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Though today's ice and snow remind us that winter is still at hand, the start of the semester promises springtime ahead! Here are some of the events that we're looking forward to in the coming months: ~ Associate Professor Abby Knoblauch launches our Spring Colloquia Series on Wednesday, February 13. Abby is back from her … Continue reading Spring Preview
In our second "Three Questions with K-State English" video, Anne Longmuir, Naomi Wood, and Mark Crosby discuss the enduring appeal of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cErKkzztxNw&feature=youtu.be
On December 8, 2018, Professor Don Hedrick provided the commencement address for the College of Arts and Sciences at Kansas State University, following on receipt of the 2017 Gaches Lifetime Teaching Award from the College. Below is the text of his speech. Many thanks to Don for allowing us to share it here. (You … Continue reading Arts and Sciences X 1
“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
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
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
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
They've made it (almost) though their first week of grad school at Kansas State, so please meet and welcome and maybe even buy a drink for our new group of English graduate students -- Name: Katie Cline Hometown: Jacksonville, Alabama Alma mater: Jacksonville State University Area of study: Children’s Literature Please tell us something … Continue reading Meet the New Grad Students
