Lydia Abedeen (MFA+MA 2024)
In September, Lydia joined the PhD program in Creative Writing at the University of Nebraska.
Toby Altman (PhD 2017)
Toby is now an Assistant Professor at Michigan State, as well as the Director of the Center for Poetry in their Arts and Humanities Residential College.
Sarah Blackwood (PhD 2009)
Sarah has edited a new edition of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, which is being published in February 2025 under Norton’s new inexpensive teaching text imprint, The Norton Library.
Jayme Collins (PhD 2022)
The next season of Jayme’s ongoing audio documentary series, “Archival Ecologies,” is forthcoming in 2025. It builds on field research done this past summer in Norway, Svalbard, and an Ice Core research facility in Denver to tell stories about the relationships between ice and archives during climate change. In connection with the Archival Ecologies book project, which builds on material gathered for the audio series, Jayme was on a one-month fellowship this fall at the Harry Ransom Center, looking at the papers of Peter Waters, a foundational figure in the field of conservation and Chief of the Conservation Division at the Library of Congress from 1971.
Maria Dikcis (PhD 2021)
Maria has been named an ACLS Leading Edge Fellow, a program made possible by a grant from the Mellon Foundation. Under its auspices, Maria will be working as the Communications Manager of the City Bureau, a nonprofit civic journalism and media lab here in Chicago.
E. Hughes (MFA+MA 2021)
In addition to the release of their poetry collection Ankle-Deep in Pacific Water (Haymarket Books, 2024), a number of works by and interviews with E. have been, or soon will be, published. “On the Exquisite Corpse: Blackness and Inexpressibility,” will be included as a chapter in the forthcoming Open Coffin: Philosophical Meditations on the Lynching of Emmett Till. Two interviews appeared in Truth out and The Art Section respectively; “Giving Voice to ‘Silent Casualties’: A Dialogue with E. Hughes” with Robert Stalker, and “Juneteenth Reminds Us That ‘Freedom’ Is an Ongoing Project” with Dr. George Yancy. E.’s poem “Bulldagger in the Garden” will appear in Wildness Journal; “Everything All at Once” in Healing Verse Poetry Line; “As It Is,” “This Way,” “On Love,” and “Another Way to Say Dying” in the Colorado Review.
Jim Lang (PhD 1997)
In the fall of 2023, Jim took up the position of Professor of the Practice at the Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence at the University of Notre Dame. His new book, Write Like You Teach: Taking Your Classroom Skills to a Bigger Audience, will be published in April of 2025 by the University of Chicago Press. The book argues that faculty can expand the audiences for their research by drawing from their experiences in the classroom to enhance their public writing opportunities.
Ilana Larkin (PhD 2022)
Ilana is currently on fellowship at the American Antiquarian Society and will start her job as an Assistant Professor in the Humanities Department at the Massachusett’s Maritime Academy in Fall of 2025.
Janaka Lewis (PhD 2009)
Along with her promotion this past summer to Professor of English at UNC Charlottesville, Janaka has taken on a new role as Associate Dean of Curriculum and Student Success in the College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences.
Christopher Lombardo (MFA+MA 2023)
Christopher’s short story, “Rust,” was published in Volume III of Twelve Winters. In May, he began working as a Program Coordinator supporting curricular initiatives and academic advising in Northwestern’s School of Communication.
Celia Marshik (PhD 1999)
The “Material Modernisms” book series, which Celia co-edits at Palgrave MacMillan, had two titles come out in recent months: The Vacuum Cleaner: A Cultural Investigation by Maud Ellmann and Modern Manuscripts and the Pre-history of the Digital Humanities by Alex Christie. More information about the series and these books can be found here.
Adam Syvertsen (PhD 2024)
Adam’s article “‘I’ll wait no longer’: Emigration, Speculation, and Utopia in Martin R. Delany’s Blake” was published in the Fall 2024 edition of J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists.
Tyler Talbott (PhD 2024)
On February 21st, Tyler will be at the Newberry Library in Chicago as part of this year’s British Studies seminar series. Tyler will be presenting work on Channel 4 and Black British film workshop collectives that he completed in fall 2023.