English Department Newsletter
Fall 2026 | Volume 5 | Issue 1
Click here to download a PDF version of the Fall 2026 newsletter
Welcome Back!
Welcome back to all of our faculty and staff! There are a lot of exciting events happening this spring, so first and foremost make sure you're following us on Facebook and Instagram (@uofmenglish) to stay up to date.
This semester, we'll welcome speakers and authors to our campus - just to name a few, The Pinch Presents will host Ryan Tietman for a poetry reading on October 20th, the Naseeb Shaheen Memorial Lecture Series will welcome Dr. Zahid R. Chaudhary on October 29th, and the English Honors Colloquium series returns on September 14th, this semester featuring Darryl Domingo, Shiva Mainaly, Lindsay Helms, and Lorinda Cohoon.
We also had a few exciting projects in Patterson Hall over the summer. On the second floor, you’ll find our brand new student lounge in Patterson Hall 225 (connected to the CASA satellite location), and on the second, third, and fourth floors you’ll find newly-installed water bottle filling stations next to our water fountains. A huge thank you to Drs. Sage Graham and Emily Gillo for their work on a Green Fee Proposal, which led to the English Department being awarded $13,500 for this amazing upgrade.
In this issue, you’ll find additional details about these upcoming events, photos from a few of our Summer and Spring 2026 events, shout-outs to our award-winning faculty, and a publication spotlight on Dr. Verner Mitchell’s new book! We are also excited to welcome three Visiting Assistant Professors to the department this fall: Dr. Başak Çermikli Ayvaz for Applied Linguistics, Jared Lemus for Creative Writing, and Dr. Aerial Ellis for Writing, Rhetoric, & Technical Communication.
This year we're hoping for even more involvement with the marketing and promotion of all of our amazing programs, courses, and events here in the English department. As always, if you have project suggestions or inquiries, don't hesitate to get in touch with Dr. Tucker or Dr. Gillo.
Letter from the Chair
When Forbes magazine listed English as the “most versatile college major” in its June 2026 publication, many people may have been surprised that more celebrated majors in business or STEM fields did not appear. English Departments across the country, however, celebrated the news on their social media feeds because it confirmed what many of them already knew. English degrees prepare students for an unlimited number of opportunities after college and in the long term, English graduates are malleable enough to fit into or forge any number of careers. In the past, this has been considered a hindrance because there was rarely a specific career to which one could point as a landing spot for an English major. Engineering majors become engineers, accounting majors become accountants, and nursing majors become nurses. What becomes of the English major? The answer, that the possibilities are endless, wrongly gets dismissed, but now might be the moment to point out that its limitlessness makes the major so valuable in this moment. As current and future generations change jobs and careers multiple times throughout their lives, the versatility and portability of an English degree will help graduates navigate a volatile job market and society.
The English major remains a bulwark against fears about an uncertain future. Its immunity to job loss caused by increasing automation lies in the notion that its mission is not employment, but knowledge. Knowledge is durable. Knowledge is portable. Knowledge is indispensable. The major not dependent on a specific job or career becomes useful in any job or career. Even as the dissemination of knowledge goes underappreciated as reading scores nationwide decline, the very skills that employers value - critical and imaginative thinking and effective communication are embedded in the English major. They enhance knowledge and encourage discovery in a moment when the common rhetoric necessary for civil discourse has been replaced with hyperbolic, insular, polarizing language. As a result, English majors can apply their knowledge and skills to almost any job and transform their interests into almost any career.
Our students, of course, do consistently land specific jobs, particularly as editors, journalists, teachers, technical writers, and marketing managers. Increasingly, they gain vital experience through our internship program. Our BA/JD 3+3 program highlights the fact that English remains a top 5 major for law school students. Yet the major often leads students into careers in the unlikeliest of places. Two years ago, for instance, humanities majors had a 52% acceptance rate into medical schools, higher than any of the science or health studies majors. English majors develop into entrepreneurs in a world where communication, innovation, and inclusion across digital and print spaces turns out to be just as important as brick-and-mortar buildings. They shift into content creation and editing in a world where young people increasingly receive their information from podcasts instead of newspapers. The road for the English major diverges, intersects, and evolves into an exciting, dynamic journey that the knowledge and skills they receive prepare them to embrace.
We are extremely excited to welcome our new faculty and staff whom you will be meeting in these pages. Some of them are returning to Memphis after having been away while others will get to experience the city for the first time. Yet they all share a passion, commitment, and talent that will continue to move us forward towards an inclusive, public-facing department invested in quality student mentorship, topnotch research, and student-centered, community-based service.
We are also excited about the promotion of a member of our teaching faculty, Dr. Christopher Black, to Associate Professor of Teaching. Like the other members of our teaching faculty, Dr. Black exemplifies this department’s commitment to teaching excellence and steadfast department service. Along with our newly tenured and promoted associate professors Drs. J. Elliott Casal and Emily Skaja, our faculty encourage students’ creativity, innovation, and community that will lead to fulfilling careers and lives. Our recently promoted full professors, Dr. Katie Fredlund, Dr. Leah Windsor, and Professor Marcus Wicker embody the combination of imaginative research, impassioned teaching, and energizing public-facing service that propels our department’s evolution and our embrace of innovative approaches to critical inquiry and fact-based interpretation.
In Christopher Nolan’s film adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey this summer, Odysseus tells Penelope “We lived in a world of palaces and trade and language…blind to its beauty until we broke it.” The English major offers us the nuance, critical analysis, and empathy needed to bridge the divides that confront us, even when it looks back towards the Bronze Age or early America. Literature and language remain the way forward as we search for a common rhetoric to articulate the meanings and structures of the cultures and societies we want to build and sustain.
Spring & Summer 2026 Recap
Memphis Writing Workshop
In the spring semester, Prof. Marcus Wicker held a free fiction and poetry writing
workshop at Beale Street Landing.
English Awards Ceremony
In April, we held our annual awards ceremony to celebrate all of our amazing undergraduate
and graduate students.
Talbot Summer Institute
In July, we welcomed Memphis-Shelby County Schools teachers for a two-day workshop
on multiliteracies and multmodality.
Save the Date for Fall 2026
English Honors Colloquium | 9/14, 10/5, 10/26, & 11/9
4:00pm | Patterson Hall 456
The Pinch Presents | Ryan Teitman | October 20th
Naseeb Shaheen Memorial Lecture Series: Dr. Zahid R. Chaudhary | October 29th-30th | Location TBD
Follow us on Facebook and Instagram account to stay up-to-date on all the English Department happenings!
Faculty Publication Spotlight
Dr. Verner Mitchell, In Flaming Letters: Lucia Pitts, Poet of the Six Triple Eight
Lucia M. Pitts (1904–1973) was an African American writer and Army veteran whose story
has never been told. Her poetry, including love lyrics of striking sensuality and
honesty, was admired by Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Dorothy West. Her work
first appeared during the Harlem Renaissance, influenced by Harriet Monroe’s Poetry
magazine and blues singers Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. A native of Chicago’s Bronzeville,
Pitts challenged discrimination and segregation throughout her remarkable life, both
as a member of President Franklin Roosevelt’s “Black Cabinet” and as the first African
American woman employed at the War Department. Then, in 1943, Pitts joined the 6888th
Central Postal Directory Battalion, the Army’s only all-Black, all-female battalion,
which later received the Congressional Gold Medal. Pitts’s own account of her service
with the Six Triple Eight, however, has remained unpublished until now. This volume
brings together a biography of Pitts, her complete military memoir, and one hundred
of her finest poems.
“A signal, pioneering contribution to ongoing efforts to broaden the Black literary canon. Davis and Mitchell’s narrative is well-written and rigorously researched, and opens the door to Pitts' remarkable life and work.” - Laura Elizabeth Vrana, University of South Alabama
Click here to see more creative works by our faculty
Faculty Recognition
Dr. Rebecca Adams
Distinguished Research in the Humanities, UofM Alumni Association Award
Prof. Courtney Santo
College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Achievement in Creative Arts Award
Dr. Emily Skaja
College of Arts and Sciences Early Career Research Award
Drs. J. Elliott Casal and Lyn Wright
Co-Principal Investigators
Online English for STEM Professionals. (2026-2027). FHI 360 - Online Professional
English Network. $70,551.
Drs. Sage Graham and Emily Gillo
Read, Write, and Hydrate: Water Bottle Refilling Stations for Patterson Hall. (2026).
UofM Green Fee. $13,500.
PDF version of the Fall 2026 newsletter