“The Homesick Restaurant”

A few years ago GW initiated a Writing in the Disciplines (WID) program to ensure that the attention to writing given in the first year of study continues thereafter. I’m naturally skeptical of all initiatives, especially when they come bearing acronyms, but I have to say that the WID program is very well thought out…

To mark the beginning of June and as a nod to our 2009 graduates, this week GW English News will feature a five part interview with alumnus Mark Olshaker. A 1972 graduate of the English Department, Olshaker has put his B.A. in English to good use as a writer, filmmaker, and dilettante who has collaborated…

The following is taken from Tayari Jones’s recent essay “Symbolism and Cynicism,” published in The Believer: The irony is that those who would opt out of Black History Month share the goals of its founder. Although many black people grumble that it is not their responsibility to educate white people about our worth, most would…

On October 23 2009 at 5 PM, Professor Rosemarie Garland-Thomson of Emory University will deliver the inaugural GW English Distinguished Lecture in Literary and Cultural Studies in the Marvin Center Continental Ballroom. Her talk will be entitled The Gas Chamber and the Metro: Space, Mobility, and Disability. Professor Garland-Thomson is a founder of Disability Studies,…

Cathy Eisenhower, the Gelman Library subject specialist for English, has created two excelelnt research guides that will be of great use to many who read this blog: British Literature American Literature Thank you, Cathy! Share on FacebookTweet

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,”…