English DepartmentSchutte Senior Writing Award Gwen Hawkes NON-FICTIONGeorge Lucaci Award for Creative Nonfiction (co-winners) Andrew Tan-Delli Cicchi, “A Summer of Eggplant” Rosa Yang, “Telling Time” POETRYAcademy of American Poets Prize 1st: Sarah Darwiche, “little party” 2nd: Natasha Derenzinski-Choo, “The Day Earth Was Born” Anne Flexner Memorial Award for creative writing in Poetry 1st: Andrew Tan-Delli Cicchi, “… read more about 2016 Creative Writing Award Winners »
The Executive Committee of the D. H. Lawrence Society of North America (DHLSNA) has named Judith Ruderman, Visiting Professor in the English at Duke University and Paul Poplawski, Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Leicester as recipients of the 2017 Harry T. Moore Award for Lifetime Achievement in Lawrence Studies. The Harry T. Moore Award was first awarded in 1984 to James Cowan and was last presented to Lindeth Vassey at the Gargnano Conference in 2014. This award will be conferred at the 14th… read more about Judith Ruderman Has Been Named Winner of the 2017 Harry T. Moore Award »
Durham, NC - With the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's death coming this Saturday, the Department of English invited members of the Duke community to celebrate the bard's work with a marathon reading of his sonnets at three sites across campus. The readings in Bostock Library, Duke Gardens and the Levine Science Research Center covered all 154 sonnets. Duke President Richard H. Brodhead and his wife Cindy joined in during the session at Duke Gardens. The reading follows on the heels of a marathon Paradise Lost… read more about Watch the Duke Community in a Marathon Reading of Shakespeare's Sonnets »
Durham, NC - Srinivas Aravamudan, professor of English and former dean of the humanities at Duke, died on Wednesday. He was 54. Aravamudan, a scholar of 18th-century British and French literature and postcolonial literature, was also a champion of the humanities, committed to nurturing and promoting their role in contemporary society. At Duke, his leadership included serving as director of the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, as dean of the humanities and as director of the Humanities Writ Large initiative.… read more about Duke Flags Lowered: Humanities Advocate Srinivas Aravamudan Dies »
Tsitsi Jaji was awarded the First Book Award by the African Literature Association during their annual meeting in Atlanta, GA, this past weekend for her work Africa in Stereo: Modernism, Music, and Pan-African Solidarity. Africa in Stereo analyzes how African have engaged with African American music and its representations in the long twentieth century (1890-2011) to offer a new cultural history attesting to pan-Africanism's ongoing and… read more about Tsitsi Jaji Awarded African Literature Association Prize »
Duke Today | November 22, 2015 DURHAM, NC – Duke University seniors Laura Roberts of Dallas and John “Jay” Ruckelshaus of Indianapolis were among the 32 recipients selected this weekend for prestigious Rhodes Scholarships. Roberts is a Global Human Rights Scholar and Lowell Aptman Prize finalist. Ruckelshaus is a Harry S. Truman Scholar and Angier B. Duke Scholar. They were chosen from among 869 applicants at 316 colleges and universities throughout the country, and are the 44th and 45th students in Duke'… read more about Two Duke Seniors Named Rhodes Scholars »
We celebrate the life of Wallace "Wally" Jackson. He was our mentor, colleague, and a former chairman of the English Department. We continue to be inspired by his lifelong pursuit of learning and his passion for teaching. November 23, 1930 – November 29, 2015 Wallace “Wally” Jackson passed away early Sunday. He was attended by his loving partner, Waltraud Bernstein. Dr. Jackson was Professor Emeritus of English at Duke University, where he taught and continued his studies for more than 35 years. He was a… read more about In Memory: Professor Emeritus Wallace “Wally” Jackson (1929-2015) »
“I'll dent the garage door with my head, siphon Crown Royal from your liquor cabinet, jump from a gondola in Venice. I'll smash my ankle with a hammer, drive through stop signs with my eyes closed, cost you thousands in medical bills. Forget about sleeping. I'll dominate the prayers you keep sending up like the last of flares from an island no one visits.” – The Real Warnings Are Always Too Late, Rhett Iseman Trull When Rhett Iseman Trull (Trinity ‘99) was an undergraduate at Duke, she had “one of those life-changing… read more about Poet and Editor Returns to Alma Matter with Advice »
By Chris Lee | Thursday, October 15 When I was in eighth grade, I had an English teacher named Mrs. Johnson. During the last period of the school day, I would sit in the back corner of her classroom and listen while she led recitations of “Julius Caesar” or discussions of film scenes from “Amadeus.” Everyone in the class loved her. I trusted her not just as a teacher but also as my mentor during times of insecurity. In my mind, her words still speak to me with the same colorful, yet sensitive candor that seemed to listen… read more about Searching for empathy in the humanities: what's in a narrative »
In Beyond Reformation? An Essay on William Langland’s Piers Plowman and the End of Constantinian Christianity, David Aers presents a sustained and profound close reading of the final version of William Langland’s Piers Plowman, the most searching Christian poem of the Middle Ages in English. His reading, most unusually, seeks to explore the relations of Langland’s poem to both medieval and early modern reformations together with the ending of Constantinian Christianity. Read more read more about Beyond Reformation? by David Aers »
The Archive hosts Salon: an evening of poetry to showcase and celebrate Duke's literary community of poets. The program will include poetry readings of Duke faculty Nathaniel Mackey, the Reynolds Price Professor of Creative Writing, and Joseph Donahue, the Helen L. Bevington Professor of the Practice of Modern Poetry; graduate students Brenna Casey and Laura Jaramillo; and undergraduates Georgia Parke, Dimeji Abidoye,… read more about Salon an evening of poetry »
ENGLISH ALUMNA TAKES HER SKILLS TO SILICON VALLEY When I ask Brea Davenport (English ‘12) her take on English majors, she describes her sophomore year experience of strolling into the Academic Advising Center to declare her major just as the deadline was passing. “We’re late,” she says of her English cohort. “But we’re eloquent.” Davenport, now an SMB Account Manager at Twitter, had not planned on being an English major. She was raised in Statham, Georgia, by a family of English majors and had no intention of following… read more about Alumna Takes Her Skills To Silicon Valley »
DURHAM, NC – It’s probably the most famous text ever written about devils and their doings. So it’s fitting that when a bunch of Blue Devils gather Friday for a 10-hour reading, they will read from the pages of Milton’s “Paradise Lost”. The reading, organized by the Duke English department, takes place Friday from 8 to 6 p.m. in Room 328 of the Allen Building and is open to the Duke community, said Charlotte Sussman, associate professor of English and one of the event organizers. Extras include “Milton Bingo” and snacks… read more about Brodhead, Faculty Step Up for a Marathon Reading of 'Paradise Lost' Friday »
October 26, 2015 by Tania Lombrozo for NPR.org An article in The Guardian earlier this year declared: "A war is being waged within the cloistered world of academia." It pressed on, stating that "currently fixed in the crosshairs are the disciplines of the humanities." Read more read more about The Humanities: What's The Big Idea? »
Anyone with an English degree will tell you that picking this major can lead to a lot skeptical questions: “What are you going to do after school?” or “What kind of a job can you really get with an English degree?” Read more read more about 100 Careers for English Majors: They Exist (Really) »
Published on Oct 29, 2015 Many hours of hard work go into publishing a single journal issue. With over 50 journals at Duke University Press, get to know more about how we work with editorial offices to create beautifully designed, easy-to-read, and readily available journal issues. This video includes interviews with journal editors Priscilla Wald of American Literature, Michael Hardt of SAQ: South Atlantic Quarterly, miriam cooke of the Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, and Chia-Ling Wu of EASTS: East Asian… read more about Journal Publishing at Duke University Press »
Congratulations to the 2015 Library Writing and Research Award Winners! The Duke University Libraries are pleased to announce the winners of the 2014-2015 library writing and research awards. The Aptman Prize, the Middlesworth Award, and the Holsti Prize recognize excellence in student research using sources from the Libraries’ general collections, the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, and primary sources for political science or public policy, respectively. New this year is the Rudolph William Rosati Creative… read more about Library Writing and Research Award Winners »
Duke professor and acclaimed poet Nathaniel Mackey, left, talks with South African jazz legend Abdullah Ibrahim, right, about his remarkable career in music as part of Duke's "Talking Music: Conversations with Scholars, Writers, Archivists, and Artists" series on Thursday. The event was co-sponsored by Duke Performances, the Forum for Scholars and Publics, and the Duke Africa Initiative. Read more read more about Talking Jazz with Nathaniel Mackey and Abdullah Ibrahim »
October 15, 2015 Recent Duke graduate Jeffrey Cicurel (English ‘15) leaves for his morning commute from the North Side of Chicago, where he grew up. He arrives at 88th and Aberdeen on the South Side, where he teaches English to high schoolers. “They’re great. And they listen,” he says of the 9th and 11th graders in his classroom at Hansberry College Prep, a charter school. “Because of the way that the school is run, it's a great place to work.” Cicurel is in his first year as a corp member of Teach for… read more about Alum Empowers High School Students in Chicago Classroom »
Jaji will read her poetry at Flyleaf Books on Friday, October 16 at 6:30 p.m. as a part of the West End Poetry Festival. read more about Tsitsi Jaji Reading at West End Poetry Festival »
Durham, NC - Graduate students have a lot of ideas, says Mary Caton Lingold, who is nearing completion of her Ph.D. in English. What they often lack is status and access to resources, which can make it hard to innovate on a larger scale. So tapping into structures designed to bring scholars together from different areas is a smart move, Lingold says. “Fostering interdisciplinary collaboration helps to capitalize on the energy that grad students bring to their field.” Inspired by her interest in early Caribbean literature,… read more about For Dissertation in English, Lingold Thrived on Interdisciplinary Collaboration »
ENG 220S Introduction to Writing Poetry Inst: Melissa Malouf WF 11:45 am - 1:00 pm You will have the opportunity in this course to engage (as both reader and writer) a variety of poetic forms and styles and moods. We won’t have a textbook — I’ll provide you with the reading assignments. I will be asking you to "look around and write" instead of simply "write what you know" in order to push your imaginations to work on the world around you, and on what you dream, think, apprehend, intuit,… read more about Writing Poetry »