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Category: The Scarlet Newsletter

Cassie Smith’s New Book: Black Africans in the British Imagination

“Early” is the keyword when talking about Cassie Smith. Smith describes herself as an “early African Americanist and an early Americanist and an early Modernist.” Her new book, Black Africans in the British Imagination, explores representations of black Africans in the early Americas. Smith is interested in the narratives that lie outside the realm of typical slave narratives readers have come to expect. She explains, “Conventional wisdom says that the story of black Africans in the early Americas was about […]

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Shanti Weiland’s Sister Nun and the Zen of Typing

Shanti Weiland earned her Ph.D. in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Mississippi and has been an Instructor in the Department of English since 2008. Her book, Sister Nun, recently appeared from Negative Capability Press in 2016. Did the poems in Sister Nun create a theme for you, or did you envision a theme and then begin to write? In 2010, I was hanging out in a friend’s pool, on what was probably the last reasonable pool-day-weather, and lamenting […]

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Report: English Major Recruitment Task Force

In the fall 2016, Department Chair Joel Brouwer put together an ad hoc committee, or task force, to look into recruiting new English majors.  This faculty group, including Lauren Cardon, John Estes, James McNaughton, Luke Niiler, Deborah Weiss, Duncan Yoon, and, in fall semester, Ray Wachter—has extended its purview to increasing minors as well as majors, and has come up with improvements and suggestions for current practice. For instance, this semester, task force members have recommended creating a better sense […]

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Report: Diversity Committee Achievements

The Diversity Committee is comprised of five members—two tenure/tenure-track faculty, one instructor, one graduate student, and one undergraduate major. These members are Dr. Cassie Smith (chair), Dr. Nikhil Bilwakesh, Dr. Mary-Margaret Popova, Stephanie Parker (graduate student representative), and Maya Perry (undergraduate English major). Our basic charge is to keep track of all the ways the department promotes diversity in terms of the classes we teach, the lectures and symposia we sponsor and academic advising. At the end of the academic […]

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Interview with Dr. Michael Seth Stewart

“The key to editing and compiling someone else’s work is love,” says Dr. Michael Seth Stewart, a graduate of The University of Alabama’s New College as well as The Graduate Center of The City College of New York. “You really have to love the writer and want to put them out there,” he continues. Dr. Stewart explains, while leaning back on a bright red couch in the corner of the Ferguson Center, where he spends his office hours. Music hums […]

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Seeing it from all Sides: Sarah Sides Transitions into New Position with Department of English

Most UA undergraduates rarely see Sarah Sides even if they are the direct recipients of her hard work, scheduling their courses and classrooms. It’s easy to wonder how this UA alumna with a bachelor’s degree in marketing and French found herself working in the Department of English but to Sides, her arrival in Morgan Hall is no mystery. “I love Alabama,” she said. “I’ve always really liked the atmosphere, and I couldn’t think of a better place to work.” Sides […]

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Interview with Dr. Cajetan Iheka

In 2015, The University of Alabama’s Department of English welcomed Dr. Cajetan Iheka to its faculty. Dr. Iheka first attended college in Nigeria before coming to the United States and earned his PhD from Michigan State University. Recently, his paper, “Colonial Trauma in Oyono’s ‘Houseboy’ and Condé’s ‘Crossing the Mangrove’” won the African Literature Association’s Best Article Award for an outstanding article in African literary studies published in a major peer-reviewed journal. Reminiscing about his initial attraction to the United […]

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From the Deep South to the Big Apple, a Love of Literature Endures

A Jackson, Mississippi native, Alexandra Franklin graduated from The University of Alabama in 2014 with a BA in English and a minor in Creative Writing. Prior to her arrival at the capstone, Franklin earned the Presidential Scholarship and the Portfolio Gold Award from Scholastic’s Art & Writing Competition. In September of 2011, her essay “Revelations of a Feminist” appeared in The New York Times. While at UA, Franklin interned with the University’s Slash Pine Press. Franklin recently earned her MFA […]

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Interview with Poet, Abraham Smith

Abraham Smith studied Spanish Literature and Archaeology at the University of Wisconsin. After graduation, Smith lived in Europe then Austin, Texas—pursuing his passion for travel and experience. While in Austin, he honed his poetry craft and spent three years in the trenches as a public school substitute teacher. In 2000, continued his education in the MFA program at The University of Alabama. Smith has always had a passion for poetry, which he developed as a child listening to folk songs […]

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The Power of the Written Word: Amanda Bennett Draws from Literature and Rhetoric in Campus Activism

Most UA seniors spend their final year finishing degree requirements and preparing for careers, Amanda Bennett has achieved national recognition for her work on the WE ARE DONE campaign. Bennett, a double major in English and African American studies, spearheaded the WE ARE DONE protest in November 2015 with a group of her fellow students, catapulting The University of Alabama into the national spotlight alongside University of Missouri, Emory University, and other schools battling institutional racism. WE ARE DONE petitioned […]

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