UofL English

05/08/2026

Congratulations to all our UofL graduates graduating with a BA, MA, or PhD in English! We are so proud of your accomplishments. Go out into the world, do great things, and show the value of your English degree!

04/29/2026

Dr. Frank Kelderman, Associate Professor of English at UofL, is giving a Morton Lecture on Tuesday, May 5th, at 6 pm in Bon Air Library.

More details about the lecture:
Since its earliest invention, photography has shaped how American Indians have been represented in American culture and around the world. But how have Native people used photographs to tell their own stories and portray the lives of their communities? In this lecture, Dr. Frank Kelderman will offer a cultural history of Native American photography from the 1850s through the present, showcasing the work of a range of photographers who redefined the representation of Indigenous people in the U.S.

04/24/2026

Congratulations to Professor Sarah Strickley, who has been awarded the College of Arts and Sciences' Outstanding Director of Undergraduate Studies Award for 2026.

04/24/2026

Please join us in congratulating Andrea Olinger, on the publication of her book Situated, Historical, Embodied Semiosis: A Unified Framework for Semiotic Activity, which she co-wrote with Paul Prior and Julie Hengst. The book was published by DeGruyter Brill and it is said that the book: "offers a new synthesis of Peircean biosemiotics, empirical research on situated activity (including talk, gesture, and inscriptions), and intra-active frameworks for becoming-with. Examining and integrating a wide range of theory and research, the authors combine close analysis of situated semiotic activity (artifacts and practices) across production, reception, and use to account for semiosis as a matter of flat, dialogic histories."

04/13/2026

Congratulations to Professor Joshua Adams on being awarded the 2026 Hugh J. Silverman Book Prize for his monograph, Skepticism and Impersonality in Modern Poetry: Literary Experiments with Philosophical Problems. According to the sponsoring organization, the Association for Philosophy and Literature, the award honors a single-authored book that is "cutting-edge" and that "productively explores or exploits the space(s) where philosophy and literary study intersect."

04/01/2026

Let's make time to celebrate Kristi Maxwell's publication news. Three of her poems have been published in the new issue of s w i f t s: a literary magazine (link in bio). These are poems from Kristi's manuscript-in-progress, more alphabet, a project that engages with and extends Danish poet Inger Christensen's alphabet (trans. Susanna Nied). Work on this manuscript has been supported by a fellowship from the American-Scandinavian Foundation and a writing residency from the Danish Centre for Writers & Translators' Among the Danes program.

Please join me in also congratulating Glynis Ridley on the publication of her book, "The Life of the Author: Alexander Pope" (Wiley, March 2026). According to the publisher's website, the book explores Pope's life and work and promises to be a very helpful resource.

You can read more about both of these with the link in our Instagram bio.

03/31/2026

03/30/2026

Call for Submissions: Poetry Award and Creative Writing Award (OPEN GENRE)

Students are invited to submit their best work for this year’s Poetry Award ($250), funded by the Dean’s Office, and the Creative Writing Award (up to $400). The latter is an open genre.

To submit, students should email Professor Kristi Maxwell ([email protected]):
1-3 poems, 1-3 flash pieces (stories of 1-2 pages), one short story, one creative nonfiction essay, or one play.

In the subject of your email, please write:
Creative Writing Awards Submission.

The deadline to submit is April 2, 5 p.m.

03/26/2026

Please join the English Dept. in congratulating both faculty members: Joe Turner, Associate Professor and Vice Chair in the English department, and Director of English Honors, and Andrew Rabin, A&S Humanities Professor.

The special issue of The Chaucer Review that Professor Joe Turner co-edited with Emeritus Professor Martin Camargo (U of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) is now available. The issue includes several essays about Chaucer and rhetoric, including one by Joe about Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. The Chaucer Review, according to its website, specializes in scholarship on the "language, sources, social and political contexts, aesthetics, and associated meanings of Chaucer’s poetry, as well as articles on medieval literature, philosophy, theology, and mythography relevant to the study of the poet and his contemporaries, predecessors, and audience.

Professor Andrew Rabin has been invited to be part of the Distinguished Lecturer series in fall 2026 at The University of Hong Kong's English Department. As part of the series, Andrew will deliver a public lecture, lead several seminars, and consult on the e-Liebermann project (a digital database and dictionary of Old English legal vocabulary currently in development).

03/20/2026

Continuing our Watson Visiting Scholar Series for the semester, we welcome you to “Generative AI and the Liberal Arts: Institutional Futures and Pedagogical Choices” with Dr. Stuart Selber — Professor of English and Director of Digital Education at Penn State. This public talk will be held in the Belknap Academic Building (BAB) room 218 from 4:00 to 5:30 PM on Wednesday, March 25.