Pulitzer Prize winner Alison Lurie to be celebrated in July 1 memorial
The service and reception honoring the acclaimed writer's life and work are open to the public.
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Training in the rigors and pleasures of critical thinking, close reading and lucid writing
Academics
The Cornell Literatures in English Department retains the pluralistic ideals of the university’s founders and continues to respond to and embody a constantly evolving discipline. Within the department, ongoing debates about the role of critical theory or cultural studies, the status of popular culture, the relevance of film studies and hip hop, or the definition of the words “English” and “literature” themselves have led to new understandings of the discipline, as well as a range of textual productivity, from producing critical editions to writing poetry.
Popular Destinations
Interdisciplinary Reach
Outside the department, the growth of interdisciplinary work has led to a range of connections across the humanities at Cornell, from comparative literature to medieval studies, from Asian-American Studies to feminist, gender and sexuality studies, with English faculty maintaining affiliations in all of these disciplines.
Along with teaching more than a third of the Freshman Writing Seminars offered by Cornell’s Knight Institute of Writing in the Disciplines, the Literatures in English Department’s nourishing of this wide range of scholarly and creative writing has maintained the department’s central importance in the humanities at Cornell and world-wide.
Literatures in English Events
Jul
01
Rhodes-Rawlings Auditorium
Sep
01
A. D. White House
Literatures in English News
Learn & travel with Cornell alumni, faculty this summer
A&S faculty will lead many courses on campus and join educational vacations as part of Cornell Adult University.
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Michael Koch, Epoch editor, remembered for ‘quiet grace’
Koch’s expertise made a mark on American literature and influenced writers who went on to publish bestselling and prize-winning works of fiction and poetry.
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Student Spotlight: Michael Lee
"As a poet with the heart of a historian, I’m interested in attending to the interrelated histories of European colonialism and industrial warfare through the lyric."
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Student Spotlight: Esther Kondo Heller
With a research travel grant, Heller will go to Nairobi this summer to research an archive of interviews with the Taarab musician Sitara Bute.
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Department of Literatures in English Announces Student Award Winners
The Department of Literatures in English is host to many gifted student writers and teachers. Thanks to the generosity of various donors, annual prizes are awarded for outstanding work in poetry, fiction, research, critical writing, and instruction. We are pleased to announce our 2021 - 2022 student...
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Grateful to be together: Meet the extraordinary class of 2022
Hear about the Cornell experiences of some of the amazing students in our graduating class.
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Migrations grants fund worldwide interdisciplinary projects
Cornell faculty and their community partners will tell the stories of local migrant farmworkers, use documentary film to better understand climate change and dispossession, learn how migratory birds are affected by drug trafficking and more.
Read More"If you read quickly to get through a poem to what it means, you have missed the body of the poem."
— M.H. Abrams, Class of 1916 Professor Emeritus