English Department professor Marty Gould has won the University's Outstanding Research Achievement Award for 2012, sponsored by the Office of Research & Innovation. According to Dr. Karen Holbrook, Senior Vice President for Research, Innovation & Global Affairs, the award "recognizes faculty who have received truly exceptional recognition of their research with preeminent awards, grants, or publications in top journals." Gould received the award in recognition of his first book, Nineteenth-Century Theatre and the Imperial Encounter (Routledge, 2011). This award comes on the heels of two other major awards: a USF Proposal Enhancement Grant he won through the Division of Sponsored Research to support research for his new book project, Dickens, Adapted--a study of nineteenth-century dramatizations of Dickens's novels, and an NEH grant to direct a Summer Seminar for High School Teachers (Great Adaptations: Teaching Dickens through Literary and Cinematic Adaptations) in July 2011. We congratulate him on these impressive achievements!

Doctoral Candidate Kendra Bryant won first place in the poetry category of the College Language Association's Creative Writing Contest. Bryant is an advanced doctoral student in the English Department's Rhetoric and Composition track, currently completing her dissertation on contemplative pedagogy. Of her first-place win, Bryant says, “Winning the CLA Creative Writing Contest feels validating. Being awarded for my writing skills during the time at which I am writing a dissertation was the energy I needed to push forward. I am grateful." We are grateful to have you in our program, Kendra!

Professor Dianne Donnelly, a graduate of our Rhetoric and Composition program and Associate Director of FYC, has now published her second book in two years: Establishing Creative Writing Studies as an Academic Discipline. Dianne also has a third book that is being published in early 2012. We commend Dianne for her remarkable publishing accomplishments! A description and reviews of the book are available on Amazon.

Professor Meredith Zoetewey received one of only fifteen university-wide Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Awards for the 2010-2011 academic year. Professor Zoetewey was made aware of the award by a surprise visit to her Visual Rhetoric and Technical Communication class. Professor Zoetewey, who has been with the department since 2007, teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in professional and technical writing, rhetoric, and new media. We congratulate Professor Zoetewey on this remarkable achievement!

The Department of English congratulates undergraduate English literature major and English Honors student Cristina Solis (on the left) and graduate doctoral student Marisa Iglesias (on the right) on receiving USF's Successful Latina/o Student Award on 6 October 2011 at a formal ceremony with President Genshaft and Dr. Zalaquett at the annual Hispanic Heritage Celebration Kick-off event. This competitive award goes to USF Latina and Latino students who are meritorious and have made excellent achievements in the areas of academic research, service, and professional development. To receive this award the student must demonstrate high levels of both professional and ethical behavior. Dr. Mooney was proud to nominate Cristina and Marisa, and remarks, "They were outstanding among the awardees in coming from the English Department and the College of Arts and Sciences. ¡Felicitaciones!"

Professor Marty Gould's first book Nineteenth Century Theatre and the Imperial Encounter has just been published by Routledge. Gould's book argues that as an active participant in the real-world drama of empire, the Victorian theatre produced popular images that reflected, interrogated, and reinforced imperial policy: through plays and spectacles the British public vicariously encountered the sights and sounds of the distant imperial periphery.

Congratulations to Karen Brown (also known as Karen Gonzalez), instructor in creative writing and USF alumna, who has been awarded the 2011 Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction for her collection Little Sinners and Other Stories. This marks the second time that Karen has won a prestigious national prize in fiction for a full-length manuscript. To read the announcement, please visit the Prairie Schooner Book Prize Series page. For more information on Karen Brown, please visit her author site.

On February 9th and 10th the USF Creative Writing program held the university’s first creative writing symposium, Blank Pages. The symposium took place at the Marshall Student Center and ran in conjunction with 6X6 Reading at Felicitous Coffee and Tea.

Featured readers included the following: Lola Haskins (Still, The Mountain, and Desire Lines, New and Selected Poems), Poet Tim Seibles (Buffalo Head Solos) and author Jon Chopan (Pulled from the River). USF’s own Katherine Riegel (Castaway) and Ira Sukrungruang (Talk Thai) also read.

The symposium also featured lively panel discussions from current and past USF MFA students. Some of the panel topics included Profanity in Creative Writing, Writers in the Confessional, and Art and Comics as Literature.

The symposium's Facebook page is at http://www.facebook.com/events/353101431381900/.

The MFA Program ran their annual canned-food drive through November 10, 2011. The drive was part of Writers' Harvest, which took place this year on November 7, 7pm, at Ella's Folk Art Cafe. This year's featured readers were Erika Meitner, Michael Hettich, and our very own Karen Brown. The Harvest raised $300 for Feeding America and two overflowing boxes of canned food.

English Department professor Susan Mooney was the keynote speaker at the 2nd Annual Bloomsday Celebration by the Tampa Bay Arts and Education Network (tbae.net) on Friday, June 17. The event commemorated James Joyce and Ulysses with readings from his novel, live Irish music, and a limerick contest.

Adam Breckenridge was noted by film critic Roger Ebert for being the only known person to have viewed all of the 339 films on a list created by Ebert and dubbed "Great Movies." Breckenridge, a second-year PhD student studying Rhetoric and Composition, says that "[t]he reason you undertake something like the Great Films list is because if we don't give ourselves a compelling reason to push ourselves past our comfort zone we have a tendency to get stuck in a rut." Breckenridge's full letter to Ebert can be viewed on Ebert's Chicago Sun-Time blog, Robert Ebert's Journal.

The undergraduate literary journal thread, published by English students, was featured in USF news.

Kyle Stedman, a doctoral candidate in English with a concentration in Rhetoric and Composition, recently published an audio essay that explores how music speaks to its listeners and how listeners interpret the messages of music in an urban landscape. The audio essay was recorded by Stedman with an extensive sampling of various musical tracks and contributing voice-overs. The audio essay and transcript are published in the 2011 issue of Currents in Electronic Literacy.

MFA poetry student Jared White developed the idea for a poetry garden while taking Professor Laura Runge's class, Literature of Place: Florida. The garden will display poems in a dedicated spot at USF's Botanical Gardens for one year. Theresa Woods covered the story for USF News, which is available here.

English Department professor and feminist scholar Gary Lemons talks with Barbara Melendez of USF News about his scholarship and his identity as a black male feminist. The news story is available to read here.

English Department professor and journal editor Laura Runge recently launched the first issue of the interactive journal Aphra Behn Online. USF News reported on the journal's innovative format and its significance in making "the 18th Century relevant again." View the news story here, and check out the online journal at http://www.aphrabehn.org/aphraonline/.

"As long as there are journals as smart and engaging as Saw Palm, there will be at least as many readers as writers." That’s the verdict of NewPages.com reviewer Sima Rabinowitz, reviewing issue 4 of the English Department's literary journal, Saw Palm: florida literature and art. For the complete review, click here. Saw Palm subscription forms are available online. Issue 5 is due out in March 2011!

English Department professor Marty Gould has been awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to direct a Summer Seminar for School Teachers. Entitled "Great Adaptations," the seminar will offer a select group of junior high and high school teachers the opportunity to explore the potential use of adaptations in the teaching of Dickens (and nineteenth-century novels more generally). Hosted by the Dickens Project at the University of California at Santa Cruz, the seminar will take place July 3rd-30th, 2011. More information about the project can be found at http://dickens.ucsc.edu/NEH/.

The English Department's Academic Services Administrator Deedra Hickman wins one of ten College of Arts and Sciences staff awards honoring outstanding administrative service. The award was presented at the College of Arts and Science's annual Staff Appreciation Event held at the USF Botanical Gardens. Congratulations to Deedra on a well-deserved award!

Professor Jay Hopler is the recipient of a Rome Fellowship in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is one of only two writers named this year to receive one of the literature world’s most prestigious honors. It provides a one-year residency at the American Academy in Rome whose mission is to support advanced research and independent study in the humanities and fine arts. This recognition comes on the heels of winning the prestigious Whiting Writers' Award last October. The full USF news clip by Barbara Melendez can be read here.

On Friday, February 12, 2010, the MFA Program in Creative Writing, Saw Palm, Sweet: A Literary Confection, and YellowJacket Press came together and co-hosted Words to Help, Words to Heal: A Benefit Reading for Haiti at Dishtopia The Anytime Tea Bar in South Tampa. The venue was packed with about eighty plus readers, writers, and lovers of words, and along with the sweet scent of tea in the air, there was a true feeling of camaraderie. The combined efforts raised over $500.00, which will all go to The American Red Cross.

We are pleased to announce that Professor Pat Rogers has won a USF Outstanding Research Achievement Award. He is the only non-scientist to have won one this year. The award was presented October 9 at an Office of Research luncheon. He also received his Distinguished University Professor Award (see news clip) at an open reception hosted by President Genshaft on November 19.

It is our distinct pleasure to announce that Jay Hopler has won a 2009 Whiting Writers' Award. Professor Hopler teaches poetry at USF and is the author of the poetry collection Green Squall, as well as numerous poems published extensively in renowned literary journals and magazines. To read more about the award, please visit the foundation's website. An article highligting Professor Hopler's accomplishment can be found online in the St. Petersburg Times. Congratulations, Professor Hopler, on this outstanding accomplishment!

We are delighted to announce that Dr. Pat Rogers has been named USF's 2009 Distinguished University Professor (DUP). Being selected as a DUP involves an intensive internal and external review of the faculty member’s credentials that culminates in a selection by the Distinguished University Professor Recommending Committee. Being nominated for DUP status is a significant honor because it indicates that the individual has an outstanding scholarly record and has made significant contributions to USF and to her/his profession. We congratulate you, Dr. Rogers!

We are pleased to announce that three Graduate Teaching Assistants from the Department of English were honored at the Provost's Award ceremony on April 13, 2009. Quentin Vieregge, PhD candidate in Rhetoric and Composition, received the Certificate of Recognition for Outstanding Teaching by a Graduate Teaching Assistant; Cameron Hunt-Logan, PhD student in Literature, received the Provost's Commendation for Outstanding Teaching by a Graduate Teaching Assistant; and Jessica McKee, PhD student in Literature, received the Provost's Award for Outstanding Teaching by a Graduate Teaching Assistant. Congratulations to all three TAs on this truly significant acheivement!

Congratulations to all award recipients at this year's Department of English Honors and Awards Ceremony. We would also like to extend a special thanks to the donors of the awards, without whom this very special annual event would not be possible. To view a photo montage from the ceremony, please click on the postcard.

We are very pleased to announce that Professor Phillip Sipiora has won the Jerome Krivanek Distinguished Teacher Award.

The English department is pleased to announce that the latest edition of The Mailer Review, commemorating Norman Mailer's life, is now available for distribution. Contributors include Norman Mailer (three previously unpublished pieces), The Mailer Family, Don DeLillo, E. L. Doctorow, Günter Grass, Christopher Hitchens, William Kennedy, Sean Penn, Christopher Ricks, Philip Roth, Gay Talese, and many others. For insight into this edition and subscription information, please visit the Norman Mailer Society website.

PhD student Kendra Nicole Bryant was awarded the ZAMI Audre Lorde Scholarship, an award memorializing poet, activist, theorist, and educator, Audre Lorde. Bryant was recognized at an award ceremony in Atlanta, Georgia in September. Bryant is a second-year doctoral student in English with a concentration in Rhetoric and Composition, interested in questions that address perceptions of power and difference, particularly in race, and the implications in writing, reading and teaching. An article covering the award ceremony can be read in Atlanta's online publication, Project Q.

Dr. Pat Rogers, DeBartolo Professor in the English Department at the University of South Florida, has been elected to the British Academy with installation on September 22. On a par with the National Academy of Sciences in the United States, the British Academy focuses on the Social Sciences and Humanities. It was chartered in 1902 by King Edward VII. Each year it elects up to 38 Ordinary Fellows based in the United Kingdom and up to 10 Corresponding Fellows based elsewhere. Besides Dr. Rogers, the other scholars elected this year based in the United States are Daniel Kahneman of Princeton University, Martha Nussbaum of the University of Chicago, Peter Phillips of Yale University, and Bas van Fraasen of San Francisco State University. Past Fellows of the Academy include John Maynard Keynes, Karl Popper, Isaiah Berlin, Louis and Mary Leakey, A. J. P. Taylor, Kenneth Clark, C. S. Lewis, and Henry Moore. Election recognizes a scholar’s entire body of work. Dr. Rogers, a specialist in Eighteenth-Century British Literature, has authored or edited forty-four books. His most recent are The Cambridge Companion to Alexander Pope (Cambridge University Press, 2007) and Edmund Curll, Bookseller (Oxford University Press, 2007). An edition of papers from the 20th DeBartolo Conference is forthcoming from the University of Delaware Press. Rogers is currently working on a biography of British poet Alexander Pope.

The Florida Literary Arts Coalition now has an online calendar of literary events and readings by local and visiting writers. Please visit the calendar page to view upcoming events and to suggest an event.

The South Atlantic Modern Language Association Job Information List is now available. The SAMLA JIL includes announcements for faculty positions in departments of language and literature at institutions in the South Atlantic region (Maryland to Louisiana).

We are very pleased to announce that Susan Mooney has won an Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award and Jay Hopler has won an Outstanding Research Achievement Award. These are both competitive university awards and mark our success as a department as well the success of these individuals. Congratulations to both of them.

We are thrilled to introduce the newest addition to our graduate degree programs, the Master of Fine Arts. For detailed information on the program and admissions information, visit the MFA program page.

The English Department is pleased to announce the inaugural edition of The Mailer Review, an international journal dedicated to the life and work of Norman Mailer. The Mailer Review publishes articles, notes, biographical essays, digital portfolios, memoirs, book reviews, and creative works. For more information consult the editor, Dr. Phillip Sipiora, or the Mailer Review web page.