English Department

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The English Department offers a major in English with four concentrations (literature, writing, secondary education with certification in English, and prelaw studies) and a minor in English.

The English Department aims to train students as readers and writers, to familiarize them with their literary and linguistic heritage, and to cultivate an awareness of literature as not only a source of enjoyment and aesthetic stimulation but also a means by which individuals and societies clarify experience and define values. Fundamentally, the department’s concern is with words, their use (and abuse), and their impact on human thought and feeling. Educators are increasingly aware that skill in writing and interpreting verbal expression is a professional asset in almost any field.

Department Faculty

Professors

Madison Smartt Bell (fiction), Elizabeth Spires (poetry), Michelle Tokarczyk (expository writing, poetry, creative nonfiction)

Associate Professors

Penelope S. Cordish (modern and contemporary English and American literature, women’s studies), Mary Marchand (American literature, American studies, literary theory), Jeffrey Myers, chair (Shakespeare, Renaissance English literature), Antje Rauwerda (British literature, postcolonial studies), Angelo Robinson (American literature, African American literature, American studies), Arnold Sanders (Medieval English literature, expository writing, literary theory), Fred H. White (18th- and 19th-century English literature)

Assistant Professors

Jennifer Bess (expository writing), Johnny Turtle (creative and critical writing, African American literature, Africana studies), Kathy Flann (creative writing), Carol Pippen (expository writing), Barbara Roswell (expository writing), Bill U’Ren (creative writing)

Visiting Assistant Professor

Joelle Biele (creative writing), Jessica Anya Blau (creative writing)

Lecturers

Jonathan Colson (expository writing), Mindy Jaffee, (expository writing), Ailish Meisner (expository writing), Bernadette Parrish (expository writing), Mary Reisinger (expository writing), Linell Smith (journalism), Charlee Sterling (expository writing), Mary Jo Wiese (expository writing).

Writing Fellows

Mina Brunyate (expository writing), Susan Garrett (expository writing, linguistics), Laura Orem (expository writing), Kate Luse (expository writing), Phaye Poliakoff-Chen (expository writing)

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