English and Modern Languages
Here’s how students get to know us and we get to know them:
Here’s how students get to know us and we get to know them:- First-Year Composition Classes
- Foreign Language Classes and Activities
- Creative Writing, Literature, and Other Upper-Division Classes
- Affiliated Programs (Gender and Women’s Studies)
Grounded in the Humanities: Our Mission and Vision
Are you a prospective student? Enlace para la Licenciatura en Español (Spanish B.A.)
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Alumni Spotlight: Brianna Maguire (2018)
Department News
The next meeting of Shepherd University’s Stammtisch will take place on Friday, August 27th, at 4:00 p.m. Stammtisch is a gathering of German speakers who meet periodically for conversation and socializing. Everyone is welcome, from beginners to native speakers. The group will meet at the Blue Moon Cafe. For more information, please contact Dr. Rachel Krantz (rritterb@shepherd.edu).
Shepherd University’s Rude Mechanicals Medieval and Renaissance Players announce auditions for William Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet on Wednesday, August 25th, and Thursday, August 26th, from 8:00 to 10:30 p.m., and Sunday, August 29th, from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m., in Reynolds Hall. There are multiple roles, both large and small, for all genders and levels of experience. A diverse cast is highly desirable. Tech crew, fencers, musicians, and video artists are also needed. Shepherd students earn academic credit for acting or participating behind the scenes. Community members 16 and older are welcome to audition. Performances will take place November 5th through the 14th. Shepherd requires everyone regardless of vaccination status to wear a mask inside buildings. Masks are required for all attending auditions. For more information, contact Dr. Betty Ellzey, Chair, Department of English and Modern Languages, at bellzey@shepherd.edu or 304-876-5208.
One of our recent graduates, Fiona Tracey (creative writing, December 2020), has been busy. She recently started work as an editor at a consulting firm called Visa Business Plans. But on top of this professional milestone, Fiona has written a lot and had several pieces published! Her poems “you slept” and “telling you good morning—and hearing it back” appeared in the January 2021 edition of The Blackwater Review. Her poem “good habits, bad conscience” was included in the May 2021 edition of Better than Starbucks. In June 2021, Fiona’s poem “On Pass-A-Grille Beach” appeared in Stonecoast Review and “Consciousness” appeared in The Orchards Poetry Journal. And finally, Naugatuck River Review will publish her poem “i remember everything” in September of this year. Wow, Fiona, you’re doing great work and are certainly impressing all of us here in the Department! Keep going!
Shepherd University’s Society for Creative Writing in the Department of English and Modern Languages presents poet Hannah Dow in the latest installment of the AT HOME WITH POETRY series. This will be the final reading in the series until the fall semester. Dow is the author of ROSARIUM (Acre Books, 2018). Her poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in publications such as Image, The Southern Review, Pleiades, and The Cincinnati Review. She received the Cream City Review Summer Prize in Poetry, selected by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, and has received awards and scholarships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and Bread Loaf Orion. She is the editor-in-chief of the Tinderbox Poetry Journal and is an assistant professor of English and creative writing at Missouri Southern State University. Dow’s reading can be found on the Society for Creative Writing’s website.