As a double major in English and German, Izzy Alexander’s college experience has been truly interdisciplinary. Due to her interest in communicative practices, Alexander’s English concentration is on rhetoric, writing, and linguistics; she added German when she discovered that she would be taking enough classes to earn a major, considering it an opportunity to contrast […]
In 1913, W. E. B. Du Bois’s historical pageant The Star of Ethiopia opened at the Twelfth Regiment Armory with a cast of 350 performers. At the dawn of the New Negro (or Harlem) Renaissance, it celebrated African Americans by tracing their history back to highly developed civilizations in Africa. According to English PhD student […]
Marie Balsley Taylor joined the department this year as an assistant professor in early-American and Native American literature. Her research examines the role that Indigenous people, places, and practices played in shaping the 17th century colonial literary genres. Indigenous Kinship, Colonial Texts, and the Contested Space of Early New England, her first book, was published […]
It’s hard to pin down Christopher Moyer (’07). He has written about hackers and doomsday preppers for Vice, interviewed cult leaders for Rolling Stone, and covered artificial intelligence for The Atlantic. Moyer has ghostwritten books on everything from raising chickens to Zen meditation. He’s crafted messaging for international conservation projects. Now he’s the vice president […]
Distinguished Lecturer Erin Smith’s 200-level Public Writing course has always been built around working with nonprofits. In the past, students built online presences for local charities, but after social media became commonplace, she decided to restructure the course. She asked herself what nonprofits really need—money—and decided to shift the course’s structure to focus on crowdfunding. […]
Faculty members Mary Dzon and Urmila Seshagiri have uncovered medieval treasures and unknown Virginia Woolf stories in their archival work. Cornelius Eady and Iliana Rocha are winning national awards and publishing new work that makes us a destination program for poets and creative writers. Tanita Saenkhum has launched a new Teaching English as a Second […]
From Homer’s Iliad to the Old English Beowulf, from Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene to filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s forthcoming adaptation of the Odyssey, the epic is one of the oldest and most prestigious literary genres. So when Oxford University Press invited Associate Professor Anthony Welch to write an introduction to the epic, he welcomed the opportunity […]
Starting in January 2025, visitors to the McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture will see new representations of Native Nations that use contemporary art to tell the stories of people who are still alive now and not relics of the past.
The College of Arts and Sciences community gathered for the second annual Fall Book Party this month, celebrating 17 book-length works published in 2023 and 2024 by faculty members in the Division of Arts and Humanities and by colleagues in the Department of Anthropology and the Department of Geography and Sustainability.
Fictional books on private investigators hold invaluable clues about justice and how the world works. iStock / Getty Images Plus Sally C. Harris, University of Tennessee Uncommon Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching. Title of course: Whodunit?: Detective Stories What prompted the idea for the course? I […]
UT College of Arts and Sciences faculty, staff, and campus and community colleagues gathered Thursday, October 17 to celebrate the 2024 Alumni and Philanthropy Awards, honoring the exceptional achievements and contributions of Volunteers for Life whose dedication and generosity help shape the future of the college and its students.
Cormac McCarthy scholars and enthusiasts had a rare opportunity in Knoxville this month to reflect on the award-winning author’s influences and impact.
During fall break, Lecturer Raye Hendrix in the Department of English served as a visiting artist at another university, reading from and discussing her first book of poetry.
The Department of English was stunned this week by the sudden death of our colleague and friend Dr. Tom Haddox, who suffered a fatal accident last Sunday, October 13, while running in a local park. Dr. Haddox grew up in Semmes, Alabama, and obtained his BA at Tulane University. From 1994 to 1996 he studied […]
Professor Gichingiri Ndigirigi, Department of English, was named president of the African Literature Association (ALA) at the group’s 2024 conference, held in May in Louisville, Kentucky.
To create her next poetry collection, Iliana Rocha spent almost three weeks this summer conducting what she calls “boots on the ground” fieldwork across Texas. She reviewed police reports, talked to locals, and visited sites where Latinx women had been the victims of domestic violence. Her research took her to a canal where elementary teacher […]
In February 2024, thousands of people will celebrate Douglass Day, an annual event held to celebrate the birthday of Frederick Douglass. Members of the public are invited to join this celebration by joining us at the University of Tennessee for a series of events to honor Douglass and to contribute to Black literary history! The […]