faculty
Shelby Johnson to deliver Drake Lecture – March 20
Mar. 3, 2026—Friday, March 20 Time TBA Divinity 127 “Dreaming Sacagawea” Across the thousands of pages that comprise the 18modern volumes of William Clark and Meriweather Lewis’s journals on the Corps of Discovery (1803-1806), Sacagawea appears in just a hundred passages. Although she may be the most well-documented Indigenous woman of the early 19th century, few of...
Lecturer Payam Rahmati to present in department Works in Progress Series – February 25
Feb. 16, 2026—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 This presentation is part of the Department of English Works in Progress Series with support from the John W. Poindexter Fund.
Major Jackson featured in Vanderbilt Research News
Jan. 30, 2026—Director of Creative Writing and Department of English Professor Major Jackson provides his writing expertise in “Devouring the Art of Language.” “Lyric poetry has as its material the dazzling complexity and beauty of raw emotions and thought, which can be awkward and embarrassing,” Jackson said. “My classes are about normalizing the conversations we have with...
Creative Writing program hosts poets Didi Jackson and Patrick Paridee Samuel
Dec. 4, 2025—Vanderbilt’s Creative Writing Program hosted a salon on November 13 with assistant professor Didi Jackson and fellow poet Patrick Sharidee Samuel. They discussed their recent collections, My Infinity and And Another Thing. Following the salon, graduate and undergraduate students participated in a book-making workshop and produced their own work. For upcoming events, visit the...
2025 Creative Writing newsletter now available
Nov. 13, 2025—The newsletter can be viewed by clicking here. PDF Version
Poet and anthropologist Nomi Stone features as H. S. Vanderbilt speaker – November 14
Nov. 3, 2025—Friday, November 14th 12:30 – 2:30 PM Kissam C216 Lunch will be provided, and a selection of Nomi Stone’s book will be available for attendees. Nomi Stone is an award-winning poet and anthropologist. She is the author of two full-length poetry collections, Stranger’s Notebook (TriQuarterly 2008) and Kill Class (Tupelo 2019), which was a finalist...
Amy Quan Barry joins Gertrude C. & Harold S. Vanderbilt Reading Series
Oct. 31, 2025—Novelist and poet Amy Quan Barry joined the Gertrude C. & Harold S. Vanderbilt Reading Series on October 16 with her new novel The Unveiling, which chronicles the struggles of Striker, a Black film scout, who, along with a group of wealthy white tourists, becomes stranded on a remote island in the Antarctic Peninsula during a...
Alex Dubilet publishes “Political Theology Reimagined”
Oct. 7, 2025—The contributors demonstrate that political theology is a powerful resource by which to both recognize and challenge the modalities of politics and social life that are practiced in our own time. The reimagination that the title points to is not so much a way to start political theology all over again but to focus on...
Victoria Chang joins the Gertrude C. & Harold S. Vanderbilt Reading Series
Oct. 7, 2025—Poet Victoria Chang joined the Gertrude C. & Harold S. Vanderbilt Reading Series on October 2 with her collection With My Back Against the World, which NPR called “poems of remarkable vividness and depth . . . engaging in a constant celebration of life in terms of its inexorable passing, a feast of grief in...
Assistant Professor Didi Jackson Wins 2025 Tennessee Book Award for Poetry
Sep. 25, 2025—On September 8, Humanities Tennessee announced Assistant Professor Didi Jackson as the Winner of the 2025 Tennessee Book Award for Poetry. Jackson’s work has been described as “A remarkable book, not only for the phenomenal texture and musicality of its language, but equally for its stunning imagery and metaphorical constructs.” Read more here.