Department Faculty
Kimberly Emmons, PhD University of Washington Assistant Professor Rhetoric and composition; medical rhetoric
Christopher Flint, PhD Univ. of Pennsylvania Associate Professor Eighteenth-century British literature; history of the novel
T. Kenny Fountain, PhD University of Minnesota Assistant Professor Scientific and technical communication; visual rhetoric
Sarah Gridley, MFA University of Montana Lecturer and Poet in Residence Poetry
Mary Grimm, MFA Cleveland State University, Associate Professor Fiction writing
Ted Gup, JD Case Western Reserve University Shirley Wormser Professor Journalism
Kurt Koenigsberger, PhD Vanderbilt University Associate Professor & Director of Composition Twentieth-century British literature
James Kuzner PhD Johns Hopkins University Assistant Professor Renaissance literature; Shakespeare
William Marling, PhD University of California, Santa Barbara, Professor American literature; populqr culture, modernism
Todd Oakley, PhD University of Maryland Associate Professor Linguistics,cognitive rhetoric
Judith Oster, PhD Case Western Reserve University Professor American literature; English as a second language
William Siebenschuh, PhD University of California, Berkeley Professor and Chair Eighteenth-century British
Robert Spadoni , PhD University of Chicago Assistant Professo,r Film
Gary Stonum, PhD Johns Hopkins University Ovatt Professor American literature; literary theory
Thrity Umrigar , PhD Kent State University Associate Professor Journalism; fiction writing
Athena Vrettos , PhD U Pennsylvania Associate Professo, Victorian literature; history of medicine
Martha Woodmansee , PhD Stanford University Professor, Eighteenth-Nineteenth-century literature; intellectual property law
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Letter from the Chair
Writing the first letter in decades to alumni and friends of the English Department at Case Western Reserve is a daunting rhetorical task. Why now?To explain properly, it's best to begin at the beginning. Some of us who were hired in the 1970's and are still around remembered the Sherry Hours and the poets and speakers who visited and read here in the hey day of Bob Wallace and Bits Press—Updike, Alan Ginsburg, Mary Oliver. Hoping to make current students and faculty more aware of the department's history and some of its great traditions, we held a “First Annual Alumni Poetry Reading” in October 2007. Bonnie Jacobson, Al Cahen, and P.K. Saha read to a standing room only crowd in Guilford Parlor and brought down the house.
Encouraged by the success of the reading, we decided to make a major effort to reach out to a bigger circle of friends. In March 2008, we invited area alumni to a reception at the University's new Alumni House at which we celebrated important books recently published by professors Gup, Koenigsberger, Marling, Spadoni, and Umrigar. Attendance was again encouraging and talking with the Cleveland-area alumni who attended was instructive. After greeting old friends I hadn't seen in years, I made a point of introducing myself to a gentleman I didn't recognize. He was an alumnus from the 1940s. I asked if he knew anybody present? No he didn't. After a few more minutes, I asked him why he'd come. With a hint of a smile he said, “I just wanted to see what was going on in the department after all this time.”
More than anything else the object of this letter is to begin a process of reaching out to our alumni—in the immediate area or wherever they may be--and letting people know what's going on in the department. We think it is an especially good time to do so. The major is thriving, and the graduate program is strong. Our faculty are publishing significant books, scholarly, fictional, and non-fictional. They continue to be nominated for major teaching and mentoring awards. Our efforts to launch an innovative Center for the Study of Writing have had initial success in attracting support, as has our work to grow the Salomon Fund, which provides vital support to graduate students. The newer faculty who have joined us in the past few years have added depth and vibrancy to our programs. We have just hired a specialist in early modern literature (who can teach Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton) and a specialist in rhetoric—digital and visual as well as traditional. Both arrive this fall, and between them they will add depth and strength to our programs in traditional literature and Writing History & Theory. In short, we're on something of a roll.
We learned—or were reminded—of the importance of the department's past and the many ways in which increased contact with the traditions, events, and people that are the department's history and legacy can enrich our lives and programs in the present and we hope vice versa . So get ready. This is just the beginning. We want to keep you informed about what we're doing. We're going to have more events like the ones this year. We hope that many of you can attend, and we'll seek your support for exciting new programs.
What was it somebody or other said, “Only connect”? I couldn't have put it better myself. -- William R. Siebenschuh, Chair
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HIGHLIGHTS
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