English

The faculty of the Department of English accomplished a lot this year. We continue to develop our three tracks in creative writing, literature and technical communication, as well as our minor in linguistics and our certificate in editing and publishing.

In October, The Chronicle of Higher Education recognized UCF as one of the top five English programs in the U.S. in terms of the number of undergraduate degrees conferred. We currently rank just behind FSU and UCLA and ahead of the University of Minnesota.

Throughout the year, the department continued various ongoing projects that often go unnoticed amidst the demands of academic life. Our student-edited literary magazine, The Cypress Dome, released its 34th annual issue this spring. Meanwhile, our nationally renowned literary journal, The Florida Review, entered its 47th year under the new editorship of Assistant Professor Peter Kispert. The 11th annual English Symposium returned to an in-person format, providing faculty and graduate students a chance to present and discuss their work. And our creative writing graduate students showcased their talents at the Writers Go Wild! event during UCF Celebrates the Arts.

Our faculty published numerous articles and book chapters this year. Noteworthy books include William Fogarty’s The Politics of Speech in Later Twentieth-Century Poetry: Local Tongues in Heaney, Brooks, Harrison, and Clifton (Palgrave Macmillan); Emily K. Johnson and Anastasia Salter’s Playful Pedagogy in the Pandemic: Pivoting to Game-Based Learning (Routlege); and Tison Pugh’s Queer Oz: L. Frank Baum’s Trans Tales and Other Astounding Adventures in Sex and Gender (University Press of Mississippi). Books edited by our faculty include Barry Mauer and Anastasia Salter’s Reimagining the Humanities (Parlor Press); Louise Kane’s Re-Reading the Age of Innovation: Victorians, Moderns, and Literary Newness, 1830-1950 (Routledge); and Tison Pugh and Lynn Ramey’s Teaching Games and Game Studies in the Literature Classroom (Bloomsbury). Mark Kamrath continues as series editor for The Collected Writings of Charles Brockden Brown, which published Volume 6 this year (Bucknell University Press). Anna Jones co-edits the journal Prose Studies, which published a special issue on queer nonfiction prose, and Louise Kane has assumed the editorship of The James Joyce Literary Supplement, which is now based at UCF instead of its previous location at the University of Miami.

The Chronicle of Higher Education recognized UCF as one of the top five English programs in the U.S. in terms of the number of undergraduate degrees conferred.

Our faculty members received several prizes and awards this year. Kevin Meehan’s translation of an excerpt from Marie Léticée’s Moun Lakou won the inaugural Anne Frydman Translation Prize selected by John Hopkins professor Jean McGarry. Mel Stanfill, Anastasia Salter and Anne Sullivan were awarded an Honorable Mention for best paper at the 18th Annual Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games. Anastasia Salter was awarded a Teaching Incentive Program (TIP) award, while William Fogarty and Chrissy Kolaya both received Research Incentive Awards (RIA). Stephen Hopkins won a UCF College of Arts and Humanities Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award, and Veronica Joyner’s dissertation received an Honorable Mention from the Conference on College Composition and Communication’s Outstanding Dissertation Award in Technical Communication committee.

This year, the department organized numerous public-facing events, both in-person and virtual. Cecilia Rodríguez-Milanés hosted two community events sponsored by Florida Humanities Greater Good: Humanities in Academia Grants. In September, she led a panel discussion entitled “Re-Membering Puerto Rican Arts and Culture Five Years after Hurricane María.” In March, sheorganized a two-day event called “Operación Pedro Pan: The Voices and Stories of Cuba’s Child Exodus, featuring academics and musicians from UCF and other parts of the Americas, including three Pedro Pan immigrants who arrived in the U.S. in the early 1960s. Amrita Ghosh collaborated with the UCF India Center to present a live Q&A session with Geetanjali Shree, winner of the 2022 International Booker Prize,and her U.S. translator, Daisy Rockwell. The event, which featured Tomb of Sand, attracted participants from across the U.S. and India.

Our grant activity also deserves recognition. Anastasia Salter and Mel Stanfill were awarded a grant from the UCF Research Foundation for Understanding and Advancing Racial Equity on Social Media. Louise Kane received a Field Development Grant from the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals. Beth Young’s ongoing NEH grant facilitated the expansion of the online Samuel Johnson Dictionary Project this year, doubling the size of the popular resource.