, but also magnetic. It almost felt as if the world was opening up in a new way.”
Middleton, associate professor of English and of visual and cultural studies and director of the film and media studies program, says the appeal of horror films is especially durable. In Labors of Fear: The Modern Horror Film Goes to Work (University of Texas Press, 2023), Middleton has joined with Aviva Briefel, to make the case that there’s been another kind of monster lurking in American horror films all along: the post-industrial world of work.
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PLUTZIK READING SERIES
Award-winning author closes series
Stephanie Powell Watts will join us for our final Plutzik Reading Series event of the semester on Wednesday, April 17 at 5pm in Hawkins-Carlson.
We Are Taking Only What We Need (2012) won the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence and was named one of 2013’s Best Summer Reads by O: The Oprah Magazine.
FACULTY IN THE NEWS
A poet's meditation on loss, light and legacy
Following news of a close friend's illness, Jennifer Grotz, professor of English and an award-winning poet and translator, distilled her emotions and reflections into a poem titled “The Conversion of Paul," published in her latest collection, "Still Falling" (Graywolf Press, 2023).
126internships and research projects
In the last two years, undergraduates have completed 126 English Department honors theses, local and national internships, and independent research projects.