The English Department sponsors a number of graduate student working groups organized by our students around areas of interest. The groups listed are examples of working groups that have existed in the past. To propose a group, contact the DGS in late summer or early Fall.
Rhetoric and Composition Reading Group​
This reading group discusses recent scholarship in the Writing Studies and provides a forum for students and faculty to share recent and upcoming work. This year, the group plans to connect with scholars and professionals in the field in addition to meeting to discuss members' summer research, conference attendance, and journal reading.
Environmental Humanities Graduate Working Group
Since Fall 2016 this group has hosted a variety of Write-on-Sites and draft sharing sessions as well as meetings to discuss the latest scholarship on the environment and literature. This year the group is planning a field trip to the Delaware Natural History Museum, where members will tour its exhibitions and archives.
Form and Aesthetics Graduate Reading Group
This group aims to develop a greater understanding of literary form and aesthetic theory. Students meet to discuss recent scholarship and interrogate formal conventions of poetry, prose fiction, and drama across several literary-historical periods.
Marxism Reading Group
This group meets to read and discuss the works of Marx and Marxist theorists in the hopes of better understanding Marxism as a historical phenomenon and tradition within literary criticism. Members also discuss how their own work as scholars relates to these traditions.
Graduate Student Writing Group
The Graduate Student Writing Group meets periodically to share works-in-progress, discuss professionalization issues relevant to the humanities and academia at large, and to reinforce a system of mutual accountability for our individual goals as scholars. Group members share conference paper drafts, article drafts, ideas for dissertation chapters, and bounce ideas off of one another for feedback and support.
Methods in Material Culture Graduate Student Working Group (CMCS sponsored)
The working group is an interdisciplinary organization of graduate students at the University of Delaware focused on sharing material culture methodologies. The group meets monthly, alternating on- and off-campus events to explore methods both with each other and with community partners. All graduate students are welcome to attend events.
