The English Major/Minor

English majors and minors at the University of Montevallo develop literary sensibilities and writing expertise in a curriculum that emphasizes close reading, theoretical finesse, and meaningful engagement with diverse literary and cultural forms of expression.  Our faculty members prepare students for graduate studies and a host of careers while promoting social awareness and expanding intellectual horizons. We offer an eclectic curriculum, opportunities to research, innovative courses, small class sizes, and a dedicated faculty.

Recent Courses

Literature of Plural America: Crescent City Sketches

Creative Writing

Montevallo Literary Festival: April 16-17, 2009

You are invited to attend Montevallo Literary Festival 2009, a two-day event filled with readings, workshops, dinners, receptions, music, and book signings.  MLF 2009 includes keynote readings by Janisse Ray, Maurice Manning, Tony Grooms, and Rebecca Gilman.  This year we will collaborate with the Montevallo Arts Council, the Main Street Players, and the University of Montevallo Sustainability Banquet to highlight the many events occurring in the area during festival week.  Thursday's sessions will highlight issues of place and natural environment. 

As we enter our seventh year, our festival deserves its reputation as a rare, intimate event that focuses on the craft and production of great writing.  We're delighted to host readings by Andrew Grace, Michael Morris, Daniel Anderson, Ariana-Sophia Kartsonis, Hartford Gongaware, Chris Chambers, Emma Bolden, and Mary Ward Brown.

Recent participants include William Faulkner Prize winner Barry Hannah, Pulitzer winner Claudia Emerson, National Book Award winner Ellen Gilchrist, and many others.

Faculty News: Fall Conferences

Kathy King was one of three key speakers at the symposium on the work and critical reputation of Eliza Haywood. The symposium was organized by the staff/graduate seminar “Restoration to Reform” of the English faculty at Oxford University. The symposium, held on Monday, Nov. 3, brought together leading research scholars in the field. King presented “Eliza Haywood and the Sign of Fame.” Haywood is the subject of a political biography King is writing for Pickering and Chatto, set up as a publisher in 1742. Haywood operated out of her own pamphlet shop at the Sign of Fame in Covent Garden until 1744. King’s talk explored some of the implications of what she has been able to discover about Haywood’s publishing venture. Haywood was also an actress, playwright, journalist and novelist.

Samantha Webb presented a paper titled “The Ruined Cottage and the Labor of Consumption” at the annual International Conference on Romanticism, held in Rochester, Michigan, October 16-19, 2008.

Nicholas Crawford presented a paper at the 9th biennial conference of the European Society for the Study of English, which took place Aug. 22-26 at the University of Aarhus in Denmark. Crawford’s paper, “The Discourse of Third-Person Self Reference in Shakespeare,” was chosen for one of two sessions on “Shakespeare and Discourse Stylistics.” Fellow panelists hailed from France, Spain, Poland and the United Kingdom.  Crawford also presented a paper titled “Herbert, Heaney: At the Bodily Fulcrum of Poetry,” at the “George Herbert’s Travels: International Print and Cultural Legacies Conference,” held Oct. 9-11 at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. This conference was the second of two international, interdisciplinary conferences: “George Herbert’s Living Legacies: 2007-2008, an Atlantic World Initiative,” a series dedicated to the work and influence of this 17th-century poet. The first was held in 2007 at Sarum College in England.

Lee Rozelle presented a paper titled “I am the Island” at the first international ecocriticism conference held in China. Sponsored by the Fulbright Commission and Tsinghua University, “Beyond Thoreau: American and International Responses to Nature,” was held Oct. 9-11 in Beijing.

Murphy Appointed to AWF Board

Jim Murphy  has been appointed to serve a three-year term on the Board of The Alabama Writers’ Forum, a partnership program of the Alabama State Council on the Arts. The Forum is a statewide, community-based network of support for student and professional writers, and is a model for such programs elsewhere in the country. Writers’ Forum programs and initiatives include “Writing Our Stories: An Anti-Violence Creative Writing Program” on three Department of Youth Services campuses, the quarterly journal First Draft and the Alabama Voices Series, which unites Alabama writers with rural, urban and school populations via residencies throughout the state.

Graduate Studies

The English Department offers graduate students mentorship and guidance in a rigorous yet informal academic setting. With a wide array of course offerings, our program gives graduate students the opportunity to master their chosen areas of study and to put their ideas into practice in fields such as teaching, academics, editing, writing and other professions.  Students may opt to complete the degree through 30 credit hours of coursework, or through 24 hours of coursework and a 6-hour Master’s thesis. All students must also pass a comprehensive exam, usually taken in the last semester before graduation.  Learn more...