English Department
Welcome to the Department of English! We are a large and diverse department, featuring undergraduate and graduate programs in English and American Literature, English Education, and Rhetoric and Writing Studies, including a Ph.D. program in Rhetoric and Composition, M.A. degrees in English and American Literature and Rhetoric and Writing Studies, an M.A.T. degree in English Education, and B.A. degrees in English and American Literature (ENAL) and English Education (ENGL). The First Year Composition sequence is housed in our department, which means that virtually every undergraduate student at UTEP comes into contact with us at one time or another. Our faculty have published widely across the fields represented in our department, and many of them have won awards for teaching and student support, as well as being recognized for their scholarship. We are committed to achieving the highest quality of scholarship and teaching, and we pride ourselves on welcoming and supporting our students at all levels, from their first semester in the university to the completion of their highest degree. Please look around the site, and do not hesitate to contact us with any questions.
Best wishes,
Brian Yothers, Ph.D.
Chair, Department of English
NEWS
Recent Publications
Dr. Brad Jacobson and Dr. Amy Bach (Education) published “Neoliberal Logics: An Analysis of Texas’s STAAR Exam Writing Prompts” in the Journal of Literacy Research (vol. 54, no. 1, 2022, pp. 5-27).
https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296X221076421.
Dr. Maryse Jayasuriya’s book chapter, “Ethics and Empathy in Sri Lankan Representations of Refugees,” was published in Transcultural Humanities in South Asia: Critical Essays on Literature and Culture edited by Waseem Anwar and Nosheen Yousaf (Routledge, 2022, pp. 366-377).
https://www.routledge.com/Transcultural-Humanities-in-South-Asia-Critical-Essays-on-Literature-and/Anwar/p/book/9780367483715.
Jagadish Paudel, a PhD student in Rhetoric and Composition, published "Unpacking Teachers’ Experiences of Teaching Writing at the Undergraduate (Bachelor) Level in Nepal" in the Journal of NELTA, pp. 92-108 (Nepal English Language Teachers' Association).
Recent Presentations
Dr. Isabel Baca co-presented with the CCCC Language Policy Committee at a pre-conference virtual workshop "Usin They Own Language, Disruptin White Language Supremacy and Servin Black Linguistic Justice Realness" at the Conference on College Composition and Communication, held March 9-12.
Dr. Brad Jacobson presented on a panel entitled “Judging Student Writing: Antiracist Support and Faculty's Persistent Language Ideologies at a Newly Designated HSI University”, at the online CCCC annual convention, held March 9-12.
Dr. Maryse Jayasuriya presented “Teaching Postcolonial Trauma in a Pandemic” at the South Asian Literary Association Virtual Conference on March 12, 2022.
Dr. Soyeon Lee presented “Language Minorities’ Digital Literacy Networks through Technologies in Disaster Recovery” in a virtual panel titled Community-Based Rhetorics of Disaster: Cultivating Pedagogical Enactments against Linguistic Injustice and Environmental Racism Panelists at the online 2022 CCCC Annual Convention, held March 9-12, 2022.
Jagadish Paudel presented "Writerly Trajectory in Higher Education: Some Commonalities and Some Discords" at the Conference on Higher Education Pedagogy, held in Blacksburg, Virginia, from February 9 to 11. He also presented “Enacting Social Justice Through Assessment in Multilingual Writing Class” at The American Association for Applied Linguistics in Pittsburgh, US, on March 20.
Recent Service & Awards
Dr. Mimi Gladstein is being recognized at this year's Women's and Gender Studies conference as a feminist trailblazer and pathfinder at UTEP in the Tomas Rivera Center at 12:00 p.m. on Monday, March 21.
Dr. Brad Jacobson was elected to serve on the college’s Community Engagement and Leadership (CEL) task force for the 2022-2023 academic year.
Jagadish Paudel, a PhD student in Rhetoric and Composition, has been named an Associate Editor for the journal Open Words: Access and English Studies. With Yndalecio Isaac Hinojosa, Associate Professor of English, Texas A& M University-Corpus Christi, Jagadish is developing a special issue of Open Words on "Developing Multilingual Student Writers in Higher Education.”
Turnip Van Dyke, a PhD student in Rhetoric and Composition, has been elected as a graduate student representative to the Advisory Board of the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition. Turnip was also selected as a Cindy and Dickie Selfe Fellow for the Digital Media and Composition Institute at The Ohio State University in May 2022.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Our second Mining Books event of the semester will take place at 6:00 p.m. on March 22 in UTEP Library's Blumberg Auditorium, when Katherine Standefer will lead a discussion of her memoir Lightning Flowers: My Journey to Uncover the Cost of Saving a Life, and Dr. Brad Jacobson will facilitate the Q&A. Contact Dr. Brian Yothers for any questions.
Our Annual Literature Lecture will be given online by Dr. Marlene Daut of the University of Virginia on April 28 at 4:00 p.m. Many thanks to Dr. Marion Rohrleitner for organizing this event—more details to follow.
