Congratulations to our new PhDs!

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,”…

David Bruce Smith, an alumnus of GW’s English Department, has published a new book entitled Three Miles from Providence: A Tale of Abraham Lincoln and the Soldier’s Home. The book is written for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Its publication coincides with the completion of the refurbishment of Lincoln’s Cottage in Washington, DC where…

Professor Robert McRuer recently won the Alan Bray Memorial Book Award for his book Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability. Since Prof. McRuer began to further his unique research in the combined fields of queer and disabilities studies, he has also edited an anthology, taught at GW, and continued to develop his ideas….

Former Jenny McKean Moore Writer in Residence Tayari Jones — one of the most beloved teachers ever to fill that position — maintains a lively blog. Recently she wrote about one of our own undergraduate English majors, Kirk Larsen, describing him as “one of my genius undergraduates.” If you follow that link, you will see…

Despite my reputation as Mean Old Professor Cohen, my former student Ivan Kander recently friended me on Facebook. He must be over the trauma of my exams — and considering that he graduated only a year ago (2007), that is a remarkably swift recovery. Ivan writes: During my time at GW, I was a very…

JEWISH LITERATURE LIVE After a week of being trapped in his hotel room, Howard Jacobson has spoken to more English classes and student groups than he can remember. Tonight he will make a appearance at Hillel and yesterday he finally visited Jewish Literature Live. So surprisingly, the author of Kalooki Nights (probably the most Jewish…