Department Events
We suggest you also visit our department's Facebook page for updates, events, and news on our faculty, students, and alumni.
Fall 2020
- Tues. Dec. 1 @3:30 pm Google Meets – Dr. Benjamin Railton and Dr. Elise Takehana speak on their recent books, Of Thee I Sing and Baroque Technotext.
Spring 2020
- Tues. Feb. 25 @12:00 p.m. Hammond Main Hall - Third Robert Cormier symposium celebrating a digital archive exhibit of his work. The symposium features faculty and student panelists and a keynote by YA graphic novelist, Jarrett J. Krosoczka. Organized by Drs. Katy Covino and Elise Takehana.
Fall 2019
- Thurs. Dec. 5 @3:30 p.m. Ellis White - Dr. Benjamin Railton speaks on a CFS panel of senior faculty on lessons learned throughout their career.
- Tues. Oct. 29 @ 3:30 p.m. Hammond Main Lounge - Open mic creative writing event hosted by Route 2, the department's literary magazine.
- Tues. Oct. 22 @11:00 a.m. Ellis White - Dr. Aruna Krishnamurthy hosts a film screening of Janani's Juliet and conversation with its Director, Pankaj Rishi Kumar.
- Tues. Oct. 22 @ 3:30 p.m. Ellis White - Dr. Aruna Krishnamurthy hosts a film screening of Two Flags and a conversation with its Director, Pankaj Rishi Kumar.
- Tues. Oct. 22 @ 3:30 p.m. Library Instruction Lab - Dr. Kisha Tracy and Renée Fratantonio lead a hands-on workshop, "(Mis)Appropriation of the Middle Ages: Confronting Misuses of History in the Age of the Meme."
- Thurs. Oct. 17 @ 3:30 p.m. Archives Hammond S03 - Dr. Wafa Unus discusses her recently published book A Newsman in the Nixon White House: Herbert Klein and the Enduring Conflict between Journalistic Truth and Presidential Image.
- Tues. Oct. 15 @ 3:30 p.m. Ellis White - Drs. Kisha Tracy, Katherine Jewell, and Ben Lieberman speak on a panel titled "Nazi Symbolism & Propaganda: From Medieval Times to the Present."
- Thurs. Sep. 26 @ 2:00 p.m. Ellis White - Dr. Kisha Tracy and Danielle Girard's talk on LGBTQIA+ representation in the Medieval period in "Unclouding the Rainbow in History."
- Thurs. Sep. 26 @ 3:30 p.m. Ellis White - Dr. Lisa Gim moderates a panel titled "Literary Perspective of Maus" featuring Drs. Michael Hoberman, Heather Urbanski, and Katharine Covino.
- Wed. Sep. 25 @ 2:00 p.m. When We Were Normal, an augmented reality tour of Fitchburg State's history, opens with a panel discussion amongst some of its creators: Dr. Elise Takehana, Faith Chesbrough, Daniel Hein, and Aaron Canterbury.
- Tues. Sep. 24 @ 2:30 p.m. Ellis White - Dr. Benjamin Railton's talk, “We The People: The 500-Year Battle Over Who Is An American,” addresses the conflicting exclusive and inclusive visions of the United States.
- Thurs. Sep. 19 @ 5:00 p.m. Fitchburg Public Library - Dr. Kisha Tracy and Danielle Girard's talk on LGBTQIA+ representation in the Medieval period in "Unclouding the Rainbow in History."
- Tues. Sep. 17 @ 3:30 p.m. Hammond Main Lounge - Dr. Wafa Unus leads a discussion on the free press and the federal court case Antonelli vs. Hammond.
Area-Wide Literary and Writing Events
- Worcester County Poetry Association Calendar
- Literary Events in Boston on Eventful
- Massachusetts Center for the Book
- Mass Poetry's Events
Student-Faculty Collaborations
- Sep. 2020 Kisha Tracy’s Disability Heritage: From the Medieval to the Local exhibit is available online with a virtual gallery. The exhibit includes 75 artifacts and 30 essays written by some 60 students in English Studies courses Tracy has taught. She speaks to the origins of the project on the Disability History Association’s blog.
- Sep. 2020 Katy Covino publishes a co-authored chapter “Rowing Together in the Same Direction: How Entwined Symbiosis Empowers Teachers At All Levels to Embrace Culturally Responsive Teaching” in Invested Stayers: How Teachers Thrive in Challenging Times. Her co-authors Garrett Zecker and Hannah Britten are FSU alumni. The book was reviewed by the University of Kansas.
- Feb. 2019 Dr. Kisha Tracy co-authors "Physical Disability, Muteness, Pregnancy, Possession, and Alcoholism from Ecclesiastical History" for the Medieval Disability Sourcebook with her graduate students Maura Bailey, Autumn Battista, Ashley Corliss, Eammon Gosselin, Rebecca Laughlin, Sara Moller, Shayne Simahk, Taylor Specker, Alyssa Stranton, and Kellyn Welch.
- Oct. 2019 Dr. Kisha Tracy's article "The Making of a Disability Heritage Exhibit" appears in The Activist History Review with quotes from her students.
Student News
- June 2020 Students Kangsen “Yassay” Masango and Emmanuella Demosthenes publish their poetry in Malarkey Books’ all-Black authors special issue.
- May 2018 Professional Writing student, Savanah Hippert, secures an internship at PulseMag in Worcester. Read her stories on the local cultural scene.
- Apr. 2018 Sigma Tau Delta wins Best Honors Society at Fitchburg State University.
- Feb. 2018 Volume 11 of Route 2 is voted BEST in literary journal category at Bookbuilders of Boston Book Show. Congratulations to Dr. Steven Edwards and his Editing and Publishing students.
Faculty News
- Jan. 2021 Ben Railton publishes his book Of Thee I Sing: The Contested History of American Patriotism with Rowman and Littlefield.
- Nov. 2020 Dr. DeMisty Bellinger-Delfeld is nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
- Nov. 2020 Michael Hoberman’s “The Counterlife of Judah P. Benjamin” appears in Tablet magazine.
- Oct. 2020 Diego Ubiera is invited to contribute a chapter on Afro Dominican Studies for the Routledge Handbook of Afro-Latin American Studies.
- Oct. 2020 Kisha Tracy keynotes at CHEurope’s conference “Critical heritage studies and the future of Europe.” Her talk is titled “The Significance of Disability Cultural Heritage.”
- May 2020 Michael Hoberman’s “Jews Out West” appears in Tablet magazine.
- Sep. 2019 Dr. Michael Hoberman's book A Hundred Acres of America: The Geography of Jewish American Literary History is reviewed in Marginalia: The Los Angeles Book Review.
- July 2019 Ben Railton publishes his book We the People: The 500-Year Battle over Who is American with Rowman and Littlefield.
- Oct. 2019 Dr. Kisha Tracy exhibits her and her students' work "Disability Heritage: From the Medieval to the Local" at Open Sky. Read her article on the making of the exhibit published by The Activist History Review.
- Feb. 2019 Dr. Diego Ubiera's article "Caribbean Exceptions: The Problem of Race and Nation in Dominican Studies," will be published in the Latin American Research Review spring 2019, in vol. 54, no. 2.
- Dec. 2018 Dr. Aruna Krishnamurthy's book chapter "Teaching Politics and Poetics of Land through William Cobbett's Rural Rides" will be published in the edited collection Teaching Laboring-Class British Literature of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries for winter 2018.
- Dec. 2018 Dr. Michael Hoberman's latest book, A Hundred Acres of America: the Geography of Jewish American Literary History, published by Rutgers University Press, is available for purchase Winter/Spring 2019.
- Aug. 2018 Dr. Kisha Tracy's co-edited anthology The Ballad of the Lone Medievalist, published by Punctum Books is available in August 2018.
- Apr. 2018 Dr. Aruna Krishnamurthy reviews Oliver Lovesey’s Postcolonial George Eliot in her "A Contrapuntal Eliot," published in Catalyst.