English

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

The zombie trend continues to spread across the pop cultural landscape and shows little sign of slowing down. Speaking with The Baltimore Sun‘s John-John Williams IV for a June 9 story entitled “Pop culture’s undying affection for zombies“, Arnold Blumberg, adjunt faculty member in English and co-author of Zombiemania: 80 Movies to Die For, illustrated the history of this now-ubiquitous staple of modern popular culture, as well as theorizing as to why the walking undead seem to have captured our culture’s imagination in recent times. “There has never been a figure that has reflected all the fears we have as the… Continue Reading Arnold Blumberg, English, in The Baltimore Sun

In aJune 5 article entitled “What’s the Buzz? Beehives Burgeon in Baltimore Backyards,” Rachel Wilkinson, adjunct professor of English, recently reported on the local beekeeping community for the website BmoreMedia. Over the course of the piece, Wilkinson explores a number of facets to the practice and its prevalence within Maryland, noting that there are 1,751 registered beekeepers with about 12,000 colonies in 1800 locations according to the state’s Department of Agriculture, and that “[a]ccording to to state apiarist Jerry Fischer, Baltimore alone was home to about 29 registered beekeepers keeping more than 100 colonies in 45 locations as of February.” Wilkinson… Continue Reading Rachel Wilkinson, English, in BmoreMedia

The never-ending battle between advocates of the prescriptive and descriptive schools of language was touched off in the last few weeks, starting with a May 14 article in The New Yorker titled “The English Wars”, written by the magazine’s dance critic Joan Acocella. Weighing in with Acocella on the side of the prescriptive approach was lecturer Ryan Bloom,  English, who in a May 29 blog post on The New Yorker‘s website noted one contradiction in particular on the part of many descriptivists: “When it comes time for them to write their books and articles and give their speeches about the… Continue Reading Ryan Bloom, English, in the New Yorker, Mentioned in Slate

Piotr Gwiazda, associate professor of English, read at the Walters Arts Museum on March 10 as part of the Smartish Pace Reading Series. A video of his reading appears below. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–AjVlrPmtI&list=UUBSIwT0uXt_RZ_v_u3RMdsg&index=9&feature=plcp]