Dear Alumni and Friends,
In December, right before the winter break, committee chairs and other leaders in the Department of English met together in the departmental Commons Room to talk about our shared work. To begin, we reflected on our department’s unifying purpose. “We read and teach the world, not just the book,” one group said. We teach students “how to read deeply and use thinking in writing,” said another. “We help people tell the stories they want to tell,” said a third.
In 2024, the stories students want to tell take many forms and use multiple genres and media, many of which we feature in this newsletter. The emergence of AI, in particular, continues to be top of mind. As part of the ART-ificial lecture series organized by Associate Professor Elissa Washuta, in December the department hosted a visit and lecture from Pulitzer Prize finalist Vauhini Vara, whose 2022 essay “Ghosts,” was written in dialog with the AI technology ChatGPT. In her lecture, Vara described how, though the technology helped her write a story she had otherwise not been able to tell, it also reaffirmed for her the importance of literary storytelling as a form “meant for humans to convey what it’s like to be human living in the world to other humans.” You can read more about her lecture below.
This newsletter also features stories that show the range of ways in which students are using their writing and storytelling skills within and beyond Denney Hall. The Young Writers Workshop, held each summer, encourages high school students to write and share their experiences through poems and stories. Our professional writing internships give undergraduate students like Richa Thakar the opportunity to practice their writing skills with partners in Columbus, such as the Supreme Court of Ohio. And our majors regularly combine their writing with other passions, such as Celeste Alva Jimenez’s creation of visual art and Elizabeth Holup’s archival research on cookbooks.
Our graduate students and faculty also continue to be recognized for their scholarly and creative writing. PhD student Jordan Woodward received the 2023 Nora Neale Hurston Award from the American Folklore Society, and MFA student Andrew Romriell is the only graduate student in the Division of Arts and Humanities to be awarded a 2023–24 Presidential Fellowship. Associate Professor Marcus Jackson was selected by a national jury as a recipient of a 2023 Greater Columbus Arts Council Artist Elevated award. You can also read below about Professor Hannibal Hamlin’s correspondence with the novelist Paul Griffiths, for whom allusion is a key form of meaning-making.
Thank you, as always, for your support as we continue to help people tell the stories they want to tell.
Susan Williams
Professor and Chair
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