English Department

From the Chair

Lehman College's Department of English offers undergraduates a major with four distinct areas of specialization: Literature, Creative Writing, Professional Writing, and Early Childhood Education. In addition, the Department provides a parallel set of choices for a minor as well as many courses every semester for those students seeking a pleasurable introduction to literature written in English and for those wishing to fulfill distribution requirements. There are, in addition, two graduate programs, both containing concentrations in Literature or Composition Studies, leading to an M.A. in English. Whatever your preferences, Departmental advisers are available to help students choose the program most appropriate for them.
—Dr. Walter Blanco

News and Announcements

English Department Prizes and Awards Ceremony
Family, friendsand faculty! Please join us:
May 1, 2013 at 12 noon in the Lehman College Art Gallery

WRITING PRIZES
Bernard L. Einbond Prize for Prose Fiction: Nora Moncado
Grace C. Croff Memorial Prize for Poetry: Renisha Pierre
Jacob Hammer Memorial Prize: Jason Jeremias
Alice Minnie Hertz Heniger Prize: Eunice Rodriguez
Paul Agosta Prize for Professional Writing: Ilana Dadras
Claire Giegerich Memorial Award for Creative Nonfiction: Renisha Pierre
Terry De Antonio Memorial Prize for Criticism of the Arts: Lauren Burstein
William C. Hess Memorial Prizes for Literary Criticism: Graduate: Maria Christina Necula, Undergraduate: Marco Centeno
Herman Melville Prize for Literary Criticism: Jessica Bouret
Patricia A. Cockram Portfolio Prize: Rebecca Severn

SCHOLARSHIPS AND AWARDS
Dr. Alice Griffen Graduate Fellowship: Anthony Frabizzio
Marjorie Anderson Scholarship: Michelle Cantey
Martha Binyon Cahn Scholarship: Suely Riordan
Leo and Roslyn Gilbert Memorial Award: Marco Centeno
Blanche Lewy Joseph Memorial Prize: Ravindra Bharat, John Ortiz
John W. Wieler Award: Stephanie Crotty
Ruth Kolbe Mischkind Scholarship: Veronica Seda, Rebecca Severn
Rose and John Hutton Award: Veronica Garcia
Patricia A. Cockram Scholarship: Delfin Alvarado
Gordon Lea Scholarship Award: Shabel Castro
Aaron Hochberg Family Award: Alejandra Bodden

2013 CANDIDATES FOR ENGLISH HONORS
Delfin Alvarado (May 2013)
Jessica Bouret (September 2013)
Marco Centeno (September 2013)
Ilana Dadras (May 2013)
Sharene Shaw (May 2013)

2014 Candidates for English Honors completing their Majors in 2012-13
Allison Dillon (January 2014)
Ivana Uquillas (January 2014)

Dr. Mario DiGangi receives 2012 Lehman College Distinguished Scholarship Award
Since joining the English Department in 1998, Mario DiGangi has published two monographs and over a dozen articles, and has edited editions of three Shakespeare plays (The Winter’s Tale, Romeo and Juliet, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream). He has remained at the forefront of the ever-changing world of Shakespeare scholarship, while at the same time broadening his perspective to include questions of queer theory and class distinctions, and extending his chronological range into the mid-seventeenth century. These strengths are all evident in the book he published in 2011, Sexual Types, which examines six different character types as they appear in early modern English drama: the sodomite, the lesbian, the narcissistic courtier, the citizen wife, the bawd, and the court favorite.
For a full list of 2012 Arts and Humanities Award winners, click here.

Jane K. Cleland is the author of four non-fiction books [most recently Business Writing for Results, from McGraw Hill], the multiple award-nominated and IMBA best selling Josie Prescott Antiques Mystery series [now eight strong, all from St. Martin’s Minotaur], short stories, [all published by Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine], and noir plays. Jane chairs the Wolfe Pack’s literary awards, granted in partnership with Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. She’s also the host of the Writer’s Room, a series of interviews with today’s bestselling crime fiction authors that appears on cable television and online.

Lillian Ann Slugocki is the author of THE BLUE HOURS, a new novel that is a sexual examination of a marriage and its discontents from the award-winning co-author of The Erotica Project. Lillian Ann Slugocki has created an award-winning body of work on women and sexuality, including fiction, non-fiction, plays, and monologues that have appeared Off-Broadway, on NPR and WBAI radio, and online at Salon.com. Her work has been reviewed in The New York Times, The Village Voice, Art in America and The New Yorker.

Watch "Out from Plato's Cave" by Anna Purves, featuring English Honors Program student, Lisa Marie Blanco

Esmeralda Santiago and Billy Collins Visit Lehman

Acclaimed author Esmeralda Santiago was the Lehman Lecture keynote speaker on March 21, 2012. Several classes at Lehman read Ms. Santiago's memoir When I Was Puerto Rican in anticipation of her talk.
On March 29 a crowd of 350 attendees kicked off National Poetry Month with former U.S. Poet Laureate and Distinguished Professor Billy Collins. Professor Collins read with Lehman Professors Salita Bryant, George Greene and Jason Koo. Click here for the Santiago podcast, video of Prof. Collins reading, and pictures from both events.

Sondra Perl Leads the Holocaust Educators Network

Sondra Perl, acclaimed teacher, author and professor of English at Lehman College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York scrutinizes the difficult subject matter of the Holocaust at www.thememoriallibrary.org. The Holocaust Educators Network (HEN) was created in 2006 by Sondra Perl and is a “must see” for all educators and those interested in social justice in their classroom, community and nation. Professor Perl is the author of On Austrian Soil: Teaching Those I Was Taught to Hate, Writing True: The Art and Craft of Creative Writing and Stepping On My Brother's Head and Other Secrets Your English Professor Never Told You: A College Reader.

Spotlight on Research

Professor Walter Blanco, Professor Paula Loscocco, Professor Salita Bryant, Professor Tyler Schmidt and Professor Grace Bullaro

Guest Lecturer

Guest Lecturer: Pulitzer Prize Winner Junot Diaz Visits Lehman, Fall 2010 Read more
Junot Diaz Photo Album


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