Works in Progress Series

The Works in Progress Series offers a dynamic forum for our faculty to share projects in development. These sessions create space for experimentation, constructive feedback, and generative conversation at crucial stages of the creative and research process. The series is supported by the John W. Poindexter Fund.

Spring 2026

Payam rahmati

Wednesday, February 25
4:10 – 5:00 PM
Divinity 127

“An Inquiry into Grammarly’s Precision and Recall: A Comparative Study with Human Annotators”

Payam Rahmati is a lecturer in the English Department at Vanderbilt University, where he teaches composition. He earned his PhD in Applied Linguistics from Oklahoma State University. His main research areas include second language writing, teacher education/cognition, and computer-assisted language learning.

Jordan ivie

Wednesday, April 8
4:10 – 5:00 PM
Divinity 127

“‘A sonne be gotten, not begotten:’ Birth Success, and the Transformation in Motherhood in the 1596 Faerie Queene“

Jordan Ivie earned her PhD in English in 2022 from Southern Methodist University, where she wrote her dissertation on gender roles and the evolution of androgyny in early modern English literature. She has presented, and her work has appeared in journals like Restoration and Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies. In her writing and teaching, she is particularly interested in the work of female and non-binary writers, literary explorations of non-traditional gender expression, and dramatic practice.