Katherine Romeo, Class of 2018

Favorite Authors, Genres, Periods, Interests?

I’m interested in the voices of marginalized writers, especially queer people of color.

What do you like most about being an English major?

My English major has allowed me to grow and give concise analysis, not only in English but also any other discipline.

What has been your most exciting or transformative experience as a major thus far?

Dexter Curtis Adams, Class of 2018

Favorite Authors, Genres, Periods, Interests?

Favorite author: Taran Matharu

Favorite Genre: Fantasy

What do you like most about being an English major?

The ability to use my writing ability to its fullest.

What has been your most exciting or transformative experience as a major thus far?

Experiencing writing and literature from a new cultural perspective when I was in London for a study abroad program.…

Hannah Simpson, Class of 2016

I just moved to Chicago, and I’m already loving it! The theatre scene out here is much different than what I was used to in New York– instead of having a centralized “theatre district,” Chicago seems to have theatres just about everywhere I turn. Right now, I’m in rehearsals for As You Like It with Odds Bodkins, a new Shakespeare troupe.…

Nash Bonnema, Class of 2019

Favorite Authors, Genres, Periods, Interests?

Shakespeare, the English Romantics, ee cummings, absurdism.

What do you like most about being an English major?

Getting to have classes under a brilliant faculty and explore new corners of human expression.

What has been your most exciting or transformative experience as a major?

Not only learning to write like Shakespeare, but putting it into practice to develop a full length original Shakespearean tragedy…

Kit Balay, Class of 2014

I ended up at a marketing firm in Columbus as a business development analyst, which is in line with my interests. I’m not happy unless I’m writing reports! Being an English major (particularly an English major from Ohio Wesleyan) meant I had to have diverse interests, and experience in a number of different fields.…

The Circle by Dave Eggers

Recommended by Professor Allison

In his dystopian novel The Circle (2013), Dave Eggers casts a skeptical eye on Silicon Valley messianism. The breathless self-importance, the self-satisfied (and superficial) cosmopolitanism, the naïve faith in a technological fix for humankind’s every ill—Eggers knows his target, and his criticisms are as thought-provoking as they are funny.…

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Recommended by Professor Carpenter

What we know for the first third of this wonderful novel is that the narrator’s life has been scarred by a cataclysmic event that destroyed her family and left her struggling to relate to people and react appropriately to everyday occurrences around her. I won’t spoil the surprise, but the novel’s slow revelation of what has gone wrong in this young woman’s life is beautifully crafted and compelling.…

Wild Nights! by Joyce Carol Oates

Recommended by Professor Ford

Wild Nights by Joyce Carol Oates is one of the strangest books I’ve ever read – a collection of stories about the last days of certain luminaries from the American literary canon (Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway). The stories are all in some way fantastic, dark and harrowing.…