Monmouth College English Department

Busy few weeks before the fall semester starts. In addition to the collaborative escape room project wuth Audra’s Forensic Science students, I’m really enjoying working with these three student researchers to get going on a three-year National Endowment for the Humanities grant: Resituating the Humanities in Place. While my students begin serious work on Illinois literature, Bob Holschuh Simmons is working with students considering how place and displacement work in Classical texts and cultures.

Happy Birthday, Uncle Walt.

From the Preface to Leaves of Grass:

"This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body."

Please join us tomorrow Monmouth College to hear poet Taylor Byas read from her newest collection.

Award-Winning Poet Chicago native Taylor Byas to read from her works March 4 at Monmouth College.

Thanks to Barry McNamara for putting together the story of the National Endowment for the Humanities Grant Monmouth College was awarded for "Resituating the Humanities in Place-Based Learning." Bob Holschuh Simmons, Valerie Deisinger, Anne Mamary, and I posed for the album cover.

NEH Grant Monmouth receives $149,965 grant from National Endowment for the Humanities to fund ‘Resituating the Humanities in Place-Based Learning’ project

Celebrating the conclusion of another good year for our students and faculty in the English Dept. What started with a community building retreat ended with a senior send off this week as seniors completed their work in Prof. Marlo Belschner’s senior seminar. Special congratulations to these graduating seniors: Addison Cox, Alex King, Kylie McDonald, Josee Varboncouer, Kestrel Woeltje, Lisette Zaragoza, Elizabeth Hermosillo, and Gabriella Ramirez, and Jacob Duncan!

Mentoring day on campus. Also, follow our Twitter feed!

We couldn’t be more pleased for our 2022 graduating seniors: Catie, Carrie, Liv, Brooke, Abbie, Karisa, Ashlynn, and Caroline. A perfect day to celebrate your great work and watch you all commence. Profs. Belschner, Roberts, and Wright applaud you all!

Prof. Marlo Belschner and three students from our department traveled to this year’s Sigma Tau Delta conference. Kylie McDonald, Addi Cox, and Carrie King all presented papers as part of the nationwide English honors society’s meetings. We’re so proud of them and of their work. Monmouth College

I am thrilled and so very proud to announce that four current English majors have had papers accepted for the spring 2022 Sigma Tau Delta conference:

Addi Cox, “Away from the Feminine: An Analysis of Grief, Trauma, and Identity in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night”

Kylie McDonald, “Confronting Jouissance in A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

Carrie King, ‘“Not made to woo’: Helena’s Inversion of Gender Expectations in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Mel Delbridge, “Does The ‘Cowl Make the Monk’? Examining Identity and Costuming in Twelfth Night”

Congratulations to Addi, Kylie, Carrie, and Mel!

The department of English mourns the passing of Dr. Gary Willhardt, an inspiring professor who impacted so many English graduates. He was a great man who will be missed by many. We also send our condolences to his son, Dean Mark Willhardt.

We are heartbroken over the loss of Monmouth giant Dr. Gary Willhardt. 💔

He graduated from Monmouth in 1959 and was a beloved English professor at the College for 33 years. In addition to serving on various faculty committees, Willhardt was a presence on the Warren County Library Board, the Monmouth City Planning Committee and as a founding trustee of the Buchanan Center for the Arts.

https://www.monmouthcollege.edu/live/news/3219-in-memoriam-gary-willhardt-59