“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 […]
Category: The Scarlet Newsletter
Wendy Rawlings’ Time for Bed
Wendy Rawlings’ new collection of short stories, Time for Bed, opens with a devastating story. In “Coffins for Kids!” a mother goes in search for the perfect casket after her daughter is killed in a school shooting reminiscent of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012. The story ends, not with the casket, burial, […]
Appreciating Randall Keenan: A Conversation with Professor Andy Crank
Dr. Andy Crank is an associate professor of American literature in the Department of English at The University of Alabama. He received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has been a featured contributor to the BBC and speaker on PBS’s Great American Read. He also is the host of […]
Kwoya Fagin Maples’ Mend Gives Life to Women
Modern gynecology and obstetrics blossomed under deeply rooted racism. UA alumna Kwoya Fagin Maples captivates her readers with her new book of poetry, Mend, as she explores Black women’s unacknowledged and forgotten wounds and their links to the present. She brings to life the enslaved women whose bodies were exploited and used as experiments at […]
Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance Studies Symposium Focuses on “The Future of Teaching Shakespeare”
When the Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance Studies began in 1990, the University of Alabama and the discipline of literary studies were very different from what they are today. At that time, UA had a total enrollment of under twenty thousand students. Now commonplace scholarly methods like, the digital humanities, were either unheard of or […]
Tuscaloosa Through Time: A Local Journey with Serena Blount
Serena Blount earned her bachelor’s degree from Mississippi University for Women and her master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Alabama in the field of American Literature. She lives in one of Tuscaloosa’s historic districts and is currently compiling historical documents relating to the settlement of Newtown, which slightly predates the establishment of Tuscaloosa, […]
Faculty Profile: Dr. Robert Poole
Robert Poole joined the faculty at The University of Alabama in Fall 2018, but his arrival marked a homecoming, as he received both his undergraduate degree and his M.A. at Alabama. It was his journeys far from Alabama, though, that led him into applied linguistics and TESOL. After earning his undergraduate degree, Poole worked for […]
Heather Wyatt’s New Book My Life With(out) Ranch
According to her publisher, Heather Wyatt is a “teacher and writer by day and food-TV junkie by night.” As an undergraduate, she majored in American Studies at The University of Alabama and earned her MFA from Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky. Her poetry has been published in a number of journals including Number One, Puff […]
Welcoming UA’s New Victorianist: A Conversation with Professor Daniel Novak
Associate Professor Daniel Novak recently joined UA’s English department after previously teaching at Tulane University, Louisiana State University, and the University of Mississippi. He received his doctorate from Princeton University in 2002, specializing in Victorian literature. He is the author of Realism, Photography, and Nineteenth-Century Fiction (Cambridge University Press, 2008), and co-editor of ‘Masculinity Lessons’: Rethinking […]
Public Statement to President Bell regarding Dean Riley’s resignation
Note from the Chair: On 9/23/19, the English department faculty voted unanimously to release the following statement. –David Ainsworth, Chair Dear President Bell, This letter is written on behalf of concerned faculty in the English Department in the wake of the recent departure of Dr. Jamie Riley, formerly Vice President and Dean of Students at […]