English | UC Davis College of Letters and Science

Professor Promotes Good Writing With Class, Philanthropy and Scholarship

Peter Hays, English professor emeritus, retired nearly 15 years ago, but the Hemingway scholar is anything but retiring. During the last few years he has written several books and many articles, and each fall teaches a freshman seminar on Ernest Hemingway’s short stories.

“The actual subject of the seminar is reading and writing,” Hays said. “So often students don’t really read, they skim, and they can’t do that with Hemingway. They need to read beyond the surface. Whether they remember anything about Hemingway is inconsequential — it’s all about reading and writing.”

Society and Culture

Picture of Nebraska state poet Matt Mason, UC Davis graduate, English, '94

Creative Writing Alumnus Picked as Nebraska State Poet

Matt Mason (M.A., English, ’94) has been named state poet of Nebraska. Mason’s duties during his five-year term will include giving public presentations and readings, leading workshops and discussions, and providing outreach at schools, libraries and literary festivals across the state.

Alumni News

Portrait photos of five faculty named UC Davis Chancellor's Fellow

Five New Chancellor’s Fellows Make Their Mark

Five faculty in the UC Davis College of Letters and Science — an artist, a poet, a psychologist, a mathematician and a physicist — have been named to the 2019 class of Chancellor’s Fellows, the university’s annual honors program recognizing associate professors for high achievement in the quality and excellence of research and teaching.

College News

Book about Mining’s Effect on Literature Garners Support from NEH

The National Endowment for the Humanities awarded a fellowship this week to English professor Liz Miller to support her work on a book about industrial mining and its effects on 19th- and early 20th-century literature. The $60,000 award, announced Dec. 12, will enable Miller to spend the 2019 calendar year writing Extraction Ecologies and the Literature of the Long Exhaustion, 1830s-1930s.

Society and Culture

Long-Lost 17th-Century Poet Gets Digital Treatment

For a long time, analyzing a literary work consisted of creating a “definitive edition,” which might be supplanted a decade or two later. Or maybe never. English professor Frances Dolan is part of a project that offers a new approach for literary analysis, one better aligned with the high-speed information exchange possible today.

Arts

English Professor Explores Rediscovered Writer for Groundbreaking 'Digital Collaboration'

Frances Dolan spent much of last year in the company of Hester Pulter, a little-known 17th-century British writer. Dolan, distinguished professor of English in the UC Davis College of Letters and Science, has done extensive research and writing for The Pulter Project: Poet in the Making, a “digital collaboration” launched in November.

Arts

Maisha Winn, professor of education, UC Davis

Paying it Forward

Some children grow up playing in parks,” said Maisha T. (Fisher) Winn. “Colleges and universities were our playground.” Winn (B.A., English, ’94), the daughter of James Fisher, an African American studies scholar who taught at UC Davis from 1969 to 1974, fondly remembers trips she and her brother took as children to the UC Davis Arboretum and library.

Alumni News

Photo: young woman standing by columns of an ancient site

Seven College Alumni Offered Fulbright Awards

Thirteen UC Davis students and alumni have been awarded 2018–19 Fulbright fellowships — the largest group of Aggies ever awarded. Seven of them are recent graduates of the College of Letters and Science.

Alumni News

Series Brings Established and Emerging Writers to Campus for Readings

The 2018–19 Creative Writing Reading Series at UC Davis will bring acclaimed, long-established writers along with emerging writers starting in October. The series is organized by the Department of English creative writing program in the College of Letters and Science. All readings are at 7 p.m. in the Peter J. Shields Library and are free and open to the public.

Arts

Double Majors: Explore Your Options

Shannon Beaumont decided to double major early in her college career. But Beaumont took time to explore her options before choosing a second major.