Welcome to the spring semester! We hope that you are keeping warm and safe as 2026 gets underway.
Here are some of the events that we’re looking forward to in the months ahead. Please join us for community, creativity, and conversation! All are free but online access requires advance registration:
~ Our spring events begin on Wednesday February 11 at 3:30pm CT with the first presentation in our Spring Colloquia Series. Up first: presentations by our M.A. students for our annual Graduate Literature Symposium. Then, on Wednesday April 15 at 3:30pm CT, join us for “What’s Next?: Faculty Lightning Talks on Work in Progress,” a series of lightning talks by faculty about their work-in-progress, followed by discussion. If you can’t join us on campus in Union Wildcat Chamber, you can register for the first event at https://tinyurl.com/englgradlit2026 and for the second at https://tinyurl.com/englcolloq2026.
~ On Thursday February 12 at 4:00pm CT, we welcome Judy Jacobs. Jacobs’s online lecture will draw on her memoir, Jutka: A Holocaust Survivor’s Account of Lives Destroyed and Family Rebuilt (2024), about her experiences during and following the Holocaust. You can register for the Zoom link at https://tinyurl.com/judyjacobskstate. Our thanks to emeritus faculty member Roger Friedmann for arranging Jacobs’s virtual visit and to our co-sponsors, K-State Libraries and the Dow Center for Multicultural and Community Studies, the College of Education, and the Department of History
~ Our annual Cultural Studies Symposium is in its 35th year, maintaining its track record as the longest running Cultural Studies event in the U.S. This year, on Friday March 6 at 3:30pm CT, we’ll host Dr. Sianne Ngai, the George M. Pullman Distinguished Service Professor of English at the University of Chicago. Dr. Ngai’s award-winning scholarship explores emotion and aesthetics. Join us for a live broadcast of Dr. Ngai’s presentation on campus in Union Wildcat Chamber or register to watch online at https://tinyurl.com/ngaikstate.
~ Looking for creative writers? On Friday February 20 at 3:30pm CT, our Spring Visiting Writers Series gets underway with a reading by fiction writer Shastri Akella. Join us online at https://tinyurl.com/akellakstate. Then, on Friday April 3 at 3:30pm CT, we’ll host multi-genre writer Pam Houston in Union 227 and on Zoom (register for the link at https://tinyurl.com/houstonkstate.) We’re grateful for the support of K-State students and their Fine Arts Fees so we can continue this series.
~ Are you a current student in English? Our Spring Spotlight Series is designed for you! Following on the success of last fall’s “Spotlight on Faculty” featuring Greg Eiselein, Anne Longmuir, and Kimball Smith, we’ll go behind the scenes of English professor life again this spring with three other faculty members on Friday February 6 at 3:30pm. On Monday March 2 at 5:00pm, we’ll host a “Spotlight on Undergraduate Faculty Mentors” to introduce our new mentoring program for English majors. Our Spotlight Series concludes on Thursday April 9 at 5:00pm with a “Spotlight on English Students” from the English major, minor, certificates, and MA programs. Refreshments will be provided. Watch for more information in the days ahead about location and how to RSVP!
We’ll be adding more events in the weeks ahead, so keep up to date at our online calendar, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter/X, and Instagram for announcements, photos, and recaps — and check back here each week for highlights of research and creative activity from our faculty and students, perspectives from our alumni, images of the department’s past, and plans for its future.
Wishing good spring semester to all —
— Karin Westman, Department Head
K-State English 