Recent News
It is with sadness that we convey that Professor Emeritus Thomas Lockwood passed away on September 2, 2024. Professor Lockwood taught in the English department from 1967 to 2015 and was department chair from 1992 to 1997. His research focused on eighteenth-century satire, print culture, and the history of the novel. He is best known in his field for his three-volume edition of Henry Fielding’s plays and his 2023 book, The… Read more
Greetings from Padelford Hall, where I have been settling into the role as department chair. It is truly an honor – and an awesome responsibility – to lead a department that is as large, multi-faceted, and dynamic as English. I left New York – along with the bone-chilling winters and the humid-sticky summers – to join the UW English department over 18 years ago. In 2006, I arrived as an early-career scholar of contemporary African American… Read more
Promotion, Retention, and New Leaders
The English Department would like to extend special congratulations to Candice Rai and Jesse Oak Taylor for their promotions to the rank of Full Professor.
Additionally, congratulations are in order for… Read more
This year's crop of faculty books is nothing to sneeze at! Exploring themes from the Middle Ages to the present day, from the page to the stage to the screen to the classroom, these books are timely and thought-provoking. Each, of course, adds richness not just to the fields to which they contribute, but also to our department life. Congratulations to all our faculty authors!… Read more
With bittersweet emotions we announce the retirements of outstanding professors John Griffith, Rick Kenney, and Henry Laufenberg. We honor their work and want to take a moment to thank them for their years of contributions to our students, profession, and community.
John Griffith
Professor Griffith is a scholar of American literature, children’s literature, and the Bible as literature, teaching courses in all these… Read more
The UW Alumni Magazine, Viewpoint, published an article about the 50th anniversary of Shawn Wong's anthology, Aiiieeeee! along with 50 years of UW Press publishing Asian American writing, mentioning many English Deptment graduates who published books as well. To read the article click here:… Read more
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… Read more
Over the years, Mary and Allan Kollar have generously supported the UW English department. Their most recent gift, the Kollar Teacher Community Support Fund, provides broad-based support for K-12 and post-secondary teacher education programming and activities. The fund is a major investment in teacher education and professional development for our department and writing programs.
The Kollar Teacher Community Support Fund addresses… Read more
This year’s roll call of exceptional student achievements features variety! Sure, you will see the standard publications of criticism, poetry and fiction. But also: an award-winning stage play, speculative fiction, a study of the impact of English language requirements on Turkish undergraduates, and an audio/visual project set in Piper’s Creek. The range of work our talented graduate students produce is truly remarkable. Congratulations to all (and various) hats… Read more
Derek Sheffield (BA ’90, MFA ’99) wanted to let you know about the book he recently published with C Marie Fuhrman and Elizabeth Bradfield (BA ‘98): Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, Poetry. Cascadia Field Guide features select UW English Alums and faculty, including Colleen J. McElroy, Linda Bierds, David Wagoner, and Frances McCue.
Says Derek:
This book was… Read more