Professor Marie McAllister's Literature of Death and Purpose was recently recognized by UMW Voice as a course providing insight into life, the pandemic, future careers, and more: Shelley Nguyen hasn’t landed on a career choice yet, but she’s already contemplating what kind of legacy she wants to leave. “It’s important to think about how I want to live my life,” said Nguyen, a University of Mary Washington sophomore and international affairs major who spends a few minutes each morning jotting down notes in a gratitude journal. “I’m glad I’m already figuring these things out.” She began to think along those lines during one of her first courses at Mary Washington: Literature of Death and Purpose. Introduced right before COVID hit in spring of 2020, the timely class covers two millennia of prose and poetry grappling with grief, loss and life’s meaning. In addition to literary analysis, students write letters to their 80-year-old selves, practice connecting with strangers, visit … [Read more...]
Bylenok’s ‘With Good Reason’ Episode Rebroadcast Starting on March 27
Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing Laura Bylenok will be featured in a rebroadcast of With Good Reason on public radio stations across the country. An award-winning poet who stitches together her love of science with her passion for the written word, Bylenok read from her recent collection on WGR’s Poetry That Heals last spring. The rebroadcast will air starting Friday, March 27. “In college, [Bylenok] was fascinated with genetic engineering. Now, she manipulates language, not DNA,” says the show’s description. “Her recent book turns familiar forms into poetic laboratory experiments.” Sharing selections from her book Warp, winner of the 2015 T.S. Eliot Prize, Bylenok describes her fascination with molecular biology and genetics, explaining her use of the words and concepts they conjure to put the human condition into prose. An inspiration for her poem Genome, she tells WGR host Sarah McConnell, before reading the piece on air, is a haunting image left by a past … [Read more...]
Barrenechea’s FSEM 100 Visits Poe Museum
Professor Antonio Barrenechea, Professor of English, recently led his freshman seminar classes, FSEM 100: Dracula from Page to Screen, on visits to the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, VA, on December 3 and December 5. … [Read more...]
Blevins Interviewed by Chilean Newspaper
Dr. Brenta Blevins was recently interviewed by La Tercera on the topic of futurism. The article is accessible at http://www.latercera.com/noticia/la-factoria-ideas/. … [Read more...]
I want to be a part of it: New Yorker, New Yorker
Professor Claudia Emerson's poem “Early Elegy: Barber” has been accepted for publication in The New Yorker. Congratulations! … [Read more...]