The OWU English Department Blog
As a writing exercise, I was once told to pick someone in the room and describe them â what they wore, what they looked like, how they spoke, how they moved  â and then to invent a âwhyâ for each observation. Why is he wearing that shirt? Because he keeps forgetting to do laundry and this was the last shirt that didnât smell rancid.…
A big struggle most college students face is the question, âWhat am I going to do after college?â And the answer is often not so simple. But sometimes hearing other peopleâs stories can help. In a new series entitled âWhy English?â we are speaking with members of the OWU community and beyond about how they discovered what they wanted to do with their lives.…
Did you know that one of Ohio Wesleyanâs founders was a civil rights champion? This weekâs feature is especially exciting, because you can go see it for yourself! On display outside of the Special Collections section of Beeghly Library is some of the literature of the Western Freedmen’s Aid Commission (WFAC) and the Freedmen’s Aid Society (FAC).…
Kazuo Ishiguroâs Never Let Me Go is one of the first books I read as an English major my freshman year in Professor Allisonâs Dystopia class. This class is one of the reasons I decided to become an English major and this book was one of my favorites in the class.…
George Cruikshank was a 19th century British caricaturist best known for illustrating his friend Charles Dickensâs novels, such as Oliver Twist. One of the more interesting (and amusing) of his works that we have in the library, though, is his Comic Almanack. A little bit like the The Onion today, it contained cartoons and sociopolitical satire.…
Thereâs no shortage of seriousness in the modern landscape of creative nonfiction. Week after week, The New York Timesâ Bestsellers List exalts narratives exploring the horrors of our world: Ta-Nehisi Coatesâs Between the World and Me at 84 weeks on the list, Jeannette Wallsâs The Glass Castle at 436 weeks on the list, and Bryan Stevensonâs Just Mercy at 119 weeks on the list, to name a few.…
 Jane Austen is one of the most influential writers of the Western canon. She wrote novels which were, for their time, rather subversive, – depicting women exercising autonomy, highlighting class differences, and generally challenging the status quo. She was also the age of many college students when she wrote Pride and Prejudice, only 20 years old (which makes me feel like I really ought to hurry up and do something important).…
On a warm evening in early September, approximately eighty Ohio Wesleyan Students and eighty faculty members gathered in the Benes Rrooms for the schoolâs first Diversity Summit. The two dozen round tables were littered with small yellow pads and pens, boxed dinners, and signs with labels proclaiming such topics as âcoalitions across student groups,â âFaculty and Staff collaboration,â and âIntersectionality.â…
Have you ever wondered what it would have been like had you attended OWU 100 years ago? A peak into the 1918-1919 Ohio Wesleyan University Catalog provides some fascinating insight into this question.
Campus life 100 years ago would certainly have looked different than it does now, for a number of reasons.…
Although I read this book for Professor Allison’s ENG 150: Intro to Literary Study class, I found that I could never stop myself just at the assigned pages for the week. I was so consumed by the story that I struggled to put the book down. The World We Found takes place primarily in India, and follows four women who were once best friends during university.…
