Recent News

This is the inaugural episode of the limited series Off the Syllabus. In this series Prof. Matthew Vernon interviews professors in the English department about a movie they love. This is an opportunity for them to explore a topic that is not necessarily something they study, but that they are nevertheless excited about. This first interview is with Prof. Desirée Martín about the 2023 film Barbie by Greta Gerwig.

Link to Article: https://lettersandscience.ucdavis.edu/news/top-college-awards-go-mental-health-justice-advocates

MFA student Sarah Mayo has been selected for the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. Sarah is one of only eight UC Davis students chosen for this prestigious Fulbright scholarship, which will take her to Greece to teach and to serve as a cultural ambassador.

In recognition of her outstanding teaching and mentoring, Professor Margaret Ronda has been awarded the 2023 College of Letters and Science Teaching Award for the Division of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies.

Link to article: https://lettersandscience.ucdavis.edu/news/uc-davis-arts-and-humanities-graduate-students-work-center-stage-annual-exhibition#overlay-context=search/everything%3Fsearch%3DPhD%2Bstudents%2BAllison%2BFulton%2Band%2BGrace%2B

Link to story : https://lettersandscience.ucdavis.edu/news/creative-writing-professor-awarded-guggenheim-0

Dear Friends,

We’re writing to share the UC Davis English Department newsletter for 2022–23, with updates on what our community has been doing over the past twelve months—publications, prizes, and activities.

Since the start of April, students in Professor Carl Stahmer’s graduate seminar have spent their Monday afternoons hand-setting metal type and printing literary works on a nearly two-hundred-year-old printing press housed in UC Davis’s Shields Library basement.

With the expertise they gain at UC Davis, graduate students go on to pursue successful careers across diverse fields. Many of them credit the post-grad opportunities they’ve secured to the variety of available teaching positions and strong pedagogical training offered by the department. Such were the experiences of Ashley Sarpong (‘21) and Michael Mlekoday (‘22).

Professor Xavier Lee was hired as part of a 2021-22 department search for new faculty in Global Black Literatures. He will join the English Department in Fall 2023 after completing a Mellon Sawyer Postdoctoral Fellowship at Emory University this past year.

Tell us about your scholarly interests.

The greenway walking paths on the north side of town. Be sure to make your way to Northstar Park and check out the boardwalk. – Ava Bindas

The Raptor Center houses and rehabilitates various wild birds in the area. You can visit and meet their resident ambassador owls, kites, eagles, falcons, and harriers, and there's a small museum on-site as well. – Margaret Ronda

Awards, Publications, and Projects for English Department Faculty, Emeriti, Lecturers, Visiting Faculty, Graduate Students, and Undergraduates in 2022-2023.

Kirk Colvin (M.A., creative writing/English, ’98) spent a year as U.S. Coast Guard attaché to the American Embassy during the final months of the brutal Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier regime in the 1980s. His time there informed his novel Bloodless Coup, winner of the Maurice Prize for Fiction.

The Maurice Prize of $10,000 is awarded to UC Davis alumni and was established in 2005 by bestselling author John Lescroart in honor of his father. 

Maceo Montoya is a UC Davis professor, writer, artist and scholar, and recently made his first film. He’s also added editor to his many titles, leading the highly regarded Huizache: The Magazine of a New America. Montoya recently piloted the relaunch of the journal with a new issue coming out this month.

 https://lettersandscience.ucdavis.edu/news/professor-takes-helm-major-latinx-literary-journal

English PhD student Leila Easa is proud to announce the release of her coauthored book with Dr. Jennifer Stager, Public Feminism in Times of Crisis: From Sappho's Fragments to Viral Hashtags, a book of essays in classical receptions and feminist criticism developed in connection to ongoing political and epidemiological crises and the significant intersectional feminist response to this moment.

At this year's commencement, graduating seniors Eli Elster, a double major in English and cognitive science, and Mimi McMillan, a double major in English and Art Studio, were recognized with major awards.

Dear Friends,

I’m writing to share the UC Davis English Department newsletter for 2021–22, a long, strange year for us all. It was a pleasure to return to Voorhies Hall in the fall and begin to see colleagues and students in person again. Despite some ups and downs (the stop-and-start winter quarter being a particularly difficult stretch), it has lifted our spirits to start to re-engage with our community face to face.  

The Deirdre Hackett Award for Experiential Learning

Starting this year, undergraduate and graduate students in the English department will be eligible for a new fellowship: the Deirdre Hackett Award for experiential learning. This opportunity has been made possible by Matt Hackett, who has established the Deirdre Hackett Endowment in English to honor the memory of his late mother, Deirdre, who was a Class of 1987 English major at UC Davis.

New DE in EH

Faculty

Professor of English Parama Roy is retiring this spring, 2022.

How has the department changed since you first started at UC Davis?

Best book of the pandemic: Carolyn Forché's What You Have Heard Is True.

—Pam Houston

I very much enjoyed Robert MacFarlane's Underland: A Deep Time Journey

—Liz Miller

"Live or die, but don't poison everything." –Anne Sexton or Saul Bellow, depending on whom you ask.

—Beth Freeman

The Alice B Toklas Cook Book. Senselessness, by Horacio Castellanos Moya.

—Lucy Corin

In Memoriam

Professors Peter L. Hays and James J. (Jerry) Murphy

The English Department lost two valued emeritus faculty members this year, Professor Peter L. Hays and Professor James J. (Jerry) Murphy. While Jerry (a Professor of Rhetoric and longtime honorary member of our faculty) retired in 1991 and Peter in 2004, both of them remained active in campus life and events into recent years, and they will both be greatly missed.

Join the Department of English as we send off our graduating second-year writers of the Creative Writing M.F.A. Program and celebrate their work. They will each read excerpts of their poetry, nonfiction and fiction.

Time: Thu, Jun 9, 2022 @ 11:00am - 1:00pm

Location: Voorhies Courtyard

Link to article: https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/podcasts-and-shows/face-to-face/writer-goes-west

Ph.D. student and author Tom Lin is this month’s guest on Face to Face With Chancellor May. (Photo by Gregory Urquiaga/UC Davis)

The English Department presents Rory Miner (she/her/hers). Rory is an English (critical emphasis) and Linguistics major with a Professional Writing minor.

What is your favorite memory at UC Davis?

The English Department presents Samantha Ruelas (she/her). Samantha is an English major with an emphasis in Literature (and potentially creative writing).

What is your favorite memory at UC Davis?

The English Department presents Emma Tolliver (she/her). Emma is an English (Criticism emphasis) and Political Science - Public Service double major who is also minoring in Human Rights Studies.

What is a must-read for an English major? 

Braiding Sweetgrass. It is a beautiful and interdisciplinary work by an indigenous scholar, and I think there's so much to take away and learn from that text.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

What are your major(s) and minor(s)? Include your English major emphasis ( or intended emphasis) as well!

4th yr English major double emphasis (Lit. Criticism & Creative Writing).

What is your favorite memory at UC Davis? (1-3 sentences)

Were you an English major? Tell us what your major(s) and minor(s) in college were and were you went to undergrad, please.

Were you an English major? Tell us what your major(s) and minor(s) in college were and were you went to undergrad.

I double-majored in English and Astrophysics at Boston University.

What's the coolest non-professor job you have ever had?

During graduate school, I was the DJ on Thursdays and Saturdays at the only nightclub in Iowa City, IA, the 620 Club, which was also the only location in all of western Iowa listed in the Gay Yellow Pages, which were an actual thing before the internet.

The English Department presents Ashley Salem (she/her). Ashley is a second year English major (creative writing emphasis) and an archaeology minor.

What is your favorite memory at UC Davis? 

My favorite memory at UC Davis is definitely having dinner outside every night with fellow freshmen water polo players last year (2020-2021). There weren’t many people on campus, but having that solid group of friends to see every night made such an odd year so special.

What is a must read for an English major?

The English Department presents Coralie Border (she/her), a third-year undergraduate student and English peer advisor. She is an English (creative writing emphasis) and  sociology double major.

What is your favorite memory at UC Davis?

To be honest, my favorite memories will always be of spending time at the arboretum. In the midst of my hectic freshman schedule, I would always try to find time to stop by the arboretum, watch the ducks nap in the grass, and de-stress with a good book.

The UC Davis English Department presents Annie Berger (she/her/hers) for the Student Profile Series! Annie is a fourth year English (Literature, Criticism and Theory emphasis) and Communication double major.

What are your major(s) and minor(s)?

Double major in English (Literature, Criticism, and Theory emphasis) and Communication

What is your favorite memory at UC Davis? 

The UC English Department presents Tanya Casas (she/her/hers) for the Student Profile Series! Graciela is an English (Literature, Criticism, and Theory emphasis) and Philosophy Minor.

What is your favorite memory at UC Davis?

My favorite memory at UC Davis is a time I had a stressful week and decided to just walk to the arboretum and just sit there reading a book by Margaret Attwood for hours.

What is a must-read for an English major?

On Wednesday, June 2nd, 2021 UC Davis English faculty and students gathered virtually for our annual end-of-the-year awards celebration. One of the honors announced was the Lois Ann Lattin Rosenberg Outstanding Senior award which went to Ruth Christopher. Below you’ll find Chirstopher’s remarks.

--------
 

As the UC Student body grows to reflect the diversity of California’s population, graduate and faculty populations have conspicuously failed to keep pace. One of the key impediments to recruiting a  professoriate resides farther back in the pipeline, in the traditional processes and criteria for graduate admissions. These, we are happy to report, have begun to change in tangible ways at the UC Davis English department. 

Last year we welcomed Zinzi Clemmons to the department as Visiting Assistant Professor in Creative Writing. This coming fall we will welcome her again, this time as Assistant Professor in English on the tenure track. 

Celeste Turner Wright: Longest-serving Chair of English 

By 

Linda A. Morris, Professor Emerita

Crip Temporalities, Special Issue of South Atlantic Quarterly

Edited by Elizabeth Freeman and Ellen Samuels

Extraction Ecologies and the Literature of the Long Exhaustion

By Elizabeth Carolyn Miller

What is your favorite memory at UC Davis?

One day, I was walking across the quad to meet friends for lunch and stumbled upon a huge pool noodle battle! It felt both incredibly random and also perfectly "Davis."

What are you up to now, personally or professionally?

What is your favorite memory at UC Davis?

Building relationships and friendships that have lasted beyond college until now through many of life’s chapters and seasons.

What are you up to now, personally or professionally?

What is your favorite memory at UC Davis?

Laying out on the Quad with a group of friends, reading, studying, and enjoying warm weather.

What are you up to now, personally or professionally?

I am now an attorney advocate for the Judicial Council of California. After graduating from UC Davis with

The UC Davis English Department presents Amber Torres! Amber is an English (Creative Writing emphasis) major with a minor in Education.

What is your favorite memory at UC Davis? 

The UC English Department presents Graciela Cardona (she/her/hers) for the Student Profile Series! Graciela is an English (Literature, Criticism, and Theory emphasis) and Design Double Major. 

What is your favorite memory at UC Davis?

My favorite memory at UC Davis is the many days I would   grab an iced coffee before class during spring quarter. I  always enjoyed my time on campus and looked forward to attending lectures with such great professors.

What are you passionate about?

What is your favorite memory at UC Davis?

I met my wife while working at the Coffee House so that’s definitely up there. For English, top of mind is probably taking video games and literature with Colin Milburn and writing my final paper at Davis about God of War for PlayStation 2.

What are you up to now, personally or professionally?