Undergraduate, graduate and professional students are invited to apply to be a Young Trustee—serving on the Duke University Board of Trustees. An information session will be held today at 5:30 p.m. ET. More about the Young Trustee position and the selection process is available here. Applications are due on Sunday, Feb. 28. read more about You Could Be a Young Trustee »
As part of its event series tgiFHI, the Franklin Humanities Institute is conducting interviews with its faculty speakers in order to familiarize broader audiences with the diversity of research approaches in the humanities, arts, and interpretive social sciences at Duke University. Jarvis McInnis is the Cordelia & William Laverack Family Assistant Professor of English at Duke. In this edited and condensed interview, he describes looking at home through a different lens, why his research on the… read more about Meet Your Humanities Faculty: Jarvis McInnis »
Collen Flaherty's recent article in Inside Higher Ed looks at the growing diversity of what is being taught in English departments. read more about Not the Queen's English Department »
“America’s Best Employers 2021” list by Forbes, Duke University placed 23rd out of 500 employers with more than 5,000 employees in the annual ranking. read more about Duke Named a ‘Best Employer’ by Forbes for 2021 »
"Despite a struggling labor market and emerging technologies that emphasize the importance of STEM fields, an English degree is as useful as ever," says John Hopkins University Professor Mark Christian Thompson read more about Q+A The Enduring Value of An English Degree »
Duke English began the Spring 2021 semester by welcoming 30+ attendees to the first session of the Faculty Works-in-Progress Series on Friday, January 22nd. Professor Joseph Winters presented his forthcoming article "Recovering the Irrecoverable: Blackness, Melancholy, and the Duplicities that Bind," which will be a part of the "Slave Religion: Histories and Horizons" special issue of the journal Religions. Winters opened the session with an overiew of his previous… read more about Professor Winters' Faculty Works-in-Progress Series Session »
This month, we present a collection of 10 Duke-authored books detailing the history of Black life in America. While this is not a comprehensive list of all Duke scholarship on Black history, it is intended to be an introduction to the multifaceted work of Duke scholars in public policy, history, documentary studies, religious studies, African and African-American studies, cultural anthropology, sociology, art, art history, and visual studies. These books, along with many others, are available at Duke… read more about 10 Duke-Authored Books on Black History »
Duke Alum Sid Richardson's CD Borne by a Wind will be released on February 12, 2021 on New Focus Recordings. Richardson's CD features Professor Nathaniel Mackey and performances by Deviant Septet, pianist Conrad Tao, violinist Lilit Hartunian, and Da Capo Chamber Players. read more about Professor Nathaniel Mackey Featured on Duke Alum Sid Richardson's New CD »
This month we offer a collection of Duke-authored works that reflect human experiences through fiction. These books along with many others are available at the Duke University Libraries, the Gothic Bookshop or the Regulator Bookshop. A Life of Adventure and Delight by Akhil Sharma WHAT IT'S ABOUT: In "A Life of Adventure and Delight," Professor Akhil Sharma delivers eight stories that focus on Indian protagonists at home and abroad. A… read more about 10 Works of Fiction from Duke Authors »
Guardian's article, "Drexciya: how Afrofuturism is inspiring calls for an ocean memorial to slavery," features Professor Charlotte Sussman and Duke Bass Connections Project "Remembering the Middle Passage" work to memorialize the Middle Passage. read more about “Seascape: the state of our oceans - Drexciya: How Afrofuturism Is inspiring Calls for an Ocean Memorial to Slavery” »
On occasion, Duke faculty put their research on pause and and turn to writing fiction in a variety of genres. We feature 10 recent novels and short stories from authors across the university. PLUS: See a roundup of January publications from Duke authors on the DUKE TODAY BOOKS PAGE. read more about 10 Works of Fiction from Duke Authors »
As educational institutions seek ways to enhance opportunities for students during the pandemic, the College Board has tapped five Duke University professors to provide recorded lectures to millions of advanced high school students around the world. The new lecture series, called “AP Daily,” offers free, online videos across a variety of college-level topics to students who are learning in person, remotely or in blended learning environments. Students can view the videos independently or Advanced Placement (AP)… read more about In Pandemic, Advanced Placement Turns to Duke Faculty for Help in High School Lecture Series »
The first spring 2021 installment of the Duke English Faculty Works-in-Progress series will take place on Zoom this Friday, January 22, at 1:15 p.m. Professor Joseph Winters will discuss "Recovering the Irrecoverable: Blackness, Melancholy, and the Duplicities that Bind,” an article he is working on for an upcoming special issue of the journal Religion. Religion is an international, interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, open-access journal on religions and theology from Multidisciplinary… read more about January 22: Joseph Winters on Blackness and Melancholy »
Professor Faulkner Fox wrote a piece for Duke Medium about what it was like to be working in Georgia when she found out the Capitol was being attacked. read more about A Blue Georgia on My Mind »
In email messages sent to Duke faculty, staff and students Tuesday, President Vincent Price invited them to a series of online Leadership Conversations with to address concerns about the new semester. read more about Price Invites Duke Community to Leadership Conversations January 25-27 »
In spring 2015, Francisco Ramos was a postdoc at the University of Pennsylvania, teaching a course on advanced qualitative methods. During class one Tuesday that April, he noticed that discourse analysis and phenomenology seemed to be the last thing on his students’ minds. What occupied their thoughts instead was Freddie Gray, a young Black man in Baltimore who had died two days earlier from injuries he suffered while in police custody. read more about Graduate School Assistant Dean Writes Guidebook on Teaching Contentious Issues »
To curate best practices for remote and hybrid instruction, Learning Innovation facilitated a discussion called Sharing What Works: One Good Idea from Fall 2020 Courses. During the discussion, we invited faculty to share successful teaching strategies from the Fall 2020 semester. We also administered a survey to Duke instructors to probe effective methods for flexible teaching. After synthesizing our findings from the discussion and survey, here’s what we learned: read more about Faculty Share Their Best Ideas for Hybrid and Remote Teaching »
A most unusual and painful year also brought us moments of joy and solidarity. We revisit some of the highlights in photos and videos. read more about 20 Moments From 2020 »
2020 has been a year unlike any other in our lifetimes. This article will reflect how Duke English addressed the challenges and opportunities presented by this historic year. Learning at Duke spread far beyond East and West campuses, for all of us. Faculty and students learned to take advantage of Duke resources beyond the classroom and Duke campus. With our students dispersed worldwide during the pandemic, the Duke English experience expanded well beyond Durham with Zoom becoming a primary resource for… read more about Duke English:2020 in Review »
Rebecca Brouwer had big plans for 2020. She was ready to get started with the Duke Leadership Academy and take on some work projects in Duke’s Office of Research Initiatives, where she is director of research initiatives. She was also planning trips to Hawaii, California and Indonesia. read more about How to Make a Fresh Start in 2021 »
The Great Gatsby entered the public domain. Works from 1925—including movies by Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton, recordings by Ma Rainey, songs such as "Sweet Georgia Brown" and major works of literature—are now available for artists to legally build upon. What's not available: works from 1964 that would have entered the public domain under older U.S. law. read more about January 1, 2021 is Public Domain Day: Works from 1925 are open to all! »
Duke received 5,036 Early Decision applications for undergraduate admission—a 16 percent increase over last year and the most in the university's history. The states most represented among those admitted are North Carolina, New York, California and Florida. read more about Duke Announces First Members of the Class of 2025 »
Rachel DuPlessis reviewed The Disappearance of Fate, a new book of poetry from Professor of the Practice of English Joseph Donahue, saying "Donahue's verse is rarely melodramatic, but rather humane and temperate, even when the insights are startling." Read the review at Hyperallergic. read more about Poems of Spiritual Quest and Musical Yearning »
“We wanted a senior year for the record books, and we got it! … Just not for the reason we expected. COVID-19 threw a curve ball at us, but we’ve made it our mission to find happiness in different places.” read more about COVID-19 Threw a Curve Ball at US': Student Photo Essays Document Life During a Pandemic »
Joseph Donahue, professor of the practice of English, in a poem from his new collection, "The Disappearance of Fate," described in a Hyperallergic review as capturing the experience of wonder. read more about Poems of Spiritual Quest and Musical Yearning »
The Trinity College of Arts and Sciences has loosened restrictions on satisfactory/unsatisfactory grading for the spring—though the overall policy will remain similar to the fall—and released the list of classes with mandatory S/U grading. read more about Trinity Loosens Limits on S/U Grading for Spring 2021, Releases List of Mandatory S/U Classes »
Students in a class on "Women in the Political Process" used the lens of documentary filmmaking to celebrate this year's centennial of American women winning the right to vote. They produced six films following women candidates campaigning during a most unusual election year. read more about GSF Projects Showcase Undergraduate Research Through Documentary Filmmaking »
It’s been seven months since the Class of 2020 celebrated their graduation, and their post-graduation lives haven’t quite been what they’ve expected. Nevertheless, recent alumni say that they’ve experienced unexpected blessings in their transition into the workforce. read more about Setbacks an Silver Linings: Class of 2020 Reflects on Graduating in a Pandemic »
The start of the COVID-19 pandemic kicked off a race to develop and deploy safe and effective vaccines. How do vaccines work to protect our health? With help from the Duke Human Vaccine Institute (DHVI), here's a short course on how they are developed. The investigators at the DHVI conduct basic and translational research to develop novel vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics for diseases such as HIV-1, tuberculosis, influenza, syphilis, gonorrhea, cytomegalovirus, rotavirus, parainfluenza, zika flavivirus, plague,… read more about Quick Learner: How Vaccines Work »
Duke nurse Glenda “Faye” Tate Williams became the first recipient of the COVID-19 vaccine at Duke Hospital Monday. A dozen Duke Health employees received doses after nearly 3,000 vaccine vials were delivered to the Duke Health System. Plus: READ THE FIVE THINGS you should know about the vaccine at Duke. read more about An Amazing Day »