Resting in Peace: Why Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Keeps Sharon Tate Away from the Action

Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Today we share the second of six pieces of public writing selected for publication from an assignment in ENGL 801 “Graduate Studies in English”: a piece of public scholarship (700-1,000 words) which tailors an academic paper and its scholarly intervention of 10-12 pages … Continue reading Resting in Peace: Why Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Keeps Sharon Tate Away from the Action

Mina Harker is More Than Just a Love Interest

Photo collage of letters and documents for Dracula (LegendaryTalesEdit) In ENGL 801 "Graduate Studies in English," a required course for incoming M.A. students, we have always asked our graduate students to develop an original contribution to a current scholarly conversation about a literary or cultural text. Starting in 2020, we added a final writing assignment: … Continue reading Mina Harker is More Than Just a Love Interest

Found Object: Food for Thought

Location: ECS BuildingObject: Menu for "Food for Thought" for Tuesday, Dec 5, 2023Observations: 1) Starting in Fall 2017 at the suggestion of our Graduate Advisory / Admissions Committee and one of its members, Charlotte Hyde, our department's faculty and staff have made lunch for our 35-40 graduate students during each semester's last week of classes … Continue reading Found Object: Food for Thought

Found Object: Poetry Harvest

Location: Poet Laureate of Kansas social media platformsObject: Poetry Harvest, sponsored by Traci Brimhall, current Poet Laureate of KansasObservations: 1) As part of her outreach to the state of Kansas as its current Poet Laureate, Traci Brimhall issued a call earlier this fall for poems about food and fall in Kansas. 2) As Traci explains … Continue reading Found Object: Poetry Harvest

Materialist Approaches in ENGL 220

Students from the K-State First Year Seminar course ENGL 220 "Fiction into Film" visit the Beach Museum to see the exhibition on "Women Artists in the Era of Second Wave Feminism" This semester, I’ve had the great opportunity to teach ENGL 220 “Fiction into Film” as a First-Year Seminar, where we read literary texts and … Continue reading Materialist Approaches in ENGL 220

Undergrad Student Spotlight: Ainsley Trunkhill

Ainsley Trunkhill (BS '25, English Secondary Education) I submitted my college applications in a Harvard University sweatshirt, with stacks of ACT prep books lined up against my walls and hopes of achieving Rory Gilmore-esque academic prestige. As an intellectually-driven student who grew up surrounded by marketed images of what success looks like for women in … Continue reading Undergrad Student Spotlight: Ainsley Trunkhill

6,487 Miles from Home: On the Tea Roads in Northern China and Mongolia

Professor Phillip Marzluf (October 2023) In the first week of October, I traveled throughout Inner Mongolia in China, visiting giant cities of glass and steel, paying my respects at the Mausoleum of Genghis Khan, and taking photographs of rural and desert landscapes. I was conducting “in the footsteps” travel research of Western visitors who, in … Continue reading 6,487 Miles from Home: On the Tea Roads in Northern China and Mongolia

October 2023 Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

Traci Brimhall's poem "Arts & Sciences" appeared in The New Yorker   Each month during the academic year, we assemble a newsletter of the department's recent publications, presentations, announcements, and awards. We're happy to recognize the recent successes in research, scholarship, and creative activity outlined below.  Want to catch up on past successes or to … Continue reading October 2023 Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

2023 Mock Caldecott

Some of the 2023 picture books under consideration for this year's Mock Caldecott Now in its 16th year, the Mock Caldecott is a joint endeavor between the English Department and the Children's and Adolescent Literature Community (ChALC), one of our department-sponsored student organizations, with support from the Manhattan Public Library (MPL). In the pre-COVID times, … Continue reading 2023 Mock Caldecott

Alumni Spotlight: Dennis Etzel Jr

Dennis Etzel, Jr (MA '06) "To Be a Kansas State University Alum (MA 2006)" By Dennis Etzel Jr To look back at the brief two years, not just out of fondness and freedom, but transformation. To be given the privilege of having a Graduate Teaching Assistantship. To realize how much I love teaching. To be … Continue reading Alumni Spotlight: Dennis Etzel Jr