Pitt Literature Program @PittLitProgram

Congratulations to graduating senior, Andrew Knight! Andrew is planning on working in either local government or for a public school board after graduation! We wish you good luck and thank you for your time in the English Literature Department!

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Continuing Dr. Bortnick’s Faculty Profile for the month of April! Dr. Bortnick started teaching at Pitt in 2022, and is currently reading Journey to the West!

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Our first senior shout-out is for Jayna Palumbo! Jayna will be graduating at the end of the month and is planning on attending Wake Forest University for a Masters in Education and English Certification in the Fall! Good luck Jayna and thank you for being part of the department!

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Our faculty profile for the month of April is for Dr. Justin Bortnick! Dr. Bortnick joined the English Literature Department in 2022 and is interested in design and game narratives, as well as propaganda and conspiracy theories!

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The Childen’s Literature Program will be hosting “Gaiety Games” on April 20th at 6pm in the Cathedral of Learning 144! The event will be led by Dr. Derritt Mason discussing HIV/AIDS Activism, Children’s Literature, and Early Queer Video Games! We hope to see you there!

Summer Session Course Promo! Would you like to watch films, plays, and television as your homework? Read a variety of novels depicting adolescence and becoming an adult? Then take “Representing Adolescence” this summer, taught by Christine Case, an online course on M/Ws!

April is World Poetry Month! World Poetry Month is currently the largest literary celebration in the world. This year, the Academy of American Poets is proud to be honoring Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem, “Kindness,” the most read contemporary poem of 2022!

Call for Papers and Digital Projects: The English Literature Conference and Showcase will be occurring on Friday, April 14th, and we ask that all submissions be sent in by Thursday, April 6th. The link to apply is in our bio! We hope to see you there!

Our final featured female writer for Women’s History Month is Imogen Binnie! Binnie’s debut novel, Nevada, was a nominee for the Transgender Fiction category at the 26th Lambda Literary Awards. Binnie won both the Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award and the MOTHA Award!

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Are you interested in winning collectible figures or a copy of Dr. Fimi’s book? Then attend Dr. Fimi’s Zoom talk today at 3pm on Tolkien and Middle Earth! We hope to see you there!

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This week’s Woman’s History Month post is for Natalie Diaz! Diaz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning Mojave-American poet, whose works “portray the experiences rooted in Native American life with personal and mystic power.” She won the Pulitzer Prize for her 2020 poem anthology!

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Today is World Poetry Day! Celebrate today by writing a poem, visiting a poetry slam, or reading works by your favorite poet!

This week’s spotlight is on Min Jin Lee, a Korean-American author and journalist based in New York City! Her first short story Motherland was awarded the Peden Prize for Best Short Story. She is currently the writer-in-residence at Amherst College.

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We invite you to attend “J. R. R. Tolkien and Middle-Earth: Fantasy and Reality,” a lecture and Q&A led by Dr. Dimitra Fimi on Thursday 3/30 at 3pm on Zoom! This event is open to all with Lord of the Ring prizes from the Weta Workshop!

We will be celebrating Women’s History Month throughout March by celebrating female writers from different backgrounds! This week we’re highlighting Sandra Cisneros, a Mexican-American novelist who is most well known for her novel “The House on Mango Street!”

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Our last featured writer for Black History Month is N. K. Jemisin! Jemisin is a prolific novelist in the fantasy and science fiction genres, and her works focus on the lived experiences of African-Americans. We hope you enjoyed our Spotlight Series for Black History Month!

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James Baldwin is our featured writer for this week’s post for Black History Month! Baldwin is an acclaimed author and poet, who was deeply involved with the LGBT+ community, during the later half of the 20th century!

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Have you ever wondered to how to bring your studies outside the classroom and into the communities? Check out the English Department’s Experiential Learning courses and internships! The link for the list is in our bio!

We hope to see you at Black Star, Crescent Moon led by author Sohail Daulatzai discussing Black internationalism from 1950s to the present. The event will occur on Tuesday, February 21st from 6-7:30pm at Posvar Hall. The link for the event will be in our bio!