The English Major/Minor

English majors and minors at the University of Montevallo develop literary sensibilities and writing expertise in a curriculum that emphasizes close reading, theoretical finesse, and meaningful engagement with diverse literary and cultural forms of expression.  Our faculty members prepare students for graduate studies and a host of careers while promoting social awareness and expanding intellectual horizons. We offer an eclectic curriculum, opportunities to research, innovative courses, small class sizes, and a dedicated faculty.

Recent Courses

Literature of Plural America: Crescent City Sketches

Creative Writing

Montevallo Literary Festival: April 23, 2010

The eighth annual Montevallo Literary Festival, a celebration of creative writing hosted by the University of Montevallo, April 23, 2010, will feature readings of poetry and prose fiction as well as discussions of the theory, practice, criticism, and review of various forms of creative writing.  Festival activities will include creative writing workshops as well as book exhibitions, receptions and book signings.  As one participant wrote of the Festival in its first year, the “small, intimate atmosphere” of the event “meant that even lunch and corridor encounters became part of the general flow of talk about writing.” 

We're pleased to announce keynote readers/workshop leaders Mitchell L. H. Douglas and Lorraine Lopez as well as a lineup of six invited creative writers Virginia Van Der Veer Hamilton, Kevin Wilson, Jennifer Horne, Lynnell Edwards, Graeme Harper, and Bryn Chancellor. 

With the exception of the writing workshops and meals, all events are free and open to the public.  A $45 registration fee ($10 for UM students) covers all events, parties, and three meals at the Festival.  A $95 registration fee ($60 for UM students) covers the entire conference plus personalized workshop critiques.  Click here for more information.

Faculty News

Chancellor Named Finalist for Mary McCarthy Prize

Webb's Work to be Published

Samantha Webb’s essay, “Exhausted Appetites, Vitiated Taste: Romanticism, Mass Culture and the Pleasures of Consumption,” has been accepted for a collection on Romanticism and pleasure, to be published by Palgrave Macmillan. The collection will appear as part of Palgrave’s Nineteenth-Century Major Lives and Letters series.

Murphy Reads at Eudora Welty Writers' Symposium

Jim Murphy participated in the 21st annual Eudora Welty Writers’ Symposium, held Oct. 22-24 at Mississippi University for Women, Columbus, Miss. The theme of the symposium, “Time Goes Like A Dream No Matter How Hard You Run,” was taken from one of Welty’s stories. As such, the poets and fiction writers involved were invited primarily for their imaginative engagements of history. The following link to The Commercial Dispatch (Columbus, Miss.) yields a story on the symposium: www.cdispatch.com/news/article.asp?aid=3456.

King Teaches and Presents at Notre Dame

Kathy King taught a class at Notre Dame Thursday, Oct. 15, and the next day present a paper, “Eliza Haywood at the Sign of Fame; or, The Possibilities of Political Biography,” to the Women and Gender Studies Workshop. The talk is taken from her book in progress, Eliza Haywood: A Political Biography, under contract to Pickering and Chatto.

Rozelle Delivers Keynote

Lee Rozelle delivered the keynote address at the 10th Annual New Voices graduate conference at Georgia State University on Oct. 22 . His presentation at this conference dealing with “Literature and Rhetoric of the Apocalypse” was titled “Defying Apocalypse in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake.”

Graduate Studies

The English Department offers graduate students mentorship and guidance in a rigorous yet informal academic setting. With a wide array of course offerings, our program gives graduate students the opportunity to master their chosen areas of study and to put their ideas into practice in fields such as teaching, academics, editing, writing and other professions.  Students may opt to complete the degree through 30 credit hours of coursework, or through 24 hours of coursework and a 6-hour Master’s thesis. All students must also pass a comprehensive exam, usually taken in the last semester before graduation.  Learn more...