Featured Stories

Collaboratively, Dr. DeGuzmán, Dr. Irizarry, and the LSP Crew—graduate assistants Ryan Carroll, Meleena Gil, René Marzuk, Victoria Valle, and Cody Ward—have lined up several exciting speakers for this Spring 2024.

2024 Frank B. Hanes Writer-in-Residence, Terrance Hayes, will give a reading on Tuesday, February 27 at 7:30pm in Moeser Auditorium. The reading is free and open to the public.

The DOECL is excited to welcome Professor Daelena Tinnin-Gadson!

Skjellum-Salmon was selected for the 2023 Community Engagement Fellowship through the Carolina Center for Public Service to fund their collaboration with local drag artists in Durham, NC.

This February, Durham-based game designer Omari Akil visited the Greenlaw Gameroom to discuss the story and successes of their game design studio and publishing company, Colorway Game Labs. 

Check out what the DOECL faculty recommend for reading, listening, and watching this Black History Month!

Meet Professor Destiny Hemphill, the 2022-23 Kenan Visiting Writer in the Creative Writing Program.

Dailihana Alfonesca, a Literature, Medicine, and Culture master’s student, finds herself—and success—in creative writing. Alfonesca was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Cathy Choi, a 2021 graduate who completed an ECL minor in Medicine, Literature, and Culture recently published a comic in Literature & Medicine.

Congratulations, Prof. Christmas on this prestigious award!

Read about the exciting events this month upcoming from the Latina/o Studies Program.

Dr. Fickle will give a talk titled “New Yellow Peril: Asia/America at Play.”

Join Christine Hong for a virtual talk and seminar on race and militarism.

Join Kevin Quashie for a virtual talk and seminar on Black literary criticism.

Congratulations to Peñaflor on being awarded the Thomas Wolfe Scholarship for her literary promise!

The Department of English & Comparative Literature invites applications for a tenure-track assistant or associate professor Latinx Studies.

Meet one of the Department of English and Comparative Literature’s newest faculty members, Gabriel Bump!

Watch “Two Wings Take Flight: Writers, Poets, Scholars, and Artists Reflect on Randall Kenan’s South”

Prof. Gabriel Bump’s award-winning novel is being adapted for the screen.

ECL PhD candidate Don Holmes has been selected as one of UNC’s four institutional nominees for the ACLS Emerging Voices Fellowship.

Alexander G. Weheliye, Professor of African American Studies at Northwestern University, joins the Critical Speaker Series.

Congratulations to ECL graduate student Trisha Remetir on being awarded the PAGE Fellowship!

Meet Krysten Voelkner, ECL PhD student researching Latinx environmentalisms and the environmental humanities.

Please join UNC’s Department of English and Comparative Literature as we celebrate the life of our beloved colleague and friend Randall Kenan on Oct. 21 at 5:00pm.

Congratulations to Chloe Hamer, Jo Klevdal, emilio Taiveaho, Nikki Roulo, Leslie Rowen, and Krysten Voelkner!

Welcome, Geovani Ramírez! Ramírez joined the faculty this fall as a postdoctoral fellow.

Welcome, Ruby Pappoe! Pappoe joined the ECL Department this fall.

Congratulations Dr. Heidi Kim, inaugural director of the Asian American Center!

Welcome, Melissa Faliveno! The Kenan Visiting Writer for 2020-2021, Faliveno joined the ECL Department this fall. 

Dr. María DeGuzmán has been appointed the Eugene H. Falk Distinguished Professor, an endowed professorship bestowed by the college. 

Epps-Robertson is the Associate Director of the Writing Program, Director of Writing in the Disciplines, and studies rhetoric, composition, and literacy studies.

ECL PhD candidate Geovani Ramírez has won a Diversity Award and been selected for induction into the Frank Porter Graham Honor Society.

Nikky Finney, ECL’s 2020 Frank B. Hanes Writer-in-Residence, will be giving a public reading on February 25 and participating in two panel discussions on February 24 and 27.

Coleman joined the ECL faculty in 1990. The department has set up a memorial page where his students and colleagues can share tributes.

ECL Assistant Professor Danielle Christmas was interviewed by UNC’s Institute for the Arts and Humanities in a September 8 podcast.

In honor of Dr. Johnny Lee Greene, the Department of English and Comparative Literature at UNC Chapel Hill established the J. Lee Greene Award: for Excellence in Postgraduate Work on Race and Ethnicity.

Dr. Jennifer Ho has been elected as President of the Association for Asian American Studies for a three-year term.

“Gathering Memories: The Life and Legacy of Dr. J. Lee Greene” honors Dr. Johnny Lee Greene, distinguished Professor of African-American Literature and a pioneer of campus diversity at UNC.

Moraga is one of the most influential Chicano/a writers in the U.S. today. Among other notable works, she is the playwright of Heroes and Saints and the editor for the collection This Bridge Called My Back.

Resisting Brown examines how African American community members in Prince Edward County, Virginia, responded to the county’s decision to close all public schools from 1959 to 1964 rather than desegregate as demanded by Brown v. Board of Education.

Professor Gabrielle Calvocoressi, the department diversity liaison, says of Cobb, “in everything he does, James works to not only increase diversity on the campus, but to deepen the notion of what diversity and inclusion means in the classroom and in the world.”

The poems in her chapbook address the lack of representation and consideration for people of color in video game design, while also using Legend of Zelda as a lens through which to view contemporary society.

Since 1985, the Whiting Foundation has supported creative writing through the Whiting Awards, given annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama.

Her reading will take place on the UNC campus on Tuesday, March 19 at 7:30 pm in the Genome Sciences Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

The Faculty of the Department of English and Comparative Literature pledge through our teaching, research, and public service to continue the hard work of rooting out racism and inequality and to replace them with “light and liberty,” the motto of our university.

The North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame celebrates and promotes the state’s rich literary heritage by “commemorating its leading authors and encouraging the continued flourishing of great literature.”

Associate Professor of Creative Nonfiction Stephanie Elizondo Griest appeared on C-Span this weekend, discussing her latest book at the Brooklyn Book Festival.

María J. Durán, a doctoral candidate in the Department of English and Comparative Literature, has been awarded the Initiative for Minority Excellence (IME) Doctoral Candidacy Award.