Research Activities

English literature faculty are passionate about the study of literature, language, aesthetics, print and electronic media, film, music, drama and performance, and the critical, historical, and cultural literatures that inform these fields. Our faculty's passions and curiosity range from ancient to contemporary: from the enduring myth of Babylon to anticolonial theory; from medieval reading practices to the cognitive science of how we read.

English Literature faculty frequently publish with top academic presses such as Cambridge, Columbia, Oxford, Princeton, and Stanford.

English faculty are regularly honored for their research excellence. Three faculty have received lifetime achievement awards in their fields: Timothy Brennan from the South Asian Literatures Association; Josephine Lee from the Association for Asian American Studies; and Nabil Matar, the Advancement of Sciences Award in Comparative Literature and Literary Translation from the Kuwait Foundation. Several professors have won major fellowships such as the Guggenheim Fellowship, American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship, National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, and Charles A. Ryskamp Research Fellowship.

Academic and creative associations

• Timothy Brennan, Advisory Board, Center for the Study of Globalization and Cultures, University of Hong Kong; and Scientific Committee of the Research Unit in Political Science and Philosophy at the University of Bologna
• V. V. Ganeshananthan, Board of Directors, American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies; South Asian Literature in Translation; and Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop
• Douglas Kearney, Board Member, American Composers Forum; and Center for New Performance at California Institute of the Arts
• Ellen Messer-Davidow, PIC National Planning Group, Center for Public Interest Communications, University of Florida
• Katherine Scheil, Advisor, Anne Hathaway’s Cottage, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Stratford-Upon-Avon
• Julie Schumacher, Board Member, Kerlan Collection, University of Minnesota
• Kim Todd, Senior Fellow, Environmental Leadership Program
• John Watkins, Program Coordinator, Mediterranean Studies Association; Advisory Board Member, Haifa Center for Mediterranean History, University of Haifa
• Amit Yahav, Executive Committee, MLA Forum Late-18th-Century English

Editorial positions

• Peter Campion, Executive Editor, Unbound Edition Press; Editor, Great River Review, University of Minnesota
• Andrew Elfenbein, Associate Editor, Discourse Processes
• V. V. Ganeshananthan, Contributing Editor, Copper Nickel 
• Douglas Kearney, Consulting Editor, Phoenix Poetry Series; Advisory and Section Editor (Image and Text Hybrids), Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora
• Josephine Lee, US Delegate, Oxford University Press Literature and Film and Media Studies 

Other professional appointments

Many other Department of English professors are members of the editorial or advising boards of respected journals and series, including:

• American Studies: Eurasian Perspectives
• Ariel: A Review of International English Literature
• CounterText
• Cultural Critique
• Diplomatica: A Journal of Diplomacy and Society
• Explorations in Renaissance Culture
• Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies
• Janus Unbound: Journal of Critical Studies
• Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies
• Mediterranean Studies
• Networked Interface for Nineteenth-Century Electronic Scholarship (NINES)
• New Formations
• Old English Newsletter
• Palgrave Music and Literature Series
• Palgrave Queenship and Power Series
• Race & Class, Institute of Race Relations
• Regeneration: Environment, Art, Culture 
• Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net
• Studies in English Literature