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I’m leading a bit of a double life these days. I am, of course, reading literature—poetry, fiction, and, this semester, a ton of theory (thanks Dr. González). But I’m also working on a collection of poems for my master's project, which has lately meant learning as much as I can about particle physics. I just … Continue reading Grad Student Spotlight: Maddie Pospisil
As a student of English and Gerontology, I find myself constantly explaining and justifying my course of study to others. These subjects aren’t normally associated with each other and rarely overlap. I’m interested in how aging and older adults are portrayed in film and television. To put it simply, I tell people that I am … Continue reading Undergrad Student Spotlight: Desiree Schippers
Some days, it’s hard not to feel disheartened at the events taking place around us. The news this past week has been especially distressing, from the synagogue shootings to the bomb parcel deliveries targeting a series of high profile public figures. What follows are book recommendations to provide hope in difficult times— books which energize … Continue reading Books to Energize and Inspire
“Mnemosyne, one must admit, has shown herself to be a very careless girl.” Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory July 2017. During a research trip to special collections at the University of Edinburgh (thank you, Bibliographic Society of America!), I came across a small miracle: an extraordinary little book arrived when I asked to see The Indian Primer, … Continue reading Speak, Materialities: When Book Objects Themselves Have Power of Memory
“It is a truth universally acknowledged”: so begins Jane Austen’s most famous novel, Pride and Prejudice, recently voted the fourth most popular in PBS’s The Great American Read. Composed in the soporific Hampshire hamlet of Steventon during the years 179–, submitted and, with no little astonishment to the author, rejected under the title First Impressions, … Continue reading The Great American Read: Jane Austen
The autumn before I started grad school, I read Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman. I wasn't sure how to feel about the end of the novel, in which the protagonist bakes and eats a cake that looks like herself, so I searched databases to find what critics were saying. As I quickly realized, very few people have … Continue reading Grad Student Spotlight: Cailin Roles
Interdisciplinary teaching collaborations are intellectually engaging, rewarding for instructors and students, ... and challenging to execute. Below we feature a successful partnership between the Department of English, the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and the Department of Art -- a partnership that advances the land-grant mission of Kansas State and that helps our students … Continue reading Hungry Heartland
Every ten years, the Department of English surveys its alumni. We pride ourselves on maintaining close relationships with our alums and have a strong interest in what they — or you, if you’re an alum — did after leaving the hallowed halls of the English Counseling Services Building or Denison Hall (if you graduated before … Continue reading What Can You Do with an M.A. in English?: The 2017 Graduate Alumni Survey
On Monday, October 8th, K-State’s Indigenous Faculty and Staff Alliance hosted its third annual Indigenous Peoples’ Day event. Hundreds of folks, including tribal educators and professors from Nebraska, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kansas, to students from our university and across the state came together to recognize that here in Manhattan, Kansas, we stand on Indigenous land … Continue reading Indigenous Peoples’ Day 2018
The last few weeks, leading up to Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation as a Supreme Court justice on Saturday, brought out a number of disturbing stories about his time at Georgetown Prep and Yale University. Here are a handful of books that examine the problems and the possibilities of similar elite institutions. E. Lockhart's 2008 novel The … Continue reading Books that Unlock the Doors and the Dirt of Elite Institutions
