The University of Tulsa Department of English & Creative Writing

“Nonsense! From Carroll and Lear through Wilde and Sitwell to the Postmodern”: catch this title by faculty member Holly A. Laird. Sprung from the belly of a blog for the OCH seminar on humor in 2015, the article is now published in The Routledge Companion to Absurdist Literature (2024).

MA student Zachary Short recently presented at the "Failure in Anglophone Print and Audiovisual Culture" conference in Cannes, France and hosted by the Université côte d’azur. His paper looked at Tommy Wiseau’s film The Room and examined what might make seemingly bad movies more fun to watch than good ones.

Thank you to Jeff Drouin (inset) for organizing the 2024 Society for Textual Scholarship conference at TU this past weekend. Also immense thanks to the graduate students who helped pull it together: Elham Alizade, Elizabeth Bailey, Danika Bryant, MaKayla Davis, and Thomas Von Borstel! And here's a picture of more of our grad students presenting on their digital work on 1922 in Modernism. #.et.verre

Happy Pride Month! The parade's moved to October so that Ooooo-klahomans can spend June enjoying the air-con and a good book or 2 or 3. Your local Tulsa public library has some voices you might want to hear: https://www.tulsalibrary.org/lgbt-recs.

Congratulations to Stewart Habig (PhD 2018), who this past year was hired as Assistant Professor of English at Langston University. Oklahoma’s only HBCU, Langston will see Stewart teaching English literature and composition, and no doubt courses based on his dissertation on jazz aesthetics in American literature. We love when our students build careers around their passions. Way to go Stewart!

Kenyon Blunt, a student in Carl Antanowicz’s “Introduction to Creative Writing” class, has just won an award from the Oklahoma Writers’ Federation. It was for a slam poem entitled “Press 9 for Customer Service,” which he wrote as part of his class work. Kenyon thanks Carl “for the inspiration and guidance you gave me. … I’m glad you got me out of my comfort zone.” We’re glad too Kenyon!

Alumna Liz Polcha (BA 2010) has been awarded a prestigious fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies! An Assistant Professor at Drexel U in English and digital humanities, Liz's award is to conduct work on her forthcoming monograph _Venus in Transit: Gendered Violence and the Production of Natural History_. We love hearing about past students' amazing career paths.

Congratulations to Lily McCully! She's just become the Youth Librarian at the Bartlett-Carnegie Supulpa Public Library. The job will emphasize community engagement, something Lily is brilliant at. So thrilled she has found the perfect fit for her spirit. Lily received her PhD in our program in 2021.

Getting set up for a reception for our graduates!

Congratulations to all of the English/CW graduate students who just graduated! We are so proud of you all. It means so much to us to see you getting the recognition you so richly deserve. Here our two hooded PhD graduates Dr. Jacob Crystal and Dr. Layne Farmen feel the love in the room.

Congratulations to Ruben Parades and Nicolette Davis! They are the recipients of this year's Chair's Prize in English/CW. The award is given to graduating students who have had exceptional careers in our program. Thank you for your hard work and for inspiring so many other students. We can't wait to see what you do next!

Composition skills are crucial to the education of all TU students. Prof Sara Beam and graduate student Stasha Cole (from the left, with panelist Tara Wood) presented at the latest Conference on College Composition and Communication in Spokane, Washington. Their research focuses on the ways in which intersectional disability pedagogies can intentionally value and attend to the generative potential of these approaches.

Congratulations to all our amazing students who were published in the latest issue of _Stylus_. That would include Yuhyeoi Kim (center), who won "Best in Show - Literature" and Sarah Hamer (far left), who won "Best in Poetry." Yuhyeoi (from Korea) is doing her Phd at TU in English, while Sarah (from Germany) is studying Computer Engineering.

Come celebrate out Creative Writing students!! Tonight! Live performances, guest speakers, and conviviality. The Stylus awards ceremony is free & open to the public! Light hors d'oeuvres & refreshments will be provided.

Congratulations to PhD student Grace Cosby! She has an article forthcoming in the peer-reviewed journal _Women's Studies_. Grace’s article is titled "The New Woman as an Image of the Public Intellectual." It uses Victorian and recent theories of intellectualism to re-envision the New Woman figure as not only an advocate for women’s rights but also a public intellectual. https://doi.org/10.1080/00497878.2024.2322717

Congratulations to Jacob Crystal (on the right), who organized a panel on q***r ecology and animal kinship for the Northeast MLA 2024 convention in Boston! He also presented his research on Thomas Hardy’s _Far from the Madding Crowd_. The work is part of his dissertation, which will lead to him graduating with his PhD in May! So much to be delighted about here.

Our outstanding grad students enjoying an evening together at the TU Graduate Students Awards Dinner -- where collegiality and intellectual engagement were on the menu. 🎉

"Was William Faulkner a Political Writer?" Prof. Robert Jackson recently gave an invited talk at the University of Mississippi, engaging with this question. Our students benefit regularly from his rich knowledge of Faulkner and American cultural politics in general. You're welcome Ole Miss!

Join English/CW and the Oklahoma Center for the Humanities, friends, & family in celebrating our undergrads who were part of this year's Tulsa Artist Fellows Mentorship program. Here's a picture of student Hannah Moua and her mentor TAFellow Matt Gallagher working on her novel! Join us this Wednesday, 101 Archer, at 7 pm. Celebratory readings, refreshments, and admiration will abound!

Excited for the launch of Grant Matthew Jenkin's latest book of poetry! Grant will read from _Contingencies of the Bourgeoisie_ this Wednesday at 7:00 pm at Magic City Books. Congratulations Grant. It looks beautiful.

Shout out to Mark Rideout and the Writing Center for being so proactive! They've been running a series of Writing pop-ups to help students on the fly with their assignments. At this point in the semester, it means so much to have such an amazing resource on campus. Thanks to the Writing Center team for all you do.

Brycchan Carey (Northumbria University) is the keynote speaker at the EGSA conference this Saturday! He will be speaking on 'Writing the Book of Nature: The Anglican Naturalist in the Literary Canon." Free to the public. Join us, April 13 from 3:00-4:00, 101 E. Archer St.

Erin go bragh! Prof. Jeffrey Drouin, editor-in-chief of the _James Joyce Quarterly_, gave a talk at the Tulsa Irish Festival in March. TU has published the journal for more than 60 years, making it a major community presence. Thanks Jeff!

Please join us for the launch of _After_, Geoffrey Brock's 3rd book of poetry. On Monday, Apr. 8, at 7 pm in Tyrrell Hall, Geoffrey will read with TU Presidential Professor Boris Dralyuk & Engish/CW MA student Stasha Cole. Geoffrey is the Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Arkansas.

Yep, that’s a chiropteran plushy. Why?Because PhD candidate Abigale Mazzo just got back from the Society for the Study of the American Gothic inaugural conference in Salem, MA. Her paper “Haunting Comfort: Reimagining the American Gothic in Kelly Link’s ‘The Specialist’s Hat’” engaged Link’s use of Gothic tropes to explore and challenge conventional ideas of death and childhood grief.

Check out our very own Professor Lars Engle, who spoke to Tulsa Ballet about Shakespeare and _Romeo & Juliet_. Tulsa Ballet just ran a performance of the play in March! https://vimeo.com/923534781/9518ad0cce?share=copy.

E/CW is thrilled to host poet William Wenthe on March 28 in Tyrrell Hall at 7:00. Refreshments will be served. His collection _The Gentle Art_ (2023) is designed around the work and life of the Victorian painter James McNeil Whistler and its influence on Wenthe himself.

You might know Whistler from John Ruskin's accusation that the artist's "Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket" basically consisted of somebody throwing a pot of paint at a canvas. Whistler sued (he loved controversy), and won, but the judge gave him only 1 pound in restitution.

Congratulations to Ciara Graham! She's just received a TU graduate summer fellowship to work on her dissertation. It uses the work of Frantz Fanon to address inter-racial relations in contemporary, postcolonial works. Way to go Ciara.

What a wonderful evening. Jenny Croft's Tulsa launch of _The Extinction of Irena Rey_. Famous for her translation work, TU Presidential Professor, Jenny offers a novel with a mycellial network of translators groping in the underbrush for an author. Congratulations Jenny!