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Fiction Writing as a Way of Life: An Event

Fiction Writing as a Way of Life was an event sponsored by the Blackburn Series at Duke University on Wednesday, November 7. It featured Maria Kuznetsova and Lucy Corin who are left and right, respectively, in the title image. I love the title of the event: Fiction Writing as a Way of Life. Yes, Way of Life. Live it and breathe it. It was an undergraduate event, and the room was full. read more »

Spring 2019 Course Descriptions + Requirements for the Major

The English Department has released the requirements for majors that will be offered during the Spring 2019 Semester.   During the Spring 2019 Semester, the English Department will be offering a variety of courses ranging from English 90S Special Topics in Literature that include "Mad Scientists in Literature,"  "Law, Ethics, and Power", "Con Artists and Imposters" and "Blacklisted Books."   There will be two sessions of "Intro Creative Writing" courses one offered on Mondays and… read more »

Blackburn Festival "The Mackey Sessions" in Review

To begin the Fall 2018 semester, the English Department unveiled its long-planned Blackburn Festival: The Mackey Sessions. The product of well over a year of planning, the three-day poetry festival centered on the work of Duke’s own Professor Nathaniel Mackey, a prolific poet whose work spans decades, continents, and generations. The English Department, in an effort to make The Mackey Sessions a university-wide collaboration, partnered with the Vice Provost for the Arts, Franklin Humanities Center, Duke… read more »

'The Mackey Sessions'; Duke Professor Headlines Three-Day Poetry Festival

Jazz threads through the work of prize-winning poet and Duke professor Nathaniel Mackey. The two – jazz and poetry -- come together during this year’s Blackburn Literary Festival, which has been dubbed “The Mackey Sessions.” The three-day poetry festival takes place Sept. 20-22 at venues on campus and off. read more »

Books By Duke Authors to Full Your Summer Tote Bag

Explore the role of good arguments in a functioning democracy, the path to a bright green future, China’s ‘green religion’ and the world of a medieval mystic.  Here’s summer reading to educate and entertain: A new look at the continuing influence of ancient Roman political thought; a deep look at the clergy health crisis; and the story of how an African-American architect came to design the new campuses for Duke University.  read more »

English Welcomes Visiting Fiction Writer and Asian American Scholar

This Fall the English Department is excited to welcome Duke alum, Lucy Corin, as Visiting Blackburn Professor and UC Irvine scholar, Ryan Ku, as Asian American Postdoctoral Associate.  Professor Corin will teach creative writing and Professor Ku will teach a course in Asian American Studies. Lucy Corin Lucy has a BA from Duke University and an MFA from Brown.  She’s a Professor at the University of California, Davis where she teaches in the English Department and Creative Writing Program. She is the… read more »

Duke To Test DukeAlert System On Wednesday - July 18, 2018

As part of its emergency preparedness plans, Duke will test the DukeALERT mass notification system on Wednesday, July 18. Beginning at 10 a.m., all faculty, students and staff will receive a test email, and a text message will be sent to the mobile devices of all students, faculty, and staff who have registered to receive the service. Registering for text messaging is simple for those who have not yet signed up. Duke's information line (919) 684-INFO will also provide a recorded message during the test. read more »

Announcing the Winner of the 2018 Northwestern University Press Poetry Prize

Cave Canem and Northwestern University Press congratulate Tsitsi Jaji on receiving the 2018 prize for her second book of poems, Mother Tongues, selected by Matthew Shenoda.  The Cave Canem Northwestern University Press Poetry Prize is a second-book award for Black poets of African descent, offered every other year. The award celebrates and publishes works of lasting cultural value and literary excellence. read more »

Corina Stan's The Art of Distance: Ethical Thinking in Twentieth-Century Literature Is Now Available

“The Art of Distances is an excellent book that uniquely demonstrates Stan’s amazing talent both as a reader of fictional texts and as a philosophical synthesizer.  She delivers compelling arguments and elegant readings of the texts, making her thesis bold and original in its scope.” —Jean-Michel Rabaté, fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and author of The Pathos of Distance “This book is a veritable tour de force of writers and critics spanning across the… read more »

Congratulations to the 2018 Harry Levin Prize Winner, Prof. Aarthi Vadde

University Assistant Professor of English, Aarthi Vadde is this year’s winner of the American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) Harry Levin Prize for Best First Book in Comparative Literature for her work Chimeras of Form: Modernist Internationalism Beyond Europe, 1914-2016, Columbia University Press, 2016. Professor Vadde was recently awarded tenure by University. The Harry Levin Prize is awarded annually for a comparative literature work that is the author’s first book-length publication. Prof. Vadde was… read more »

Congratulations to Professor Priscilla Wald On Winning Dean's Diversity Award

Dean’s Diversity Award Priscilla Wald R. Florence Brinkley Professor of English, Chair of Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies “Professor Priscilla Wald has been a strong leader in advocating for a more diverse faculty at Duke. She always steps up to lead when issues of diversity are at stake,” said nominator Kevin Moore, vice dean for Faculty, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences. “We have seen sustained evidence for this in her home department (English) as well as in Gender, Sexuality & Feminist (GSF) Studies… read more »

The Syllabus: Good news for English majors!

When I saw the news last month that my alma mater (aka the Alma Mater of the Nation, aka William & Mary) had hired a new president, I was struck by something: Katherine Rowe was an English major in college. That makes one thing (and probably the only thing) we have in common, because, I, too, majored in English. Rowe went on to be an English scholar (she specializes in Shakespeare, Milton and others medieval and Renaissance writers) and, eventually, the provost of Smith College in Massachusetts. But as an… read more »

In Honor of World Poetry Day, Prof. Tsitsi Is Participating in a Reading in Paris

Professor Tsitsi Jaji has been invited by the World Union of Poets to participate in a poetry reading in Paris.  This event is part of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) World Poetry Day. In 1999, the (UNESCO) declared March 21st as World Poetry Day. “One of the main objectives of the Day is to support linguistic diversity through poetic expression and to offer endangered languages the opportunity to be heard within their communities. The observance of World Poetry Day… read more »

English 90S.05 “Mystery and Detective Fiction” Field Trip

Gregory Brennen took his English 90S.05 “Mystery and Detective Fiction: Sex and Secrets in Mystery Fiction from Sherlock Holmes to Harry Potter” on a class field trip.  The class attended a performance of The Moors at Manbites Dog Theater, in Durham, NC.  Brennen described The Moors as a contemporary play based on 19th century literature. He felt that it had a lot of resonances with the themes from his “Detective Fiction “course, including a country house mystery, gender issues… read more »

Prof. Jarvis McInnis' Spotlight on Southernist Scholars Initiative Interview

The Spotlight on Southernist Scholars Initiative is a newly created ongoing project that asks scholars to comment on the state of the field in southern studies. The project collects information about how scholars became involved in southern studies, insights they’ve come to through their work, benefits and challenges of these scholars’ work, advice for upcoming scholars, and reflections on the job market. read more »

Three New English Department Faculty Take Study of Literature Beyond The Novel

For Black, McInnis and Michael D’Alessandro – the three new arrivals in Duke’s English department this fall -- words on the page are just one aspect of the study of English literature. All three explore relationships between stories and novels and other American art forms, including music, theater and film. read more »

New Assistant English Professor, Dr. Jarvis C. McInnis and "Conjuring the America"

Professor Dr. Jarvis C. McInnis holds a BA in English from Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi, and a Ph.D. in English & Comparative Literature from Columbia University in the City of New York. Jarvis is an interdisciplinary scholar of African American & African Diaspora literature and culture, with teaching and research interests in the global south (primarily the US South and the Caribbean), sound studies, performance studies, and visual culture. Dr. McInnis refers to himself as an… read more »

Meet the English Department’s Three New Faculty Members

Duke University’s English Department will have three new Assistant Professors of English joining the faculty, during the fall of 2018.  Prof. Taylor Black will be joining the faculty from New York University, Prof. Mike D’Alessandro, from Harvard University and Prof. Jarvis McInnis, from Notre Dame University. Bios and Classes Being Taught By the New Faculty During the Fall of 2017 Taylor Black – Prof. Black received his Ph.D. in American Studies from Rutgers University and has… read more »

Ranjana Khanna Appointed to Lead Franklin Humanities Institute

Ranjana Khanna, a noted interdisciplinary and feminist scholar, has been appointed the next director of Duke’s Franklin Humanities Institute (FHI), to begin January 2018, Provost Sally Kornbluth announced this week.   Khanna, who is a professor of English, Literature, and Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies, has had a long affiliation with the institute, which was created in 1999 to be a crucial hub at Duke for scholars across the disciplines to collaborate on humanistic writing, research and teaching. read more »

Poems that join and bind through books and years

Nathaniel Mackey’s poems entwine across pages and volumes and years, nearly half a century now. Somerville’s Black Ocean has recently published “Lay Ghost,’’ a potent — and beautiful to hold — set of eight pieces lifted from Mackey’s ongoing series of poems, “Song of the Andoumboulou.’’ In his unmistakable cadence, Mackey writes of a gang of cosmic wanderers moving through memory, thought, and actual world. “Earthy someone said, abstract,/would it were able, mind ridding itself of/ itself.” His… read more »

The Aesthetic Joy of Writing about Research

On a Thursday afternoon around an oversized table in the Allen Building, a student says they’re unsure about the aesthetic possibility of pipetting (scientifically pouring out fluids through thin tubes) as it appears in the first draft of their essay. The student’s fellow classmates disagree—the pipetting must stay. They discuss the lines with the tension of defensive readers, whose favorite lines in a piece have been threatened. One student mentions the satisfaction that comes from reading about the formation… read more »

Trivial Pursuits: What is an intellectual community?

Professor Aarthi Vadde’s, English 490 course “Trivial Pursuits” from Fall 2016 explored theories of reading and knowledge production.  This course was created to help students answer naysayers who question how certain majors will lead to employment and to explain why the majors in question should be taken seriously.  Professor Vadde introduced her students to theories of reading and knowledge production, which took both amateur pleasures and professional aspirations seriously.  The works featured throughout… read more »