The Department has many events every year that are available to the general public as well as to the UT community. In 2020-2021, these events are even more accessible to the public, as they are being held via Zoom.

Rebecca Gayle Howell’s most recent book is American Purgatory, selected by Don Share for Great Britain’s 2016 Sexton Prize and named a must-read collection by Poetry London, The Millions, and the Courier-Journal. She is also the author of Render / An Apocalypse, which received wide acclaim, most notably by David L. Ulin for the Los Angeles Times who called it “remarkable.” Howell’s debut was as the translator of Amal al-Jubouri’s Hagar Before the Occupation / Hagar After the Occupation, shortlisted for the Best Translated Book Award and selected by Library Journal as a best book of 2011. Among her other honors are fellowships from United States Artists, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the Carson McCullers Center, as well as a Pushcart Prize. Since 2014, she has served as Poetry Editor for Oxford American.
English Language Teaching in Today’s “Messy” World
English has always been a heterogeneous and diverse language, but it is only past decade or so that its “messiness” has attracted attention among English language teaching (ELT) specialists. I will begin this presentation with a brief discussion of how the global spread of English has resulted in linguistics, functions, and other diversities of the language, and then introduce the notion of Teaching English as an International Language (TEIL), a new paradigm in the field of ELT that acknowledges the diversity and heterogeneity of forms, users, and uses of English today. Using some specific curricular examples, I explore ways to better align our pedagogy with the messy reality of the English-speaking world today.
Aya Matsuda is Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at Arizona State University. Her research interests include the use of English as an international language and the pedagogical implications of the global spread of English. She has served on the Board of Directors for TESOL International Association and recently completed her term as the secretary/treasurer of the International Association for World Englishes.



Analicia Sotelo is the author of Virgin, the inaugural winner of the Jake Adam York Prize, selected by Ross Gay for Milkweed Editions, 2018. She is also the author of the chapbook, Nonstop Godhead, selected by Rigoberto González for a 2016 Poetry Society of America National Chapbook Fellowship. Her poem “I’m Trying to Write a Poem About a Virgin and It’s Awful” was selected for Best New Poets 2015 by Tracy K. Smith. Poems have also appeared in the New Yorker, Boston Review, FIELD, Kenyon Review, New England Review, and The Antioch Review. She is the recipient of the 2016 DISQUIET International Literary Prize, a Canto Mundo fellowship, and scholarships from the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley and the Image Text Ithaca Symposium. Analicia holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Houston and works at The Black Sheep Agency. She serves as an Adroit Journal Summer Mentor, a committee member of the Poison Pen Reading Series, and on the City of Houston’s Millennial Advisory Board.
José Olivarez is the son of Mexican immigrants. His debut book of poems, Citizen Illegal, was a finalist for the PEN/ Jean Stein Award and a winner of the 2018 Chicago Review of Books Poetry Prize. It was named a top book of 2018 by The Adroit Journal, NPR, and the New York Public Library. Along with Felicia Chavez and Willie Perdomo, he is the co-editor of the anthology, The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNEXT. In 2018, he was awarded the first annual Author and Artist in Justice Award from the Phillips Brooks House Association and named a Debut Poet of 2018 by Poets & Writers. In 2019, he was awarded a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. His work has been featured in The New York Times, The Paris Review, and elsewhere.