faculty
English Department celebrates graduating majors
May. 8, 2026—The Department of English celebrated our 53 graduating majors on May 7 with a celebration at Benson Hall. Thank you for your contributions and best wishes on the next part of your journey! Congratulations! Elnathan Abraham Darin Jacks Soham Saraf Brinda Ambal James Jackson Timothy Sims Benjamin Arthur Chesney Jacobs Patrick Smith Natalie Blum Chloe...
Didi Jackson’s Tennessee Book Award to be celebrated
May. 1, 2026—Humanities Tennessee will celebrate Didi Jackson, the recipient of the 2025 Tennessee Book Award for Poetry. The reading and reception will take place Saturday, May 2, 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM at Parnassus Books in Nashville. Didi Jackson is an assistant professor of English and the author of the poetry collections My Infinity and Moon...
Amanda Little’s student-led journalism project highlighted by Nashville Banner
Apr. 21, 2026—The Nashville SUNN is a high school student-led journalism project founded by Writer in Residence Amanda Little. It was recently highlighted by the Nashville Banner, which wrote, “Nashville’s teenagers are bringing back print news.” The Nashville SUNN is a training ground for students to learn about journalistic practices and ethics. These students pitch, report, fact-check...
Major Jackson’s poems we should know by heart
Apr. 20, 2026—In a recent feature for the New York Times Style Magazine, Director of Creative Writing Major Jackson and fellow poet Frederick Seidel name six poems we should all know by heart. The list includes works by 20th-century poets Lucille Clifton, Galway Kinnell, Philip Larkin, and Rainer Maria Rilke and classics by Milton and Shakespeare. The interactive...
Melissa Range to join Vanderbilt Reading Series – April 16
Apr. 9, 2026—VU Literary Prize Winner Melissa Range will join the Vanderbilt Reading Series, after publishing her new collection of poems, Printer’s Fist, with Vanderbilt University Press in April 2026. The Reading Series and The Press will co-host the event. Thursday, April 16 Alumni Hall 202 – 23rd Ave N, Nashville, TN 6:00 Literary Salon & Reception...
Queer Latinx social dancing lecture and workshop – March 26/27
Mar. 24, 2026—More news
SWING literary magazine event features MFA professor Tony Earley – March 25
Mar. 12, 2026— Wednesday, March 25 6:30 PM Reading Vanderbilt Special Collections Library 1101 19th Ave South Nashville, TN 37212 On Wednesday, March 25, at 6:30pm, join Nashville’s Porch Writers’ Collective and Vanderbilt’s Special Collections and University Archives to celebrate the launch of the latest issue of...
Jared Harvey to publish chapbook “Ten Islands”
Mar. 10, 2026—Lecturer Jared Harvey, whose pen name is Jared Joseph, will publish a new chapbook, Ten Islands, with Essay Press. The work is part of a larger project, One Thousand Islands, wherein the author eats a Reuben sandwich each week and documents the experience. “A juicy, idiotically thorough chronicle of one of the more important deli...
Akshya Saxena to edit new series on accented thinking
Mar. 10, 2026—Associate Professor Akshya Saxena and the co-editors of Thinking with an Accent have launched “Accented,” a new open-access book series from Amherst College Press. Accented publishes works exploring accent as a critical mode of cultural production and interpretation. The series seeks to model accented thinking as a way to disturb the normative logics of academic, archival, media, legal,...
Shelby Johnson to deliver Drake Lecture – March 20
Mar. 3, 2026—Friday, March 20 10:00 – 11:00 AM Divinity 127 “Dreaming Sacagawea” Across the thousands of pages that comprise the eighteen modern volumes of Lewis and Clark’s journals (1803-1806), Sacagawea appears in just a hundred passages. Although she may be the most documented Indigenous woman of the early 19th century, few of these entries referred to...