After serving as acting chair last year, I am writing to you now in my role as department chair. I am honored by the trust that colleagues and the College have placed in me and also humbled by the responsibility that comes with this position over the next five years.
Last year’s departmental ten-year review brought with it an exigency for collective self-assessment and future planning that it is up to us to sustain. We now have a five-year Strategic Plan and are at work on a Diversity and… Read more
This past spring English Matters announced the imminent release of Professor David Shields’ documentary film, Marshawn Lynch: A History (click for the trailer). Since then Lynch premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival to great acclaim, was selected to appear in the… Read more
In the past six months English department graduate and undergraduate students have harvested a legitimate bumper crop of fellowships, prizes, and grants. English Matters isn’t sure if this is a record season, but it certainly wouldn’t surprise us if it was. Two things, largely, have coalesced in making this fall’s graduate student grant news so very good: we have excellent students, and we have spectacular alumni! From the bottom of our hearts, we thank all alumni and… Read more
Comedian Martin Mull once quipped that writing about music is like dancing about architecture—in other words, seemingly absurd. Nevertheless, since I first wrote a short story about a Cubist baby, I have been doing just that—using one art to engage with another. For the past year and a half, I have turned my attention to the art of choreographer Merce Cunningham.
I’m not alone in paying attention to Cunningham this year. Throughout 2019, dance companies, dance historians and critics, former… Read more
With sadness, Department Chair Anis Bawarshi announces that our UW colleague Kim Johnson-Bogart passed away on September 26, at home, peacefully, with her daughter Sabina and granddaughter Cece at her side. “Those of us who worked with Kim know her as a teacher, mentor, and colleague, someone who in her most recent position in Advancement worked tirelessly to help faculty secure funding to launch their careers and fuel… Read more
The English Department Graduate Program’s Mary Malevitsis, Ali Dahmer, and Eva Cherniavsky have been busy creating resources that feature and honor the work and careers of our graduate alumni. In the English Graduate Office, they’ve curated a new physical library of alumni books. And… Read more