Promotion, Retention, and New Leaders
The English Department would like to extend special congratulations to Professor Stephanie Kerschbaum for her promotion to the rank of Full Professor. Congratulations Stephanie on this landmark career achievement.
We are proud to announce that Doug Ishii, Anna Preus, and Cristina Sánchez-Martín have been reappointed for second three-year terms as Assistant Professors. Thank you to Shawn Wong, Gillian Harkins, Su Motha, Candice Rai, Juliet Shields, and Jessica Burstein for serving on the reappointment committees. Congratulations Doug, Anna, and Cristina!
2023 has also graced the English Department with five new program directors/coordinators. Congratulations to:
Stephanie Clare, Director of Undergraduate Studies
Kimberlee Gillis-Bridges, Internship Coordinator
Carrie Matthews, Associate Director of Writing Programs
Anna Preus, Humanities Data Studies Lab Coordinator
Josie Walwema, Technical and Professional Communication Coordinator
Awards and Honors
Professor Stephanie Clare has been selected as the recipient of the 2023-24 English Department Excellence in Teaching Award. Selected by the Scholarships and Awards Committee (Jeff Knight, Frances McCue, and Norman Wacker), this award recognizes a faculty colleague for their outstanding contributions to teaching. It is no secret that Dr. Clare’s classes are among our students’ favorites. Congratulations Stephanie!
Maya Sonenberg's short story collection, Bad Mothers, Bad Daughters (University of Notre Dame Press, 2022) won the 2022 INDIES Book of the Year Award Silver Medal. Professor Sonenberg might need a larger trophy case; Bad Mothers, Bad Daughters previously also won the Richard Sullivan Prize in Short Fiction. Great work Maya!
Doug Ishii was awarded Honorable Mention for the 2022 Norman Foerster Prize for Best Essay in American Literature
Nancy Bou Ayash has been awarded the MLA's Mina P. Shaughnessy Prize for her book Toward Translingual Realities in Composition: (Re)Working Local Language Representations and Practices. The prize is awarded for an outstanding work on language, culture, literature, or literacy with strong application to the teaching of English. This is a major award and recognition, one of the most prestigious for a book in Rhetoric and Composition Studies, and it is the second major award for Professor Bou Ayash's book, which previously received the Conference on College Composition and Communication's Research Impact Award in 2021. This means that Bou Ayash has been awarded best book prizes from two of the largest organizations in English studies. Congratulations Nancy.
Suhanthie Motha has been selected as the Editor-in-Chief of Multilingual Matters’ Critical Language and Literacy Studies book series.
Jesse Oak Taylor has been named series editor of the University of Virginia Press’s “Under the Sign of Nature” book series.
Stephanie Kerschbaum was selected as the Editor of the National Council of Teachers of English influential book series, Studies in Writing and Rhetoric
Josie Walwema has been named as Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication; has been named to the editorial team of Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy; and has been elected as member of the Association of Teachers of Technical Communication.
Habiba Ibrahim has been elected to the National Council of the American Studies Association
Emeritus professor Charles Johnson's 27th book, All Your Racial Problems Will Soon End: The Cartoons of Charles Johnson, was included in NPR's list of the Best Books of 2022. And what’s more, Johnson’s The Eightfold Path -- cowritten with sci-fi writer Steven Barnes, and illustrated by Bryan Moss -- received the "Story of the Year" and "Best Writer" Glyph Comics Awards from the 22nd Annual East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Jessica Burstein was an advisor for the PBS documentary on artist Louise Nevelson for the American Masters series.
UW and National Fellowships and Grants
Doug Ishii has been awarded a prestigious Career Enhancement Fellowship from the Institute for Citizens and Scholars. This fellowship, funded by the Mellon Foundation and administered by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars, allows exceptional junior faculty to pursue scholarly research and writing during the fellowship period to facilitate their progress toward tenure. Congratulations Doug!
Juliet Shields has been appointment by the College of Arts and Sciences as the Joff Hanauer Distinguished Professor in Western Civilization for a three-year term beginning on September 1, 2022. The Hanauer Distinguished Professorship is one of the highest honors in the Humanities Division. Stellar work Juliet.
David Nikki Crouse was appointed the prestigious W. Wilson and Grace M. Pollock Endowed Professorship in English for a five-year term. The Pollock Professorship was previously held by Professor Emeritus Linda Bierds. Well done!
Pimone Triplett has been appointed the Milliman Distinguished Writer-in-Residence in our Creative Writing Program for a three-year term. Congratulations!
Maya Sonenberg has been appointed the W. Wilson and Grace M. Pollock Endowed Professorship in Creative Writing for a three-year term. Congratulations!
Anna Preus along with her colleague Melanie Walsh (iSchool) were awarded a Mellon/Mozilla Responsible Computing Grant ($150,000).
Megan Callow and Josie Walwema have been awarded an Association for Writing Across the Curriculum research grant.
Jesse Oak Taylor has been awarded a Université Paris Cité Visiting fellowship.
Anu Taranath has been awarded an American Institute for Indian Studies Senior Researcher Fellowship as well as a Global Innovation Fund from the UW Office of Global Affairs.
Janelle Rodriques has been awarded a Royalty Research Fund Grant from the University of Washington.
Shawn Wong and Tara Fickle have been awarded an NEH grant in support of their project, “Behind Aiiieeeee!: A New History of Asian American Literature”.
Cristina Sánchez-Martín and PhD candidate Taiko Aoki-Marcial have been named 2023-2024 Public Humanities Fellows by Humanities Washington. Together, they will create a digital project that collects and shares traditional stories from immigrant and refugee language learners in the Seattle area. This project will help participants develop, record, and transcribe traditional stories in original languages, and then the fellows will create translated texts and recordings of these stories in English. Together, these two aspects of the project will support the goals of community members to improve their language abilities while also creating a cultural and linguistic public digital archive.
This past winter, the College of Arts and Sciences invited faculty to apply to be Dean’s Academy Futurists — a community of scholars who will together imagine the future of higher education after 2050 and to envision new, yet unknown models. We are pleased to announce that Professors Anis Bawarshi and Stephanie Kerschbaum join the inaugural staffing of this think tank. As key partners in the UW’s Rethinking the Academy initiative, Anis and Stephanie embrace this opportunity to shape the future of higher education in Washington State. Congratulations!
Simpson Center Awards
And now on to our annual long list of Simson Center Awards conferred upon English Department faculty. Kudos to all involved!
Nancy Bou Ayash – along with Aria Fani (Middle Eastern Languages & Cultures), and Sasha Senderovich (Slavic Studies) - has been awarded a grant for continued work with the Translation Studies Hub
Laura Chrisman has been awarded a second and third book fellowship for work on Changing Tides: Transnational Blackness Across the US and South Africa, 1870-1930.
Stephanie Clare, Janelle Rodriques and colleagues have been awarded funds to support a Simpson Center Faculty Summer Reading Group on "Sylvia Wynter."
Doug Ishii has been awarded a Society of Scholars Academic-Year Fellowship for 2023-24.
Su Motha Priti Sandhu, Cristina Sánchez-Martín, and colleagues have been awarded funds to support a Simpson Center Faculty Summer Reading Group on "Community-Based Language Teacher Education Programs."
Anna Preus and colleagues in French & Italian and the Information School have been awarded a grant to support their work on "The Impact of AI on Authorship, Reading, Translation, and Critique."
Cristina Sánchez-Martín and Taiko Aoki-Marcial have been awarded a Digital Humanities Summer Fellowship for their collaborative work on "Multilingual 'translationships' and digital storytelling with local communities."
Alys Weinbaum and Lynn Thomas (Drama) have been awarded a Simpson Center Grant to support the project on "Reproductive Cultures and Politics in Global and Historical Perspective."
Speaking and Public Appearances
Jesse Oak Taylor, Charles LaPorte, Habiba Ibrahim, and Chad Allan are featured in a new UW Humanities podcast titled “Ways of Knowing,” an eight-episode podcast connecting humanities research with current events and issues. This season features faculty from the University of Washington College of Arts & Sciences as they explore race, immigration, history, the natural world – even comic books. Each episode analyzes a work, or an idea, and provides additional resources for learning more.
Anis Bawarshi and UW English graduate student Hamza Ahmed appeared on The Big Rhetorical Podcast Episode 136 on “Genre, Uptake, & Rhetoric.” Hosted by Charles Woods, the Big Rhetorical Podcast is “a digital platform for scholars of rhetoric and composition, as well as other disciplines, to talk about relevant scholarship within the field while engaging in a lively, academic dialogue.”
Anu Taranath recently gave the Keynote Address for the NAFSA Region 1 conference. NAFSA is the Association of International Educators, the largest and most venerable association dedicated to international education and exchange. The founder and director of Dr. Anu Consulting, Taranath “invites people to grapple with the challenges of history and navigate our present with curiosity, honesty and a commitment to social justice.”
But wait, there’s (much) more! Professor Taranath also delivered the plenary address in early November for Washington's International Coaching Federation annual conference. She delivered keynotes for a World Affairs Council event in Seattle, and a Putney Travel Leaders Orientation in Vermont. Since spring Anu has been working with the National Geographic Society, and was an invited presenter on racial equity and DEI for Nat Geo's Explorer Fest in Washington DC. And last, but certainly not least, Anu's book Beyond Guilt Trip: Mindful Travel in an Unequal World was recently released as an audio book narrated by her. Busy busy! Congratulations Anu.
Shawn Wong discussed "How to Write a DEI Statement in only 50 Years" as part of the Simpson Center for the Humanities Katz Distinguished Lecture series, with Vice Provost and Dean of Undegraduate Academic Affairs Ed Taylor. This Kane Hall lecture was well-attended and well-received. If you missed the live event but are still interested, fear not! You can view it on Youtube from the comfort of your laptop.
Dr. Wong also appeared on two podcasts: KUOW’s Subtext with Bill Radke (on writing to cure trauma) and Ten Thousand Things with Shin Yu Pai (on a book becoming a movement), and was keynote speaker for the Society for Business Ethics annual convention.
Doug Ishii was the keynote speaker for the Post-45 Literature: National Graduate Student Symposium.
And that, dear reader, is a wrap. From English Matters and the greater UW English Department community, hearty congratulations to all faculty members for their outstanding recent achievements!