Welcome
LSU English is home to world-renowned faculty, innovative course offerings, and talented students. At the heart of our work is an attention to verbal communication in spoken and written form – what humans do with language, how we do it, why we do it, and to what effects. Through the study of literature, linguistics, rhetoric, film, theory, and the craft of writing in a variety of genres and forms, we challenge students to ask questions of texts, to read beyond literal meanings, to understand how context and text interact, and to create compelling texts of their own. The value of an English degree is that the person who can write with elegance and precision, and who has the skills to interpret and analyze texts, is needed – and valued - in every area of work and life.
Go to Undergraduate and Graduate Course Descriptions to see examples of what our Department has to offer and browse “About Us” to learn about our faculty, graduate students, publications, events, and more.
Professor Sue Weinstein
Chair, Department of English
Distinguished English Major Graduates with Honors
Evan Leonhard is graduating summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and minor
in philosophy, as a Distinguished Undergraduate Researcher and a
University Medalist. Evan has served as the Editor-in-Chief of The Delta Journal, LSU’s premier undergraduate research journal, and has published multiple
pieces of non-fiction, poetry, and photography in that and other regional journals.
He has also served as an opinion columnist for LSU’s student newspaper, the Reveille, since 2019. Throughout his undergraduate career, Evan regularly presented his research
on aesthetics and romanticism at LSU Discover Days and undergraduate research conferences
around the country. In the spring of 2022, he was selected as one of 10 students
from around the US to participate as a visiting student in the Pontifical University
of St. Thomas Aquinas, or The Angelicum, in Rome, Italy. He then joined as a student
in the Ogden Honors in Oxford study abroad program. This spring he was named a recipient
of a Fulbright ETA Fellowship for Greece, but he has decided to return to Oxford in
the fall to pursue a Master of Studies in English Literature at Exeter College, Oxford
University. We wish Evan all the best as he continues his studies and congratulations.
English Department Awards Ceremony
May 2, 2023
Creative Writing Awards - Undergraduate Students
Dara Wier Award for Poetry - Pulitzer Prize winning poet Dara Wier is the author of numerous volumes of poetry, and has been published in Best American Poetry. She currently directs the MFA Program for Poets & Writers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Winner: Ingrid Jensen for "Coyote Takes the Bus"
John Ed Bradley Award for Fiction - Named in honor of celebrated novelist and sports journalist John Ed Bradley. His most recent book is the young adult novel The Road to Wherever.
Winner: Rachel Claire Huye for "Memento Mori"
Gus and Leanne Weill Award for Playwriting - Gus Weill was a distinguished playwright, novelist, and political consultant. Leanne
Weill is a Baton Rouge advertising and public relations executive.
Winner: Audrey Coldwell for "Craniotomy"
Rex Reed Award for Screenwriting - Rex Reed is a film critic and the former co-host of the syndicated television show
"At the Movies." He currently writes the column "On the Town with Rex Reed" for The New York Observer.
Winner: Amy Ruckman for "Hark! A Recipe for Paprika Hendl"
Matt Clark Awards from Delta Undergraduate Journal - Named in memory of Matt Clark, a prolific short story writer and the author of the novel Hook Man Speaks. While a graduate student at LSU, he was a fiction editor of the New Delta Review.
Prose Winner: Jessica Michelet
Poetry Winner: Jonah Webster
English Department Awards Ceremony
May 2, 2023
Creative Writing Awards - Graduate Students
William Jay Smith MFA Award for Poetry - William Jay Smith was the author of ten books of poetry, two of which were nominated
for the National Book Award. From 1968 to 1970, he was Poetry Consultant to the Library
of Congress.
Winner: Halley McArn for "Highway Medicine: Onset"
David Madden MFA Award for Fiction - David Madden is an award-winning novelist, poet, literary critic, and playwright.
For many years he taught at Louisiana State University, where he served as writer-in-residence
and director of the creative writing program. He is also the founder of the university's
U. S. Civil War Center.
Winner: Sunny Rosen for "There Are Certain Things Your Body Cannot Do"
Kent Gramm MFA Award for Literary Nonfiction - Kent Gramm teaches at Gettysburg College and is a prolific author. His books include Gettysburg: A Meditation on War and Values and Somebody's Darling: Essays on the Civil War.
Winner: Zach Shultz for "Searching for Terry Miller"
Ruth Elizabeth McClain Cassidy MFA Award for Screenwriting - For many years Betty Cassidy and her family have been stauch and generous supporters of LSU's English Department and the Creative Writing Program.
Winner: Jake Zawlacki for "Desert Trip"
The Robert Penn Warren Award for Best MFA Thesis - During the years Robert Penn Warren taught in the LSU English Department, he founded The Southern Review, began writing All the King's Men, and developed New Criticism, the literary theory which would revolutionize the teaching
of literature. He received the 1947 Pulitzer Prize for his novel All the King's Men (1946) and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1958 and 1979. He is the only writer
to have won Pulitzer Prizes for both fiction and poetry. On the second floor of Allen
Hall, a conference room is named in his honor.
Winner: Cory R. Calabria for "Lab Rat: A Pharmaceutical Life"
English Department Awards Ceremony
May 2, 2023
Department Awards
Jackie Wintle Scholarship Award - Casey Schaefer
Lisi Oliver Scholarship Award - Cali Frank
Caffee Award for Best Essay Written in a University Writing Class - Tyron J. Johnson
Lewis P. Simpson Distinguished Dissertation Award - Taylor Scott
James Olney Distinguished Dissertation Award - Stephanie Rambo
Dickens Project at LSU Essay Prize - Seohye Kwon;
Honorable Mention for Dickens Project - Krista Barrett
Gale Carrithers, Jr. Outstanding Critical Essay Award - Rei Asaba
Lewis P. Simpson English PhD Student Travel Award - Rachel Howatt
College of Humanities and Social Sciences Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award - Tyler Sheldon
College of Humanities and Social Sciences Diversity Committee Excellence in Teaching Award - Denis Waswa
EGSA Awards
Sarah Liggett Teaching Award (EGSA) - Rebecca Stobaugh
Borck Essay Contest (for Mardi Gras Conference, EGSA) - Jake Zawlacki for "Unintended Consequences: Spawn as 'Superman Black'"
English Leadership Awards (co-sponsored by the English Department and EGSA, given to graduate students for leading English-sponsored conferences and initiatives: Mardi Gras Conference and Underpass) -Co-President - Amber Jurgensen; Co-President - Elizabeth Robertson; Mardi Gras Conference Chairs - Taylor Thompson and Adanna Ogbonna-Oluikpe
English Department News
Boyd Professor Gerald Kennedy has been awarded the 2023-24 
Lillian Gary Taylor Fellowship in American Literature at the University of Virginia
to work on a cultural biography of Edgar Allan Poe.
In 2021, the SEC provosts established an emerging scholars program to help current doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers prepare to be future
members of the faculty through professional development and networking. Seohye Kwon,
PhD doctoral student in the Department of English, is one of five that have been selected
as LSU's SEC Emerging Scholars for 2023-2024. 