Welcome back, people of Hope, and welcome class of 2023! It has been a summer of big changes in the English Department. We’ve said a fond goodbye to retiring professors Beth Trembley and Dianne Portfleet, we’ve regretfully seen Prof. Kendra Parker and office manager Raquel Niles go off to new jobs with our good wishes, …
Continue reading ““My Summer Vacation”: English Writes Back”
During the spring of 2014, I’d walk into the south entrance of Lubbers Hall and pass the oil painting of President and Mrs. Lubbers playing a diligent game of chess. I’d round the corner onto the stairs and proceed to the second floor where a cross listed English and philosophy course on Existentialism met each …
As an English teacher who races from my 8th grade classroom over to Hope to teach a late afternoon composition class, I spend a lot of my time with young people in life’s messy middles: in the midst of adolescence, in the midst of the semester, in the midst of the academic year. When we’re …
Continue reading ““To Reclaim Reading”: A Faculty Feature from Dana VanderLugt (’01)”
–Dr. Kendra R. Parker The Undergraduate Research Panel, “Gender and Race: Beyond Art, Entertainment, and Fashion” at the 89th Annual South Atlantic Modern Language Association (SAMLA 89) Convention was the first undergraduate panel I singlehandedly organized and moderated. Twice before, at the College Language Association Convention in 2015 and 2016, I co-organized a cross-campus undergraduate …
Associate Professor Pablo Peschiera (’93) teaches many different courses, but his heart lies split between two: poetry writing courses and literary translation courses. Pablo writes his own poems in English, and he translates from Spanish to English. His ongoing translation project is on the work of Manuel Ramos Otero (1948 –1990), the Puerto Rican poet, …
As I walked out of an English course, Irish Literature, in late March of my senior year at Hope, I scrolled through new emails on my phone. My heart nearly stopped on the second-floor landing of Lubbers Hall, as I received the news that I had been accepted into the Chicago Police Academy. I had …
Dear Reader, One of my former professors asked me to write to you. She suggested, in not so many words, you might like to know how having an English major at Hope College can influence your future. Not knowing you personally, the next best thing I can do is write a letter to “past me”—the …
Continue reading “Alumni Feature: Peter Derby, Class of 2005”
What are you doing now? Currently, I am a Writing Center mentor at Western Governors University, an online nonprofit university that primarily serves adults going back to school for their undergraduate or graduate degrees. I adore this work. I feel really lucky to be part of it. I get to work with dedicated students all …
Continue reading “Alumni Feature: “Reading Against The Grain””
The second event of this year’s Jack Ridl Visiting Writers Series is almost here! This Thursday, October 19, JRVWS will host multi-genre writer Paisley Rekdal. Rekdal is the author of two books of essays and five books of poetry and has had work featured in a number of noteworthy journals. Rekdal’s visit will include a …
Welcome to the Hope College English Department’s inaugural blog post. We’re excited to share stories from our faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends! Our guest next week will be Dr. Ernest Cole, English faculty member and chair of the department. Meet Dr. Cole, and come back next week to learn more!
