PhD student, Khadeidra Billingsley, is on a roll (Tide!). In 2019, she placed second for the Carolyn P. Handa Teaching Award for Excellence in Teaching Composition and won the “People’s Choice” award at the Graduate School’s 3 Minute Thesis Competition. In 2020, Billingsley was awarded National Council of Teachers of English Early Career Educator of Color Leadership Award and presented “High School English Teachers’ Perceptions of Academic Writing” at NCTE’s annual convention. “Though I don’t need the recognition because teaching […]

Read More from Interview with Khadeidra Billingsley, Winner of the National Council of Teachers of English Early Career Educator of Color Leadership Award

Professor Elizabeth E. Tavares joined the Department of English in Fall 2020 as part of the Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance Studies. Tavares comes to the Department from her prior Assistant Professorship at Pacific University near Portland, Oregon. With a wide range of talents and interests, she brings unique and contemporary approaches to researching and teaching early modern English theatre to the Department. Tavares’s love of the theatre is rooted in her passion for music. She originally traveled from her […]

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For members of the UA Department of English, Dr. Steven Trout is well-known for his role chairing the Department through the challenges of an ongoing pandemic. However, his work on war and remembrance—specifically in terms of Modernist literature, and in broader cultural studies—is extensive and impressive. His most recent works, both published in 2020, are The Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Angel Fire: War, Remembrance, and an American Tragedy, and Portraits of Remembrance: Painting, Memory, and the First World War, a […]

Read More from The Work of Dr. Steven Trout: A Study of Memory and Conflict

Syllabus diversity; class accessibility; inclusivity and accommodation: These concerns are front and center in higher education. For The University of Alabama Department of English, Lauren Cardon and Jenifer Park have helped develop programming to show practical ways that teachers can address these concerns, both in the classroom and in the campus community. Cardon and Park are co-coordinators of the Diversity Initiative. The project began as a goal of 2019-2020 department chair, David Ainsworth “to promote efforts to integrate more diversity […]

Read More from Lauren Cardon and Jenifer Park: Helping Build Diversity in the Classroom and Community

Dr. David Ainsworth is an associate professor of seventeenth century British literature as part of the Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance studies here in UA’s Department of English. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This past year, Professor Ainsworth served as interim chair of the Department of English. Prior to his departmental leadership, Ainsworth served as the first communications director of the Milton Society of America from 2013-2017. His latest book, Milton, Music, and Literary Interpretation: Reading through […]

Read More from Of Milton, Music, and Literature: A Conversation with Professor David Ainsworth

Tell us about your background. Why did you decide to attend UA? I’m an English and finance double major from Peachtree City, GA. I wanted to go to a big school out of state but still stay close to home. I’m also a National Merit Finalist, which means that I get 10 free semesters of tuition, and that definitely played a role in me deciding to come here! When and why did you began to write prose?  I began writing […]

Read More from UA Undergraduate, Lota Erinne, Wins Greer Marechal Memorial Award in Fiction

Alexus M. Cumbie is a senior at the University of Alabama studying Political Science and Business Management with a specialization in Human Resources. On campus, she serves as President of the NAACP, Education Advancement Chair to the Theta Sigma Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., and the Vice President of the Anderson Society. Cumbie is a member of the Mortar Board, Elliot Society, and the XXXI honor societies. Her poetry has appeared in the American Library of Poetry. She […]

Read More from UA Undergraduate, Alexus Cumbie, Wins Greer Marechal Memorial Prize in Creative Non-Fiction

“My job,” says Michael Martone, “is to open up spaces of wonder and delight and surprise for the audience.” This comment comes as Martone is set to retire from UA this spring, after more than four decades teaching creative writing. But the work—the writing and responding to other people’s writing—will continue, he insists. What will go is the constant ping of e-mail and the response to surveys that request just 20 more minutes of his time. But the writing will […]

Read More from On Retirement and the Work that Comes After: Michael Martone