Department of English, College of LAS, University of Illinois


Illinois Department of English Blog

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Welcome to the Department of English blog.



My name is Vicki Mahaffey and I took over as
head of the department on July 1, 2016. I'll be using this site to post updates and information of interest to our faculty, students, and alumni,
along with reflections about our discipline(s) in particular and the humanities in general. As anyone who has ever worked or studied here knows, the Department of English is a vibrant place. If you have something you'd like to see posted here, or if you want to contact me about the content of this blog, drop me an email at vmahaffe@illinois.edu.


Sunday, August 24, 2014

Welcome (Back) . . . Teaching Excellence

I am pleased to welcome everyone back for the 2014-2015 academic year! I hope you have managed to have a relaxing summer and are feeling ready for the new semester.

I’m excited about the coming year not least because we’re welcoming several terrific new colleagues to the department. Candice Jenkins comes to us from Hunter College, where she was an Associate Professor of English. She works on contemporary African American literature and especially issues of sexuality and class. Irvin Hunt also joins us as a specialist in twentieth-century African American literature; Irvin just completed a PhD at Columbia University and has interests in comedy and satire. Candice and Irvin will both have joint appointments with the Department of African American Studies. We are equally happy to welcome Eric Pritchard, who comes to us from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was an Assistant Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies; he’ll be joining our Writing Studies faculty and continuing his work on black queer literacies and other topics. We also have two new Visiting Assistant Professors. John Gallagher just received a PhD from the University of Massachusetts and works in the areas of writing studies and digital media. Jamie Jones received a PhD from Harvard and joins us from the University of Michigan. She works on environmental humanities and late nineteenth-century American literature. In addition, Natalie Mesnard, a graduate of our MFA program, is taking on a position as Lecturer, and Carrie Dickison, a PhD candidate in our literature program, is taking on a position as Instructor.

There are new faces among departmental leaders as well. Tim Newcomb has taken over from Spencer Schaffner as Associate Head and Dale Bauer is our new Director of Undergraduate Studies, replacing Lori Newcomb. I’m very grateful to Spencer and Lori for doing so much to make my first year as Head as smooth as possible, and I’m looking forward to working with Tim and Dale. I’m also grateful to Andrea Stevens, who is serving as Graduate Placement Director while Justine Murison is on sabbatical, and to Kirstin Wilcox, who has been working with Dale to start a new internship program for our majors.

In other news, we have recently received the new List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by their Students for the spring semester. As ever, we are well represented on this list. All of us—tenure-track faculty, lecturers and instructors, graduate teaching assistants—are dedicated to our students and it shows (among other ways) in how extensive the list always is:

Laura Bandy, Iryce Baron, Rob Barrett, Jensen Beach, Michael Behrens, Martin Camargo, Sarah Cassinelli, Debojoy Chanda, Erin Chandler, John Claborn, Mary Rose Cottingham, Esther Dettmar, Carrie Dickison, John Dudek, Meghan Dykema, Patrick Fadely, Jill Fitzgerald, Jein Funk, Naida Garcia-Crespo, Shawn Gilmore, Catherine Gray, Nolan Grieve, Joe Grohens, Ceridwen Hall, Jim Hansen, Justin Hanson, William Hechler, Marilyn Holguin, Ann Hubert, DeAvery Irons, Miguel Jimenez, Daniel Kelly, Mary Lindsey, Melissa Littlefield, Trish Loughran, Sean MacIntyre, Michael Madonick, Vicki Mahaffey, Bob Markley, Patrick McGrath, Lee McGuire, Erin McQuiston, Erica Melko, Jessica Mercado, Natalie Mesnard, Matthew Minicucci, Feisal Mohamed, John Moore, Dave Morris, Andrew Moss, Justine Murison, John Musser, Richard Nardi, Hina Nazar, Katherine Norcross, Valerie O’Brien, Michael Odom, Audrey Petty, Catherine Prendergast, Julie Price, Scott Ricketts, Gregory Rodgers, Richard Rodriguez, Carla Rosell, John Rubins, Ariana Ruiz, Sandra Ruiz, Julia Saville, Spencer Schaffner, Jordan Sellers, Alex Shakar, Michael Shetina, Siobhan Somerville, Carol Spindel, Andrea Stevens, Elizabeth Tavares, Eric Thomas, Renee Trilling, Gregory Webb, Sara Weisweaver, Lucilena Williams, Zachary Williams, Jessica Wong, and Jessica Young.


That’s the news for now. Hope to see you back here soon on the English blog…

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