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Katie Carithers, 2026 Stephen J. Horne Award for Teaching Excellence Winner

We are thrilled to announce that Katie Carithers has been selected as the 2026 Stephen J. Horne Award for Teaching Excellence winner. This annual award celebrates a graduate student instructor in the English Department who best demonstrates outstanding commitment to student learning and excellence in teaching. Instructors are nominated by their students, and the Director of Graduate Studies, in consultation with the DGS Advisory Committee, selects the winner.One of Carithers’ students included the following comment… read more »

Review of the New Faculty Publications Lunch Series

During the 2025-26 academic year the Duke English department launched a lunch series to welcome our newest faculty, sparking engaging conversations between the 2025 arrivals and English PhD candidates that spotlighted each professor's research. For the series the three newest additions to the Duke English Faculty, professors Timothy Heimlich, Marguerite Nguyễn, and Richard So, were paired with Duke English PhD candidates with whom they sat down and discussed their literary work over lunch with other members of the Duke… read more »

2026 Creative Writing Scholarship Winners

Each year, the Duke English faculty celebrates exceptional undergraduate writers, nominating students whose creative work has truly captivated them. The Creative Writing Committee then selects the winners of the prestigious William M. Blackburn, Francis Pemberton, and Margaret Rose Knight Sanford Scholarships. Frances Pemberton ScholarshipThis scholarship honors a junior or senior who is passionately pursuing creative writing. Established by the Trustees of The Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, it pays tribute to Francis… read more »

2026 Benenson Award Winners

Congratulations to Davis Shedd, ‘27, one of the fourteen 2026 winners of the Benenson Awards. Each year, Duke University awards Benenson Awards in the Arts, which provide funding for arts-centered projects proposed by undergraduates, including graduating seniors. This year, the Student Arts Award Committee awarded prizes to fourteen students for creative projects spanning stage combat, dance, interdisciplinary performance, filmmaking, costume design, music, and creative writing. read more »

Senior English Major, Trisha Santanam

The memories I have of my time here almost four years ago are slightly fuzzy, but my first semester in the English Department remains clear—mostly because it touched me so deeply. – Trisha Santanam, ’26  Every so often, someone comes along who leaves a trail of inspiration wherever they go. For the past four years, Trisha Santanam has been that beacon for the Duke English Department. From her very first day on campus, she poured her energy into the English major, launching creative student engagement… read more »

Farewell Letter from Vic Strandberg

You could call this my last will and testament.  I will begin with the testament, based on my institutional memory going back sixty years.  After earning my PhD at Brown in 1962, I taught at the University of Vermont for four years and came to Duke in 1966 in search of a higher salary and warmer weather for my family.  My new salary was $9500, a nice jump from the $7600 I got in Vermont, and I bought my first house, with two baths and nine rooms, including a full cellar and huge family room, for $22,000.… read more »

Freedom to Fail: Madeline Sutton

When Madeline Sutton, assistant professor of the practice for the Thompson Writing Program, was in the fourth year of her Ph.D. program, she applied for a highly competitive national fellowship in education. The application process was intense: She needed a personal statement, a work plan, a detailed narrative about her dissertation research, and letters of recommendation from mentors.   The people whose opinions Madeline Sutton valued most didn’t see her fellowship rejection as… read more »

Angelli Garibaldi-Arias '26: Reading Migration Through Literature

Angelli Garibaldi-Arias is a first-generation student born in Lima, Peru, and raised in Denver, Colorado. She is double majoring in English and Romance Studies with a minor in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Her research focuses on medieval and early modern literature — particularly Dante’s Divine Comedy and Cervantes’ Don Quixote — exploring questions of ethics, migration, empire and human value. Through literary and philosophical analysis alongside interviews with immigrants, her honors thesis, “Global Inequalities:… read more »

JR Cassidy '26: From Directing “The Bacchae” to Writing for Film

JR Cassidy is a senior from Seattle, Washington, double majoring in English and Theater Studies. At Duke, his work has centered on music, literature and theater. Cassidy studied abroad in the Duke in London - Arts and Duke in Seoul programs. In 2025, Cassidy directed Euripides’ “The Bacchae” for Duke Players, which earned him a Duke Arts Award for excellence in directing. He also received the Reynolds Price Award for Screenwriting for a screenplay he wrote through the Duke Arts Studio program. He is a contributing editor… read more »

Trisha Santanam '26 Finding Home in Literature and Music

Trisha Santanam is a senior majoring in English with a minor in Music. Her academic interests focus on literature, music and questions of identity, diaspora and belonging. In addition to serving as a Trinity Ambassador, Santanam is a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow researching how diasporic experiences can be heard through music and literature, as well as a member of the Bass Connections Archives and Creative Process team studying the archives of a feminist record collector and writer. On campus, she serves on the… read more »

2026 Creative Writing, Critical Essays, and Department Award Winners

The Duke English Department is thrilled to unveil the 2026 Creative Writing Contest winners and this year's standout critical essayists. Every year, we honor the imaginative voices and sharp insights of English majors and undergraduates from across the university. Meet the winners in each category below and dive into their award-winning works through the links provided. FICTIONAnne Flexner Memorial Award for FictionFamily members and friends of former English student Anne Flexner (… read more »

RECORDING: 2026 Undergraduate Distinction Day

On April 17, 2026, the Duke English Department celebrated its annual Undergraduate Distinction Day, where twelve graduating English majors proudly unveiled their senior thesis projects before an audience of over 50 attendees. Following their presentations, each student participated in a lively panel, delving deeper into their work and engaging with thoughtful questions from the audience. Below you can find the recording of the 2026 Duke English Undergraduate Distinction Day in its entirety.… read more »

Trinity Faculty Awarded Seed Grants by Duke Office of Faculty Advancement

The Office for Faculty Advancement has awarded seed grants to seven new projects led by Duke faculty members. The theme for this grant cycle is “Building Community and Strengthening Networks to Improve the Faculty Experience.”Faculty were invited to propose innovative initiatives to build community, creative approaches to address specific mentorship needs, and novel approaches to improve the faculty experience.The seed grant program will provide financial support for these projects through April 2027. Project leaders… read more »

Sancia Milton '26: Biology or English? She Chose Both

Sancia Milton knew what she wanted: a strong research university with a solid liberal-arts base. She found the right combination at Duke, “plus beautiful weather, a perfect campus size and basketball,” she adds.Her exact course of study was another matter. While creative writing and poetry have always been central to her identity, so has a penchant for biology — and a fascination with classical studies. “I came to Duke with a lot of interests,” she says, “and no clear sense of how they could fit together in a major.” It was… read more »

Don’t Give Me the Duke Answer: Say What You Really Think

In English 101, professor Thomas Ferraro always says, “Don’t give me the Duke answer. Give me your answer.” I remember feeling so embarrassed, angry even, the first time he told me I was flat out wrong. It was probably the second day of class. We were reading Willa Cather’s “A Lost Lady,” and I voiced my thoughts on the main character. I said that I believed Mrs. Forester to be a weak female lead, doomed due to her lack of power in a patriarchal society. Professor Ferraro simply looked at me and said, “No. That’s… read more »

From the English Classroom to the Bestseller List: How Trinity Shaped Annabel Monaghan’s Writing Journey

Trinity English alumna Annabel Monaghan is the bestselling author of several contemporary romance novels. Her newest book, “Dolly All the Time,” will be released May 26, 2026. (Headshot courtesy of Monaghan) Annabel Monaghan, T ’91, didn’t set out with a tidy, linear plan to become a bestselling novelist. In fact, for a long stretch of her adult life, writing seemed like the dream she had quietly shelved. But the foundation for the career she has now, writing contemporary romance novels… read more »

English Professor Amin Ahmad’s New Novel Examines the Hidden Costs of Power

Trinity creative writing professor Amin Ahmad’s forthcoming novel A Killer in the Family explores wealth, family secrets, and the hidden costs of the American dream. (Photo courtesy of Ahmad) When Amin Ahmad, lecturing fellow of English, began thinking about his new novel, inspiration arrived unexpectedly along the New Jersey Turnpike.  “I saw a license plate on a car that said, ‘Singh is king,’” he said. “I thought, that’s a cool license plate. It’s a declaration.” That… read more »

Priscilla Wald Discusses How Hollywood’s Narrative on UFOs and ETs reaches back decades

Before zombies shambled about, ghoulishly feasting on the flesh of those too slow to flee, aliens from outer space ruled movie theaters, drive-ins and late Saturday night creature features on television.Even as Hollywood still drives how Americans envision little green men with big eyes and bigger heads, fiction soon could be separated from — or revealed as — fact if government agencies release secret files related to extraterrestrials and UFOs as called for in February by President Donald Trump.The science fiction genre… read more »

After 60 years of stories, English Professor Victor Strandberg closes out his chapter at Duke

On the third floor of the Allen Building, tucked into a corner room with a beautiful view of Abele Quad, you’ll find the office of Professor of English Victor Strandberg. Covering the walls of his office is an extensive, carefully curated collage of influential figures and moments from history, collected over his more than 90 years of life.  read more »

After 60 years of stories, English Professor Victor Strandberg closes out his chapter at Duke

On the third floor of the Allen Building, tucked into a corner room with a beautiful view of Abele Quad, you’ll find the office of Professor of English Victor Strandberg. Covering the walls of his office is an extensive, carefully curated collage of influential figures and moments from history, collected over his more than 90 years of life.Some images are from his 60-year tenure as an English professor at Duke University. Others represent personal points of interest. From images of the first moon landing to newspaper… read more »

From Trinity to Full Frame by Means of Curiosity

During Full Frame week in downtown Durham, Belem Destefani moves with quiet purpose. A volunteer has a question about their shift. A filmmaker needs to do a tech check for their film. A screening is about to let out, and the lobby is filling fast. Destefani takes it all in, then pivots to the next task. “I like to think of my role as putting everything together,” she says. “Giving people the tools they need, then trusting them to do what they do best.” Since 2024, Destefani (T’09) has served as Operations Director… read more »

From the Red Carpet to the Classroom, Shakespeare is Having a Moment

One of the year’s most talked-about films has left audiences pondering a haunting literary “what if”: Did the death of William Shakespeare’s young son shape the writing of “Hamlet”? Based on Maggie O’Farrell’s best-selling novel of the same name, “Hamnet” the film stars Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley as Shakespeare and his wife Agnes, navigating their grief after the death of their 11-year-old son during the plague of the 1590s. While the film imagines an intimate family tragedy, the questions it raises about grief and… read more »

Mark Anthony Neal: What Black Audiences Loved About Teena Marie

In a 1985 profile in People Magazine, the late Rick James called Teena Marie “the most important White female singer since Barbara Streisand; and her own race forgot her.” James’ comments came on the heels of Marie’s only taste of crossover success, with the top-ten pop hit “Lover Boy.” More than 40 years later, and 15-plus years after her death at the age of 54, Marie is remembered as an important contributor to R&B and Soul music, who against all logic sustained a 30-year-plus singing career with an overwhelmingly… read more »