Department of English

The Department of English hosts a wide range of talks and readings, most of which are open to the public. Consult Departmental Events Scrapbook to gain an idea of the range and quality of these events; for current events, consult Department Events Calendar.

News and Upcoming Events


Congratulations to Professor Marjorie Garber onher recent election to the American Philosophical Society.


Professor Stephen Greenblatt has been awarded a Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction for his work “The Swerve: How the World Became Modern.”


The Annual Stratis Haviaras Reading
featuring Timoth Donnelly
Monday, April 30th, 6pm
The Thompson Room
The Baker Center
Harvard University
Free and open to the public


The Graduate Student Council has awarded Professor Amanda Claybaugh the Everett Mendelsohn Award for Graduate Mentoring.


Congratulations to Professor James Wood for his recent election as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. 


Poets & Writers, Inc. has announced that Visiting Professor Henri Cole is the sixth winner of the Jackson Poetry Prize. The prize is given annually to honor an American poet of exceptional talent who deserves wider recognition.


Professor Jim Engell has been elected the winner of the Jay Fliegelman Excellence in Mentorship Award, by the Graduate Student Caucus of the American Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies.


The Annual Spencer Lecture on Drama
featuring David Levine
Thurdsday, March 22nd, 5pm
The Thompson Room
The Baker Center
Harvard University
Free and open to the public


The Annual Stratis Haviaras Reading
featuring Robyn Schiff
Thursday, March 29, 6pm
Arrow Street Theater
2 Arrow Street
Cambridge, MA
Free and open to the public


Professor Homi K. Bhahba has been awarded the Padma Bhushan, one of India’s highest civilian honors.  Bhabha, the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities and Director of the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard, was one of 27 recipients of the Padma Bhushan this year.  The award recognizes Indian citizens and Indians from the diaspora for “distinguished service of high order” in a variety of fields from the visual arts to public affairs.  Bhabha was honored in the literature and education category.  All awards are approved by the President of India and will be conferred at a ceremony in March or April.



The Department of English congratulates Stephen Greenblatt, whose The Swerve won the National Book Award Non-Fiction category on Wednesday 16 November.


The Undergraduate Program is excited to announce that it has a new partnership with The Harvard Review! Concentrators interested in pursuing an internship can find the application here.

Harvard’s Walter Cabot Channing Fellowships were announced on 9 August  2011. No fewer than four English Department colleagues were among the ten honorees:

Henry Louis Gates Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, “Faces of America: How 12 Extraordinary Americans Reclaimed Their Pasts” and “Tradition and the Black Atlantic: Critical Theory in the African Diaspora”
Stephen Greenblatt, Cogan University Professor, “Shakespeare’s Freedom” and “Cultural Mobility: A Manifesto”
James Simpson, Donald P. and Katherine B. Loker Professor of English, “Under the Hammer: Iconoclasm in the Anglo-American Tradition”
Martin Puchner, Byron and Anita Wien Professor of Drama and of English and Comparative Literature, “The Drama of Ideas: Platonic Provocations in Theater and Philosophy”


Congratulations to Professor Homi Bhabha, for receiving an Honorary Doctorate of Literature (DLit) from University College London. (For more information click here.)


Congratulations to Professor Lawrence Buell and Professor Barbara Lewalski for their recent Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Emeritus Fellowships. (For more information click here.)


Congratulations to the recipients of the Harvard University
Certificate of Distinction in Teaching.
(For more information click here.)

Elaine Auyoung
Christine Barrett
Margaret Doherty
Amelia Klein
Matthew Ocheltree
Catherine Reedy
Margaret Rennix
Kathryn Robertsx
Seth Rosenbaum
Nikki Skillman
Stephen Tardif
Brandon Tilley
Kaye Wierzbicki


Congratulations to the recipients of the Harvard University
Certificate of Teaching Excellence.
(For more information click here.)

Melissa Ganz
Kenneth Urban
Joanna Klink
Verlyn Klinkenborg
Aarthi Vadde


 

 

Faculty Bookshelf Selection

Leah Price
How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain
Princeton University Press, 2012
Stephen Greenblatt
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern
W. W. Norton, 2011
James Simpson
Burning to Read: English Fundamentalists and their Reformation Opponents
Harvard University Press, 2007