A new season of recognition, scholarship, and community impact.
by Fabiola M. Martinez Del Valle
As the fall semester begins, we’re celebrating the continued brilliance of our English community. From impactful publications to community-centered teaching and national recognition, September brought a fresh wave of accomplishments worth sharing. Let’s take a look at how our colleagues and students are shaping the world.
Awards & Achievements
- Sarah Ensor (Literary Studies Professor) has been selected for the 2025 Phillip R. Certain & Gary D. Sandefur Letters & Science Distinguished Faculty Award, honoring newly tenured faculty for extraordinary contributions to teaching of the College of Letters and Science faculty.
Publications
- Amanda Shubert’s (Literary Studies Professor) book Seeing Things: Virtual Aesthetics in Victorian Culture (Cornell University Press) is now available for pre-order. Amanda’s work is already generating excitement in Victorian studies and visual culture.
- Elizabeth Bearden’s (Literary Studies Professor) new book Crip Authority: Disability and the Art of Consolation in the Renaissance is now available from the University of Michigan Press. The book is also accessible via open access, expanding its reach worldwide.
- Kirk Sides’s (Literary Studies Professor) forthcoming book Environmental Entanglements: African Literature’s Cultural Imaginary is now available for pre-order from Oxford University Press, offering a timely exploration of literature and ecological imagination.
- Johs Rasmussen (PhD Candidate in Literary Studies) published a new article “Nasty Politics” in B2O: Boundary2 Online as part of the “Stop the Right” dossier. Drawing from his dissertation, the piece offers a critical lens on political rhetoric and resistance.
- Matthew Louie (PhD student in Composition and Rhetoric) and Sujash Purna (PhD student in Composition and Rhetoric) co-authored “Precarity and Negotiations of Racialized Identities of Two POC Grad Instructors in a PWI” in Xchanges Journal, an interdisciplinary Technical Communication, Writing/Rhetoric, and Writing Across the Curriculum journal.
- Amadi Ozier (Literary Studies Professor) published a Tenant Organizing Handbook with Madison Tenant Power, offering practical guidance on renters’ rights, organizing strategies, and housing history in Wisconsin. Download the handbook
- Beth Nguyen’s essay on the 40th anniversary of The Golden Girls appeared in Time earlier this month—offering a spot at the table with those iconic women past middle age.
Publicity
- Joseph Nosek’s (ESL Professor and Program Director) Afghan Tutoring Project was featured in L&S News in the article “Afghan Tutoring Project Brings Hope of a Brighter Future.” Developed in collaboration with the NGO Educate Girls Now, the program trains TESOL students in trauma-informed teaching and pairs them with Afghan women learning English through ENGL 415.
- Caroline Gottschalk (Literary Studies Professor) and her students were featured in Inside UW for their continued work in the Coon Creek Watershed, showcasing the power of community-based storytelling and environmental engagement.