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.
English News
Dr. Andrea Kitta was interviewed for two recent Halloween-focused articles — “Behind Pittsburgh’s ‘Most Haunted House’, a Story of Gangland Intrigue.” Pittsburgh City Paper. and “Is Pittsburgh One Big Haunted Cemetery?” in Next Pittsburgh.
Additionally, Kitta reported yet another successful ECU Ghost Walk, which took place on October 30. THCAS, the Department of English, and the Student Rec Center sponsored the event. A little over 180 people registered, but Kitta’s students reported that many more joined in along the walk. Even more people stopped by information tables set up with fun, spooky topics ranging from the Folklore Guild and Religious Studies club to information about adoptable black puppies and kittens from local shelters. Information was also available about classes Kitta teaches, as well as the Monster and Magic London Study Abroad opportunity this summer.
Dr. Marame Gueye was invited to participate as a discussant at the 31st Lubin Symposium organized by the Department of Women and Gender Studies at Brandeis University. This year’s featured speaker was Senegalese writer, Ken Bugul. The theme of the Symposium was “On Madness in Chaotic Times.”
The Tillie K. Lubin Symposium focuses on a contemporary issue or event relevant to Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies.
John Hoppenthaler has two new poems in Nine Mile Magazine. “Star Jasmine” and “Jack in the Pulpit” are featured in the Fall 2025 edition. Nine Mile Magazine publishes online twice yearly, showcasing the best work received from authors whose poems, energy, and vision seem to be most deeply imbued with life.
Amber Flora Thomas has an essay in the new anthology, Quest: A Writer’s Journey, which will be published in December. Quest is a book of memoirs by “outstanding poets from diverse backgrounds who recall how they found their beginnings.”
She also published a poem in Prairie Schooner Magazine, which is published in cooperation with the University of Nebraska Press and the Creative Writing Program of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln English Department and is endowed by the Glenna Luschei Endowed Editorship and Fund for Excellence.
Anna Bradley and Steven Amador were selected as winners of the Bertie Fearing Award for Excellence in Teaching by Graduate Teaching Assistants for AY 2024-2025.
Bradley, who graduated in Spring 2025, won in the MA student category. She stated, “Teaching at ECU gave me the confidence to enter my first career as an English teacher at Oakwood, and I am so grateful for every student and professor who helped me find my courage and confidence as a teacher. I am deeply grateful to the students who nominated me, those of whom are reading this letter, and to the English department as a whole, as they have all contributed to helping me create a student-centered classroom with not only a more knowledgeable teacher, but a self-assured teacher.”
Amador won in the PhD student category. He stated, “I approach teaching from a trauma-informed lens. Predictability is mapped through my multiple schedules, flexibility through my willingness to adjust the assignments/course and adjust myself to the students’ needs, empowerment through the student freedom, and community through the slow peer review process and real, human relationships we build throughout the course.”
Professor Emerita Liza Wieland, who taught fiction writing for many years, has published a new novel, The Journal of Djuna Malik (Livingston Press). The book is described as “a harrowing tale of loss and remembrance, often bleak but also lit with a hard-earned wisdom and grace.”
Dr. Rebecca Bernard’s story “In Plato’s Cave No. 1” (which was inspired by her time at new faculty orientation!) won the Editor’s Prize from The Adroit Journal and will come out in their October issue. Also, the editor of The Cincinnati Review was a guest on a podcast produced by the Cleveland Public Library, and she used Rebecca’s story, “The Theft” (published last fall), as her subject to explain the editorial process. Here is the link to the podcast episode.