English alumna Jerri Green (ʼ99) sits down with Meghan Pinkston (Class of 2027) to discuss how her time at UT taught her the skills she needed to navigate her career as a lawyer, Chief Public Defender, Memphis City Councilwoman, and, now, gubernatorial candidate. Meghan Pinkston: Why did you originally decide to major in English? Jerri Green: From an early age, I […]
English alumna Taylor Phipps (ʼ09) sits down with Meghan Pinkston (Class of 2027) to discuss how her time at UT taught her the skills she needed to build her career in nonprofit work and serve as the Executive Director of A Step Ahead Foundation of East Tennessee. Meghan Pinkston: When you chose to major in English, did you know you […]
Graduate student Connor White’s creative dissertation imagines what may lie below the surface of life on Long Island. A former drug dealer hires a videographer to film him riding a jet ski over the edge of Niagara Falls. The victims of a serial killer converse by the side of a Long Island highway where their […]
Mary Dzon, associate professor of English, has been awarded two fellowships for 2027. The first of the two competitive fellowships is the Visiting Fellowship at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge. This fellowship is awarded to scholars who have made significant impact in their fields of study, with an international reputation for publishing and intellectual achievement. […]
Urmila Seshagiri, professor of English and Distinguished Professor in Humanities, has been awarded the 2026 American Philosophical Society/ British Academy Research Fellowship. This highly competitive joint fellowship supports one to two months of research in archives and libraries in London and Cambridge, where she will work on her book Still Shocking: 21st Encounters with Modernism, currently […]
Senior English major Hannah Buchanan found community and cross-disciplinary opportunities at UT. When Hannah Buchanan, a native of Asheville, North Carolina, was searching for the right college to attend, she received a simple piece of advice from her teacher: “Just go to a school that feels right for you.” “I was really looking for a […]
The new UT English concentration prepares students for careers in print, digital, and multimedia publishing with an array of courses and a required internship. In fall 2025 the UT English department announced a new publishing concentration for the English major. The concentration equips students with specialized skills required for a career in print, digital, and […]
Brandee Easter joined the department this year as an assistant professor in digital and new media. Her research focuses on how bodies are imagined, constructed, and experienced in relationship to technology. Working from rhetorical studies, she explores how arguments are made about, with, and in technology with the goal to understand discourses of technological objectivity […]
Ellie Holcomb (’05) says UT English courses made her a better songwriter and author, and writing makes her a more attentive person. Before Nashville-based Ellie Holcomb (’05) was an award-winning singer, songwriter, and author, she was an English major at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Given how much she loved her English classes in high […]
Faculty are researching the use of generative artificial intelligence and integrating its use into courses, preparing students to use the latest technologies well. When ChatGPT was unveiled in late 2022, it presented a daunting challenge to English instructors and others who assign writing to their students. Generative AI (GenAI) threatened to circumvent traditional writing processes […]
A message from Professor and Head of the English Department Dawn Coleman. Since last August, I have had the privilege of serving as head of the UT Department of English, a storied place with a long tradition of excellence. I consider myself especially fortunate to have followed Professor Misty Anderson, a dynamo who piloted us […]
Nineteenth-century literature Professor Nancy Henry grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, home of Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Derby. A self-described “horse-crazy girl,” she read everything she could find about horses. Years later, while teaching at Binghamton University in New York, she revisited her love for horses by volunteering at a local therapeutic riding center. When […]
University of Tennessee English alumni Taylor Phipps and Chrystal Armstrong Brown join Dr. Erin Smith for a roundtable discussion on careers in nonprofits including types of nonprofit jobs, internships in the nonprofit space, how to prepare for the job market, and more. This online discussion took place on Tuesday, March 26th, please enjoy the video below. […]
English alumna Courtney Bergmeier (ʼ10) sits down with Meghan Pinkston (Class of 2027) to discuss how her time at UT taught her the skills she needed to build her career in entertainment and, eventually, become the Executive Director of the Bijou Theater. Meghan Pinkston: Why did you choose to major in English? Courtney Bergmeier: English was not my first […]