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Global Perspectives Feature: Christopher Ouma Brings the African Experience to Duke

Christopher Ouma, an associate professor of English at Duke, likes to take his students on journeys to Africa; not physical journeys, but ones of the imagination made possible by literature.“My courses are really scaled up ways of encountering Africa,” Ouma said. “When I first met my students in the class on contemporary African fiction, I wanted to give them not only Adichie [Nigerian writer and activist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie], but a sense of Adiche’s generation, a whole generation of African writers. And I told them,… read more »

Richard So Charts New Territories in Digital Humanities

For Richard Jean So, joining Duke was the obvious choice. The associate professor of English and Rhodes Chair in Digital Humanities was drawn to the university’s strong commitment to interdisciplinary research and discovery. “Digital humanities is still a relatively new field,” So explains. “For Duke to invest in an area that many of its peer institutions are approaching with caution shows real boldness — Duke just feels ahead of the curve to me.”  That same forward-looking spirit is reflected in So’s own research… read more »

Duke Poets Society: An Interview with Professor Joseph Donahue

Duke Poets Society: An interview with Professor Joseph Donahue, a current poet and English professor at Duke University. Professor Donahue has been with the English Department as a lecturer for over 14 years and specializes in teaching both the art of creating poetry and analysing and critiquing great poets’ works! This semester he is teaching English 220S: Introduction to the Writing of Poetry and English 390S-1: Special Topics in a Single American Author: Emily… read more »

Timothy Heimlich Follows Wales into 18th Century British Literature

British authors of the 18th century often were influenced by their natural surroundings, a parallel that resonates with Assistant Professor Timothy Heimlich, who joined the Department of English this fall. Heimlich’s inspiration to explore how Wales fits into the landscape of British literature came from an unlikely muse: Wisconsin.  Growing up in the Milwaukee suburbs, Heimlich frequently rode his bike to Wales, a tiny village founded by Welsh immigrants in the 1840s. The forested route included street names like… read more »

Consuming the Literary Rainbow through Duke’s English Courses!

As an English major and an avid reader, you will always find me pestering my friends on the day shopping carts open. Whether it's Arthurian romance tales or haikus – I want to take it. I want the classes at Duke with the biggest breadth and depth of literature across centuries and the globe. I have pieced together what I believe is a dream class journey for any aspiring English majors, minors, and those who are smart enough to take a chance on a course outside of their major!English… read more »

Trinity in Four Acts: Daniella Freedman

Sophomore year is when things start to click, and the unknowns become the familiar. Classes feel more purposeful, friendships run deeper, routines develop and campus becomes home. As our four Trinity students return, the series picks back up to follow their next chapter focused on exploring new opportunities, choosing majors and finding momentum. Through stories, photos, videos and social updates, we’ll capture the energy as they lean in, step up — and hit their stride. read more »

Marguerite Nguyen: Scholarship Rooted in the Refugee Experience

Marguerite Nguyen has been a Blue Devil basketball fan since elementary school. The daughter of Vietnamese refugees who fled Saigon in 1975, Nguyen developed an obsession for ACC basketball and would spend hours watching games in the family’s living room in southeastern Virginia. That early connection to Duke eventually brought her to campus to pursue a B.A. in English. “I knew I wanted to be an English major but didn’t necessarily know what I wanted to do with the major,” she explains. “With a lifelong love for… read more »

Meet Cynthia Dong, Visiting Duke English Professor

Professor Cynthia Dong joins Duke English for the 2025-26 academic year as a visiting professor. This fall she will be teaching English 390S – Film Comedy. She joins the department from McGill University. Senior Duke English major Trisha Santanam, ’26, recently interviewed Professor Dong. Trisha: Could you please introduce yourself and tell us a little about the academic topics that interest you?Professor Dong: I’m a film historian coming to Duke University from McGill… read more »

Building Community Through the Solarities Contemporary Poetry Series

Graduate students at Duke University’s John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute (FHI) are redefining poetry’s place in academic settings. Tessa Bolsover and Michael Cavuto are building a deeply interdisciplinary, community-centered approach to poetry as co-conveners of the Contemporary Poetics Working Group (2023-2025). Its primary mode of engagement upends conventional lines separating academic study from artistic thought. read more »

New Duke English Faculty Members

This fall, the Duke English department will have three new additions to its faculty. The department welcomes Professors Marguerite Nguyen, Associate Professor of English; Professor Richard Jean So, Associate Professor of English; and Professor Timothy Heimlich, Assistant Professor of English.Associate Professor of English - Marguerite Nguyen Professor Nguyen, a Duke English alum, joins the department from Wesleyan University. Her studies have focused on American… read more »

'25-26 Visiting Blackburn Artist-in-Residence, Camille Bordas

Novelist, short story writer and academic Camille Bordas will join Duke English as the '25-26 Visiting Blackburn Artist-in-Residence. Bordas will be the department's third Visiting Blackburn Artist-in-Residence. She has taught at the University of Florida and written for notable publications, including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Tin House, Chicago Magazine, and LitHub.Each Blackburn Artist-in-Residence selection is an author who also has teaching experience, at least one published book, has other… read more »

Looking South for the Roots of the Harlem Renaissance: Jarvis McInnis Examines “Afterlives of the Plantation”

Jarvis McInnis, associate professor of English, is an interdisciplinary scholar of African American and African Diaspora literature and culture. His first book, “Afterlives of the Plantation: Plotting Agrarian Futures in the Global Black South,” was released by Columbia University Press in May. In it, McInnis rethinks the plantation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a repurposed site of agrarian worldmaking and a critical space for the reimagining of Black futures.We caught up with McInnis to find… read more »

The Risk of Serialized Reality: On Big Fiction and The New Seriality

When David Lynch died, the internet filled with quotes from him. I usually cringe at these sudden and predictable proliferations of soundbites that become nearly meaningless in their ubiquity. The point in moments like this is to show that you are the kind of person who posts a David Lynch quote, the quote itself is secondary at best, you might as well just post a square with the words “David Lynch Quote.” This time though, there was one quote that made its way through to me, that stuck in my brain, looping. “Ideas are like… read more »

How Should We Think About the Renaissance?

All historical periods are created twice: first in their own age, and again in the work of their interpreters. But this truism applies in a special sense to the Renaissance, an era whose intellectuals developed a new orientation to history, before becoming the whetstone on which one generation of historians after another honed their ideas. It is this double story that Ada Palmer tells in Inventing the Renaissance: The Myth of a Golden Age, a quirky, meandering, and cumulatively brilliant popular history of the… read more »

A Man Uncovers His In-Laws’ Twisted Secrets in Amin Ahmad’s "A Killer in the Family"

Marrying into a wealthy family that also comes with a job opportunity sounds pretty great — until a dark secret comes to lightThat's the premise behind Amin Ahmad's mystery A Killer in the Family, PEOPLE can exclusively announce. The book is forthcoming next year from Henry Holt and Company, an imprint of Macmillan Publishers.Muslim bachelor Ali Azeem thinks he’s made it big when he joins an arranged marriage with Maryam Khan, the daughter of one of New York’s wealthiest tycoons. Ali leaves his hometown of… read more »

Eight Trinity College of Arts & Sciences Faculty Honored With Named Professorships

Eight faculty in Duke University’s Trinity College of Arts & Sciences have been honored with named professorships, effective July 1.These endowed positions recognize leadership and commitment to excellence in scholarship and research. Their recipients are outstanding teachers, mentors and researchers whose contributions are invaluable to the College of Arts & Sciences, as well as their students and colleagues.“Trinity is defined by the strength of its faculty, and we are extraordinarily fortunate to count these… read more »

Lizzie Apple, 2025 Stephen Horne Award for Excellence in Teaching Winner

Duke English proudly announces that Lizzie Apple, a fourth-year Duke English PhD candidate, has received the 2025 Stephen Horne Award for Excellence in Teaching. Candidates in consideration for this award are nominated by their students, and the Director of Graduate Studies in conjunction with the DGS Advisory Committee selects the winner. Six students in Apple’s English 90S “Literature and Medicine” course taught during the Fall ’24 semester nominated her for this honor.Her course description shared with interested… read more »

Trinity Faculty Join New Projects to Deepen Engagement and Improve the Faculty Experience

The Office for Faculty Advancement has awarded seed grants to six new projects led by Duke faculty members. The theme for this grant cycle is “Deepening Engagement and Improving the Faculty Experience.”Faculty were invited to propose creative approaches to strengthening faculty communities and relationships; innovative initiatives to improve the culture in departments, centers and schools; and new faculty groups that deepen engagement on topics relevant to the faculty experience.The seed grant program will provide financial… read more »