English Department

The faculty of the English department have three goals for students who graduate with a major or minor in English:

Students should be able to read, write, and inquire critically and imaginatively, understanding both the theoretical and practical dimensions of reading and writing.
Students should understand the rhetorical, cultural, historical, and interdisciplinary contexts of the texts we study and the profession we practice.
Students should join the discourse of the field of English and explore the nature and possibilities of the professions they could choose. Using critical reading and writing experiences, students should know the value of independent and collaborative work, how to blur and cross disciplinary lines in research and writing, how to investigate relationships, how to assess and reflect on their learning processes within the discipline, and how to transfer disciplinary skills beyond disciplinary projects.

These three goals are reflected in the specific learning experiences provided by the sequence of course requirements for the major and minor. These learning experiences produce students who have highly marketable skills in a variety of fields and for postgraduate study.

Honors

Honors projects are student-initiated and culminate in the production of professional quality research projects of 30-50 pages. Honors projects offer an opportunity in the junior and senior year for students to work closely with a faculty member on a theoretically sophisticated project designed to explore more deeply a particular focus of the student’s major program. This work is conducted independently in consultation with an advisor to be selected from among the full-time faculty. The student should initiate the project by discussing possible topics with a potential advisor and his or her academic advisor.

Students wishing to be considered for honors in English should review the detailed information and application forms available from their academic advisor early in their junior year. Applications are reviewed for approval by the full-time faculty members of the English department. Candidates for honors will be announced each year. Those who successfully defend the honors project will be awarded honors at graduation and have the designation of “honors” on their transcripts.

Collaborative Research

Students at Hamline can apply for a college-wide competitive summer grant to pursue a focused research project in close collaboration with a faculty member. These grants, usually given between the junior and senior year and often (but not exclusively) the lead-in to honors projects, have been a great resource for English majors.

National Conference for Undergraduate Research (NCUR)

Students in the fall sections of the senior seminar each produce an abstract and final paper developing their own professional research in the course topic. Typically up to six students from the fall sections of senior seminar have the opportunity to present their seminar research at NCUR. These students are selected by their classmates based on the strength of their abstracts describing their research projects. If accepted by NCUR, which is a prestigious national conference, these students travel with approximately twenty-five other Hamline students to present their paper in the spring.

Internships

To help answer the question: “What do English majors do?” students are strongly encouraged to explore connections between their learning experiences in the major/minor and possible meaningful vocations through traditional internships and through courses that offer LEAD (leadership, education and development) credits with experiential, service, or community-based learning opportunities. English majors and minors have had satisfying LEAD experiences at the Utne Magazine, Minnesota State Arts Board, WCCO-TV, Internet Broadcasting Service, Children’s Museum, Urban League, Insight News, KFAI, and Bell Museum of Natural History among others.

Connections to Interdisciplinary Programs

English department faculty team-teach courses with faculty in other disciplines as well as teach courses that are cross-listed with interdisciplinary programs such as African-American Studies, Global Studies, Women’s Studies, and the Social Justice program. English majors and minors are thus well positioned to explore connections and develop secondary majors or minors among these programs. In the context of globalization such interdisciplinary connections offer students the foundation of the discipline of English as well as a broader understanding of connections with other fields and disciplines.

Postgraduate Opportunities

Students’ critical reading and writing abilities prepare them for success in the workplace and in postgraduate education. The college and department help English majors plan for graduate school; law school; business careers; and writing-related fields such as communications, advertising, and journalism. Those interested in attending graduate school should discuss securing recommendations and obtaining information on graduate programs and entrance exams with a full-time faculty member and the Career Development Center during their junior year.

Faculty

Kristina K. Deffenbacher, associate professor. BA 1991, Carleton College; MA 1994, PhD and gender studies certificate 1998, University of Southern California. Nineteenth-century British literature and culture, 20th-century English and Irish literatures, women’s studies, literary theory, rhetoric and composition.

Veena Deo, professor. BA 1969, Fergusson College; MA 1971, University of Poona; PhD 1989, University of Kentucky. African- American literature, postcolonial literatures (Africa and India), and women’s studies.

David Hudson, associate professor. BA 1979, University of Minnesota; MA, 1987, University of Minnesota; PhD, 1994, University of Minnesota. Early 20th-century British and American literature, journalism, writing technology, and professional writing.

Marcela Kostihová, assistant professor. BA 1998, North Central College; PhD 2004, University of Minnesota. Medieval and Renaissance literature, Shakespeare, critical theory, post- communist studies, global studies, gender and sexuality studies, and Tolkien.

Alice E. Moorhead, associate professor. BA 1972, Michigan State University; MA 1974, University of Chicago; DA 1984, University of Michigan. Rhetoric and composition, literature and linguistics, professional and technical writing.

Mark Olson, associate professor, chair. BA 1977, University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse; MA 1981, PhD 1999, University of Minnesota. American literature and culture, literary theory, poetry, writing across the curriculum, and professional writing.

Michael Reynolds, assistant professor. BA 1989, St. Lawrence University; PhD 2000, University of Southern California. Twentieth-century American literature and culture; theories of literature and culture; genre studies; media literacies: film, drama, television, and the web.

Jermaine Singleton, assistant professor. BA 1996, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; MA 1999, University of Illinois at Chicago; PhD 2005, University of Minnesota. Nineteenth- and 20th-century African American literature and culture, 19th- and 20th-century American literature and culture, psychoanalytic literary theory, and postcolonial literature and theory of the African diaspora.

Alzada J. Tipton, associate professor, assistant dean of the College of Liberal Arts. BA 1987, Johns Hopkins University; MA 1989, PhD 1994, Duke University. Renaissance literature, medieval literature, new historicism, cultural studies, drama.