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From Words to Worlds

Welcome to the Department of English!

The Department of English seeks to provide for the diverse needs of its students by offering them the opportunity to read widely, to understand and enjoy what they read, and to express themselves both orally and in writing with ease, force and clarity. Through the practice of writing and the study of language and literature, the department strives to stimulate humanistic learning and the capacity to respond rationally and imaginatively to literature and the life it reflects.

Contact Us

Department of English

202 Andrews Hall
Lincoln NE 68588-0333
402-472-3191
402-472-9771 (fax)

About Lincoln

Upcoming Events

Prairie Schooner Book Prize Winners Symposium

Prairie Schooner Book Prize WinnersOn February 15-16 the Prairie Schooner Book Prize Winners Symposium will feature with four visiting prize winner authors:

Monday, February 15: 3p.m. panel discussion on Sources and Resources for Writers
7:30 p.m.: readings by Anne Finger (Call Me Ahab) and Kara Candito (Taste of Cherry)

Tuesday, February 16: Noon panel discussion on Revision and Editorial Advice
3:00 p.m.: readings by Paul Guest (Notes for My Body Double) and Mari L'Esperance (The Darkened Temple)

All events are in Bailey Library, Andrews Hall and free and open to the public. A flier for this event is available here.

Writer-in-Residence, Randall Kenan

March 8, Monday, Writer-in-Residence, Randall Kenan, will read from his fiction and nonfiction, 7 p.m., at The Center for Great Plains Studies Gallery. Reception to follow. Free and open to the public.

Please note that Randall Kenan will be in residence at UNL, teaching a fiction writing workshop, March 1-12.

Kenan is the author of six books, including Let the Dead Bury Their Dead, a book of stories which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle, named a New York Times Notable Book, and nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Fiction. Kenan strongly identifies with being both African American and gay, exploring both through his work on James Baldwin and Walking on Water: Black American Lives at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers Award, and the John Dos Passos Prize. He is currently a professor at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Breaking News

Julie IromuanyaJulie Iromuanya has been awarded an Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award for 2010. Her adviser is Professor Jonis Agee.

Amanda GaileyAssistant Professor Amanda Gailey won first place in the ProQuest-RSAP (Research Society for American Periodicals) prize for scholarship in American periodicals. The award of $1000 recognizes the best article on American periodicals by a pre-tenure scholar published in or accepted by a peer-reviewed academic journal in 2008 or 2009.   Amanda won for her essay "Walt Whitman and the King of Bohemia: The Poet in the Saturday Press," first published in The Walt Whitman Quarterly Review   One judge observed, "it was a remarkable, deeply researched piece. . . a prime example of the best scholarship in the history of the book--and periodical studies in particular." Another remarked that it is a "compelling and elegantly-told story that sheds new light on the rise of Whitman's national reputation and offers fresh insights into the development of literary celebrity by tracing the publicity that preceded the 1860 publication of Leaves of Grass." The top three entries will be presented at a panel at the upcoming American Literature Association conference in May.

Related Websites

Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery

2010 Literary Contests

Students are encouraged to enter department literary contests. Prizes range from $75 to $2000. The deadline for entries is March 5, 2010. Entry forms are available in the English Department office in room 202 Andrews Hall.

For More News

The Aesthetics of British Romanticism, Then and Today

Professor Stephen Behrendt is preparing to offer an NEH Summer Seminar for College Teachers in the summer of 2010, on the subject of British Romanticism and aesthetics. The seminar will run for five weeks, from June 7, 2010 through July 9, 2010. It is open to a maximum of sixteen college and university teachers from around the country, who will work and study here at UNL under Dr. Behrendt's general guidance. A detailed description is available on his website.

Recent Books Published by Department Faculty

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Listen to Ted Kooser reading "So This Is Nebraska"

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Video by Wessels Living History Farm.