On January 24-26, GW was the proud host of the university’s first Digital Humanities Symposium Patty Chu and Peter Feng After all the excitement, some of the symposium participants spoke about the purpose of the symposium, how they became involved, and what digital technology could mean for the future of multiple fields (such as our…
Nikki Giovanni at the microphone; Toni Morrison seated in the wheelchair on the right, with Maya Angelou (less visible) in the wheelchair on the left. In Blacksburg, Virginia, on October 16th, 2012, James Madison University presented the Furious Flower Lifetime Achievement Award to two of America’s most recognized authors, Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou. This…
Professor Chu describes “Narratives of Return: Transpacific Returns in Asian American Literature” at Renmin University On Wednesday, December 26, I gave a talk for English language and literature students and scholars at Renmin University in Beijing. The university, also known as People’s University of China, was founded in 1950 as the first national university…
David McAleavey and Witi Ihimaera As the semester begins, the English Department Blog is happy to revive its “On the Road” series, occasional short pieces detailing the comings and goings of our illustrious faculty. As this photo shows, Professor David McAleavey got together with a former GW World Literature Fellow, the Maori writer Witi Ihimaera….
October can be an interesting time for literature professors writing about contemporary novelists, because the Swedish Academy announces the Nobel Prize in Literature during this time, changing the fate of little-known masters overnight or causing controversies around acclaimed authors to arise. Many English departments offer courses on world literature and Nobel laureates. This…
If you are a close reader of this blog, you’ve likely noticed that I’ve been posting an awful lot lately. I suppose it is time to finally come out of the closet: I am indeed the new chair of the English Department at the George Washington University. I have been happy to be part of…
The Modern Language Association, or MLA, has been in the news lately for venturing into the Twitterverse with recommendations on how to cite a Tweet. The association representing English professors, the MLA released its recommendations on the Web and on Twitter, where it engendered a lively discussion. Now the issue of Twitter citation style has…
That’s me at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in conversation with Lauren Onkey last week. Last week I had the pleasure of speaking at a screening of the new documentary Godmother of Rock: The Rosetta Tharpe Story at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland. The event kicked off…
This just in from Prof. Robert McRuer, who just returned from the University of Vienna, where he presented his lecture “Defections: Globalizing Queerness and Disability” as part of a daylong event titled “Barriere-frei?! Perspektiven der Disability und Gender/Queer Studies auf die Hochschullandschaft” [Barrier-free?! Perspectives on Disability and Gender/Queer Studies in Higher Education]. Prof. Robert McRuer…
This is the inaugural post of On the Road, an occasional blog series about GW English Professors and their scholarly travel. In an age of Skype and video conferencing, travel to conferences or to other institutions remains an important way for scholars to share their work and learn about what their colleagues elsewhere are doing…
