Department of English Awards & Accomplishments 2018-19

A banner year of recognition for hard work, innovative research, and excellent writing. Cheers to all.

Faculty:

Professor and Chair Andrew Elfenbein published The Gist of Reading (Stanford University Press)

Professor Ray Gonzalez published the poetry chapbook Some Holy Ghost (Mesilla Press)

Regents Professor Patricia Hampl published The Art of the Wasted Day (Viking)

Assistant Professor Nate Mills published Ragged Revolutionaries: The Lumpenproletariat and African American Marxism in Depression-Era Literature (University of Massachusetts Press)

Professor Emeritus Marty Roth published Change Partners: Motion, Becoming, Difference, Violence (Academica Press)

Professor Katherine Scheil published Imagining Shakespeare's Wife: The Afterlife of Anne Hathaway (Cambridge University Press)

Regents Professor Emerita Madelon Sprengnether published Mourning Freud (Bloomsbury)

Assistant Professor Amit Yahav published Feeling Time: Duration, the Novel, and Eighteenth-Century Sensibility (University of Pennsylvania Press)

            External recognition:

Associate Professor Lois Cucullu received a Modern Studies Association Research Travel Grant

Assistant Professor V. V. Ganeshananthan was named a Loft Literary Center 2018 Mentor

Regents Professor Patricia Hampl received the Milkweed Award for Distinguished Contributions to Literary Culture

Professor Nabil Matar received the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences Award in Comparative Literature and Literary Translation, for his decades of research on "cultural engagements and the meeting of civilizations"

Associate Professor Kim Todd will be included in the 2018 Best American Science & Nature Writing anthology with her essay “The Island Wolves,” which first appeared in Orion

            Internal recognition:

Assistant Professor Elaine Auyoung was named a University of Minnesota McKnight Land-Grant Professor

Associate Professor Siobhan Craig was awarded an Institute for Advanced Studies Residential Fellowship for 2018-19

Associate Professors Lois Cucullu, Maria Fitzgerald, and Jani Scandura received Office of the Vice President for Research 2018-19 Grant-in-Aid of Research, Artistry, and Scholarship awards

Associate Professor Lois Cucullu received an Imagine Fund Award

Assistant Professor V. V. Ganeshananthan received an Imagine Fund Award

Associate Professor Dan Philippon received Grand Challenges Curriculum Approval as the co-teacher of the fall 2018 course “Living the Good Life at the End of the World”

Professor Julie Schumacher was awarded a Sabbatical Leave Supplement

Associate Professor Kim Todd is the recipient of a Talle Faculty Research Award and was named the Donald V. Hawkins Professor of English

The Department of English hired two new Creative Writing faculty, scheduled to start fall 2018: poetry and creative nonfiction writers Douglas Kearney and Kathryn Nuernberger
 

English Advisory Board Member:

Paul Taylor was named the 2018 University of Minnesota Alumni Association Advocate of the Year. We are extremely grateful for all Taylor's efforts as a founding member of the Department of English Advisory Board, but in particular we appreciate his tireless work advocating for the renovation of Pillsbury Hall for English.
 

Staff:

Communications Associate Terri Sutton received a 2018 President's Award for Outstanding Service and a 2018 CLA Outstanding Service Award
 

Undergraduate students:

            External recognition:

English seniors Quynh-Huong Van and Amy Verrando received Fulbright Program English Teaching Assistantships for 2018-19, in India and Malaysia respectively

            Internal recognition:

Gabriella Granada was awarded a 2018-19 Talle Family Scholarship

Samantha Olson and Elizabeth Schleisman received 2018-19 CLA Birkelo Scholarships

Gabriella Granada received the 2018 Donald R. Zander Alumni Award for Outstanding Student Leadership as well as the President’s Student Leadership & Service Award

Laurel Darling received a CLA Internship Scholarship

Sara Donlin was awarded a Critical Language Scholarship to study Korean

Jessica Hassan was awarded a CLA Dr. Nancy “Rusty” Barceló Scholarship

Honors students Claire Fallon, Benjamin Schroeder, and Amy Verrando shared the Mark David Clawson Award for outstanding summa cum laude thesis.

Kaylee Anderson, Abbey Benning, Marisa Erickson, Claire Fallon, Erin Jones, Danylo Loutchko, Benjamin Schroeder, Amy Verrando, and Arianna Wegley graduated summa cum laude

Gavin Arnold, Danylo Loutchko, and Benjamin Schroeder received Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) Awards

Department of English 2018-19 Scholarships were awarded to Sarah Anderson, Edwin Banks, Josh Bruyning, Sophia Charbonneau, Sara Donlin, Megan Filzen, Jesseca Fusco, Palmer Haasch, Gwindalyn Harrison, Emma Heckel, Hannah Jacobson, John Kenney, Ellery Knight, Ryan Malloy, Jordan Mulder, Samantha Olson, Anna Rosin, Elizabeth Schleisman, Ian Smith, Dzsenifer Szabo, and Molly Tynjala

The 2017-18 Paul & Lucienne Taylor Internship Grants were awarded to Benjamin Schroeder and Marah Walker, who interned at the University of Minnesota Press

The 2017-18 Edith and Archibald Leyasmeyer Internship Grants were awarded to Elizabeth Baxter, Jane Bollweg, Ariana Coon, Emma Heckel, Hannah Kroeger, and Liv Riggins who interned at Park Square Theatre, the Museum of Russian Art, and Zenon Dance

The English major winners of the ArtWords contest were Benjamin Schroeder (first) and Mike Corrao (third)

MFA in Creative Writing students:

            External recognition:

May Lee-Yang was awarded a Playwright Center McKnight Fellowship and a Loft Literary Center Spoken Word Immersion Fellowship

Erica Berry and Anessa Ibrahim won 2018 Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative grants

M. J. Gette received the Ricochet Editions 2017 Poetry Prize

Erica Berry won the Southeast Review Narrative Nonfiction Prize for her essay “Crywolf”; she also received a AWP Intro Journals Award for her creative nonfiction essay “On Worry,” which will appear in The Colorado Review

            Internal recognition:

Ten students successfully defended their MFA theses: Erica Berry, Kristin Collier, Joe Harris, Will Harris, Anessa Ibrahim, Liam Kane-Grade, Miriam Karraker, Hannah Riddle, Connor Stratton, and Alexis Zanghi

Gesell Awards for Excellence in Creative Writing for MFA students were awarded to Anessa Ibrahim and Amanda Minoff for fiction; Erica Berry for creative nonfiction; and Hannah Riddle for poetry. Ben Meyerson and Alexis Zanghi received honorable mentions.

Miriam Karraker, May Lee-Yang, and Kathryn Savage received the James Wright Prize in Poetry

Theodosia Henney and Kathryn Savage won Graduate Research Partnership Program (GRPP) awards

Jenn Carter received the Michael Dennis Browne Fellowship

Leslie Hodgkins was awarded the Winifred Fellowship

May Lee-Yang won the Marcella DeBourg Summer Scholarship

Mariela Lemus received the Great River Review Summer Fellowship

CLA Travel and Research Fellowships went to Rebecca Brill, Vincent Cheng, Kelsey Donk, Curtis Fincher, Eleanor Garran, Mae Rice, and Mihret Sibhat

Kristin Collier won the Department of English Graduate Student Teaching Award for MFA candidates

The graduate student winners of the ArtWords Writing Competition were Mariela Lemus (second) and Kathryn Savage (third)

The Creative Writing Program celebrated the 21st birthday of its MFA degree
 

PhD in English Literature students:

            External recognition:

Amanda Alexander received the Hans Aarsleff Graduate Summer Fellowship 

Clara Biesel was selected for the Folger Shakespeare Library Mellon Summer Institute in Vernacular Paleography

Hannah Jorgenson was awarded a Huntington-Florida Atlantic University Fellowship

Katelin Krieg was chosen as one of six Big 10 Emerging Scholars

Charlotte Madere received a Foreign Language & Area Studies Fellowship to study Urdu in Lucknow, India

Amanda Niedfelt received a Modern Studies Association Research Travel Grant

            Internal recognition:

Adam Lindberg, Barbara Schulman, and Jeffrey Squires successfully defended their doctoral dissertations.

Amy Fairgrieve was awarded a 2018-19 Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship

Katelin Krieg won the Graduate School 2018 Best Dissertation Award in the Arts and Humanities

Saeide Mirzaei was awarded a 2018-19 Interdisciplinary Doctoral Fellowship

Asa Olson received the Department of English Graduate Student Teaching Award for PhD candidates

Jonas Gardsby, David Lemke, Jenna Lester, and Shavera Seneviratne received Graduate Research Partnership Program (GRPP) awards

Charlotte Madere received a Thesis Research Travel Grant to do archival research at the National Library of Scotland and the British Library May-June of 2018

Zoe Rodine was awarded the Darwin Patnode Fellowship

Kristina Popiel received the Garner-McNaron-Sprengnether Fellowship

Yon Ji Sol was awarded a Jerome L. Joss Graduate Student Research Grant from the Center for Jewish Studies and a Union Pacific Dissertation Research Grant

Short-term Research Grants went to Christopher Bowman (for San Francisco Bay area research on Steinbeck); Elizabeth Howard (for London and Oxford research on Hopkins); and Amanda Niedfeldt (for research in Berlin on Cold War cultural programs)

David Lemke was selected for the inaugural RIGS (Race, Indigeneity, Gender and Sexuality Studies) Dissertation Writing Retreat

Delaney Fitzpatrick (MA) was selected as the University Libraries’ Publishing Services Graduate Intern
 

Alumni:

            External recognition:

Minnesota State Arts Board 2018 Artist Initiative grants were awarded to MFA alums Mike Alberti, D. Allen, Carolyn (CJ) Byrne, Su Hwang, and Gayla Marty, as well as BA alum John Jodzio

Victoria Blanco (MFA) was named a 2017-18 Loft Literary Center Mentor Series Fellow

Roy Guzmán (MFA) won a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship

Katie Sisneros (PhD) was named a Mellon/ACLS Public Fellow

Michael Tisserand (BA) won the Eisner Award for Best Comics-Related Book for his biography Krazy: George Herriman, a Life in Black and White

Jasmin Ziegler (MFA) was selected as a 2017-18 Loft Literary Center Mentor Series Fellow

            Internal recognition:

Daniel E. Kaner (BA), founder/CEO of the Oribe line of beauty products, was named a CLA Alumni of Notable Achievement

Cheryl Strayed (BA), author of the bestselling memoir Wild, was named a CLA Alumni of Notable Achievement

Jeff Todd Titon (MA) received a 2018 University of Minnesota Outstanding Achievement Award