Professor Emerita of English Helene Meyers published English Majors at Work: Career and Life Pathways (Rutgers UP). Read about the book here.

Professor and Chair of English Eileen Cleere delivered a paper at the meeting of the Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Association, held from July 21–24 in Washington, D.C. The conference was a collaboration with the Nineteenth-Century Studies Association, the International Nineteenth-Century Studies Association, and Smithsonian American History and American Art Museums. Her paper, “The Complicity Machine: Assault, Trafficking and Abuse in Charlotte Mary Yonge’s The Clever Woman of the Family (1865),” is part of a larger project that seeks to reframe what sexual assault, grooming, and trafficking might look like in Victorian domestic fiction, especially in the wake of #MeToo.

Professor of English Michael Saenger hosted a webinar for Academic Engagement Network on the topic of “Rebuilding Campus Civility amid Global Unrest.” The webinar featured Rabbi Meir Muller of the University of South Carolina, speaking on pro-Blackness and pro-Jewishness, Gunther Jikeli of Indiana University, speaking on collaboration with Israeli universities, and Naama Kanarek of Harvard University and the Kalaniyot Foundation, speaking on collaboration with Israeli medical research. The event was very well attended by professors nationwide. The webinar can be viewed here.

Assistant Professor of English Vallaire Wallace presented on a panel at CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies’ “Queer-Class Relations Conference,” held at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City. The panel was called “Queer Erotics of Class Crossover,” and was facilitated by Aaron Lecklider of UMass Boston. Dr. Wallace’s paper, titled “Homosociality At Sea: Hughes, The Big Sea and Class Consciousness,” focuses on reading Langston Hughes’ 1940 biography The Big Sea through a queer lens, with attention to how same-sex desire shadows his class encounters abroad, especially while in Nigeria.

Director of Public Engagement Manda Wittebort and English alum McKenzie Rentie ’25 facilitated an interactive workshop session, titled “Time Together as Ritual: Practicing the Art of Facilitation,” at South by Southwest EDU. Nearly 100 nationwide participants from a diversity of sectors continued to find both facilitators throughout the entirety of the conference to offer positive feedback and express a desire to learn more from them. Attending their first SXSW, the pair was incredibly excited to build connections and community, and to speak to the importance of collaborative culture-making. Grounded in social justice and lived experience, attendees were invited to reflect on the knowledge they all are already equipped with to build meaningful connections and create sub-cultures, consider what roadblocks and challenges are keeping them from the approaches they already know, and utilize the power of storytelling as a space for changemaking.

Professor of English Michael Saenger was an invited speaker at a conference held at Texas Hillel in Austin. The conference addressed productive and meaningful ways to engage in religious and political difference, and was covered in the local media, available here.

Professor and Chair of English Eileen Cleere participated in a roundtable at the Modern Language Association’s (MLA) annual meeting in Toronto, Canada from January 8–11. The roundtable featured conversation about how literature can help us navigate institutional spaces where faculty labor is increasingly gendered and generational. Her paper, “Becoming a Minor Character,” discussed the temporal mismatch between the timeline for meaningful institutional transformation and a “move fast and break things” incentive structure that requires immediate and assessable outcomes.

Professor of English Michael Saenger presented an invited talk at the Academic Engagement Network’s Short Course in Miami, FL. The talk was on how to combat rising antisemitism in academic societies. Immediately after the speaking engagement, Saenger travelled to Toronto to lead a diverse group of faculty advocating for campus civility and against antisemitism at the Modern Language Association (MLA) convention. At the convention, many faculty from around the country spoke passionately about how to protect a culture of campus safety and educational integrity. You can read about the controversy at the convention here.

Professor of English Michael Saenger was interviewed for a story in the Times of Israel on academic boycotts and the harm they cause to Jews and to university communities as a whole. Saenger has been a leading advocate for academic freedom and antidiscrimination. The story can be read here.

Assistant Professor of English Sonia Del Hierro presented a paper titled “Aesthetics in the flesh: Las Brown Berets and Chicana Resistencia” at the 11th Annual El Mundo Zurdo conference, hosted by Trinity University in San Antonio from November 6–8. This year’s theme was “Hope Sin Fronteras: Reclaiming Fluidity, Empowering Communities, and Enacting Resistance.”

Professor Emerita of English Helene Meyers published “Wrestling with Jewish Shame: a Review of Sarah Hurwitz’s As a Jew” in The Revealer. It can be read here.

Professor of English Michael Saenger was interviewed by J Life: Heart of New Jersey, on the topic of rising antisemitism in academic environments. The interview can be read here.

As part of his Publicly Engaged Humanities project, Professor of English Michael Saenger was interviewed by KVUE Midday News Anchor Jenni Lee on the topic of rising antisemitism in academic life, and the need to support civil discourse around controversial issues. The interview can be seen here.

Professor of English Michael Saenger was an invited speaker on the topic of “Academic Engagement Network’s efforts to confront antisemitism and support and protect Jews and Zionists in academic spaces” at the Jewish National Fund’s annual conference in Hollywood, FL from October 23–26.

Assistant Professor of English Sonia Del Hierro co-published a brief essay titled “Algunos pensamientos sobre las señoras” in the Spanish-language feminist blog, Indisciplinadxs Linguistica Feminista. This essay/blog entry provides a framework for understanding linguistic, historical, and contemporary perspectives on the identity label “señora” within Latine/x and Mexican American communities. This work emerges from Del Hierro’s larger project, Señora Power, a multi-disciplinary project committed to writing Chicana feminist consciousness into public history.

Professor of English Michael Saenger was selected to join 50 faculty members from around the country to represent the Academic Engagement Network (AEN) at the annual Israel on Campus Coalition National Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C. The AEN Delegation joined 750 students to learn about the Middle East and to form connections of solidarity to confront rising antisemitism at universities. This publicly engaged humanities project involved a serious engagement with politicians, authors, and community leaders, and culminated in an appearance by Ritchie Torres (D-NY).

Professor and Chair of English Eileen Cleere presided over her final conference as President of Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies (INCS) in Genoa, Italy from June 18-21. In that capacity, Cleere ran a board meeting, planned upcoming conferences in Washington, D.C., Dallas, TX, and Rome, Italy, and introduced the keynote speaker, Professor Clair Pettitt, for a lecture held at the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace). Cleere also delivered a paper titled “The Quickening: Pregnancy and Pronatalism in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility,” and participated in a special roundtable called “Slowing Down Time: Embodied and Generational Resistances to Speed and Acceleration.” Her roundtable talk was titled “Becoming a Minor Character,” and suggested that the Victorian novel can help us understand models of institutional service generationally, with specific focus on the gendered and generational labor often required to sustain work in public facing (PH) and community facing (CEL) initiatives.

Professor of English Michael Saenger delivered a paper titled “Unveiling Hermione and Other Deferrals” at the European Shakespeare Research Association Conference in Porto, Portugal. The paper addresses Shakespeare’s sense of time as a dramatic and poetic experience in The Winter’s Tale. This play includes an appearance of an old man dressed as Time midway through its performance, and it also includes very subtle and fascinating ways of hearing temporal change and stillness.

Professor Emerita of English Helene Meyers published “Making Good Jewish Trouble: A Review of Sandi DuBowski’s ‘Sabbath Queen’” in The Revealer. It can be read here.

Professor of English Michael Saenger published “Faculty on Fifth Avenue” with The Times of Israel. The blog post argues for academic freedom and informed discussion about the Middle East. It can be read here.

Professor of English Michael Saenger presented a seminar paper titled “A Mouldy Tale Newly Set” at the Shakespeare Association of America conference in Boston on March 21. His paper discusses the path of Pericles, a play that Shakespeare co-authored, through its recent performance by the Royal Shakespeare Company. The play was once disdained because of its collaborative nature and sprawling geography, but now has become interesting for the same reasons.

Professor of English Michael Saenger was an invited member of the delegation representing Academic Engagement Network (AEN), an organization dedicated to fighting academic antisemitism, at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) “Never is Now” conference in New York City from March 3-4. The conference featured both Jews and allies who are working to fight a tide of Jew-hate that is rising at college campuses nationwide, including David Schwimmer, Gal Gadot, Billie Jean King, and Van Jones, as well as the presidents of the University of Michigan and Washington University in St. Louis. AEN and ADL announced a new partnership to clearly articulate that debate and protest about the Middle East is good, but harassment of Jewish students and calls for genocide must be stopped. A photo including Saenger and Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and National Director of the ADL, to promote the work they are doing together can be seen here, via X.

Assistant Professors of Sociology Adriana Ponce and Amanda Hernandez, Assistant Professor of Political Science Alexander Goodwin, Assistant Professor of History Bryan Kauma, and Assistant Professor of English Sonia Del Hierro published “Teaching with Color: Thematic Hires and the Politics of Teaching in Texas,” in the journal Sociology of Race and Ethnicity. This article joins a growing conversation in the humanities and humanistic social sciences on ways faculty of color shoulder the burden of thinking about our shared futures as racialized, intersectional, and collaborative. You can find the article here.

Professor of English Michael Saenger delivered an invited lecture to a diverse group of 38 academics from around the country at the Academic Engagement Network’s Short Course in Miami on January 7. His talk, “The Battle for Legitimacy: Zionism, the MLA and Academic Freedom,” related to his ongoing leadership in efforts to protect academic freedom for all students and professors, including those who identify as Zionist, Jewish, and Israeli.

Professor of English Michael Saenger published a new article, “A Magnus Amator in Illyria: Shakespeare and the Memory of Plautus,” in Memoria Di Shakespeare, the leading Shakespeare journal in Italy. In the article, Saenger argues that a key line in Twelfth Night, which begins “Some are born great,” is actually an echo of the Latin dramatist Plautus. The article further explores the poetic space between languages, which Saenger has called “interlinguicity.” It can be read here.

Professor of English Michael Saenger was the invited speaker at an event at the Institute for Jewish Studies and Interfaith Understanding at Old Dominion University. He spoke about the crucial value of Zionism amidst the need to confront academic antisemitism and cultivate peace and inclusive community.

Assistant Professor of English Sonia Del Hierro presented “Chicana Feminism Now: Teaching Chicana Feminists Texts in 2024” at the National Women’s Studies Association in Detroit, MI from November 14-17. Her talk argued for the increased relevance of Chicana feminist literature and methods, presenting two case studies of English courses taught at Southwestern in Fall 2023 and Spring 2024.

Assistant Professor of English Sonia Del Hierro was featured in the Place-Based Justice Network’s November Spotlight for her project Señora Power. In collaboration with Dr. Sophia Martinez Abbud, an Assistant Professor at Utah State, and Dr. Gaby Barrios, an independent scholar in Los Angeles, Dr. Del Hierro developed Señora Power, a multi-disciplinary project committed to writing Chicana feminist consciousness into public history. With particular attention to the coalescence of Chicanx culture and identity in Los Angeles and Houston from the early 20th century to the late 1980s, the initiative tracks the radical work and resistance of señoras prior to the civil rights movement. To execute this recording of personal and scholarly nuances towards archival knowledge, the final products of Señora Power  translate to the creation of a podcast discussing the various señora figures; a website to illustrate the project overview, hold podcast episodes, and provide breakdowns of each episode; and create physical pamphlets to be distributed in Houston and LA community centers to increase accessibility to Chicanx knowledge and history.

Professor of English Michael Saenger presented a paper titled “The Ethics of Ambiguity in The Merchant of Venice” at the Sixteenth Century Society Conference in Toronto on November 1. His paper addressed the issue of Shylock as a villain within the play, and how that issue has impacted modern controversies surrounding academic antisemitism.

Part-time Professor of Creative Writing Chelsey Clammer ’05 recently had a personal creative essay published in Under the Gum Tree. Her essay, “Growth,” looks at the experience of a tumor extraction and the end of a relationship. The essay is the featured piece for the journal’s Fall 2024 issue. The issue can be purchased (print or digital) here.

Assistant Professor of English Sonia Del Hierro presented at the fourth annual La Chola Conference at East Los Angeles College on September 27-29. This conference centers Chola identities and communities, bringing together activists, artists, and scholars. Dr. Del Hierro’s talk, “Las Cholas’ Sartorial Scripts: A Chicana Feminist Analysis,” presented part of her research on the ways fashion has constituted political and cultural tools against racism, sexism, and colonialism. The program can be found here.

Professor of English Michael Saenger published an essay titled “Shakespeare and Multilinguistic Affairs: A Strategy for Reading Across Borders” in Contemporary Readings in Global Performances of Shakespeare, edited by Alexa Alice Joubin. The book is published by Bloomsbury Academic as part of The Arden Shakespeare series.

Professor of English Michael Saenger published a blog post at the Times of Israel, titled “How to Spot Antisemitism.” It can be read here.

Professor of English Eileen Cleere delivered a paper at Baylor University’s Armstrong Browning Library as a part of EVENT 2024, a hub conference sponsored by the North American Victorian Studies Association on September 19–21. Her paper was titled “Laugh Track: Pregnancy and Pronatalism in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.”

English major and Associate Editor at Penguin Random House Lydia Gregovic ’19 recently published her first novel, titled The Monstrous Kind. The novel, a fantasy retelling of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, is set to release in early September and can be pre-ordered here.

Professor of English Michael Saenger was flown to Toronto to participate in a video documentary on his little brother, Mohan Govindasamy, aka Launders. Govindasamy was matched with Saenger through the Toronto office of Big Brothers / Big Sisters, and he is currently a major figure in e-sports. The video can be seen here.

Assistant Professor of English Sonia Del Hierro co-presented “Rasquachismo: A Chicana Digital Humanities Praxis” on August 9 at DH2024, the annual conference of the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations.

Assistant Professor of Sociology Amanda Hernandez, Assistant Professor of Sociology Adriana Ponce, Assistant Professor of Political Science Alexander Goodwin, Assistant Professor of History Bryan Kauma, and Assistant Professor of English Sonia Del Hierro had their abstract “Teaching With Color: Thematic Hires and the Politics of Teaching in Texas” accepted as a special feature for the 10 Year Reflection Special Issue on pedagogy and hope in the Journal for the Sociology of Race & Ethnicity. The article will be both a pedagogical reflection on hope in the classroom and on thematic hires. The issue will be available in early 2025.

Professor of English Michael Saenger has been invited by Old Dominion University’s Institute for Jewish Studies and Interfaith Understanding to take part in their new series, “The Nosh: Taking a Bite Out of Hard Conversations.” Saenger will co-facilitate discussion on the current Israel-Palestine conflict and its impact on American academics.

Professor of English Michael Saenger published an essay that was featured on the Times of Israel website, titled “Keeping the light on, in my campus office.” The essay advocates activism to combat rising antisemitism at American universities. He was nominated to join the Steering Committee of the new initiative he has helped to launch, discussed in the essay, Faculty Against Antisemitism Movement. The essay can be read here.

Professor of English Michael Saenger was invited to contribute to the Antisemitism Studies program at Gratz College. In pioneering its new Masters program in Antisemitism Studies, Gratz College joins the expertise of its own faculty with experts from around the world.

Professor and Austin Term Chair in English Eileen Cleere presided over the 39th meeting of INCS (Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies) in Cincinnati, OH, March 21-24, under the theme of “Trans-Turns in the Nineteenth Century.” In addition to whipping Board votes for a successful overhaul of the organization’s bylaws and constitution and announcing prizes and initiatives at the membership banquet, Cleere chaired a panel on “Theorizing Trans-historically.”

Professor and Austin Term Chair of English Eileen Cleere published an article in the most recent issue of the Children’s Literature Association Quarterly. The essay, “Girls on Fire: Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret (1861), Maud Hart Lovelace’s Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown (1943), and the Adolescent Sublimation of Victorian Sensation” was reworked from a Paideia Lecture, and can be read here.

Professor of English Michael Saenger co-authored an op-ed in the Times of Israel with David Mikics, Moores Distinguished Professor in the Department of English and the Honors College, University of Houston. The article “Trouble at the Modern Language Association” opposes academic antisemitism and extremism and advocates for dialog and diversity in American campus life.

Assistant Professor of English Sonia Del Hierro gave a public talk in a Modern Language Association webinar where she co-presented her recent collaborative publication, “Radical Collegiality and Joy in Graduate Education,” included in the edited collection Graduate Education for a Thriving Humanities Ecosystem.

Part-Time Faculty Member in the English Department Chelsey Clammer ’05 and had her recent lyric essay, “The Ruins of What Never Was,” published in Volume 4 of iO Literary Journal, available here.

Professor of English Michael Saenger published “The University after October 7” in TELOSscope, which is part of Telos: Cultural Theory of the Contemporary.

Professor of English and Austin Term Chair Eileen Cleere has been elected to the Presidency of INCS, the Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Association. Effective January 1, 2024, Cleere will lead the international organization for a two-year period, convening the annual convention in Cincinnati, OH, in 2024 and Genoa, Italy, in 2025. The organization has hundreds of active members who write and publish in multiple languages, ranging from English, History, and Art History to Environmental Studies, Feminist Studies, and Gender and Sexuality Studies. Learn more about the organization here.

Professor of English Michael Saenger presented a paper at the Modern Language Association Convention in Philadelphia. His paper, “Double Tongue: Multiple Languages in Shakespeare,” examines the theoretical status of linguistic mixture in the early modern period. At the convention, Saenger also advocated for social justice and academic freedom at the Delegate Assembly of the Modern Language Association, and his activism was covered in the national press. Saenger published an op-ed on the struggles of the organization, which was presented as a Featured Post in the Times of Israel. He then presented an invited talk on Academic Engagement Network’s Short Course in Phoenix, “A Break in Discourse after October 7.”

On October 26th and 27th, Assistant Professor of English Sonia Del Hierro participated in the U.S. Latino Digital Humanities’ Mellon Grants-in-Aid Showcase, a public presentation by 2023 recipients of a digital humanities grant, funded by the Mellon Foundation and supported by Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage/Arte Público Press and the University of Houston. She co-presented “Señora Power: Updates and Challenges” with her research collaborators, Gaby Barrios of the University of California-Los Angeles and Sophia Martinez-Abbud of Rice University.

Professor of English and Austin Term Chair Eileen Cleere gave a talk entitled “Grooming Habits: Revisiting Victorian (Child) Marriage in the Age of #MeToo” at the annual meeting of VISAWUS (Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies Association of the Western United States) at the Seattle Public Library on October 19-21. She also participated in a pedagogy workshop dedicated to “Bringing the Climate Crisis into the Classroom.”

Professor of English Michael Saenger co-authored with Professor of American Studies and Humanities Nancy Koppelman at The Evergreen State College an essay entitled “Before the War: Educators in Israel / Palestine” for the Times of Israel. Their essay relates their experiences leading a group of American university professionals through encounters with different perspectives in the Middle East.

Professor of English Michael Saenger delivered an invited keynote lecture at Waseda University in Tokyo at an international conference entitled “Translation of Shakespeare as Cultural Exchange.” Also presenting was Nick Baylor ’25, who traveled to Japan with Dr. Saenger.

Professor of English Michael Saenger represented Academic Engagement Network on a trip to Israel and the Palestinian Territories. The Signature Seminar Series participants – senior and mid-level DEI and Student Affairs administrators from U.S. universities and colleges – traveled to West and East Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Ramallah between June 6 and June 14 for an experiential learning opportunity. They engaged with prominent figures at Israeli and Palestinian universities and NGOs to see how people from various perspectives, including Druze, Jewish, Muslim, and secular backgrounds, are working to build bridges of understanding and how that can be relevant to improving campus climate in the US.

Professor of English Michael Saenger completed a three-week residency at the department of European, American, and Intercultural Studies, Sapienza Università di Roma. He led seminars, gave lectures, and collaborated with Iolanda Plescia, Associate Professor of English in that department, as well as Laetitia Sansonetti, Senior Lecturer in English at Université Paris Nanterre, both of whom are leading figures in the study of Shakespeare’s use of multiple languages and the question of translation. His final lecture was entitled “Accidental Multilingualism in Shakespeare.”

Professor of English Michael Saenger and Associate Professor of Theatre Sergio Costola collaborated on a book titled Shakespeare in Succession: Translation and Time (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2023). The edited collection brings together scholars from eight different countries and five continents.

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.

Assistant Professor of English Rebecca Evans delivered two papers at the 2022 Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Convention, held virtually and in person January 6–9 in Washington, D.C.. The first was part of an environmental humanities roundtable titled “Apocalyptic Realisms”; the second was part of a panel titled “The Unforeseeable,” sponsored by the Prose Fiction Forum.

Assistant Professor of English Rebecca Evans published a review of Neal Stephenson’s latest novel, Termination Shock,in the Los Angeles Review of Books. 

Professor of English and Austin Term Chair Eileen Cleere delivered a paper at the 2022 Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Convention, held January 6–9 in Washington, D.C. Her paper, “Pivotingand Other Words I’ll Never Use Again,” was delivered remotely when infection rates and travel conditions shifted most of the conference online. The paper was part of a panel commemorating the forthcoming publication of “Unprecedented Disruptions: Nineteenth-Century Scholars Reflect on 2020,” an issue of Nineteenth-Century Contexts Cleere coedited.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers published “7 Jewish Feminist Highlights of 2021” in Lilith Magazine’s blog.

A profile of Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers appeared in The Key Reporter, Phi Beta Kappa’s online publication.

An excerpt from Movie-Made Jews: An American Tradition, a recent book by Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers, was published in the fall issue of Lilith Magazine.

Professor and Austin Term Chair in English Eileen Cleere reviewed My Victorian Novel: Critical Essays in the Personal Voice,edited by Annette R. Federico, for the journal Nineteenth-Century Contexts. The review appeared in volume 43, issue 4.

Professor and Joanne Powers Austin Term Chair in English Eileen Cleere coedited a volume of Nineteenth-Century Contextsdevoted to the unprecedented disruptions of 2020. Her introduction to the special issue, cowritten with Professors George Robb (William Paterson University) and Narin Hassan (Georgia Tech), is titled “Zooming In: Epidemic, Pandemic, Endemic.”

Assistant Professor of English Rebecca Evans and Southwestern students Coleen Roche ’22 and Elena Welsh ’23 presented a paper titled “Public Humanities Pedagogy for the Present” on the panel “Social Media and the Public Sphere” at the annual conference of the Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present. The paper detailed the methods and findings of the team’s summer 2021 faculty-student research project and reflected on how the project changed their perspectives on collaborative humanities research and public-facing literary scholarship.

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger published an article titled “Shakespeare and Linguistic Change” in The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Global Shakespeare. Saenger also presented a talk titled “Addressing Challenges in the Humanities & Social Sciences: Toward a Better Understanding and Use of Key Terms in Combating BDS and Israel Delegitimization”

At the 2021 Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association, Assistant Professor of English Rebecca Evans presided over the Environment and Culture Caucus’s professional development panel, “Teaching for Justice: A Pedagogy Working Session,” and chaired and presented on a session titled “Extinction Rebellion: A Roundtable on the Performative Politics of Revolt,” where she discussed both the disruptive and the theatrical elements of Extinction Rebellion and other environmental justice movements and the popular and media attention paid to each.

Assistant Professor of English Rebecca Evans and Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Joshua Long were interviewed for a story for the online magazine Grist. The story, “Can Climate Fiction Deliver Climate Justice?” by Maddie Stone, was published on September 28. Among other subjects, the article discusses a Southwestern summer 2021 faculty–student research project, “Climate Literature and Climate Literacy,” led by Evans with two current Southwestern English students, Coleen Roche ’23 and Elena Welsh ’23.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers was interviewed by Alma, a Jewish culture website that prides itself on being “feminist and full of chutzpah,” about her new book Movie-Made Jews: An American Tradition. Read the interview.

Assistant Professor of English Rebecca Evans  published an article in the journal American Literature titled “ Geomemory and Genre Friction: Infrastructural Violence and Plantation Afterlives in Contemporary African American Novels .” The article is drawn from the fourth chapter of her current book project and is part of a joint special issue of American Literature and Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities  titled “The Infrastructure of Emergency.”

Professor Emeritus of English David Gaines read his poem “Changing Course” at the Poets of the Northland reading on May 26, 2021. It received the grand prize in the Duluth Dylan Festival Poetry Contest, a celebration of Bob Dylan’s 80th birthday hosted by the Nobel laureate’s fans and scholars in his hometown.

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger gave two invited talks recently. On April 15, he delivered the keynote, titled “Shakespeare’s Fathers,” at the distinguished lecture series Unravelling the Bard: Through Global Perspectives hosted by Goswami Ganesh Dutta Sanatan Dharma College, in Chandigarh, India. On May 25, he was an invited discussant responding to Alexa Alice Joubin, professor of English, theatre, international affairs, and East Asian languages and cultures at George Washington University. This event was hosted by Haun Saussy, university professor of comparative literature at the University of Chicago. The topic was Joubin’s recent book, Shakespeare and East Asia(Oxford University Press).

Professor of English and Holder of McManis University Chair Helene Meyers was an invited participant on the panel “Helping Humanities Majors Tackle a Tough Job Market from a Position of Strength” at the annual meeting of the National Humanities Alliance.

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger  published an entry in the Palgrave Encyclopedia of Global Shakespeare  on “ Scotland, PA  (dir. Billy Morrissette, USA, 2001),” which can be viewed here .

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger organized and hosted a webinar titled “Terms, Language, and Translation: Palestine and Israel.” The event featured Jessica Emami, adjunct professor of sociology at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia, and Ghaith al-Omari, a senior fellow in The Washington Institute’s Irwin Levy Family Program on the U.S.–Israel Strategic Relationship and former executive director of the American Task Force on Palestine.

Assistant Professor of English Rebecca Evans presented twice at the 2021 Modern Language Association Annual Convention, speaking as part of the roundtable “Infrastructures of Emergency” on January 7 and giving a talk titled “Apocalypse Now, Then, Ongoing: Genre Friction and Anthropocene Literature” as part of the panel “Post-Apocalypse Now” on January 9.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers published “7 Jewish Feminist Highlights of 2020” in Lilith Magazine’s blog.

Assistant Professor of English Rebecca Evans  was elected to a five-year term on the executive committee of the Modern Language Association’s Science and Literature forum. Her coedited volume The Palgrave Handbook of 20th- and 21st-Century Literature and Science  was released at the end of 2020.

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger  published a featured post on the Times of Israel  website titled “Texas Saves Progressivism.” See the article here .

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger presented “Interlinguistic Shakespeare in East Asia” at the virtual 49th Southwest Conference on Asian Studies, October 23, 2020.

Professor Emeritus of English David Gaines had his article “I Climbed Up Friday Mountain and Down Barsana Hill” published in the Wall Street Journal. Read it here.

Professor of English and Joanne Powers Austin Term Chair Eileen Cleere has had an article accepted for publication in Victorian Literature and Culture.Initial research for the essay, “Rape in Public: Overlooking Child Sexual Assault in Charlotte Mary Yonge’s 1856 The Daisy Chain,” was conducted in 2019 by Cleere’s summer research assistant, Morgan Mosby ’20, a position funded by the Powers Austin endowment. The final article was inspired by the #MeToo movement and is situated methodologically within the developing academic field of new rape studies.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers reviewed R. L. Maizes’s Other People’s Petsfor the Washington Independent Review of Books. Read her review here.

Assistant Professor of English Rebecca Evans published a review of N. K. Jemisin’s newest novel in the Los Angeles Review of Books. Read it here.

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger, in his capacity as chair of the section for faculty in the humanities at Academic Engagement Network, cochaired an electronic conference with Ayal Feinberg, assistant professor of political science at Texas A&M University–Commerce and senior fellow at the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right. The panel, “Scholarly Perspectives on Jews and Social and Ideological Space across the Academy,” took place on June 24, 2020. The speakers included Simon Bronner, dean of the College of General Studies and distinguished professor of social sciences and business at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee; Albert Cheng, assistant professor at the Department of Education Reform in the College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville; André Villeneuve, Catholic biblical scholar and assistant professor in the Honors College at Azusa Pacific University; and Ken Stern, director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate at Bard College.

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger  published a blog post for the Times of Israel  titled “Why Black Lives Matter for Jews.” Read it here .

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers published “Surviving the Pandemic: Suggestions for Liberal-Arts Colleges” in Inside Higher Ed.

Professor Emeritus of English David Gaines  reviewed Baron Wormser’s novel Songs from a Voice: Being the Recollections, Stanzas, and Observations of Abe Runyan, Songwriter and Performer  (Woodhall Press, 2020) for The Midwest Review . You can read the review here .

Professor of English David Gaines  contributed a chapter titled “Dylan’s Literary Fans: The Economy of Prestige and Reading with One Hand Waving Free” to the conference volume New Approaches to Bob Dylan  (Southern Denmark University Press). The chapter grew out of his spring 2018 capstone course, American Nobelity, and his conference presentation in Denmark that semester.

Professor of English David Gaines  published “His Back Pages” in The Bridge  (vol. 66, spring 2020), the leading journal of Bob Dylan studies in Europe. Therein, he reviewed “History of a Voice” poet Bryan Wormser’s new Dylan-inspired novel.

Joanne Powers Austin Chair and Professor of English Eileen Cleere delivered a paper titled “Ecopsychology and the Greening of Jane Eyre” at the annual Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies (INCS) Conference in Los Angeles, CA, March 4–8, 2020. She also participated in a pedagogy workshop called  “How to Teach Victorian Literature Online.” Cleere currently serves on the governing board of INCS as second vice president.

Associate Professor of English and Chair of Early Modern Studies Michael Saenger has been named chair of the section for faculty in the humanities at the Academic Engagement Network (AEN). AEN is a national organization of faculty members and staff on American university and college campuses that seeks to oppose efforts to delegitimize Israel; to support robust discussion, research, and education about Israel in the academy; to promote campus free expression and academic freedom; and to counter antisemitism when it occurs on campus.

Professor of English David Gaines reviewed Sam Wasson’s The Big Goodbye, a book about the making of the 1974 film Chinatown, in the February 25th Austin Chronicle. Read his review here.

Professor of English and Joanne Powers Austin Term Chair Eileen Cleere has been elected second vice president of Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies (INCS), an international organization. Her term will run 2020–2021.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers published “7 Jewish Feminist Highlights of 2019” in the Lilith Blog. Read it here.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers was an invited participant on the roundtable “Building Bridges: Feminist Mentorship, Collaboration, and Coalition Building” at the annual meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies. Meyers talked about diverse forms of mentoring, including public scholarship.

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger  published a blog post in the Times of Israel  titled “Are Jews Welcome at the University of Toronto?” The post was marked as a featured post by the Times of Israel  and can be read here .

Professor of English Eileen Cleere served on a panel of judges awarding the Richard Stein Prize to the best article published in nineteenth-century studies in 2018. The Stein Prize is awarded annually by the Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Association, an international organization.

Novel English Majors, a course taught by Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers, was featured in the National Humanities Alliance blog post “Humanities Education and Career Preparation: Not Either/Or but Both/And.”  You can read it here.

Professor of English Eileen Cleere ’s review of Barbara Leckie’s Open Houses: Poverty, the Novel, and the Architectural Idea in Nineteenth-Century Britain  has just been published in the academic journal Nineteenth-Century Literature . You can read the review here .

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers  published a review of the new documentary Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles in the Jewish Women’s Archive  blog. Read it here.

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger  published a blog post for the Times  of Israel, titled “Bibi Loves BDS.” Read it here .

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger was invited to be an academic visitor by the chair of the faculty of English at Cambridge University, December 2019–January 2020. Saenger will be conducting research on temporality in relation to Shakespeare’s life in print.

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger published a review of Malcolm Smuts (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of The Age of Shakespeare, Oxford University Press. The review appeared in Notes and Queries, also published by Oxford University Press.

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger and Associate Professor of Theatre Sergio Costola organized and led a seminar titled “Polychronic Translation of Shakespeare” at the 2019 European Shakespeare Research Association Conference, held at the Università degli Studi Roma Tre, in Rome, Italy, July 9–12. Kayla Ingram ’20 attended the conference, and, following an independent study with Dr. Saenger on Shakespeare and Translation, designed graphic support for the seminar.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers was an invited participant in KUT’s “Views and Brews” podcast on the past, present, and future of the humanities. Other panelists were Dennis Ahlburg, former president of Trinity University; Amelia Pace-Borah, academic director of Austin’s Free Minds program; and Paul Woodruff, former dean of undergraduate studies at the University of Texas. Meyers talked about her nationally recognized course Novel English Majors, the role of public scholarship in rejuvenating the humanities, and the need for continuity and change as we revise the curriculum. According to her, “a complex world and complex problems require complex and visionary thinking, and that’s what the humanities offers.” The podcast is available through NPR.

Professor of English David Gaines  attended and participated in the World of Bob Dylan Symposium in Tulsa, OK. The conference, hosted by the Tulsa University Institute for Bob Dylan Studies and the Bob Dylan Archive, was the largest international gathering of Dylan scholars and fans to date. More than 500 people registered for the four days devoted to the Nobel laureate’s work and life. On June 1, Gaines chaired a roundtable on teaching Dylan in various curricular contexts. On June 2, he presented “‘Why Dylan?’ in 157 Words/19 Lines/3 Stanzas,” a paper about the poem he contributed to Visiting Bob: Poems Inspired by the Life and Word of Bob Dylan  (New Rivers Press, 2018). On May 29, he and Norma Aguirre Gaines  ‘08 attended a reception with area alumni. They also heard a lot of music in the evenings.

Professor of English David Gaines  attended and participated in the Duluth Dylan Fest, the annual celebration of Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan’s birthday in his hometowns of Duluth and Hibbing, MN. On May 22, Gaines read “Egyptian Rings and Spanish Boots,” his poem in Visiting Bob: Poems Inspired by the Life and Word of Bob Dylan  (New Rivers Press, 2018), at Zeitgeist Teatro Zuccone with the editors of the volume, who also read their work. He did likewise on May 23 at Zenith Bookstore in Duluth. On May 25, he delivered “From the North Country to Stockholm and Back: A Tale of Two Journeys,” the invited keynote John Bushey Memorial Lecture. He also heard a lot of music in the evenings.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers published “Public Scholar, Beware” in Inside Higher Ed.

Professor of English David Gaines  reviewed T. C. Boyle’s Outside Looking In  in the April 12th edition of T he Austin Chronicle .

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger delivered a paper titled “Partial Paternity in Terence and Jonson” at the Renaissance Society of America annual meeting in Toronto, Canada. In addition, he chaired a panel on “Performances of Gender in Shakespearean England” at the same meeting.

Professor of English Eileen Cleere  delivered a paper at the Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Association (INCS) in Dallas, March 21–24. Her presentation, “Future Perfect: Jane Eyre and the Traumatic Mode in Walley-Beckett’s Anne with an E,” was part of a panel on psychological and mathematical models of development in old and new media.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers reviewed Deborah Lipstadt’s Antisemitism: Here and Now for the Washington Independent Review of Books. Read the review here.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers participated in a roundtable titled “Reaching beyond the Academy” at the annual conference of the Association for Jewish Studies in Boston, MA, Dec. 16–18.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers published “7 Jewish Feminist Highlights of 2018” in Lilith Magazine’s blog.

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger posted a blog story with the Times of Israel titled “Does BDS have anything to do with Israel?”

Professor of English David Gaines delivered the keynote address at the 14th annual National Symposium of Theater and Performing Arts at Washington and Lee University on Oct. 26. The topic of the symposium was Race and Gender in Theater, Poetry, and Rock ‘n Roll, and the title of Gaines’s address was “‘I Felt Like I Was One of Them or All of Them Put Together’: Reflections on Race, Gender, and Bob Dylan’s Multitudes.” His presentation was greatly enhanced by the expertise of Audiovisual Services Coordinator Luke Allen and Research and Instruction Librarian Katherine Hooker.

Professor of English Eileen Cleere delivered a paper and chaired a panel at the North American Victorian Studies Association conference in St. Petersburg, Fla., Oct. 11–14. Her paper “Sacrificing Iphigenia: Recognizing Sexual Assault in Charlotte Mary Yonge’s 1856 The Daisy Chain was part of a panel about the re-evaluation of rape in Victorian fiction in the contemporary context of #MeToo.

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger delivered a talk titled “Shakespeare in a Moment of Madness” at the Dallas Shakespeare Conference at the University of Dallas on Oct. 6.

Professor of English David Gaines presented “Dylan’s Literary Fans, The Economy of Prestige, and Reading With One Hand Waving Free” at the New Approaches to Bob Dylan conference in Odense, Denmark, on Oct. 4, 2018. The presentation not only extended aspects of Gaines’s book In Dylan Town: A Fan’s Life but also grew out of the Spring 2018 English capstone course on literary prizes and canon formation.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers published a review of the novel Not Our Kindin the Washington Independent Review of Books.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers published “When an Accused Sexual Harasser is an Academic Superstar” in Lilith Magazine’s Blog.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers published a review of the documentary film 93Queenin the Jewish Women’s Archive Blog.

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger published a review of Booth’s Richard III, a historical production of Shakespeare’s play as staged by John Wilkes Booth.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers published “Putting the Jew Back in the Queer,” a review of Harvey Milk: His Lives and Death, in Tablet.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers published “Why Did I Cry for Philip Roth?” in Lilith Magazine’s Blog.

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger published a new blog for the Times of Israel titled “Liberal Zionism, Renewed.”

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger was invited to deliver a keynote lecture at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. His talk, titled “Shakespeare in a Time of Madness,” will be part of Shakespeare’s Birthday Celebration on April 23.

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger wrote a review, available here, of a performance of Ben Jonson’s Volpone.

Professor of English David Gaines published “The Old and the New,” a review of Why Bob Dylan Matters, in “The Bridge,” the leading Dylan fanzine in Europe.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers published “Manicotti, Anyone?: A Kosher for Passover Easter Dinner” in Tablet. Read it here.

English Professor David Gaines was interviewed by BBC Radio 4 on March 25, 2018 regarding “Trouble No More,” a new documentary film about Bob Dylan’s Born-Again music and views. Listen here (begins at 22:30).

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers published “Faculty Service and the Difference between Opportunity and Exploitation” in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Professor of English David Gaines presented “Bob Dylan, Beautiful Classroom Moments, and ‘Everything Side By Side Created Equal’” on Feb. 10 in Tulsa, Okla. He was one of three invited speakers at “Dylan in the Classroom,” the inaugural symposium of the University of Tulsa’s Institute for Bob Dylan Studies and the affiliated Bob Dylan Archive. As well as addressing the ways in which Dylan’s music is being taught and studied from elementary classrooms through high school and into college, he also discussed the possible future directions of Dylan Studies and chaired a course planning workshop.

Natalia Kapacinskas , class of 2018, will present “L.T. Meade, Fictional Plagiarism, and a New Model of Authorship” at the 26th annual British Women Writers Conference held this April at the University of Texas at Austin. The paper is a selection from her English Honors Thesis on the evolution of plagiarism and women’s writing in the long nineteenth century (1789–1914).

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers presented “Removing the Jew from the Lesbian: Kissing Jessica Stein” at the annual meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies (AJS) in December 2017. She also published “7 Jewish Feminist Highlights of 2017” and “Our Bodies, Our Memories, Our Poetry: A Review of Leslea Newman’s Lovely” in Lilith Magazine’s Blog.

Professor of English David Gaines’s poem “Egyptian Rings and Spanish Boots” was selected for inclusion in the New Rivers Press anthology titled “Visiting Bob: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Bob Dylan” edited by Thom Tammaro and Alan Davis. The volume will appear in early 2018.

Professor of English David Gaines delivered “Landscape and Characters: Hill Country Stories in Progress,” an invited lecture, at Schreiner University in Kerrville on Nov. 9. Gaines spoke to students and faculty in the Texas Studies Program about his current research into and writing about 630 acres of hill country land from the early nineteenth-century to the present.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers published “Billie Jean Beats Bobby: Watching BATTLE OF THE SEXES in Trumpian Times” in Lilith Magazine’s Blog.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers’ article “Got Jewish Milk?: Screening Epstein and Van Sant for Intersectional Film History” is the lead article in the latest issue of the Journal Jewish Film And New Media. Rob Epstein’s The Times of Harvey Milk (1984) and Gus Van Sant’s Milk (2008), the two major films that narrate the life and tragically dramatic death of gay politician and activist Harvey Milk (1930–1978), are widely recognized as part of the queer cinematic canon but are less often categorized as Jewish films. While Epstein’s film adroitly presents a “Kosher-style” Milk, the Jewishness of Van Sant’s Milk is less certain. However, a well-established pattern of gay and lesbian Jews citing Milk as one of their own—what Meyers terms “Jewqhooing”—enabled a Jewish reception of the movie Milk. Querying and queerying the Jewishness of Milk (the man as well as the movies that purport to represent his life and times) illuminate the complex ways Jewishness continues to be cinematically conveyed or whitewashed as well as the intersections between queer and Jewish film history. This article is part of Meyers’ book-in-progress on Jewish American Cinema.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers published “The Disappearing Jew” in Inside Higher Education.

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger presented a paper at a seminar on the topic of strangers and immigration in Shakespeare and the modern world at the conference of ESRA (European Shakespeare Research Association) in Gdansk, Poland. In addition, at the same conference, he led a workshop titled “Shakespeare Between Languages.” In this workshop, a variety of European Shakespeare scholars translated a section of English poetry into French, Polish, Italian, Spanish and Chinese. Saenger led a discussion of the practical and theoretical challenges and opportunities of these varied encounters with language difference.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers published “The Misogyny of MENASHE” in Lilith Magazine Blog.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers published “Flying While Female on El Al” on Lilith’s Magazine blog.

Meyers also published “‘Are You or Have You Ever Been a Zionist?’  A Letter to Chicago Dyke March” in The Forward.  

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger published a review of The City Theater’s production of Taming of the Shrew in Austin.

Professor of English David Gaines was interviewed by BuzzFeed and quoted in the article “People Think Bob Dylan Plagiarized His Nobel Lecture From SparkNotes” on June 15. Gaines joined the conversation regarding Bob Dylan’s alleged use of Spark Notes in his discussion of Moby-Dick.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers published “Serious Missteps in Dirty Dancing Remake” in Lilith Magazine’s blog.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers has been invited to join the editorial board of Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies.

Professor of English David Gaines offered two classroom workshops and delivered an invited address to the Texas Writers’ Conference at Schreiner University in Kerrville, Texas, on Apr. 25. The title of his address was “Dylan, Revelations, and Change: The Nobel Prize and ‘Literature.’”

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers published “Cinematic Sustenance for a Jewish Feminist Exodus” in Lilith Magazine Blog.

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger chaired one panel at the Renaissance Society of America in Chicago. He collaborated with Associate Professor of Theatre Sergio Costola to co-chair and co-organize another panel, in addition to co-writing a paper. The paper explored the relationship between eugenics and the movement of foreign bodies in the Renaissance.

Professor of English David Gaines delivered “Listening To, Writing About and Teaching Dylan,” an invited lecture at Texas A&M University-Central Texas in Killeen on Apr. 10. He presented as part of the university library’s event devoted to the art of the 2016 Nobel Laureate in Literature.

Visiting Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing John Pipkin has been awarded a Yaddo Residential Fellowship (Saratoga Springs, NY) to work on his new novel about the Tour de France under Hitler.  The prize is prestigious: “Collectively, Yaddo artists have won 74 Pulitzer Prizes, 29 MacArthur Fellowships, 68 National Book Awards, and a Nobel Prize (Saul Bellow, who won the Nobel for Literature in 1976). Notable Yaddo artists through the turn of the millennium include James Baldwin, Leonard Bernstein, Truman Capote, Aaron Copland, Philip Guston, Patricia Highsmith, Langston Hughes, Ted Hughes, Jacob Lawrence, Sylvia Plath, Martin Puryear, Katherine Anne Porter, Amy Sillman, Clyfford Still, and David Foster Wallace. More recent guests include Terry Adkins, Laurie Anderson, Jeffrey Eugenides, Sheri Fink, and Matthew Weiner” (www.yaddo.org).

Professor and Chair of English Eileen Cleere delivered a paper at the Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Association (INCS) Conference in Philadelphia, Pa., March 17–20. Her paper, “The School Story for Girls, 1872–1929: A Sublimation of Sensation,” was partly based on her 2015 and 2016 faculty-student research, combined with her own new project on post-Freudian psychology and adolescent fiction. Cleere also serves on the Governing Board of INCS.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers published an essay titled “Identity Crisis: The White Jewish Question Posed in THE HUMAN STAIN” in Washington Independent Review of Books.

Professor of English David Gaines presented “Dylan’s Nobel Prize and Its Meaning” to the Congregation Havurah Shalom in Georgetown on Feb. 26.

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger was invited to deliver a paper titled “The Foreign Words and Worlds of Twelfth Night” at the conference Global Chaucer and Shakespeare in the Digital World held at George Washington University. He also performed a show at the intermission, featuring his impression of Kenneth Branagh and Alan Rickman. His visit was graciously hosted by George Washington University and the George Washington Digital Humanities Institute.

Professor of English David Gaines presented “Tales from the Dylan Trade: Music, Literature, Teaching, and ‘Nobelity’” at the Williamson County Museum’s Jan. 11 Salon.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers presented “The Jewish Movies of Rob Epstein” at the annual meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies in San Diego, Calif. She also published “Celebrating 7 Jewish ‘Nasty Women’ of 2016” in Lilith Magazine’s blog.

Professor of English David Gaines visited Stockholm for Nobel Week. On Monday, Dec. 5, he appeared with Sir Christopher Ricks of Boston University as a scholarly expert on Bob Dylan in the official Swedish documentary about this year’s recipient for Literature. Two of his reports about the week appeared in The Austin Chronicle Dec. 10 and Dec. 12. He reported more from Stockholm in his new blog “The Big Tent.” In addition, his chapter, “Teaching Dylan,” appeared in PROFESSING DYLAN (PhillipsMemphis Publishing), a volume about Dylan pedagogy edited by Frances Downing Hunter.

Professor of English David Gaines was interviewed on Nov. 17 by Robert Siegel of National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.” Their conversation about Bob Dylan and the Nobel Prize was broadcast that afternoon on all NPR Stations. Gaines will be reporting from Stockholm, Sweden during the Nobel Prize ceremonies for NPR,The Austin Chronicle and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Visiting Professor of Creative Writing and English John Pipkin has agreed to join the Advisory Council for the new Pat Conroy Literary Center in Beaufort, SC. Conroy, who died in 2015, is best remembered for his semi-autobiographical novel, The Great Santini (1976), as well as The Prince of Tides (1991) and Beach Music (1995). The Center will be part museum and part classroom, and committed to developing and sustaining an inclusive reading and writing community.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers published “Shiva Ribbons, Not Safety Pins” in Lilith magazine’s blog. This essay for general readers, about the well-intentioned but problematic safety pin movement and her hopes for alliance politics, is informed by Meyers’ scholarship on difference, power, and resistance.

Visiting Professor of English and Creative Writing John Pipkin’s new novel, The Blind Astronomer’s Daughter, was reviewed by The New York Times on Nov. 6, 2016.

Professor of English David Gaines was featured in a CNBC News article, “‘Arrogant’ Bob Dylan angers Nobel authorities as he goes to ground over literature prize,” on Oct. 24, 2016. On Oct. 25, representatives of SVT Kultur & Samhalte (Swedish National Television) visited Georgetown to film Gaines for their annual documentary film regarding the Nobel Prize for Literature. Two days later, he was interviewed by and quoted on BBC Radio about more matters related to Dylan’s work and life.

Professor of English David Gaines was featured on national and international media channels on Oct. 13. As a Bob Dylan expert, Al Jazerra News and ABC Radio News interviewed Gaines about his thoughts on Dylan’s Nobel Prize for literature. Iowa National Public Radio and the “San Antonio Express” also interviewed him the following day. Gaines wrote In Dylan Town: A Fan’s Life (University of Iowa Press, 2015) and speculated therein about Dylan eventually winning the Nobel Prize.

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger published an article in Palgrave Communications, as part of a special issue marking the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. The article, “‘Do not call them bastards’: Shakespeare as an invasive species,” draws from the work of Banu Subramaniam, who was the keynote speaker at the 2016 ACS Gender conference, of which Saenger was co-coordinator. Saenger also published a review of a cross-dressed performance of Merry Wives of Windsor on the website, Reviewing Shakespeare.

Visiting Assistant Professor of English and Writer-in-Residence John Pipkin’s forthcoming novel, The Blind Astronomer’s Daughter, received an early, starred review from Library Journal. Pipkin’s official book launch and reception will be held at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin on October 18. A BookPeople reading and signing has also been scheduled for October 24. A full list of tour dates, press releases, and information about the novel can be found at www.johnpipkin.com.

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger published a review in Reviewing Shakespeare of The City Theater’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Southwestern alumna Lindsay McKenna ’06.

Saenger also published a review of a new book, The Elizabethan Top Ten: Defining Print Popularity in Early Modern England, in Notes and Queries (Oxford University Press).

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers contributed a post titled “Re-Visioning Rich” to Ms. Magazine Blog.

Professor of English and Director of National Fellowships and Scholarships David Gaines addressed juniors and seniors at Roosevelt High School in San Antonio on May 24 — Bob Dylan’s 75th birthday. His topic, “Why Dylan and What Passions?,” concluded the week-long “Dylan Days” celebration, jointly sponsored by the San Antonio Public Library and the San Antonio Independent School District.

Professor of English David Gaines presented Bob Dylan: Spiritually, Politically and Aesthetically Speaking to an audience gathered by Front Porch Parable at Scholz Garten in Austin on March 15, 2016. His remarks were accompanied by a Dylan set performed by musician Dave Madden. The set list, selected by Gaines, consisted of “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “Tangled Up in Blue,” “Forever Young,” and “Wigwam.”

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger published a review of The Oxford Handbook of English Prose 1500–1640, ed. Andrew Hadfield in Notes and Queries. Saenger also published a review of a recent production of Richard III in Austin. The review can be seen in Reviewing Shakespeare, a website hosted by the University of Warwick and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers gave an invited talk titled “People of the Books and the Movies” to Congregation Havurah Shalom in Georgetown.

The Board of Trustees approved the following recommendations regarding promotion of faculty:

Associate Professors promoted to the rank of Professor:

• Dr. David Gaines, Professor of English

• Dr. Katy Ross, Professor of Spanish

• Dr. Maria Todd, Professor of Biology

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers published “My Trumped Up Jewish Fantasy, from A to Z” in Tablet, a daily online magazine of Jewish news, ideas and culture.

On April 1 and 2, Professor of English David Gaines attended the American Writing Programs Conference in Los Angeles, California. He represented the University of Iowa Press and discussed as well as signed copies of his book “In Dylan Town: A Fan’s Life.”

Visiting Professor of English and Creative Writing John Pipkin won a residential Fellowship at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire to support work on his third novel, tentatively titled The Bicycle Notebooks. Pipkin begins his residency in May 2016.

Associate Professor of English David Gaines conducted a reading of In Dylan Town: A Fan’s Life for a Road Scholar event with the Pacific Northwest Alumni Association on March 20 in Seattle. Revived in 2003, the Southwestern University Alumni Association’s Road Scholar program brings guest speakers to present a topic, and provides opportunity to interact with members of the Southwestern community in an informal academic setting. The Road Scholar program supports the University’s Core Value of lifelong learning.

On March 16, Associate Professor of English David Gaines spoke to the Dallas Alumni Association and prospective students about his teaching, writing, and Southwestern. He also spoke to alumni and prospectives in Seattle on March 20 before presenting “Bob Dylan, ‘Theme Time Radio Hour’ and the Big Tent” at the American Culture/Popular Culture Association annual meeting in Seattle on March 24. In between Dallas and Seattle he presented, by invitation, “The Protest Songs of Bob Dylan” to the Sun City Democrats in Georgetown on March 19.

Associate Professor of English David Gaines presented “Bob Dylan, Spiritual Journeys, and Us” to the graduating class of St. Stephen’s Episcopal School in Austin on February 26.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers contributed an article to the Chronicle of Higher Education titled “Feeding English Majors in the 21st Century.” The article acknowledges the need for undergraduates in the humanities to market themselves for the new “economic normal.”

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers contributed a post titled “Holy and Unholy Tweets” to the Lilith Magazine blog.

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger provided a review of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by Shit-faced Shakespeare, from their January 22 performance at Spider House in Austin.

Associate Professor of English and Director of National Fellowships and Scholarships David Gaines was interviewed in a two part series on Expecting Rain, one of the pioneer sites on the web dealing with Bob Dylan, Dylan’s influences, lyrics, records and the latest concert reviews. Parts one and two can be found respectively.

Michael Saenger, Associate Professor of English, published a review of Jewish Culture in Early Modern Europe: Essays in Honor of David B. Ruderman in Sixteenth Century Studies Journal.  The book is a wide-ranging study of Jewish life in Europe and the Mediterranean during the early modern period.

On December 12, Associate Professor of English David Gaines culminated his fall and winter of book-related activities by participating in the Texas Humanities Council Holiday Book Fair with a dozen writers from around the state. All proceeds from the sale of his “In Dylan Town: A Fan’s Notes” went to state libraries. Earlier in the fall, he met with approximately 40 alumni at Homecoming and read from his book on October 17. On October 19 he introduced Michael Gray, author of “The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia,” as the English Department’s Howard Crawford lecturer. On October 30 he gave an invited talk at the Marble Falls Public Library to hill country residents. He also accepted invitations to speak about “In Dylan Town” in Seattle, Los Angeles, Austin, and Dallas in the coming year.

Helene Meyers, Professor of English and McManis University Chair, reviewed “Woman in Gold” for The Journal of Religion and Film.  Read the review.

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger presented a paper on Shakespeare in multiple languages at the Blackfriars Conference, hosted by the American Shakespeare Center.  A blog of the panel can be found here.

Associate Professor of English David Gaines read from and signed copies of In Dylan Town: A Fan’s Life (University of Iowa Press, 2015) at Austin’s Book People on September 2. He did likewise at the Cedar Rapids, Iowa Barnes and Noble on September 25 and participated the next day in the program “Music is the Word” co-sponsored by the Iowa City Public Library, Prairie Lights Books, and the University of Iowa Press. The Austin American Statesman, San Antonio Express and Cedar Rapids Gazette all published articles related to In Dylan Town throughout the month.

Helene Meyers, Professor of English and McManis University Chair, contributed a post titled “Holy and Unholy Tweets” to the Lilith Magazine blog.  Read it here.

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger published a review of a bilingual adaptation of Shakespeare in San Marcos. Find it here.

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger’s recent blog post, “Political Correctness, Academic Relevance and Israel,” was published by the Times of Israel. In addition, his recent article, “Interlinguicity and the Alchemist,” was reprinted in the edited volume, Multilingualism in the Drama of Shakespeare and his Contemporaries, edited by Ton Hoenselaars and Dirk Delabastita and published by John Benjamins in the Netherlands.

Professor of English and McManis University Chair Helene Meyers contributed a post to the “Lilith Magazine” blog on Rainbow Jews and the Jerusalem Pride Parade.

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger’s blog post about the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage was published by the “Times of Israel” 

Helene Meyers, professor of English and McManis University Chair, reviewed the film “Felix and Meira” for Lilith Magazine’s blog. Read her review.

Professor of English Eileen Cleere delivered a paper and chaired a panel at the Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Association (INCS) annual meeting in Atlanta, April 16-19. Her talk, “Going Downtown: The Adolescent Afterlife of *Lady Audley’s Secret*,” is part of a new project on adolescent literature, public libraries and the private reading habits of American teenagers. Cleere also presented her research at the “Experience Southwestern” event in Houston on April 19. The lecture was attended by alumni, trustees and prospective students from the Houston area.

Associate Professor of English and Director of National Fellowships and Scholarships David Gaines presented the opening lecture at the Delta Symposium launch of “Professing Dylan” on April 11 in Jonesboro, Ark. He was invited as one of the contributors to a volume about teaching the works and lives of Bob Dylan. The presentation titled “Dylan Days” touched upon his contribution to the volume and the research involved in his forthcoming book “In Dylan Town: A Fan’s Life” (University of Iowa Press, Fall 2015).

Michael Seanger, professor of English, was interviewed by McGill-Queens University Press about his new collection of essays that explore the hybridity of languages that Shakespeare embraced in his writing.

Professor of English Eileen Cleere has published a review essay titled “Relations” in “Victorian Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Victorian Studies.” The essay reviews three new books in Victorian family studies in the context of ongoing scholarly conversations in the field.

Associate Professor of English David Gaines had his article “Tangled Up in Bob,” published in “The Chronicle of Higher Ed” on Nov. 24, 2014. 

Associate Professor of English Michael Saenger had a short article accepted in “Notes and Queries” (published by Oxford University Press) on the connection between Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale” and one of Shakespeare’s contemporaries, Thomas Nashe. The piece is a condensed version of Saenger’s keynote lecture at a conference held at the University of London last summer. In addition, Saenger wrote a review of an Austin production of “Antony and Cleopatra,” directed by Joseph Falocco, that was accepted for publication in “Texas Theatre Journal.”

Helene Meyers, professor of English and McManis University Chair, presented “Post-Holocaust Jewish Geography: Enemies, A Love Story” at the 2014 Film and History conference, held in Madison, WI.

Michael Saenger, associate professor of English, delivered a talk titled, “The Linguistic Materiality of Perspective in The Spanish Tragedy,” at the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference in New Orleans, October 19, 2014. He was also an invited chair of the panel, “Dramatic Tragedy in 16th-century England,” and the organizer of “Theater of Perspective in the Renaissance” at the same conference.

Helene Meyers, professor of English and McManis University Chair, published “Jewish Calendar Talk” in Lilith Blog.

Eileen Cleere, professor of English, has published her second book. The book, titled The Sanitary Arts: Aesthetic Culture and the Victorian Cleanliness Campaigns, was released by Ohio State University Press in late July. Read more here.

Helene Meyers, professor of English and McManis University Chair, published an article titled “The Unmarked Chains of Paper Clips” in the spring issue of Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies. The essay discusses the 2004 documentary made about the Children’s Holocaust Memorial in Whitwell, Tenn., and, more broadly, Holocaust education in the 21st century. Read the article here.

Michael Saenger, associate professor of English, was the first keynote speaker at a conference on Adapting, Performing and Reviewing Shakespearean Comedy in a European Context that was held at Kings College, London, June 12-13. Listen to a podcast of his talk here. Saenger also published two reviews on the Reviewing Shakespeare website, which is maintained by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and the University of Warwick. Read his review of  Twelfth Night as performed by The City Theatre in Austin here. Read his review of All’s Well That Ends Well as performed by the 7 Towers Theater Company of Austin here. Saenger also has been given a blog by The Times of Israel. His first published piece, “The Shylock Lens: Shakespeare and the Myth of Jewish Brutality,” was published on July 21. Read the piece here.