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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...
Technothriller: Film and the American Imagination – October 24
Oct. 3, 2025— Friday, October 17 12:00 – 2:00 PM Central Library 211 Technothriller: Film and the American Imagination a lecture by Soraya Murray Soraya Murray contemplates the pivotal figure of the Black technologist, also known as ‘Black tech,’ in technothriller films. This work is part of Murray’s forthcoming Technothriller: Film and the American Imagination (MIT, 2026),...
“Richard Coer de Lyon” and the State of Exception – October 17
Sep. 29, 2025— Friday, October 17 12:00 – 2:00 PM Central Library 211 Desperate Measures Call for Desperate Times: Richard Coer de Lyon and the State of Exception a lecture by Mariah Min The Middle English Romance Richard Coer de Lyon considers the crusades to be an emergency that necessitates extreme measures. Simultaneously, the enormity of Richard’s transgressions is...
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.
Jared Harvey’s new novel available now
Sep. 24, 2025—Lecturer Jared Harvey‘s latest novel is now available from Asterism Books. Soft Lighting is written almost exclusively in the first-person singular and plural, and stages a motley of narrators (or only one) who respond to one another or who do not, and if not, I wonder whether desire for interpersonal connection withers, or excruciates. There is no...
Didi Jackson wins 2025 Tennessee Book Award
Sep. 16, 2025—Humanities Tennessee has selected Assistant Professor Didi Jackson’s My Infinity: Poems as the winner of the 2025 Tennessee Book Award for Poetry, calling it “a remarkable book, not only for the phenomenal texture and musicality of its language, but equally for its stunning imagery and metaphorical constructs.” Didi Jackson is the author of the poetry...
Bryan Byrdlong (BA ’15) publishes debut collection of poetry
Sep. 16, 2025— Bryan Byrdlong’s Strange Flowers is a staggering debut that maps the lines and links between the living and undead, ritual and where the speaker belongs. Byrdlong’s exploration of the zombie, from the Caribbean to cocktails, marks what changes us, takes us out of ourselves, and...
Vanderbilt University Press Announces Melissa Range as the Winner of the 2025 VU Literary Prize
Jul. 22, 2025—Vanderbilt University Press has announced Poet Melissa Range as the Winner of the 2025 VU Literary Prize. Spearheaded by General Editor Major Jackson, the prize committee reviewed over two hundred and fifty submissions in advance of the jurists Victoria Chang, Dana Levin, and Gregory Pardlo, who selected nine semifinalists. From these semifinalists, Jackson chose the winning...
Akshya Saxena – Vernacular English
Feb. 22, 2022—Akshya Saxena, Assistant Professor of English, will be releasing her new book Vernacular English: Reading the Anglophone in Postcolonial India on March 1, 2022. You can see more info and buy her book here.
Margaret Renkl – Southern Book Prize for Nonfiction
Feb. 16, 2022—Congratulations to MFA visiting writer Margaret Renkl on her winning of the Southern Book Prize for nonfiction. Her book Graceland, At Last was awarded “the best Southern book of the year” among 1,500 nominations. More info about the award can be found here.