Gretchen Gerzina, Dean of the Commonwealth Honors College and Paul Murray Kendall Chair in Biography, believes it is "dangerous to not see the value in the humanities." She discusses her research and wriitng process, discovering historical African American literature, and teaching eighteenth-century literature.

Rebecca Dingo joined the faculty this past fall after we wooed her away from her job at the University of Missouri where she was jointly appointed in English and Women’s & Gender Studies. The Editor of The Ink Pot recently sat down with her for a chat about her work and life at UMass.

Malcolm Sen joined the faculty after finishing a post-doctoral position at Harvard University. The Editor of The Ink Pot caught up with him in January to see how his year was going.

Joe Skerrett joined the University of Massachusetts English department in 1973 where he taught courses in African American Literature, Multi-Ethnic Literature and courses in the American studies program which he chaired for a time. He was the author of several books, most recently the widely-used, Literature, Race and Ethnicity: Contesting American Identities (Longmans). He was an authority on the writer James Purdy.  He also published numerous scholarly articles and delivered many presentations at professional conferences. 

Jim Freeman, who retired last spring, was a member of our department for forty-seven years.  An accomplished classicist, he translated numerous works from Greek and Latin and regularly taught a popular graduate course on classical influences on English literature. His research and teaching took him to several international venues, in Italy, Switzerland, Singapore, Ireland, Spain, and the Netherlands.

Professor Ernie Gallow retired spring 2015.