University at Buffalo Department of English

05/18/2026

Congratulations to graduating Ciah Courtney, who was awarded the Excellence in Research, Scholarship and Creativity Award for the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences!

This award recognizes outstanding Student Showcase projects that achieve superiority in presentation, content and scope, and which therefore merit acknowledgement as efforts worthy of university-wide distinction.

Her project, "Representing Displacement: A Critical Discourse Analysis of US Media Narratives on Refugees and Forced Migrants in 2025," was advised by Professor Dimitri Anastasopoulos.

05/15/2026

A great profile of Department of English faculty Diane Christian and Bruce Jackson—both SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professors.

Bruce Jackson and Diane Christian are still going strong, their shared legacy reaching across classrooms, scholarship and Buffalo’s cultural life.

05/08/2026

Two UB alumni have won 2026 Pulitzer Prizes.

Sara DiNatale shares the explanatory reporting award with two of her colleagues at the 𝘚𝘢𝘯 𝘍𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘤𝘰 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘭𝘦 and Juliana Spahr, professor of English at Mills College, is this year’s winner for poetry.

Sara DiNatale shares the explanatory reporting award and Juliana Spahr is this year’s winner for poetry.

05/05/2026

Way to go, Sara! 🤘 grad and former UB Spectrum writer Sara DiNatale (third from left) has won a 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting! 💙 She and San Francisco Chronicle colleagues won journalism's top honors for “Burned,” a series exposing how insurance algorithms failed California wildfire survivors.

05/05/2026

BIG LOVE to Juliana Spahr on receiving the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry!

Juliana co-founded the literary journal Chain right here in Buffalo and received her PhD in Poetics from the University at Buffalo in 1996.

LIT CITY Buffalo is lit up with pride today! ✨

05/05/2026

Congratulations to English faculty members Jay Barber, Andrew Burgess, and Paul Feigenbaum, who are among the co-authors of "Move Slow and Build Community; or, Only Communities of Practice Can Save Us," which has just been published in the journal 𝘗𝘦𝘥𝘢𝘨𝘰𝘨𝘺.

Paul Feigenbaum is associate professor of English and director of the Academic and Professional Writing Program at the University at Buffalo. His research, teaching, and engagement interests include community literacy, prison education, restorative justice, and the scholarship of teaching and learni...

05/05/2026

Juliana Spahr, who earned her PhD from English, has won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for 𝘈𝘳𝘴 𝘗𝘰𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘴 (Wesleyan). The collection reflects on disillusionment, poetry, community, and politics amid ecological crisis and rising right-wing populism.

A collection in which the poet takes stock of her personal disillusionment, which she uses to interrogate her relationship to her art form, community and politics.

05/04/2026

Sara DiNatale, a 2015 grad in English, has won a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting with 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘢𝘯 𝘍𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘤𝘰 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘭𝘦 team for “Burned,” exposing faulty insurance algorithms that harmed California wildfire victims. She was editor-in-chief of The Spectrum in college. Congrats!!!

For their series “Burned,” which showed how insurance companies using algorithmic tools have failed Californians who lost their homes to fire by systematically undervaluing their properties, denying claims and making it impossible for them to rebuild.

04/30/2026

Richard Kopley, Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at Penn State DuBois, has won an Edgar Award for 𝘌𝘥𝘨𝘢𝘳 𝘈𝘭𝘭𝘢𝘯 𝘗𝘰𝘦: 𝘈 𝘓𝘪𝘧𝘦 (Best Critical/Biographical). A UB alumnus, he began as a Poe scholar under Leslie Fiedler and earned his PhD from English in 1982. Congratulations!

Mystery Writers of America Announces 2026 Edgar Allan Poe Award Winners April 29, 2026, New York, NY – Mystery Writers of America is proud...

04/30/2026

Congratulations to Professor of English Miriam Thaggert, whose essay, “Literary Reparation: Lists, Till and The Trees,” is one of two recipients of the 2026 Katherine Newman Best Essay Award! The award honors an article published in 𝘔𝘌𝘓𝘜𝘚: 𝘔𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘪-𝘌𝘵𝘩𝘯𝘪𝘤 𝘓𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘜.𝘚.

Published in the journal’s summer 2025 issue, the essay offers an analysis of Percival Everett’s novel 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘛𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘴 (2021), which imagines the ghost of Emmett Till returning to contemporary Mississippi to seek justice for his 1955 murder.

According to John Edgar Wideman, the name “Emmett” has been “spoiled” for a generation of Black men. While watching the NFL player Emmitt Smith on televisi

04/28/2026

The 2026 undergraduate English Club Conference was a great success. The conference included a faculty panel, the launch of NAME magazine, and student research on the theme of "adaptation." Congratulations to the student organizers!