English

A poem by Lia Purpura, writer-in-residence in English, recently appeared in the “New Yorker.  “Beginning” was published on April 29 and can be read here.

Christopher Corbett, professor of the practice of English, recently reviewed a new book about Davy Crockett for the Washington Post. In “Born on a Mountaintop,” author Bob Thompson visits sites associated with Crockett to discover the man behind the legend. Corbett, who is the author of “Orphans Preferred: The Twisted Truth and Lasting Legend of the Pony Express” and “The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the Wild West,” used his own knowledge of the West’s legends to evaluate the book. “[Thompson’s] book also shows a fine appreciation of the truth, half-truth and no truth at all that connoisseurs of… Continue Reading Christopher Corbett, English, in the Washington Post

Ryan Bloom ’03, visual and performing arts, and English lecturer, was recently awarded a fellowship at Yaddo, an artists’ community in Saratoga Springs, New York. Yaddo’s mission is to nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment. Bloom is an internationally-recognized translator of Albert Camus. He has written for The New Yorker, The Arabesques Review, The Baltimore Sun, The Current, Horizon Magazine, The Orlando Sentinel, and other publications

Jessica Berman, professor of English, will spend the spring semester as a fellow at the Institute of Arts and Humanities (IAH) and a visiting Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The fellowship is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Berman’s fellowship is in conjunction with a yearlong celebration of the 100th anniversary of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, which has been organized by the IAH and Carolina Performing Arts. During her fellowship, Berman will teach a course on “Modernism, Media and Performance” and conduct research on her most recent book project, “Media… Continue Reading Jessica Berman, English, Awarded Fellowship

Jesica Berman, professor of English, recently gave a talk at Vanderbilt University on entitled, “Documentary Interruptions: Virginia Woolf’s Three Guineas and the Media of War.”  The talk was part of the second annual Modernist Mini Jamboree, a celebration of modernism in literature and film sponsored by the English Department and the Program in Film Studies and took place on Friday, November 2. Berman’s Her recent book, Modernist  Commitments: Ethics, Politics and Transnational Modernism (Columbia  University Press, 2011), examines the connection between ethics and politics in  early twentieth-century writers such as James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Jean Rhys,  Mulk Raj Anand, Cornelia Sorabji,… Continue Reading Jessica Berman, English, Gives Talk

“For major league baseball fans in Washington, it’s been 79 years of waiting for another postseason appearance. The last time they made it to the playoffs, Herbert Hoover was just leaving the first air-conditioned Oval Office. This Sunday, the wait ends,” writes Ryan Bloom, English lecturer, in The American Prospect. Bloom gives an account of the complicated history of baseball in the nation’s capital, concluding that “Whatever may come, the excitement in Washington is palpable… it seems D.C. fans of all stripes know what the rest of baseball is just figuring out: This time, the Washington Nationals are here to… Continue Reading Ryan Bloom, English, in the American Prospect