With an internal search for the next department chair underway, this Spring marks the end of my six-year term as department chair (one year as interim). Being chair of English has been among the most rewarding and challenging and transformative experiences of my life.
The work we have done together has affected nearly every aspect of the department: undergraduate curriculum, graduate curricula, writing programs (including a new technical and professional writing program), hiring planning and searches, intellectual community, cross-programmatic collaboration, and department governance. Much of it has required risk-taking, trust, willingness to dwell in uncertainty, listening, failing and learning from it, good will, and collaboration. I am deeply grateful to Associate Chair Habiba Ibrahim, our program directors, staff colleagues, faculty, and graduate students for investing their time and care into this effort.
Reflecting on our collective work, I have been thinking about a notion of abundance that I learned from my parents and the Lebanese-Palestinian community that I grew up in: defined not as extravagance or capital wealth or unlimitedness but as rooted in hospitality, generational friendships, generosity, reciprocity, and good relations. They modeled how to treat a spirit of abundance as something sacred and in need of care and maintenance.
In 1980, when my family immigrated to the US, most of my parents’ Lebanese community--many of whom with roots in Palestine, where my parents were born--relocated to Los Angeles, within a 50 mile radius from each other. For the next 35 years they continued a close knit community, gathering every week or two around food and stories. Our modest home in the San Fernando Valley had two fridges and a large freezer where my mom kept dishes she’d made in anticipation of guests: kibbi, fatayer, stuffed grape leaves, kafta, mujadara, mutabal, chopped parsley for tabouli, homemade baklava, knafeh, mamoul, barazek cookies, manaeesh, etc.). She worked at an office supply store in the day and cooked in the evenings and weekends. I have fond memories of rolling grape leaves and talking late into the night. Anytime a friend stopped by unannounced (and that could be two times a week), a meal was ready. When my mom died, we were still eating meals she prepared and frozen a year later.
Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem, “Red Brocade”, has been one of my guides these last six years.
The Arabs used to say,
When a stranger appears at your door,
feed him for three days
before asking who he is,
where he’s come from,
where he’s headed.
That way, he’ll have strength
enough to answer.
Or, by then you’ll be
such good friends
you don’t care.
Let’s go back to that.
Rice? Pine nuts?
Here, take the red brocade pillow.
My child will serve water
to your horse.
No, I was not busy when you came!
I was not preparing to be busy.
That’s the armor everyone put on
to pretend they had a purpose
in the world.
I refuse to be claimed.
Your plate is waiting.
We will snip fresh mint
into your tea.
While an abundance mindset alone does not address our many challenges and does not undo ideologies based in economic scarcity and competition, it allows us, I hope, to reimagine how things are held together and offers a sense of possibility.
This past Winter, we successfully completed a faculty search in Early Modern Drama and Performance (including Shakespeare). We also had four successful promotion cases. Led by Professors Josie Walwema, Chris Holstrom, Linford Lamptey, and Calvin Pollak, we have developed several new courses in technical and professional communication, including grant writing, editing, big data and privacy, workplace writing, and software documentation. In the Fall issue of English Matters, we will share our many faculty awards and accomplishments, and introduce our new colleague. Here, I just want to share a few highlights:
Professor Pimone Triplett accepted an invitation by the Pulitzer Prize Board to serve as one of five poets on the Nominating Jury for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for 2024, reviewing 364 nominated poetry books. Professor Chad Allen's book Earthworks Rising: Mound Building in Native Literature and Arts has been recognized with two major book awards. Professor Catherine Cole has been awarded a grant from the Kreilsheimer and Jones Large Grants program. Professor Josie Walwema has been awarded the 2024 CCCC Technical and Scientific Communication Award in the category of Best Article Reporting Historical Research or Textual Studies in Technical and Scientific Communication. Professors Janelle Rodriques and Charles LaPorte have been awarded a Themed Summer Fellowship on Religious Cultures/Sacred Practices/Spiritual Teachings from the Simpson Center. Professor Douglas Ishii has been awarded a Royalty Research Fund Grant for 2024-25. Professors Anu Taranath and Josie Walwema have each been awarded global engagement fellowship grants from the UW Office of Global Affairs. Professor Taranath has also been awarded a nine-month American Institute for Indian Studies Senior Fellowship. And Professor Alex Ramos has been funded to participate in the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD) Faculty Success Program.
UW distinguished alum and Pulitzer Prize winning author Marilynne Robinson (Ph.D. 1977) was awarded the Alumnus Summa Laude Dignatus Award, the highest honor bestowed upon a UW graduate.
In April, the Department hosted celebrated poet Kaveh Akbar for the seventh annual Scheingold Lecture in Poetry and Poetics. It was a wonderful event with nearly 150 people in attendance; you can read more about it in this UW Daily article. The lecture and conversation demonstrated how poetry connects us across time and place, even across cosmologies—indeed, how it is integral to joy, grief, and survival.
With generous support from Lee Scheingold, this year we continued our Works in Progress Colloquium series featuring faculty and graduate student research. The colloquium series, coordinated by Professor Eva Cherniavsky, included six well-attended events. With funding from Mary and Allan Kollar, we have also continued a mentoring program for English majors who are interested in teaching careers, led by Professor Cristina Sánchez-Martín and Lecturer Renee Lynch. The Kollar Teacher Community Support Fund supports K-12 and post-secondary teacher education by allowing us to offer professional development to the nearly 150 instructors who teach in our writing programs and also to welcome our undergraduate students interested in teaching careers and experienced teachers in the UW in the High School program into a broader teacher community.
English department faculty Jesse Oak Taylor, Charles LaPorte, Habiba Ibrahim, and Chad Allan are featured in the UW Humanities podcast titled “Ways of Knowing,” an eight-episode podcast connecting humanities research with current events and issues. As you check out these episodes, I want to remind you about our department’s Literature, Language, Culture dialogue series, which features faculty research and teaching. Our “Public Pedagogy” website includes teaching resources to accompany some of the episodes. You can support the department by subscribing to our YouTube channel.
As documented in the student awards and accomplishments section, we have a very impressive group of graduate and undergraduate students, including undergraduate student Julia Park who has been selected as one of six gonfalonieres—banner carriers—to represent the College at the UW Seattle Commencement ceremony. Julia and undergraduate student Emily Tang have also been selected to the Husky 100. In nearly every case, it is donor gifts that help us recognize and support our students. Your generous support helps us feel a sense of community and affirms the value of our work. Thank you!
In bittersweet news, Professors Richard Kenney, John Griffith, and Henry Laufenberg are retiring at the end of Spring quarter. While Professor Kenney will continue to teach part time with us next year through the 40% retirement rehire program, this is a big loss for us. Professor Griffith is a scholar of American literature, children’s literature, and the Bible as literature, teaching courses in all these areas during his astonishing fifty-five year career at UW—the longest career perhaps in the history of the English department! Professor Kenney, a MacArthur award winning poet and teacher of poetry, has spent his thirty-seven year academic career in our department, during which he has taught a wide range of courses in creative writing and in the MFA program and has also mentored generations of poets. Professor Laufenberg has been a faculty member in the department for twenty-one years, where, through the Program for Writing Across Campus (formerly Interdisciplinary Writing Program), he taught writing courses linked with science, social science, and humanities classes, including neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, geography, history, and political science. He also taught in the UW Robinson Center’s Academy for Young Scholars.
We are grateful to Professors Kenney, Griffith, and Laufenberg for their many contributions to our department, the humanities division, university, and profession. We will publish retirement biographies in the Fall issue of English Matters.
A special thank you to Henry Laufenberg for his excellent editorship of English Matters over the last seven years! Undertaking this work has enabled the department to stay connected to our broader community, and Henry has done a wonderful job of telling our stories, showcasing the department in its diverse and cross-programmatic range, honoring our alumni, curating recommended readings, and celebrating the collective work of the humanities. Thank you, Henry!
As we wish Professors Griffith, Kenney, and Laufenberg all the best in retirement, it is with a heavy heart that I share the news that emeritus professor Collen J. McElroy passed away in December. Professor McElroy was a titan, a poet and artist of prodigious talent who contributed to and transformed the department, UW, and profession for decades. We honor her memory with gratitude.
In addition to remembering Professor McElroy, this issue of English Matters includes alumni updates, student awards and achievements, a feature story about recent PhD student E.J. Koh, a profile about a recent gift in support of our writing programs, and recommended readings.