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Are you an undergraduate who enjoys creative writing?  You could win an award for your talents! The Rosati Creative Writing Prize is awarded each spring in recognition of an outstanding work of creative writing.  All Duke undergraduate students are eligible to submit work for consideration.  Projects may be any genre and take any form (audio/video, digital media, etc.), but must include a substantial creative writing component. Deadline: May 14th, 2019Prize: … read more about The Rudolph William Rosati Creative Writing Award Deadline is May 14 »

I met Professor Jessica Stark when she taught my Introduction to Creative Writing class last spring. Focusing on themes of place and complacency, Stark led units on short story, poetry, and open form writing. Now completing her PhD and anticipating the release of her forthcoming poetry book, Savage Pageant, Stark has been awarded a 2019 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. As an educator and poet, Stark enjoys teaching introductory creative writing courses. She also incorporates her interests in human rights and social… read more about Dean’s Awardee for Teaching Blends the DIY Ethos of Creative Writing with Scholarship »

In my quest to report on the most interesting events, courses, and people of the Duke University English Department, it was impossible for me to miss Alex Sim. Sim, a senior from California, studies English and Pre-Med. The English Department Ambassador finished his senior thesis last semester, and now awaits responses on his Medical School applications. Sim knew he wanted to study English going into college. He grew up loving to read, and spent much of his early summers at his local library reading books. As a Pre-Med… read more about Alex Sim Finds Beauty in Film and Medical Humanities »

A bar mitzvah gone wrong. A thief supporting his family. “Fight Club meets Perks of Being a Wallflower.” These movie premises are just some of the ideas that students are developing into screenplays for Professor Cole Russing’s “Writing the Movie” course, offered as part of both Duke’s English Department and the Arts of the Moving Image Department. The class centers around one large project whose creation spans the semester: writing a full-length, two-hour long, 120-page movie screenplay. After finishing a draft of their… read more about Write Your Own Adventure »

It is a busy Sunday night for most Duke students, rushing to finish assignments before a week of classes begin, as I settle into a seat outside of the practice rooms of McClendon Tower Floor 2. The competing harmonic and chaotic vibrations of practicing piano players felt like the perfect musical background for my interview with Sara Behn (Trinity ‘21). The piano is, of course, a technical instrument requiring great skill and also a medium for creating art. A sophomore whose dual technical and creative passions, much like a… read more about Decoding the Poetic Life of Sara Behn (Trinity ’21) »

The English Department is proud to share that The Graduate School is honoring English Ph.D., candidate Jessica Stark as one of the four 2019 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching winners.   “I love teaching as a means to share my most longstanding passion for examining the nuances and radical potential for literature to transform how we interact with the world. In my classes, I aim to unlock rather than dictate how my students come to appreciate writing (whether creative or analytic) as a tool for… read more about Jessica Stark, Awarded 2019 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching »

The novelist Thomas McGuane moved to Montana many years ago, he has said, because he didn’t want “writer hands.” He wanted to hunt and fish and walk outdoors. He wanted to avoid a soft life. The journalist Doug Bock Clark, in order to write his immersive, densely reported and altogether remarkable first book, “The Last Whalers: Three Years in the Far Pacific with a Courageous Tribe and a Vanishing Way of Life,” moved about as far from the world’s air-conditioned urban centers as it is still possible to get. read more about The Real-Life Story of ‘The Last Whalers’ Reads Like a First-Rate Novel »

English Alum Doug Bock Clark’s non-fiction work entitled The Last Whalers: Three Years in the Far Pacific with a Courageous Tribe and a Vanishing Way of Life is being released by Little, Brown and Company, January 8, 2019 and is currently available of for pre-order on Amazon, Barnes&Noble, IndieBound and wherever books are sold.  Clark's work is being launched today at The Explorer’s Club in New York City.  During the weekend of November. 2-3, 2018… read more about English Alum, Doug Bock Clark, '09, 2018 DEMAN Talk Featured Guest, Releases First Book »

The Graduate School has awarded six Professional Development Grants for 2019. The grants, established in 2014, provide up to $2,000 to help graduate students and their departments create discipline-specific professional development programming and resources for exploring both academic and broad career options. Such programming complements the offerings from The Graduate School, which focus on topics that are applicable across disciplines. read more about Graduate School awards 6 Professional Development Grants for 2019 »

While most of the articles on this page are written about department events, alumni, or seniors, I wanted to take the change to highlight a current Junior’s experience in the English department as she looks into her second semester of Junior year and her final Senior year at Duke. Cathy Choi is a current Junior from Fort Collins, Colorado who is studying English and Public Policy. On campus she is highly involved in the Duke University Marching Band (DUMB). After playing clarinet in DUMB and the Wind Symphony for the past… read more about A Junior's Experience in the English Department with Cathy Choi »

Going into school, many people have heard of a thesis and usually understand that it is a long independent project. However, because very few people really get the chance to have complete control over the subject, form, deadlines, and all the other things that come with a class, it is hard to fathom for many where to even begin or how. I know personally as I enter my Senior year that I am nervous to start my thesis. It just sounds daunting and it is so hard for me to just zero in on something I am extremely passionate about… read more about The Process and Writing of a Thesis with Jasmin Jin »

On December 1, a chilly, rainy, Saturday night in Durham NC, several dozen poetry fans ventured out to the Duke Coffeehouse for Little Corner presents: Excess Women.  Jessica Q Stark and Hannah VanderHart both Ph.D. candidates in the Duke English Department are the organizers of Duke's Little Corner Reading Series, which brings poets and scholars to Durham, NC for poetry readings.   In an article published in the Indy Week prior to the reading it was noted that in the concept of "Excess Women," Stark and… read more about "Excess Women" Presented by The Little Corner Reading Series »

From directing the 2018 Fall production of The Addams Family to being an essential member of The Chronicle, Jackson Prince does it all. I first met Jackson my second year at Duke when I took a class on The Western with Professors Moses and Ferraro. Jackson was immediately singled out by Moses and Ferraro when they found out his father is a film producer and that he was interested in potentially following his father’s footsteps. The next semester, I again found myself in a class with Prince on read more about Jackson Prince? More Like Jack(son) of All Trades! »

Having just graduated the NBC Page Program, Alex Bratton (English '17) is looking ahead to her career in the media world. The Page Program, which takes a class of twenty Pages every three months, is a rotational program that lasts a year. Bratton started last August and for the first three months spent her time completing the ambassadorship period where the heads of the Page Program teach its Pages about NBC and all the properties it encompasses, in addition to giving tours of 30 Rock and working on shows. Alex says… read more about Alum Alex Bratton's Transition to the Media World »

When most people think of medicine, they usually assume that someone who is pre-med would major in Biology, Chemistry, or some other science. However, with the FlexMed Program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS), that is not necessarily the case. This year, sophomore English major Dorothy Adu-Amankwah was accepted into the FlexMed Program and now is free of having to worry about medical school prerequisites, applications, and interviews during her undergraduate time at Duke. Dorothy was one of 754… read more about English and Medicine? Paving New Paths Into Old Industries with Duke Students »

Talking to Catherine Ward, a recent 2018 English major graduate, it is easy to see how her time at Duke created opportunities and influenced her life post graduation. Now, Ward is pursuing a Master of Philosophy in Education (Globalization and International Development) as a Rotary Global Grant Scholar at the University of Cambridge. In the future, Catherine plans on attending law school.  It is also easy to credit Catherine Ward’s success to her own intellect and merit, but she acknowledges the… read more about Alumnae Academic Adventures with Catherine Ward »

Since 2002, students at Duke have been pushing the administration to create an Asian American Studies Program. With almost a full quarter of the student body identifying as Asian or Asian American, many students struggled finding a space on campus to learn or process explicitly Asian American issues. In the Spring semester of 2015, students were given a physical space (The Asian American Pacific Islander Bridge for Action, Solidarity, and Education--also known as AAPI BASE--within the Center for Multicultural Affairs) in… read more about Duke English Department and the AAS Program  »

Growing up, I was the type of student who usually did better in science classes. I was on the Earth Science Team in middle school that competed with other kids from high schools in the area. From there, my involvement in the sciences grew and I competed in the Physics Olympiad, Biology Team, Chemistry Team, and Physics Team in High school. English was something I always enjoyed, but I never had really thought about majoring in. Coming to Duke, I dealt with my fair share of problems. It was hard to adjust from a small town… read more about Finding a Home in the Duke English Department »

Having issues with your resume? Look no further!     Part of the Career Center’s job is literally to help you tailor your resume to your field of interest. Even if you are starting from scratch and know nothing about resumes or where to start, they can help. The Career Advisers are patient and willing to coach you, but I learned quickly that you should come prepared to their advising sessions with ideas or avenues you want to explore. If you are just at a complete loss before… read more about 5 Things I learned at the Career Center »

Celebrating the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein with Duke University At 9am on October 31, 2019, almost seven hundred organizations partnered with Frankenreads to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Universities from China to South Africa to Columbia took part celebrating this great literary work, as did the Library of Congress, with many universities around the world held these marathon readings and events centered on Mary Shelley and her… read more about Frankenreads and Duke »

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 about Fiction Writing as a Way of Life: An Event »

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 about Spring 2019 Course Descriptions + Requirements for the Major »

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 about Blackburn Festival "The Mackey Sessions" in Review »

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

Due to potential storm impact from Hurricane Florence, Duke has decided to cancel all classes after 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. In order to ensure essential operations during this time, Duke will activate the severe weather and emergency condition policy beginning at noon on Thursday, Sept. 13. read more about Officials Monitoring Path of Hurricane Florence: Classes Cancelled After 5pm Wednesday »

They Call Me Ms. Hill” and Why You Should, Too: on She Begat This: 20 Years of ‘The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill’ by Joan Morgan To read Joan Morgan expound upon the significance of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is really to listen to her (and others) unpack two decades worth of artistic influence and creativity that all find their beginnings in the songs, lyricism, style, and intellect of Ms. Lauryn Hill. To read She Begat This is to hear Morgan first-hand delicately and deliberately attend to Ms… read more about “They Call Me Ms. Hill” and Why You Should, Too: on She Begat This: 20 Years of ‘The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill’ »

Every class, Prof. Aers opens by asking what we thought of the day’s reading, and every time there’s a long pause that follows. I don’t know what’s going through the heads of my classmates, but for me it’s usually something along the lines of “I have no idea what any of this means.” John Milton is not an easy writer to understand, and when reading I often find myself with far more questions and uncertainties than concrete discussion points. So we suffer the silence together until someone summons the courage to speak, and… read more about ENG 338S Milton With Professor David Aers »