Why English is the Best Major

We are sure that you heard about the GW Distinguished Lecture in Literary and Cultural Studies with the amazing Rosemarie Garland-Thomson last night. There were posters all over campus. Virtually every blog post in the past month has mentioned it. Professor Cohen even threatened the GW English Department’s Facebook fans with this particular status, “What…

Earlier this week, I received the following email: “Dear Employers,” it reads. “As we plan for National Student Employment Week (April 9 – 13, 2012) we’d like to hear what your office has done in the past to recognize your student employees. We’ll organize and publish what we learn.” Who knew there was such a…

Those of you who have been by the English department on the 7th floor might have noticed the department’s empty bulletin board. To put it to use, I’d like to suggest creating a “featured undergraduate” section for the department, where picture and biographies of some of the English department’s undergraduates can be displayed each semester….

English Majors! There is still room in this great course for fall taught by Professor Katherine Keller.  It will, of course, fulfill a pre-1700 requirement … but it will also be one of the best courses you take with us. Renaissance Drama ENGL 3810.11 Tues/Thurs 11:10-12:25 Professor Katherine Keller Shakespeare’s preeminent role in the early…

JEWISH LITERATURE LIVE What is a joke? More specifically, what is a Jewish joke? I have a feeling the answer would vary depending on who you were talking to. The answers the Marx Brothers would give you would likely be entirely different than the answer Woody Allen would have. However Howard Jacobson’s idea of a…

This semester I’m teaching a new course called “Myths of Britain,” a slow read of six works that are animated by the transnationalism of the Middle Ages. The class is the largest I’ve ever had: eighty students, most of them freshmen and sophomores. Contrast this behemoth with my course for the past two semesters: “Chaucer,”…