Use the tabs below to search the events catalouge and stay connected by checking out the latest happenings around the English Department, where a variety of thought-provoking and culturally enriching activities unfold throughout the academic year.
2024
Reynolds Atelier lecture – Whitney Museum & Biennial Curator Meg Onli
Date and location TBA
More info to come!
“Mapping Ann-Marie MacDonald” with Richler Writer-in-Residence Ann-Marie MacDonald and Dr. Neta Gordon (Brock University)
Wednesday, December 4, 5-7 PM
Redpath Museum Auditorium, 859 Sherbrooke West
Join the Department of English for an evening of literature, literary criticism, and digital humanities with our 2024-2025 Richler Writer-in-Residence, the renowned playwright, director and novelist Ann-Marie MacDonald and esteemed Canadian literature Professor Neta Gordon (Brock University).
In discussion with Ann-Marie MacDonald and Professor Erin Hurley, Professor Gordon will describe her student-centred, interdisciplinary project, "Mapping Ann-Marie MacDonald," and its frameworks of data feminism and consensus-driven literary analysis. It also explores the unique situation for faculty and students working on the project to be collaborating with the creative artist.
MacDonald’s writing for the stage includes the award-winning play Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet), as well as The Arab’s Mouth, Belle Moral: A Natural History, and Hamlet-911. She also authored the libretto for the chamber opera Nigredo Hotel, and book and lyrics for the musical Anything That Moves.
Neta Gordon is a Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Brock University, and the author ofĚýCatching the Torch: Contemporary Canadian Literary Responses to World War IĚý(Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2016) andĚýBearers of Risk: Writing Masculinity in Contemporary English-Canadian Short Story CyclesĚý(Â鶹AV-Queen's UP, 2022). Most recently, Professor Gordon has turned to research on Ann-Marie MacDonald, focusing on the author’s decades-long invitational approach to making space for marginalized voices.
Historical Fiction with Richler Writers-in-Residence Ann-Marie MacDonald & Heather O’Neill
Hosted by Ara Osterweil & Alexander Manshel
Wednesday, October 30, 5-8 pm
Faculty Club Ballroom, 3450 McTavish
Come join the Department of English for an evening devoted to historical fiction in literature. 2024 Richler Writers-in-Residence Ann-Marie MacDonald and Heather O’Neill will read from their recent novels, followed by a discussion about historical fiction with Professors Alexander Manshel and Ara Osterweil.
MacDonald’s writing for the stage includes the award-winning play Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet), as well as The Arab’s Mouth, Belle Moral: A Natural History, and Hamlet-911. She also authored the libretto for the chamber opera Nigredo Hotel, and book and lyrics for the musical Anything That Moves.
Heather O’Neill is the author of six books, including Lullabies for Little Criminals, The Lonely Hearts Hotel, and When We Lost Our Heads. She has been awarded the Canada Reads Prize, the Danuta Gleed Award, The Writer's Trust Fellowship, and the Hugh Mclennan Prize for Fiction. Her fiction has been nominated for the Giller Prize twice and the Women's Prize for Fiction three times. She is also an award-winning essayist who has written for The Guardian, The New York Times Magazine, The Globe and Mail, and The Walrus.
Camille Owens’s book launch – Like Children: Black Prodigy and the Measure of the Human in America
in conversation with Professor Amber Jamilla Musser (City University of New York)
Thursday, October 10, 5-7 pm
Thompson House, 3650 McTavish
Like Children (New York University Press, 2024) is a history of American childhood that rethinks black children’s excluded status, demonstrating instead white Americans’ possessive investment in black children's value and the violence of humanist inclusion.
ModPo Live Webcast
Hosted by Amber Rose Johnson
Thursday, September 26th at 6:30pm
Morrice Hall Theater, 3485 McTavish
ModPo is an open-online course with over 10,000 participants from around the world. Each year the ModPo crew travels to another country for one of their live webcasts. For this week, participants (including the audience, if you'd like!) will discuss poets from the rise of modernism – especially the likes of Gertrude Stein, amongst others. Anyone and everyone is welcome to join us.
No ticketing, just show up!
Faculty Colloquium:ĚýRevelations and Reminiscences
Friday, February 16, 09:00-11:30, 3475 Peel
The Department of English invites faculty and students to the 2024 Faculty Colloquium, "Revelations and Reminiscences." Presentations by faculty members will be followed by discussion. Coffee and pastries will be served.
Alexander Manshel, "High School English: A History of American Reading"
Carmen Faye Mathes, “Avoiding Groupwork”
Camille Owens, “The Second Photograph”
Myrna Selkirk, “Opening Up Creativity Through Clown and Mask”
Catherine Bradley, “Fleeting and Permanent”
Organized by Camille Owens & Ara Osterweil
Reading Group: Christina Sharpe's Ordinary Notes
Meeting Dates:
November 16, 2023, 16:00-18:00 PM, Leacock 738
January 17, 2024, 15:00-17:00 PM, English Graduate Lounge (Arts B-22)
February 2024, Location TBD
The Department of English invites graduate students and faculty to a reading group onĚýChristina Sharpe'sĚý, finalist for the National Book Award and shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction. Discussion will be facilitated by Dr. Amber Rose Johnson, Â鶹AV Third Century Postdoctoral Research Fellow.
The group will meet three times leading up to Prof. Sharpe's Spector Lecture in March 2024. Please forward any questions to Professor Ara Osterweil [ara.osterweil [at] mcgill.ca].
Graduate Group: PRAXIS
Meeting Dates:
January 9, February 7, March 13, April 2
English Graduate Lounge (Arts B-22)
10:00-12:00
Taking place this winter 2024 semester, PRAXIS is a standing invitation to join fellow graduate students in the newly redesigned grad lounge every Wednesday from 10:00-12:00. There will be free coffee from Humble Lion provided, butĚýbring your own mug!ĚýThis open, drop-in style meeting time presents an opportunity for us to talk, share resources, and bring our research projects, ideas, and questions out of books and into the world.
2023
Event: PhD3 Colloqium
Wednesday,ĚýDecemberĚý6,Ěý2023Ěý
09:15-14:30
The PhD3 Colloquium 2023 will take place on Wednesday 6 December in Ferrier 408, beginning at 9:15 AM. All faculty, instructors, and graduate students in English are welcome to attend. Students in the PhD3 cohort will present their research-in-progress, stemming from their Compulsory Research Project, and there will be time for questions after each presentation.
Production: Ibsen's An Enemy of the People
November 22-24 and November 29-December 1, 2023
19:30
Â鶹AV's Department of English Drama & Theatre Program Presents: Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People in a new version by Rebecca Lenkiewicz.
Doctor Teresa Stockman has discovered her town’s dirty little secret. But when she tries to tell the truth, she finds a much worse lie has poisoned her community to the core.
Book Launch:ĚýAlexander Manshel'sĚýWriting Backwards
Wednesday,ĚýNovemberĚý15,Ěý2023Ěý
18:00-20:00
Contemporary fiction has never been less contemporary. Writing Backwards documents how the historical novel took over American literature, and how the push to recover lost or overlooked histories has affected writers of color most of all.Ěý
Join the author, Prof. Alexander Manshel, Assistant Professor of English at Â鶹AV, in conversation with Prof. Ara Osterweil.
Reading: In Conversation withĚýKasia Van Schaik & Padma Viswanatha
Thursday,ĚýOctoberĚý19,Ěý2023Ěý
17:30-19:00
The Department of English invites you to a joint reading with the Scotiabank Giller Prize-nominated authors Kasia Van Schaik & Padma Viswanathan. The readings will be followed by a Q&A moderated by Professor Ara Osterweil. This event does not require registration.
