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Department of English

 

English is more than a major at Birmingham-Southern College. It’s a path that leads students to their lifelong passion.

Study the great writers, analyze and understand their works, and hone your own writing.

You’ll go on an adventure of the imagination—and master the critical thinking and communication skills sought by employers today.

Interested? Fill out the form to the right and an admissions representative will follow up with you to start your Hilltop journey.

Chart your course with BSC English!



 

Why study English at BSC?

  • Get hands-on writing experience. Contribute to Baghera (student newspaper), The Quad (literary magazine), or Compass (leadership studies journal). Our writing minor and workshop classes allow you to focus on different specialties, including fiction, poetry, prose, creative nonfiction, and journalism, as well as a media internship.
  • Find new ways of looking at the world through the creative courses we offer. “Monsters, Monarchs, and Monastics: Legacies of Medieval Literature in Popular Culture,” “The Tranquillized Fifties: American 1950s Literature and Culture,” and “From Suffrage to Cyborgs: Twentieth Century Feminism and the Novel” are just a few examples.
  • Get creative. English majors have organized an underground poetry society that hosts poetry slams—equal parts readings and performance art. They also tutor in neighborhood schools to inspire young students to love poetry and literature.
  • Visit the places you read about. English faculty lead students to Ireland, where they read Irish literature and see William Butler Yeats’ house; to Oxford, Miss., the hometown of William Faulkner and the setting of his novels; and to Italy, where they explore the great art and literature of classical and Renaissance Europe.
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    Learning outcomes


    The courses offered by the English faculty serve a twofold purpose: to teach students to formulate and articulate their thoughts clearly and effectively in both our spoken and written language, and to help students develop a critical understanding of work by writers of American, British, and world literature.

    After our foundational courses, the surveys of British and American literature and our "gateway" course, English majors encounter works of literature in five distinct ways:

    • Breadth. We offer courses that emphasize a breadth of literary study. Courses such as Satire and 20th Century British and American Poetry emphasize thematic, generic, or stylistic unity among otherwise disparate works of literature.
    • Depth. Other courses emphasize a depth of study, usually by focusing on individual authors, such as Shakespeare or Hemingway, but also with courses focusing on a collection of authors within a single literary movement, such as Romantic Prose and Poetry and Literature of the American Renaissance.
    • Difference. Recognizing that the study of literature allows one to view the world from various perspectives, we offer courses that emphasize the literature of different times, places, or cultures. These courses range from the prose, poetry, and drama of the Middle Ages to American Indian literature since the 1960s.
    • Contemporary. We study contemporary literature because, like T. S. Eliot, we believe that just as current works are a response to those written in the past, our response to older works is altered by what is being written now. Courses such as Contemporary International Fiction serve this function well.
    • Theory. Students in English courses soon learn that it matters not only what we read but how we read. We offer courses such as Performance Theory and Postmodernism to help students better understand their own habits as readers and to broaden their critical arsenal. Students are introduced to thinkers who have historically shaped our modes of interpretation, from Aristotle to Stanley Fish.

    With our Senior Capstone, English majors draw together all they've learned—represented in a single paper.

    Upon completion of the English major, students will be able to

    • analyze a literary text for form, structure, and genre,
    • form a thesis and support it with a coherent and unified essay structure,
    • formulate a sound argument based on textual and contextual evidence,
    • apply and integrate scholarly material,
    • produce prose with a clear, confident voice.
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    Awards & Scholarships


    The English Award for Achievement in Literary Study

    This award honors the senior English major whose study of literature shows unusual industry, achievement, and depth of understanding. A book is presented to the recipient of this award on Honors Day at the Humanities Division Awards Ceremony.

    The Richebourg G. McWilliams English Award

    This award is named for a former member of the English faculty who served from 1929 until 1971, who chaired the department for many of those years, and who held the title of Mary Collett Munger Professor of English. Mr. McWilliams was a scholar as well as an effective teacher, and he had a particular interest in the literature and history of French exploration along the Gulf Coast. The award honors the senior English major whose literary study has shown unusual personal engagement, industry, and intellectual growth. A book is presented to the recipient of this award on Honors Day at the Humanities Division Awards Ceremony.

    Patricia Finley Watkins Writing Scholarship

    The Patricia Finley Watkins Scholarship was established in 1984 through the generosity of Mrs. Watkins. Preference in awarding the scholarship is given to rising juniors or seniors who are majoring in English and who have evidenced a strong desire and talent to become writers. Recipients of this scholarship are recommended by the English faculty. Mrs. Watkins was an artist and writer who was long active in the cultural life of Birmingham and in literary activities at Birmingham-Southern College. Her book of poetry, Another Realm, was published in 1982, and her works have appeared in other literary publications.

    The English faculty holds a competition for this scholarship every spring. Current recipients may reapply. This year, the deadline for portfolios is Friday 6 April. Portfolios must be in the hands of the Humanities Division Secretary in Phillips Science 101 by 4:00 that day. Requirements for the portfolio appear below.

    • All manuscripts must be typed and double-spaced in a standard 12-point typeface.
    • The portfolio must consist of no more than 2 stories (maximum 20 pages), 10 poems (maximum 20 pages), and 20 pages of non-fiction prose.
    • The portfolio should be arranged in a particular order and accompanied by a cover letter (single-spaced) that (1) discusses the applicant's growth as a writer and future plans in the profession and (2) discusses the individual works in the portfolio and their arrangement.
    • The applicant's name must not appear on any of the manuscripts, only on the cover letter.
    • The portfolio and cover letter must be submitted in duplicate, using separate envelopes for each copy.

    The winner(s) will be announced on Honors Day at the Humanities Division Awards Ceremony. Recent awards have been for $1000-2000. Winners also receive a copy of Mrs. Watkins' book and a copy of the Chicago Manual of Style.

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    Resources for English Studies

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    English Faculty


    William Tynes CowanWillCowanUpdatedHeadshot.jpg
    Chair, Department of English
    Professor of English

    Office: 323 Humanities Center
    Phone: (205) 226-4871
    Email: [email protected]

    Tynes Cowan specializes in 19th century American literature, particularly literature of slavery and protest. He contributes to the Distinction program in Leadership Studies and the minor in Human Rights and Conflict Studies. Interests include the 1960s, popular culture, and folklore.

    Degrees: B.A. (1985) Birmingham-Southern College; M.A.Ed (1990) University of Alabama at Birmingham; M.A. (1992) Northeastern University; Ph.D. (2001) The College of William and Mary.



    Arnab ChakrabortyArnab_photo-1.jpg
    Visiting Lecturer of English

    Office: 322 Humanities Center
    Phone: (205) 226-4865
    Email: [email protected]

    Arnab received a B.A. and an M.A. in English from Jadavpur University in Kolkata, India. He is completing a Ph.D. in the Department of English at the University of Kansas. His dissertation Impoverished Agency: Ethics and Compromise in a Posthuman World investigates the ethics of representing human and nonhuman animal agency in 20th and 21st century American and transatlantic fiction. His research connects animal studies, posthumanism, ecocriticism and postcolonial theory.

     


    Michael L. Mclnturff Michael L. Mclnturff
    Professor of English

    Office: 302 Humanities Center
    Phone: (205) 226-7831
    Email: [email protected]

    Michael L. Mclnturff specializes in literature of the English and Italian Renaissance. He regularly teaches Shakespeare and travels with students to Italy during E-term. Interests include Dante, classical mythology, and fine wine.

    Degrees: B.A. (1968) Reed College; Ph.D. (1975) Indiana University. 


    Sandra L. Sprayberry Sandra L. Sprayberry
    Robert Luckie Professor of English

    Office: 306 Humanities Center
    Phone: (205) 226-7832
    Email: [email protected]

    Sandra L. Sprayberry holds degrees in poetry writing and twentieth-century poetry. She is a published poet and scholar, and her work on W. B. Yeats was published as part of Macmillan of London's and the University of Iowa Press's multi-volume critical edition of original Yeats manuscripts; the work has been reviewed in The New York Review of Books, among other publications. Her teaching and research interests include 20th-century and contemporary poetry, creative writing, Native American, Irish, and African American literatures, international Human Rights, and travel-study to Ireland and South Africa. She coordinates BSC's minor in Human Rights and Conflict Studies. Her office houses one of the biggest unofficial Elvis shrines in academia.

    Degrees: B.A. (1979), M.F.A. (1983), University of Alabama; Ph.D. (1988) Florida State University.


    Joseph Stitt Joseph Stitt
    Associate Lecturer of English

    Office: 111 Humanities Center
    Phone: (205) 226-4859
    Email: [email protected]

    Jody Stitt teaches courses in expository writing, research methods, and creative writing. His E-term courses have featured Vladimir Nabokov, Jorge Luis Borges, J. R. R. Tolkien, Russian literature, dystopias, humor theory, and the apocalypse.

    Degrees: B.A. (1993) M.A. (1995) University of Alabama.


    Anna Williams
    Assistant Lecturer of EnglishWilliams,-Anna.jpg
    Co-Director of the Writing Center

    Office: 314 Humanities Center
    Phone: (205) 226-4972
    Email: [email protected]

    Anna Williams specializes in Gothic literature from the eighteenth century to the present. She produced the first-ever podcast dissertation and enjoys bringing new media into the classroom. She serves as the Writing Center Co-Director and teaches composition.

    Education: B.A. (2008) Birmingham-Southern College; M.A. (2011) University of Alabama; Ph.D. (2019) University of Iowa.