The illustrious nature of Carretta’s career is evident in the countless fellowships and awards Professor Carretta has received.

In 2007, Carretta was the recipient of a Kirwan Faculty Research and Scholarship Prize, which recognizes a faculty member for a highly significant work of research and scholarship. Carretta received the Kirwan Prize for his book, Equiano, The African: Biography of a Self-Made Man (The University of Georgia Press, 2005; Penguin, 2007), in which Carretta argued that Equiano may have been born in South Carolina, rather than Africa. According to Hana Layson and Valentina Tikoff from The Newberry, “Vincent Carretta discovered two eighteenth-century documents that indicate that Equiano may indeed have been born in the British colony of South Carolina. Carretta’s discovery has fueled an impassioned and as yet unresolved debate among literary critics and historians about Equiano’s identity and our evaluation of different kinds of historical evidence.”

From 2009-2010, Carretta was a Guggenheim Fellow and spent the tenure of his Fellowship researching and writing about Phillis Wheatley. In 2011, Carretta published Phillis Wheatley: Biography of a Genius in Bondage (The University of Georgia Press, 2011).

Carretta spoke at the British Library on the Iganatius Sancho manuscripts in 2013 and in 2014; he spent the summer teaching at the University of Tübingen, Germany, where he gave a lecture entitled “Race, Religion, and Rights in the Age of Revolution: The Case of Phillis Wheatley.” Most recently, in 2015, Carretta gave a keynote address, “Uncovering Lives: The Biographical Challenge of the Early Black Atlantic,” at the First Biennial Conference of the International Auto/Biography Association, Chapter of the Americas, University of Michigan. He was also chosen as the Inaugural Senior Fellow of the Omohundro Institute George III Project at Windsor Castle.

In addition to Equiano, The African: Biography of a Self-Made Man and Phillis Wheatley: Biography of a Genius in Bondage, Carretta is the author of George III and the Satirists from Hogarth to Byron (The University of Georgia Press, 1990, 2007), and "The Snarling Muse": Verbal and Visual Political Satire from Pope to Churchill (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983).

He is the editor of Scholarly Editions - Philip Quaque, Correspondence (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2010), Phillis Wheatley, Complete Writings (New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 2001), Quobna Ottobah Cugoano, Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery and Other Writings (New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 1999), Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African (New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 1998), Unchained Voices: An Anthology of Black Authors in the English-Speaking World of the Eighteenth Century (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996; revised and expanded edition, 2004), Olaudah Equiano (New York: Penguin USA, 1995; revised and expanded edition, 2003), and Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African (Peterborough, Canada: Broadview Press, 2015).

Vin's influence on the department has been significant. His colleagues and students alike thank him for his dedication and tireless research and his presence will be missed in Tawes Hall!

As a scholar, Auchard has done considerable work with Henry James and Graham Greene. In 2009, the General Research Board awarded him with a GRB Award to suppport his work on "The 'Late' Graham Greene." He is the editor of Henry James's Italian Hours (Penn State Press 1992; Penguin 1995) and the author of Silence in Henry James: The Heritage of Symbolism and Decadence (Penn State Press 1986). In 2004, Auchard published The Portable Henry James New Edition (Penguin 2004). He is also the editor of Graham Greene, Monsignor Quixote (Penguin 2008)
 and Graham Greene, The Captain and the Enemy (Penguin 2005).

In addition to his work on Henry James and Graham Greene, Auchard co-wrote Four Trials (Simon & Schuster 2003) with Senator John Edwards. Four Trials is a memoir and an account of Edwards' time as a lawyer. Auchard also co-authored Articles in American Literature: 1968-1975 with Lewis Leary (Duke 1980)and American Literature: A Study and Research Guide (St. Martins 1976), also with Lewis Leary.

Auchard served as a travel writer for The Washington Post and wrote articles on Ethiopia and Indonesia. An excerpt from "In Indonesia" is below.

"During a summer month when very bad news kept coming out of the Middle East, I was hit by an anti-American slur only once. Yes, it was only possibly a slur, but it really hurt. Standing at a busy Yogyakarta intersection, I was wearing a rock-and-roll T-shirt and super-cool baggy shorts from a local vendor. I had just put on reading glasses to check the map, and a salesman was on me. We chatted in English about nothing, and then the topic changed to batiks. Once he started, he wouldn't let up, and he kept at it until I made it clear I was not going to buy anything.

I was way too tough -- five weeks earlier, an earthquake had shattered his city. He looked me over one last time, gave up and turned away. "Oh, do what you like," he said. Then he stopped, turned back and delivered his heartless and pitiless attack: "Yes, do what you wish," he hissed, "Mister David Letterman!"

Sharon Rosenblatt, who graduated from the department in 2010, remembers Auchard as a fantastic mentor. Rosenblatt was a student in Auchard's ENGL 440, “The Novel in America to 1914.”  Rosenblatt works as Director of Communications at Accessibility Partners and says, “Now, I hear Professor Auchard in my head when I select words for my business writing."

Of Auchard, alumna Isabella Cooper says, "In the three semesters I TAd for his ENGL241 course, Professor Auchard was an unfailingly generous mentor and an inspiring example of great teaching.  He was always incredibly supportive of his TAs and quick to praise them.  His lectures beautifully conveyed the excitement of critical thinking, and his students really appreciated it.  Each semester, the students would line up after the last class of the semester to thank him, and I have no doubt he impacted their lives, their reading, and their approach to the world."

Professor Auchard will be missed by students and faculty alike. We thank him for his dedication to teaching and to the English Department and congraulate him on his retirement!

Logan's scholarship focuses on nineteenth-century African American rhetoric, with an emphasis on women's oral and written performances.

She is the author of With Pen and Voice: A Critical Anthology of Nineteenth-Century African American Women (Southern Illinois University Press, 1995), “We are Coming”: The Persuasive Discourse of Nineteenth-Century Black Women (Southern Illinois University Press, 1999), and Liberating Language: Sites of Rhetorical Education in Nineteenth-Century Black America (Southern Illinois University Press, 2008). Logan is the co-editor of Studies in Rhetorics and Feminisms, a series that has published seventeen titles on the relationships between rhetoric and feminism within genres, cultural contexts, historical periods, methodologies, theoretical positions, and methods of delivery.

In addition to serving the department as Associate Chair, and Chair of the Campus Writing Board, Logan has been the chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), the president of the Coalition of Women Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Compositon and has served on the editorial board of CCC and Rhetoric Review, and Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers.

In 2014, Logan co-chaired the 2014 Maryland Conference on Academic and Professional Writing, which brought together leading scholars in rhetoric and composition in order to examine critical issues in theory, research, and best practices in academic and professional writing courses.

More recently, in 2015, Logan presented “Risks, Rewards, and Failures of Passionate Feminist Teaching” at the CCCC, and chaired a roundtable discussion titled "Taking Risks in Feminist Methods and Methodologies."

Heather Lindenman remembers Logan as an influential mentor.

"When I first started at UMD, and I was struggling to find my way, Shirley offered to teach an independent study where I could explore different areas of composition studies. It was in that independent study that I got to explore service-learning, and Shirley encouraged me take my theorizing about service-learning and turn it into an actual class. I never could have done that without Shirley's support and trust. She treated me like I was capable, told it like it was (especially when I was wrong), and championed my project and work," said Lindenman.

In 2017, the department will hold a conference in honor of Logan and Jane Donawerth.

Logan's positive influence on her colleagues and students will be greatly missed by the Department and we extend our congratulations to her for a sucessful career.

Click here to read more and to see the full list.

Kirschenbaum is quoted in an article titled "Why LinkedIn Will Make You Hate Microsoft Word"in The New York Times. Excerpt below:

Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, an associate professor of English at the University of Maryland and author of “Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing,” said the move reflected a failure to understand what writers need. “Most of the most innovative writing tools now on the market position themselves precisely as distraction-free platforms,” he said.

In the interview titled "The Ghost (Writer) in the Machine" from The Chronicle of Higher Education,Tom Bartlett asks Kirschebaum about Game of Thrones, word processors' effects on MFA acceptances in the 70's and 80's, and more.

Click here to read Maggie Doherty's review of Cool Characters: Irony and American Fiction in Dissent. (Subscription required.)

Ben Parker's review in Politics / Letters says:

"Konstantinou’s book purposes both to historicize and to cure this agitated quietude, to provide 'a historical sense of the changing political fortunes of countercultural irony, a sense of why irony took on and lost political significance in the twentieth and now the twenty-first centuries' (288)."

In Salon, Konstantinou published an article titled "We had to get beyond irony: How David Foster Wallace, Dave Eggers and a new generation of believers changed fiction."Click here to read.

His article in Slate is titled, "“Fartcopter” Has the Answer," in response to Adult Swim's 2014 Infomercial Series. Click here to read.

1)Robert S. Levine’s The Lives of Frederick Douglasspublished in 2016 by Harvard University

The Lives of Frederick Douglass revises the widely canonized biography of Douglass and incorporates under-used autobiographical texts.  Levine widens the traditional lens to examine Douglass’s place in American culture through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Levine has given talks on his book at Politics and Prose, the Smithsonian, Lincoln’s Cottage, and at numerous universities.  Library Journal andKirkus reviews resulted in the inclusion of the book in collections of many public libraries.

2) Ted Leinwand’s The Great William: Writers Reading Shakespearepublished in 2016 by the University of Chicago

Leinwand considers seven writers—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Virginia Woolf, Charles Olson, John Berryman, Allen Ginsberg, and Ted Hughes—and details their reactions to Shakespeare through marginal notes, letters, and lectures.  The book highlights the profound impact Shakespeare continues to have on literature and on humanity.

Conversations related to the volume include discussions at the Centre for Research in the Arts and at Cambridge University, Politics and Prose, Shakespeare Theatre’s Harman Hall, the Folger Shakespeare Theater, and the 92nd Street Y in New York City.  The Spectatormentioned the volume on Shakespeare’s birthday. #shakespeare400

3) Carla Peterson’s Black Gotham: A Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York Citypublished in 2013 by Yale University Press

Peterson guides the reader through the discovery of her family history.  During this journey, Peterson presents the stories often ignored or covered up—those of African Americans in the United States, specifically focusing on New York City.  Peterson questions notions of shared national memory and illuminates aspects we choose to remember along with those we choose to forget. 

Peterson was awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in 2016.  She has appeared at the Smithsonian Book Festival on the Mall, the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, as well as local African American genealogical societies, and Black Talk radio.  She has also participated in a guided tour for the Guides Association of New York City.

4) Matt Kirschenbaum’s Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processingpublished in 2016 by Harvard University

Track Changes serves as a literary history of word processing, a project pertinent to anyone who uses a word processor.  Kirschenbaum explains the influence of the invention of the first word processors on individual writers, explores the impact of the means of production on the practice of writing, and considers how transformations in literary scholarship and authorship respond to technological mediation.

Reviews of Track Changes appear in Bookforum, The New Republic, The Boston Globe, Publisher’s Weekly, and on several radio stations in the UK.  Kirschenbaum has given many academic talks and lectures related to the book, most notably at Northwestern University and Yale.  He was interviewed by Chronicle of Higher Education about the book, and he’s done bookstore events at Chicago Seminary Co-op, Kramerbooks, and Harvard Bookstore. 

 5) Stanley Plumly’s The Immortal Evening published in 2014 by W.W. Norton & Company

In The Immortal Evening, Plumly weaves together the diaries and biographical information of Benjamin Robert Haydon, and re-imagines a dinner he held in 1817 for John Keats and William Wordsworth.  The book examines the work of these renowned artists and highlights the immortality of the art they produced and the memory of their genius.

In March 2017, Posthumous Keats will be included in a list of the all-time five best books about the Romantics, compiled by Jonathan Bate, one of the world’s leading Romantic scholars. Plumly has a new book of poetry coming out in October, and The Immortal Evening will appear in paperback in June 2016.

6) Mary Helen Washington’s The Other Blacklist: The African American Literary and Cultural Left of the 1950s published in 2014 by Columbia University

Mary Helen Washington re-examines the Cold War era and the turmoil it caused for creative minds in America, focusing on the often-overlooked Black Popular Front.  She presents four specific writers—Lloyd Brown, Frank London Brown, Alice Childress, and Gwendolyn Brooks—to illustrate the leftist ideas and activism prevalent during the McCarthy era.

Washington received the Bode-Pearson Prize in 2015 for her significant work in the field of American Studies.  She was also an MLA book award finalist, receiving honorable mention in the William Sanders Scarborough Prize for an Outstanding Scholarly Study of Black American Literature.

7) Lee Konstantinou’s Cool Characters: Irony and American Fictionpublished in 2016 by Harvard University

Konstantinou’s Cool Characters looks at the idea of irony in American culture.  It provides a survey into the ways irony has changed, and postulates on the idea of the post-ironic period beginning after World War II.  Konstantinou outlines a “cannon of characters” in American history who have embodied the idea of irony—the Hipster, the Punk, the Believer, and the Coolhunter.

Salonpublished an excerpt from Cool Characters on its site, and Dissentreviews it.

According Amanda Bailey, department chair, "This prestigious award, which recognizes a University of Maryland faculty member for his/her significant contribution to his/her field, singles out Professor Fraistat's accomplishments in launching a digital Shelley-Godwin Archive featuring Mary Shelley's Frankenstein at the New York Public Library and in publishing Volume 3 of the Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley."

Karen Angeline has taught in the Professional Writing Program at the University of Maryland since 2008.  She earned her BA in English from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and is on track to earn a graduate certificate in Instructional Systems Development in December 2016.  In 2016 Karen published an article in The Professional to support an online workshop she led for PWP.  She has also led workshops during the University of Maryland’s Faculty Development Day and participated in a group to address the PWP Writing Contest evaluation criteria and the University-Wide Gen Ed Rubric.

Christopher Crane earned his PhD in English Language and Literature from The Catholic University of America and has taught at the University of Maryland since 2010.  He was previously Director of the Writing Center and taught courses at the U.S. Naval Academy.  Christoper has published multiple editions of Masterplots through Salem Press, as well as articles through the Center for Plain Language, The Baylor Journal of Theatre and Performance, and Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, among others.  Christopher has also presented at numerous national and international conferences.

Thomas Earles has taught at the University of Maryland since 2010, and has long-served as an Assistant Director at the Writing Center.  Thomas was founding editor of the Sakura Review journal from 2008 to 2013, and his creative work has been published in Two Hawks Quarterly, Michigan Quarterly Review, Forklift, Divergently, Able Muse and Rewrites.  Thomas has participated in the University of Maryland’s Teaching Partners Program, and he is currently developing an ESL Writing Fellows program for sections of AWP and PWP classes.

Robin Earnest earned her J.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her LL.M. degree in Environmental Law at George Washington University.  She worked as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia before leaving to start her own private legal practice, and she has published multiple articles regarding legal practices for The Baltimore Sun, Prince George’s County Bar Association, and MAAPNetwork.com. Robin has been teaching in the Professional Writing Program at the University of Maryland since 2005. In 2012, she created an Undergraduate Teaching Assistant manual for AWP and PWP.

Lyra Hilliard joined the English department in 2009 and has coordinated blended and online learning for the Academic Writing Program since 2013.  She earned her MFA in Creative Nonfiction at Goucher College and an MS in American Studies from Utah State University.  She has creative work published in carte blanche and War, Literature, and the Arts, as well as a 2008 book review of Jeffery Durrant’s Struggle over Utah’s San Rafael Swell which is published in Western American Literature.

Danuta Hinc teaches in the Professional Writing Program.  She earned her MA in Philology with Education specialization from Gdansk University in Poland, and in June 2016 she received her MFA in Fiction from Bennington College.  Danuta has published numerous works of fiction for literary magazines, including Little Patuxent Review, The Muse, and Word Riot.  Her novel, To Kill the Other, was published by Tate Publishing in March 2011.  Along with teaching and scholarship, Danuta has presented nine papers at national conferences and delivered numerous talks and readings.

Douglas Kern has taught a wide range of courses in the English department since 2008, including blended and online courses, for which he has been involved with numerous curricular projects.  Doug also served as an Assistant Director in the Writing Center from 2012-2016.  Doug earned his PhD in Theatre, Film and Television from the University of York in England.  His most recent publications appear in Drama Criticism, Contemporary Literary Criticism: Yearbook 2014, and Continuum: The Journal of African Diaspora Drama, Theatre and Performance.

Justin Lohr is an Assistant Director in the Academic Writing Program, and has taught in the English department since 2010.  He also serves as Editor-in-Chief of AWP’s journal, Interpolations.  Justin has presented at national conferences and led Professional Development workshops in Maryland. He has served on numerous committees in the department, and is currently serving as professional track representative on the committee to review the Undergraduate English Major.  Justin earned his MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Maryland.

Heather McHale received her Ph.D in Modern British Literature from the University of Maryland, and has taught in the English department since 2002.  Heather’s essay “Why Pope Francis Is Graham Greene’s Pope” was published in America Magazine in 2015.  She has presented at the Popular and American Culture Association Conference and at Food Representation in Literature and the Arts.  Heather has also been a panelist for departmental pedagogy workshops at the University of Maryland.

Scott Moses has been teaching in the Academic and Professional writing programs since 2009, and has coordinated blended and online learning for the Professional Writing Program since 2013.  Scott helped develop PWP’s first blended learning course, and continues to oversee further expansion of blended and online courses.  He has written and co-authored various work on disaster relief in Haiti.  Scott earned his M.S. in Global Politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Pam Orel has taught in the English department since 2012, focusing on blended and online learning initiatives in the Professional Writing Program.  She is currently serving a three-year term in the University of Maryland Senate, representing PTK faculty in Arts and Humanities.  She has also served on the Senate Panel on Student Affairs, the Honor Council, the Maryland Open Source Textbook Initiative, and Gallup Poll.  Pam earned an MBA in Finance and a BA in English from Monmouth University.

William Pittman has taught ESL-focused courses in the Academic Writing Program since 2011.  He earned his MA in English Literature at Portland State University, and his work has been published by the College English Association, and appeared in the Journal of the Faculty of Global Communication, the Journal of Environmental Studies, and the Internet TESL Journal.  William has worked for the Washington Independent Review of Books since 2011, and also chairs the Washington Writers Conference Committee.

Daniel Saalfeld has taught Technical Writing at the University of Maryland since 2007.  He earned his MFA in Creative Writing from American University, and has published creative work in literary magazines and journals including Gargoyle Magazine, The Southeast Review, The American Journal of Poetry, and Tar River Poetry.  Daniel has delivered a number of lectures on modern and contemporary poetry internationally, including in Russia, Germany, and the Ukraine.

Meet the Director of Undergraduate Studies
Christina Walter

What is a major goal for the coming year?  

This is an exciting time in Undergraduate Studies. In the coming year, we’re going to be rethinking the entire curriculum and major. We’ll be consulting current students and alumni of our department to hear what they find most engaging and helpful in the curriculum and to get suggestions for how we might evolve. In addition, we’ll be discussing with faculty the skills we’re aiming to foster through the major as well as ways we can better feature those skills and help students to talk about them in public and to employers. We’ll also be considering how the curriculum might help students, and indeed the whole university community, to understand the network that links writing and rhetorical studies, literary studies, creative writing, digital humanities, and media studies—a network that spans the department but extends far beyond it to other departments and programs and to the public sphere. We want UMD English to be part of the important conversations going on inside and outside universities around the country about what it means to be an English major and what the value of an English degree is. I hope we get a lot of participation at the various town-hall style meetings we’re planning for this fall to give people an opportunity to talk about their ideas, and I hope that folks who can’t come to the meetings will give us their feedback through a survey we’ll be distributing.
 

What book are you currently reading, or what book would you most like to teach?

Right now I’m reading Caryl Phillips’s new novel The Lost Child (2015), which reimagines Emily Brontë’s classic novel Wuthering Heights (1847).The Lost Child is set mostly in 1960s England and tells the story of Monica, a woman who wins a place at Oxford University but alienates her parents when she then abandons her degree to marry an African-Caribbean graduate student. The marriage soon falls apart, and Monica’s mental health begins to decline as she’s left to raise her two children in the shadow of the moors of northern England that Wuthering Heights made famous. Phillips sandwiches Monica’s story between two nineteenth-century scenes that feature a seven-year-old Heathcliff—the mysterious anti-hero of unknown origins in Brontë’s novel. These “time-traveling” scenes take us back into Brontë’s fictional world to supply an origin story for Heathcliff: he’s now the illegitimate son of a wealthy English landowner and an African former slave.

One of the things that inspired me to read this novel at this moment is that Phillips will be the English department’s Bebe Koch Petrou Lecturer and the closing keynote speaker for our featured symposium next spring, “Forming Black Britain” (March 9-10). Several reading groups in the department will discuss The Lost Child or another of Phillips’ fascinating novels and plays this fall, in preparation for the spring symposium. I hope to see many students, faculty, and members of the community at the symposium—and I invite anyone to contact me if you want help connecting with a group reading Phillips’ work.

What book/teacher/class helped you decide to major in English or pursue a career in higher ed?

My career trajectory has rather naïve origins and ones not connected to the inspiration of a particular teacher or class, or the love of a particular book—though I have been lucky enough to have encountered some amazing teachers and books. I decided that I wanted to get a Ph.D. and be a professor all the way back in 8^th grade. Did I really know what that degree or that job meant? Definitely not. I knew that I loved the way that literature was an alternate reality where people could experience the different implications of the way our world is or could be and where people could encounter places and people far beyond their daily lives. It wasn’t only about thinking through other ways of being; it was feeling through other ways of being. And I wanted to study that and talk about it all the time, rather than just in a class here and there. I asked my English teacher what was the furthest you could go with school in literary study and she said a Ph.D., so I set my sights on that. It wasn’t until graduate school that I really began to have a sense of what being a professor meant. Fortunately for me, I was as taken with the realities of research, service, and teaching as I was with my childish ideal.

Do you have a word of advice for students? 

My first thought was to emphasize that college isn’t just about job training. It’s a place to try on new ideas and to find more ways to express what matters. But the truth is that students’ own enthusiasm will lead them to the social, cultural, and political opportunities that a university affords. Where that enthusiasm is less likely to lead them is to their professors’ offices. So my real advice would be that office hours are the only place where you can really make your course experience all about you: you can ask the questions you want to ask, talk about some aspect of the reading that didn’t come out in class discussion, try out your ideas for your paper, and even get feedback on a draft. Taking advantage of office hours can help you get the most out of a class, improve your grade, and ensure more detailed letters of recommendation down the road. Beyond the course itself, though, you can also get advice about other courses that might interest you and even find out about opportunities on campus that might not already be on your radar. So when you get your next batch of course syllabi, don’t overlook that info about office hours at the top.

Scott Wible's review essay "The Prospects for Literacy Studies in the Revival of Rhetorical Education" has been published in Rhetoric Society Quarterly. This review essay laid the groundwork for Wible's fall 2016 graduate seminar on Contemporary Theories of Rhetorical Education (ENGL 776).

Howard Norman's novel, My Darling Detective, will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in June of 2017. Howard is the recipient of the Lannan Award for Fiction and his novels The Northern Lightsand The Bird Artistwere both nominated for a National Book Award. Howard is also the author of Next Life Might Be Kinder,I Hate to Leave This Beautiful Place, What Is Left The Daughter, The Haunting of L., Devotion,In Fond Remembrance of Me, The Chauffeur,In Fond Remembrance of Me: A Memoir of Myth and Uncommon Friendship in the Arctic, and The Museum Guard.

Elizabeth Arnold's next book, Skeleton Coast will be published by Flood Editions this year.

Liz has received an Amy Lowell Traveling Scholarship and has received a Whiting Writer's Award, a Bunting Fellowship, and a Fine Arts Work Center Fellowship. She is the author of The Reef, Civiliazation, Effacement, and Life.

Joshua Weiner's Berlin Notebook appears in the Los Angeles Review of Books. According to the Los Angeles Review of Books, '“Berlin Notebook: Where Are the Refugees?” is a straightforward journal transcription of experiences in Berlin during October 2015, a time when the influx of refugees in Germany and the rest of Europe was peaking. This journal transcript will appear here in daily installments. It begins each day with the new installment. An ebook version of the complete transcript will be made available soon.'

 Josh has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Scholarship, The Rome Prize, a Whiting Writers Award, and a Witter Bynner Fellowship, among many other accolades. He is the author of The Figure of a Man Being Swallowed by a Fish, From the Book of Giants,  and The World's Room. He is the editor of At the Barriers: On the Poetry of Thom Gunn.

Chair Amanda Bailey says, "Scott's outstanding performance as Adminstrative Coordinator and dedication to the department's Academic Writing Program distinguished him from many worthy nominees across the college."

Congratulations to Scott!

According to the publisher's website, "In When We Imagine Grace, Drake borrows from Toni Morrison’s Beloved to bring imagination to the center of black masculinity studies—allowing individual black men to exempt themselves and their fates from a hateful, ignorant society and open themselves up as active agents at the center of their own stories. "

While at UMD, David Wyatt served as Simone's dissertation advisor. She is now an associate professor and vice chair of African American & African Studies at The Ohio State University with affiliations in English and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Simone is the PI on a Grant at OSU for $130,000 for a think tank pilot project on Global Black Citizenship.

Congratulations, Simone!

View the complete address here. George was awarded second place.

Read more about the competition as described by its organizers below.

Announcing the Winners of the 2016 Mortarboard Award

West Wing Writers is pleased to announce the winners of the inaugural Mortarboard Award for the best undergraduate student commencement speeches of 2016.
 
We received dozens of entries from institutions large and small, private and public, and all across the country. Mortarboard Award entrants included majors in subjects ranging from computer science to political science, and from English to engineering. Their speeches tackled issues from mental health and campus protests to what it means to be an adult. Collectively, the speeches provided a compelling snapshot of the Class of 2016: what they care about, what they’re nervous about, and what they wish for their fellow classmates and the world. West Wing Writers enjoyed reading each and every submission and we commend everyone who entered our contest for a job well done.  
 
This year’s winning commencement speech is “How Do We Want to Become?” by Sabrina Imbler of Brown University. Sabrina eloquently captured the climate on many campuses nationwide, as she reflected on how hard it can be “to look at someone or something we love so much and see how it could be different, how it could be better.” Her speech can be read here.
 
Taking second prize is Rachel George of University of Maryland for her speech, “Because We Were Here.” Rachel explored how easy it is to “become comfortable with comfort” and made a compelling case for uncomfortable action. Her speech can be seen here.
 
Xavier Rotnofsky and Rohit Mandalapu of the University of Texas at Austin won third place for their original and very funny speech, “Two Dweebs Deliver a Commencement Address.”  Their speech can be seen here.
 
As winners of the 2016 Mortarboard Award, Sabrina will receive $1,000 for her first-place speech; Rachel will receive $500; and Xavier and Rohit will each receive $125.
 
Congratulations to all of the winners!
 
About West Wing Writers
 
‪West Wing Writers, LLC is a speechwriting and strategy firm founded by former White House speechwriters for President Bill Clinton. Headquartered in Washington, DC, West Wing Writers specializes in speeches, op-eds, books, and other strategic communications services for Fortune 500 companies and executives, leading nonprofit organizations, and global thought leaders.
 
About the Mortarboard Award
 
Celebrity commencement speeches often steal the spotlight, but it’s the student speeches—written by the leaders of tomorrow—that often display the most heart. In 2016, West Wing Writers launched the Mortarboard Award to recognize these students and their speeches. While different schools have various graduation events and multiple student speakers, all undergraduate student speakers are eligible to submit their speeches for consideration. For additional eligibility requirements, please see the official contest rules.

Mary Helen Washington has been awarded the title of Distinguished University Professor. The highest academic honor conferred by the University of Maryland, this title is reserved for those who have shown themselves to be exceptional in their fields. This honor acknowledges the outstanding contribution of her internationally acclaimed work in African-American literary and cultural studies. Mary Helen will be recognized as Distinguished University Professor at the Faculty and Staff Convocation on Wednesday, September 14.

Join us in congratulating Mary Helen!

Neil R. Fraistat has been awarded the Kirwan Faculty Research and Scholarship Prize. This award acknowledges Neil’s exceptional work and contributions to his academic field and carries an honorarium of five thousand dollars. Neil will be recognized for his achievement at the Faculty and Staff Convocation on Wednesday, September 14.

Join us in congratulating Neil!

The list collected course offerings from universities and colleges throughout the US, focusing on courses that “give hope for the next generation” of women scholars. Literature by Women of Color is currently offered for the Fall 2016 Semester, and there is still time and (very limited) space to register. The available sections are listed below:

ENGL 448 Literature by Women of Color:

Section A: Caribbean Literature by Women, taught by Professor Merle Collins

Section C: Engagements with Pan-Africanism and Afropolitanism, taught by Professor Zita Nunes