• Welcome

    We are an active and diverse scholarly community of over thirty full-time faculty members, more than 250 undergraduate majors, and some sixty graduate students in residence. We offer the B.A. in English and in English combined with Cinema Studies or Linguistics; the M.A.; and the Ph.D. Our wide variety of course offerings spans the study of American and English literature, including multi-ethnic American literatures and Anglophone and postcolonial literatures; rhetoric, composition, and writing; linguistics; cinema and drama; and representations of gender and sexuality.

    Please use the links on this page to learn more about our people, programs, and opportunities. Be sure to look at our Alumni E-Newsletter for examples of the achievements and activities of some of our graduates.

Spotlight

Professor Kathleen Coyne Kelly receives CSSH Dean’s Research Development Award

January 14, 2013

Professor Kathleen Coyne Kelly is one of the five inaugural recipients of the College of Social Sciences and Humanities Dean’s Research Development awards.  Kathleen will travel to Tintagel Castle in Cornwall as part of her research for her book manuscript, “Lost and Invented Ecologies: The Medieval Natural World,” which examines medieval literary texts, maps and other documents to explore the narratives of places that either no longer exist or have changed dramatically.

News

Laurie Edwards publishes book about Social History of Chronic Illness

April 12, 2013

Laurie Edwards has published In the Kingdom of the Sick: A Social History of  Chronic Illness in America (Bloomsbury/Walker, 2013).  Ms. Edwards, a Lecturer in the Writing Program, holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. She is developing a creative writing program for chronically ill children at Children’s Hospital Boston, for which she was recently awarded a Teachers as Writers Fellowship from the prestigious Calderwood Writing Initiative at the Boston Athenaeum.

Ms. Edwards will be appearing on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross, which will likely air in mid-April. Check her website for updates,  http://www.laurieedwardswriter.com.

 

*Update 4/12/13: Ms. Edwards’ Fresh Air interview can be heard online at: http://www.npr.org/2013/04/11/176688401/living-with-chronic-pain-in-the-kingdom-of-the-sick.

Laurie also has an new article on WBUR’s Cognoscenti blog at:http://cognoscenti.wbur.org/2013/04/12/sandwich-generation-laurie-edwards

Alicia Peaker Receives Scholar-in-Residence Award

April 03, 2013

The English Department congratulates doctoral candidate Alicia Peaker, who has been awarded a Friends of the Smith College Libraries (FSCL) Scholar-in-Residence Award.  The FSCL award supports research visits of four to six weeks for scholars using the rich resources of the Sophia Smith Collection and Smith College Archives.   During her period in residence Alicia will draw on these archives for work on her dissertation, “‘The Different Way We Tried to Respond’: Women, Literature, and the Environment, 1890-1950.”  FSCL scholars are expected to give a work-in-progress colloquium to the Smith College community during their residency.

Events