UB English Department
306 Clemens Hall
Buffalo, NY 14260
Phone: 716-645-2575
FAX: 716-645-5980
The English Major
The English Major at the University at Buffalo offers students the opportunity to work in small classroom settings with nationally and internationally renowned faculty on the skills of reading closely, writing lucidly, and thinking analytically. It is the only nationally ranked English Department in the SUNY system, and currently ranks within the top 25% of all university English Departments in the nation. English is also one of UB’s most popular, useful, and comprehensive majors. The study of literature is the study of life in all its dimensions, and English Department professors teach their courses in that spirit: a study of literature enables fuller comprehension and enjoyment of language and life, across a spectrum of centuries, genres, and literary traditions.
For over half a century, the English Department at the University at Buffalo has been at the forefront of innovative writing and cultural criticism and it is internationally renowned as a place where the exploration of new ideas happens. Faculty have included poets and novelists who have helped shape contemporary writing—including Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Susan Howe, and John Barth. The department’s scholarly faculty has been similarly ground-breaking in bringing new ideas to the field—asking what literature is, how it matters to our lives, how it intersects with multiple aspects of culture, and what makes the study of literature vital for local and global understanding. Students in the program work with faculty at all levels—from introductory classes to advanced seminars, independent studies, and honors theses. Current faculty and students continue the department’s tradition of being on the cutting edge of thinking about the study of literature and culture in all of their rich variety.
Want to find out more about the English Major? Go here:
Department Officers
Cristanne Miller
Department Chair
Office: 320 Clemens Hall
View the full list of department officers.
Recent News and This Week's Events
Congratulations to our 2008 Writing Prize winners:
Marina Blitshteyn, George Knight Houpt Prize and the Arthur Axlerod Award
Alex Johnston, English Department Essay Prize
Jungmin Kim, Scribbler's Prize
Dan Lesniak, The Albert Cook, The Mac Hammond, the John Logan Prize, and the Joyce Carol Oates Fiction Prize
Maura Pellettieri, The Albert Cook, The Mac Hammond, and the John Logan Prize
Professor Andy Stott has won the 2007 Royal Society of Literature's RSL/Jerwood award, for a "first major commissioned work of non-fiction" for his biography of the Regency clown, Joseph Grimaldi, to be published by Canongate. Andy will be traveling to London to collect his award. Congratulations, Andy! You can find the official announcement on the Royal Society of Literature's website. ( http://www.rslit.org/jerwood.htm)
PhD student Victoria Brockmeier has been awarded this year's T. S. Eliot Prize, judged by Grace Schulman, for her first book of poems, my maiden cowboy names. It had previously been shortlisted for the Walt Whitman Award, the Colorado Poetry Prize, the Brittingham and Felix Pollack Prizes, and Tupelo Press's open readings series, and will be published later this year by Truman State University Press. More information about the award can be found here:
(https://tsup.truman.edu/TSEliotPrize/previousWinners.aspx). Congratulations, Victoria!
Undergraduate Maura Pellettieri has won a prize for her eco-themed short story, ""If You Go Looking for Life, Be Sure To Pack A Lunch." The prize consists of an invitation and all expenses paid trip to the UN's Year of Planet Earth Conference in Paris in February 2008 and an invitation to South Africa's 2008 Grahamstown Science Festival. Congratulations, Maura!
September 16th, 12pm
Small Press in the Archive lecture series
Rich Owens: "Editing Macleod Archiving Williams"
The Poetry Collection, 420 Capen
September 17
Alumni Presentation Series
Lance Fogan
4 pm, 306 Clemens Hall
September 18 POETRY COLLECTION
420 Capen Hall 12:30 to 2 pm
DOUBLE BOOK LAUNCH OF
Karen Mac Cormack's Implexures (complete edition)
and
Steve McCaffery's Slightly Left of Thinking. Both are published by Chax Press, Tucson, Arizona
September 19
Digital Humanities Initiative at Buffalo's opening seminar, lecture, and reception. 1-7 p.m.
keynote speaker Katherine Hayles, UCLA. Respondents and seminar leaders Gregory Crane (Tufts University) and Stephen Ramsay (University of Nebraska).
September 19
Poetics Plus
Rodrigo Toscano
7:30 p.m., Soundlab
110 Pearl St.
