The Department of English congratulates Professor Angus Fletcher for receiving the 2020 Rodica C. Botoman Award for Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching and Mentoring. As stated in the ASC press release, this award recognizes “a member of the humanities faculty who best exemplifies excellence as a teacher of undergraduates." In addition, “performance as a mentor or advisor and use of innovative teaching strategies for the advancement of learning” are also considered. 

Angus Fletcher is a professor of both English and film studies at The Ohio State University. Fletcher studies the usefulness of literature as a practical tool, and his specialties include rhetorical analysis, story engineering and screenwriting. Recently, Fletcher performed a study with the Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. This study, described by Fletcher for a recent Research Spotlight, explores “whether modern movie fairytales might have a dampening effect on optimism because they exchange the luck-based storyworlds of the early modern fairytales found in Giovanni Francesco Straparola's The Playful Nights with storyworlds that turn on poetic justice, innate virtue and other forms of a priori morality.” Fletcher’s publications include Comic Democracies: From Ancient Athens to the American Republic, Evolving Hamlet and the upcoming Wonderworks: The 25 Most Powerful Inventions in the History of Literature.