Independent Studies, Undergraduate Research, and Bachelor's Essays
The Department of English offers opportunities for students to work one-on-one with faculty through three courses, ENGL 404: Independent Study, ENGL 496: Undergraduate Research, and ENGL 499: Bachelor's Essay.
Students interested in pursuing these academic experiences should make arrangements with individual faculty well prior to the beginning of the semester. Those interested in writing a bachelor's essay should make arrangements with the directing faculty in the year prior to the year in which the bachelor's essay is to be written.
For the academic year 2006-07, the faculty listed below are willing to offer particular independent studies, undergraduate research, and/or bachelor's essay opportunities. The list is currently under construction: please check again soon.
| Name | Topic Area(s) |
| Paul Allen | Poetry Writing, Writing Song Lyrics |
| Erica Artiles | Renaissance poetry and prose, English or Italian romance, Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, Sir Thomas Malory, Jane Austen. |
| Doryjane Birrer | The postmodern British novel, Booker Prize winners, postmodern theory, ecocriticism/green studies, heroic ethical fantasy (esp. Pullman, Rowling, LeGuin, Alexander, and Cooper), literature and cognitive science/cognitive narratology |
| Tim Carens | Nineteenth-Century British novels and poetry, imperial studies, Victorian gothic fiction, representations of poverty and urbanization, Charles Dickens, the Brontes, Rudyard Kipling, Oscar Wilde, and other Victorian writers |
| Larry Carlson | Emerson, Thoreau, and Transcendentalism; The Lost Generation; The Jazz Age |
| Carol Ann Davis | poetry writing, literary publishing, Elizabeth Bishop, John Berryman, first books of poetry |
| J. Michael Duvall | American Naturalism, late nineteenth-century American fiction, Realism, Regionalism, and Local Color |
| Julia Eichelberger | Eudora Welty, Rita Dove, Elizabeth Bishop, Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison |
| Susan Farrell | Kurt Vonnegut, Tim O'Brien, Louise Erdrich, Toni Morrison, Literature of the Vietnam War, contemporary American women writers, New Journalism |
| Conseula Francis | African American Novel, African American literary movements, African Americans in science fiction or comics, African Americans in film and music, Contemporary African American literature |
| Joseph Kelly | Modern British literature; Irish literature; George Orwell; James Joyce; Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster, Joseph Conrad, William Butler Yeats |
| Simon Lewis | African writers (especially South African writers) and postcolonial writers in general. |
| Bret Lott | fiction, creative nonfiction, travel writing, contemporary American fiction, literary publishing |
| Scott Peeples | antebellum and Civil War literature, nineteenth-century American poetry, American romanticism, representations of historical events in American literature, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Lydia Maria Child, Walt Whitman |
| Alison Piepmeier | Zines, particularly those by girls and women; Nineteenth-century American women writers |
| Myra Seaman | Chaucer, Middle English literature, Arthurian texts (written, filmed, etc.), medieval romance, intersections of the pre- and postmodern |
| Catherine Thomas | Renaissance drama, Shakespeare and Popular Culture, Shakespearean adaptations and appropriations. |
| Trish Ward | Arthurian literature, Chaucer, Old English Poetry, JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis, George Herbert |
| Chris Warnick | Composition theory and pedagogy, the essay, creative nonfiction, book history |