English Department
Go English!
Here at the ECU Department of English, we are a vibrant and energetic collection of teachers, scholars, researchers, and writers. Our department offers four degrees: a B.A. in English; a B.S. in Professional Writing and Information Design; an M.A. in English; a Ph.D. in Rhetoric, Writing, and Professional Communication as well as various minors and certificates. The diversity of this department is one of its strengths: you can take coursework in literature, creative writing, technical and professional communication, rhetoric and composition, multicultural and transnational literatures, linguistics, theory and criticism, folklore, children’s literature, teaching English to speakers of other languages, and film studies. In addition, you can expect to benefit from a breadth of faculty expertise across many areas of study. Above all, your success as a student is our first priority.
— Dr. Julia Horiates
English News
John Hoppenthaler’s interview with College of Staten Island student, Avenella Claxton, and her Professor, poet Cate Marvin, appears in Lost in Thought, CSI’s literary magazine.
In the interview, Hoppenthaler states, “The only poems most have been exposed to are rhymed, formal poems by long-dead white guys, or, like, concrete poems or other gimmick poems. And they are often misled as to what a poem might “mean” or how to engage with one. Like, Frost’s “The Road not Taken” is misread by so many secondary schools and even college instructors, relying on that one line instead of understanding that line in the full context of the poem.
Dr. Amanda Klein and Carla Pastor won the 2024 Bertie Fearing Awards for Outstanding Teaching in the ECU English Department.
A student wrote about Klein: “She initiates and guides class discussion, giving them a wider perspective on how different shows present race, gender, and class. Additionally, from what I can tell from all the positive feedback from her students, her weekly discussion boards are the bomb!”
One student wrote about Pastor: “I know she wants what’s best for us; that’s why she’s very hard on us. She’s a great teacher; if you need help, she’s there for you.”
Ethan Moseley, currently a BTC certificate student, has been awarded the prestigious Gold Scholarship from the ECU College of Business. Ethan will begin the MA in English program concurrently with the MBA program in Spring 2025. Desiree Dighton and Brent Henze have both mentored Moseley significantly including offering feedback on his scholarship materials.
Dr. Ken Parille has a short piece in the latest volume of Walt Disney’s Donald Duck: The Carl Barks Library. The book has eighteen stories in all in more than 200 pages of story and art, each meticulously restored and newly colored. In addition, there are insightful story notes by an international panel of Barks experts.
Dr. Amanada Klein’s class FILM 4980/ENGL5330 recently screened The Room, a cult classic, where attendees received a prop bag, including items to toss at the screen (rose petals, spoons, footballs), instructions on what to yell and when, and free movie theater popcorn.
“Trash Cinema and Taste” is an aesthetics course that asks students to consider what qualities that categorize a film alternately as “bad,” “low brow,” or “cult,” how to taste cultures and taste publics are established, and why certain films are believed to have “cultural capital.” The class project tasks students to organize themselves into groups, book a venue, write advertising copy, and create promotional “ballyhoo” around the film. Their goal is to get as many students as possible to attend a “bad movie” and, in addition, to get them to interact with the film. This project illustrates the intimate relationship between cult films and their audiences, further emphasizing concepts we had read about and discussed throughout the semester. This year’s event brought together 70 students, who had a raucous interactive experience.
Dr. Helena Feder has published the essay “French Food for the ‘New Woman'” in the North American Review.
Founded in Boston in 1815, the North American Review is the oldest and one of the most culturally significant literary magazines in the United States. Contributors include important nineteenth-century American writers and thinkers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, Edith Wharton, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman; and twentieth-century writers like William Carlos Williams, John Steinbeck, Thomas Wolfe, William Saroyan, and Flannery O’Connor.
Current ENGL faculty Dr. Will Banks, Dr. Nikki Caswell, Dr. Erin Clark, and John Hoppenthaler (along with Associate Professor Emeritus Dr. Tom Shields) were recognized at the Faculty Author Book Awards Ceremony on October 22nd at the Janice Hardison Faulkner Gallery in Joyner Library.
Each year, Academic Library Services and Academic Affairs recognize faculty and other researchers in the division who have contributed to the prestige of East Carolina University by creating and disseminating scholarly monographs. This year’s ceremony recognizes authors and editors of monographs published between July 1, 2023, and June 30, 2024.
- Will Banks—Failing Sideways: Queer Possibilities for Writing Assessment
- Nikki Caswell—Failing Sideways: Queer Possibilities for Writing Assessment
- Erin Clark—Feminist Technical Communication: Apparent Feminisms, Slow Crisis, and the Deepwater Horizon Disaster
- John Hoppenthaler—Night Wing Over Metropolitan Area