As we near the end of another busy and productive academic year, I am deeply grateful to our department’s faculty, staff, graduate instructors, students, and all of you who support us.
I am proud of the work we continue to do together to make the department a more collaborative place. Our new undergraduate curriculum, featuring three distribution areas (Historical Depth; Power and Difference; and Genre, Method, and Language) has already begun to shape the way we recognize relationships across... Read more
Hazard Adams (MA ’49, PhD ’53) was a scholarly titan of literature and criticism who left a lasting impression on many lives. Department chair Anis Bawarshi memorializes Adams, who joined the UW English Department as a professor in 1977.
It is with sadness that I convey news of Emeritus Professor Hazard Adams' passing on February 24th 2023. Professor Adams retired from the UW in 1997 after finishing the last twenty years... Read more
Department Chair Anis Bawarshi memorializes universally beloved Professor Carolyn Allen.
It is with sadness that I convey the news that emeritus Professor, colleague, and, to many of us, friend, Carolyn Allen, passed away on January 9th, 2023. To many of us who had the honor of working with Carolyn during her 46 year career in the department, this is an enormous loss. Her dear friend and former divisional dean of social sciences, Professor Judy Howard, first notified us of Carolyn's... Read more
The UW English Department mourns the passing of Professor Emeritus Charles Frey. Dr. Frey’s official obituary and remembrances from his close colleagues Professors John Griffith and William Streitberger are reprinted below.
Charles Hubbard Frey, 87, Professor emeritus at the University of Washington, in Seattle, died on February 15, 2023. He is survived by his wife,... Read more
The UW English department regrets to report the passing of Professor Emeritus Eugene Herbert Smith (1927-2022). Professor Smith coauthered with former UW and current University of Michigan Professor Anne Ruggles Gere Attitudes, Language and Change (NCTE, 1979), a breakthrough book in Rhetoric and Composition that questions the... Read more
There is much to impress in this rendition of English Matters roundup of the English Department student awards and achievements, but perhaps most remarkable are the depth and breadth of ways in which our students are succeeding. From publications in journals venerable and brand new; to campus-wide, national and international awards; to novels and memoires; to contemporary arts curation - our students thrive regardless of the waters upon which they choose to navigate.
One of the... Read more
As faithful readers of English Matters have no doubt noticed, our alumni updates can lean towards celebrating new publications. But this time around we have reached a new benchmark: if we include speeches and plays, all of our alumni updates this spring celebrate new publications. Every. Last. One. English Matters is thrilled to report on our talented graduates’ accomplishments! And we can hardly wait for the next round of books, plays, and critical works to drop – please keep us in the loop... Read more
Although Seattle has a time-honored habit of feigning otherwise until the weekend after Independence Day, summer is indeed upon us. And as ever-so-bookish Padelford Hall becomes more lightly tread for the season, the minds of English faculty wander … to reading. We are, after all, who we are – if we didn’t love reading as much as we do, we wouldn’t be English professors!
Summer reading of course is often a bit of a different species than the more erudite tomes of fall (and winter... Read more
Professor Alys Weinbaum discusses acclaimed novelist Octavia Butler’s ability to forecast emerging trends about capitalism and about what it means to reproduce in a sexist and racist world. Read more.