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
"I grew up in rural Kansas, and as a teen reader, I was always disappointed that books were rarely set in a place that was recognizable to me": This week, we feature an online interview with Miranda Asebedo (BA '07, MA '09), who has just published her first novel, The Deepest Roots, with HarperTeen. … Continue reading Alumni Spotlight: Miranda Asebedo
Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale has received many accolades. Among others, it was nominated for the Booker Prize and won the Arthur C. Clarke Award. Now our Graduate Track in British and American Literature has selected it as our focus for the 2018-2019 academic year, following on last year’s celebration of the bicentenary … Continue reading “Blessed be the fruit”: Adaptations and Appropriations of The Handmaid’s Tale
Two writers who recently visited Kansas State made the 10-writer longlist for the 2018 National Book Award in Fiction. Hell yeah, I cheered. Rebecca Makkai visited Kansas State in March of 2012. At that point, I considered her one of the modern masters of the short story (I'm not alone in that assessment: her stories once … Continue reading The National Book Award’s Fiction Longlist
— Karin Westman, Department Head
Of course, I like to read — I'm an English major — but it might surprise you that many of my favorite books have been banned, challenged in libraries, and even made recurring appearances on the American Library Association’s yearly lists of the 10 most banned or challenged books. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird … Continue reading Banned Books Week
Over the summer I went to the Equator where the sun rises straight up and twelve hours later it sets straight down, like it really means it. Always. I went to the ancient city of Quito, high in the Andes, where a Franciscan church from the brutal Spanish colonial period lies above an Incan temple … Continue reading Summer Study in Ecuador
Editors' note: We asked some English Department faculty members to share one, or some, of their summer adventures — academic or otherwise. Here's Part 2 (of 2), answering the age-old essay prompt: "How did you spend your summer vacation?" At the end of June, a record number of K-State English faculty, current graduate students, and … Continue reading How I Spent My Summer: Part 2
Editors' note: We asked some English Department faculty members to share one, or some, of their summer adventures — academic or otherwise. Here's Part 1 (of 2), answering the age-old essay prompt: "How did you spend your summer vacation?" There are two things my 4-year-old miniature Schnauzer Dates does well. One is barking at … Continue reading How I Spent My Summer: Part 1
There’s a popular British TV quiz show called Pointless. Contestants win by coming up with answers to general knowledge questions that no one else thought of (or at least not the hundred random people interviewed by BBC television researchers). If asked to name a nineteenth-century woman writer, I’m pretty sure I could win a … Continue reading Digital Mitford: The Mary Russell Mitford Archive
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