Department News
Jeremy Specland's (Postdoctoral Fellow) article "The Righteous Shall Be Punished: The Biography of a Biblical Misprint" was published in Renaissance Studies (advance online publication, March 9, 2026).
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author/7FMFFGARS5PG8PBYKQB9?target=10.1111/rest.70029
Abbie Mourey (MA-into-PhD) has a forthcoming essay publication. Her essay, "'For Nobler Themes Demand a Nobler Strain': Phillis Wheatley, John Milton, and the Poetic Search for Freedom," will be published by her alma mater's literary journal, Westmarch. Abbie served as editor-in-chief for the journal in her senior year. Current and past issues can be accessed via the following link: https://fliphtml5.com/bookcase/sveugj/
Jacob Bowers (Ph.D Student) recieved the 2026-2027 Wittliff Collections William H. Hill Research Award in the amount of $1,200 working with the Cormac McCarthy Archives, conducting manuscript research on his final two novels, The Passenger and Stella Maris.
He has also presented his paper titled "'I heared the Lawd': Aunt Cat's Faith-Vision in Robert Penn Warren's Brother to Dragons" at the 2026 Robert Warren Circle Conference. Abigail Sell, Renee Stack, Leah Hepburn, Shannan McClernon, and Nicolas Reynolds also presented at the conference.
Dr. Amanda Auerbach presented her paper "Being at Others' Disposal in Mansfield Park" at the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies' conference in Philadelphia.
Dr. Kevin Rulo's article "Autonomy, Satire, and Parasitic Aesthetics in Wyndham Lewis’s “Joint” and The Apes of God" was published in the Journal of Modern Literature (vol. 49, no. 1 pp.140-156).
Abbie Mourey (MA-into-Ph.D) has two forthcoming essays that will be published on the Dappled Things blog, Deep Down Things. One essay will focus on Julian of Norwich's mysticism as a response to Pico della Mirandola's Oration on the Dignity of Man, and the other will examine René Girard's writings as a response to John-Paul Sartre's, Existentialism Is a Humanism.
Dr. Amanda Auerbach was awarded the College of Arts and Science's Griffith-Rousseau Award for Excellence in Humanities Research.
An article by Dr. Beth Ooi, Dr. Lilla Kopar, and Dr. Kerstin Majewski (Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany), "Eþelþryþ Who? The Enigmatic Old English Dry-point Runes in the St Petersburg Insular Gospels," was published in Futhark (vol. 14-15).
An article by Dr. Beth Ooi, Dr. Lilla Kopar, and Dr. Kerstin Majewski (Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany), "Eþelþryþ Who? The Enigmatic Old English Dry-point Runes in the St Petersburg Insular Gospels," was published in Futhark (vol. 14-15).
Caelan Chew's (Ph.D student) article "When the Private Becomes Public: Involuntary Disclosure in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" was published in Brontë Studies (vol. 51.1 pp. 13-27).
https://doi.org/10.1080/
Dr. Lilla Kopár published a chapter on early medieval stone sculpture titled “Beyond a grammar of ornament: The language of visual narratives” in Early Medieval Sculpture in Stone, edited by J. Hawkes and S. Semple (Boydell & Brewer, 2025, pp. 298-310).
She also co-authored an article on runic writing with English Dept. colleague, Dr. Beth Newman Ooi, and Dr. Kerstin Majewski (Univ. Bochum, Germany) called “Eþelþryþ who? The enigmatic Old English dry-point runes in the St Petersburg Insular Gospels.” The article appeared in Futhark: International Journal of Runic Studies 14-15 (2023-24, publ. 2025, pp. 69-94, at https://doi.org/10.33063/futhark.14.1088).
For the third year in a row, in January 2026, Dr. Kopár co-organized with Dr. Sarah Ferrario (Dept. of Ancient & Medieval Language and Cultures) a very successful three-day workshop on ancient languages and writing systems called Really Dead Languages III. She also presented on "Historical Linguistics" as the opening lecture of the event.
Dr. Kopár has recently been appointed as associate professor of Medieval Studies at the Dept. of Ancient & Medieval Languages and Literature, now holding a dual appointment with the Dept. of English.
https://doi.org/10.1080/
Dr. Lilla Kopár published a chapter on early medieval stone sculpture titled “Beyond a grammar of ornament: The language of visual narratives” in Early Medieval Sculpture in Stone, edited by J. Hawkes and S. Semple (Boydell & Brewer, 2025, pp. 298-310).
She also co-authored an article on runic writing with English Dept. colleague, Dr. Beth Newman Ooi, and Dr. Kerstin Majewski (Univ. Bochum, Germany) called “Eþelþryþ who? The enigmatic Old English dry-point runes in the St Petersburg Insular Gospels.” The article appeared in Futhark: International Journal of Runic Studies 14-15 (2023-24, publ. 2025, pp. 69-94, at https://doi.org/10.33063/futhark.14.1088).
For the third year in a row, in January 2026, Dr. Kopár co-organized with Dr. Sarah Ferrario (Dept. of Ancient & Medieval Language and Cultures) a very successful three-day workshop on ancient languages and writing systems called Really Dead Languages III. She also presented on "Historical Linguistics" as the opening lecture of the event.
Dr. Kopár has recently been appointed as associate professor of Medieval Studies at the Dept. of Ancient & Medieval Languages and Literature, now holding a dual appointment with the Dept. of English.