Professor of English Michael Saenger co-authored an essay with Cary Nelson, who is Professor Emeritus of English and Jubilee Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and served as president of the American Association of University Professors between 2006 and 2012. The essay, entitled, “When Discourse about Israel Becomes Antisemitic: A Guide for the Perplexed.” Fathom is a prominent British journal that focuses on the Middle East. Read the essay here.

Professor of English Michael Saenger delivered an invited talk at the Academic Engagement Network’s Short Course in Miami on January 9. The talk was entitled “Addressing Challenges in the Humanities & Social Sciences: Toward a Better Understanding & Use of Key Terms in Combating BDS and Israel Delegitimization.”

Professor of English Michael Saenger published a pamphlet with the Academic Engagement Network titled Finding Common Ground: A Strategy for Combating the Anti-Israel Movement in the U.S. Academy

Professor of English Michael Saenger published a review of  Hamlet Translations: Prisms of Cultural Encounters across the Globe , edited by Márta Minier and Lily Kahn. The review appeared in  Translation Studies,  a leading international academic journal.

Assistant Professor of English Rebecca Evans published a reflection on teaching Octavia Butler’s novel Parable of the Sower as part of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment’s Zoom In pedagogy series.

Assistant Professor of English Rebecca Evans took part in the symposium The Aesthetics of Infrastructure/The Infrastructure of Aesthetics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, which was held April 21–22. An interdisciplinary group of scholars shared their work on infrastructure and the environmental humanities at the event.

Professor of English and Austin Term Chair Eileen Cleere has had an article accepted for publication by Children’s Literature Association Quarterly.The essay, “Going Downtown: ‘Right Reading,’ Mental Hygiene, and the Adolescent Sublimation of Victorian Sensation,” was first presented as a Paideia Connections Lecture in 2015.

Professor of English and Austin Term Chair Eileen Cleere presented a paper at the 2022 Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies (INCS) Annual Conference, held March 24–27 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her paper, “The Stratified Family Story: Dinah Mulock Craik’s The Head of the Family (1852) and the Problem of Pedophilia,” is part of a larger project about the discourses of rape, grooming, and sexual assault within the genre of fiction known as the Victorian family story. Cleere also chaired a panel titled “Queer Studies, Performance, and Desire.”

Professor of English and Austin Term Chair Eileen Cleere has been promoted to first vice president of Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies (INCS), an international group of scholars dedicated to interdisciplinary discussion and research.

Professor of English and Austin Term Chair Eileen Cleere’s article “Rape in Public: Overlooking Child Sexual Assault in Charlotte Mary Yonge’s The Daisy Chain” was published in Victorian Literature and Culture. Morgan Mosby ’20, Cleere’s former undergraduate research assistant, helped frame the initial ideas for the essay around issues of rape’s historic invisibility within literary and feminist criticism.

Assistant Professor of English Rebecca Evans was featured in conversation with American Book Award-winning and Man Booker Prize-shortlisted novelist Ruth Ozeki on an episode of the podcast Novel Dialogues.The episode is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and elsewhere online.

Recently retired Professor of English and holder of the McManis University Chair Helene Meyers recently published two reviews of films that focus on reproductive justice. Her review of Aftershock, a documentary on the epidemic of Black maternal mortality, appeared on the Lilithblog, and her review of My So-Called Selfish Life, a documentary on childfree women, was published by the Jewish Women’s Archive blog.

Recently retired Professor of English and holder of the McManis University Chair Helene Meyers talked about her new book Movie-Made Jewson the Revealerpodcast, hosted by New York University’s Center for Media and Religion. An excerpt from her book was also published in the February issue of the Revealer online magazine.