Past Events
Hurst Professor Amy Leach Reading
Hurst Lounge
Christopher Schaberg Presents at the A&S Teaching Innovation Showcase
Join us in supporting our faculty member, Christopher Schaberg, as he presents at this year’s A&S Teaching Innovation Showcase!
Clark-Fox Forum, Hillman Hall
Sean Silver Ink-Making Workshop
Wrighton Hall 350
Hurst Professor Sean Silver Lecture- “Blueness and Slaves: Tristram Shandy and an Empire for Color”
Sean Silver is associate professor of literature at Rutgers University, and the Director of the Scarlet Letterpress, a humanities makerspace and book lab. His current work combines close reading with analytical chemistry and historical reconstruction, proposing new ways of revisiting the well-known history of the rise of the novel. Read more at motleyemblem.org.
Hurst Lounge
Hurst Professor Matthea Harvey Reading
Hurst Lounge
Hurst Professor Matthea Harvey Craft Talk
Holmes Lounge
Hurst Professor Grace Lavery Workshop - Liberalism and Demonology
Grace Lavery's work addresses the history and theory of interpretation under capitalism, with a focus on the ascription of sexual meaning to flesh. Embarking from the psychoanalytic insight that flesh is both meaningless and the means by which meaning becomes possible, Lavery has studied rarefied and complex construals of flesh in a set of highly-specific historical circumstances: the late-Victorian obsession with Japanese effeminacy (in her first book, Quaint, Exquisite); the emergence of the transsexual as a focal point for modern ideas about bodily technique (in her second scholarly monograph, Pleasure and Efficacy); the rigorous making and unmaking of the modern heterosexual in the postwar sitcom (in her third scholarly monograph, Closures); and in the post-2016 period’s cinematic, literary, and metaphysical narratives of demonic possession (in her fourth, Personal Demons).
Hurst Lounge | Duncker Hall
Hurst Professor Grace Lavery Talk - Oscar Wilde After Cultural Studies
Grace Lavery's work addresses the history and theory of interpretation under capitalism, with a focus on the ascription of sexual meaning to flesh. Embarking from the psychoanalytic insight that flesh is both meaningless and the means by which meaning becomes possible, Lavery has studied rarefied and complex construals of flesh in a set of highly-specific historical circumstances: the late-Victorian obsession with Japanese effeminacy (in her first book, Quaint, Exquisite); the emergence of the transsexual as a focal point for modern ideas about bodily technique (in her second scholarly monograph, Pleasure and Efficacy); the rigorous making and unmaking of the modern heterosexual in the postwar sitcom (in her third scholarly monograph, Closures); and in the post-2016 period’s cinematic, literary, and metaphysical narratives of demonic possession (in her fourth, Personal Demons).
Hurst Lounge | Duncker Hall
A Conversation with Ethan Nosowsky of Graywolf Press
Hurst Lounge
Deb Olin Unferth Reading
Hurst Lounge
The Tradwife as a Problem for Research
Workshop with Sarah Brouillette, Professor, Department of English Language and Literature, Carleton University
Hurst Lounge, Duncker Hall
Platform Fiction
Lecture by Sarah Brouillette, Professor, Department of English Language and Literature, Carleton University
Hurst Lounge, Duncker Hall
A&S WOWS Special Department Feature: The MFA Writing Program
Virtual | Zoom
A&S WOWS Virtual Info Session feat. MFA in Writing Department
Virtual | Zoom
Moby Dick at 175 with Hester Blum
Join Hester Blum, Lynne Cooper Harvey Distinguished Professor of English at WashU, and Brian Yothers is professor of English and chair of the Department of English at Saint Louis University for a conversation about Hermann Melville's "Moby Dick" on his 207th birthday and make his case as for the most important contemporary writer.
Leviathan Bookstore | 3211 South Grand Boulevard
RHINO 50th Anniversary Reading
English Department graduate students, alumni, and friends celebrate 50 years of poetry
Bel Air Social | 4630 Lindell Blvd St. Louis, MO 63108
Teagan Bradway Hurst Workshop - "How to Make Queer Kin"
Teagan Bradway is Professor of English at SUNY Cortland and a Society for the Humanities Fellow at Cornell University for 2025-26. In 2024, Bradway was a Hunt-Simes Visiting Junior Chair of Sexuality Studies with the Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre at the University of Sydney. She is the author of "Queer Experimental Literature: The Affective Politics of Bad Reading" (Palgrave, 2017) and she is currently completing a book on queer forms of engroupment and co-writing “Endless Love” with the late Elizabeth Freeman.
Hurst Lounge
Teagan Bradway Hurst Talk - "Bodies That Gather: How to Practice and Sustain Queer Kinship"
Teagan Bradway is Professor of English at SUNY Cortland and a Society for the Humanities Fellow at Cornell University for 2025-26. In 2024, Bradway was a Hunt-Simes Visiting Junior Chair of Sexuality Studies with the Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre at the University of Sydney. She is the author of "Queer Experimental Literature: The Affective Politics of Bad Reading" (Palgrave, 2017) and she is currently completing a book on queer forms of engroupment and co-writing “Endless Love” with the late Elizabeth Freeman.
Hurst Lounge
Mary Ruefle Reading
The English department will host Mary Ruefle for a reading of her works!
Hurst Lounge
Mary Ruefle Recitation
The English department will host Mary Ruefle for a reading of her works!
Hurst Lounge
Eleanor Johnson Hurst Talk - "Writing Beyond the Discipline; Writing Beyond the University: How to take your Academic Training to the Public"
Eleanor Johnson is Professor of English at Columbia University. She has published three scholarly monographs on medieval literature, theology, and environmental history, all with University of Chicago: Practicing Literary Theory (2013), Staging Contemplation (2018), and the award-winning Waste and the Wasters (2023). Her newest work pivots to think about the history of women's rights and horror: her 2025 book Scream with Me: Horror Films and the Rise of American Feminism (Simon and Schuster) analyzes the relationship between horror and women's liberation in the 1970s, and her forthcoming 2026 book Monstrous Bitch: A History of Terrifying Women (Princeton) analyzes the long history of the demonization of women in Western culture. Her current books in progress center on Dante's Inferno and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
Hurst Lounge | Duncker Hall
Eleanor Johnson Hurst Talk - "Scream with Me: How Horror does Politics"
Eleanor Johnson is Professor of English at Columbia University. She has published three scholarly monographs on medieval literature, theology, and environmental history, all with University of Chicago: Practicing Literary Theory (2013), Staging Contemplation (2018), and the award-winning Waste and the Wasters (2023). Her newest work pivots to think about the history of women's rights and horror: her 2025 book Scream with Me: Horror Films and the Rise of American Feminism (Simon and Schuster) analyzes the relationship between horror and women's liberation in the 1970s, and her forthcoming 2026 book Monstrous Bitch: A History of Terrifying Women (Princeton) analyzes the long history of the demonization of women in Western culture. Her current books in progress center on Dante's Inferno and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
Hurst Lounge | Duncker Hall
Visiting Hurst Professor Hanif Abdurraqib Reading
Women's Formal Lounge
Visiting Hurst Professor Hanif Abdurraqib Craft Talk
Hurst Lounge
Visiting Hurst Professor Liz Howard Reading
Hurst Lounge
Visiting Hurst Professor Liz Howard Craft Talk
Hurst Lounge
Medieval / Early Modern Studies Lecture, Lee Manion (U of Missouri)
Hurst Lounge | Duncker Hall
Shannon Robinson & Katya Apekina Readings
Shannon Robinson & Katya Apekina, alumni of the WashU MFA program, host a one night reading.
Hurst Lounge
Panel Discussion: The Political Economy of Translation
A panel discussion with acclaimed translators Ena Selimović, AJ Javaheri, and Mona Kareem.
Hurst Lounge
Visiting Hurst Professor Joseph O'Neill Reading
Hurst Lounge
Visiting Hurst Professor Joseph O'Neill Craft Talk
Hurst Lounge
Expanding Employment Horizons For English PhDs Panel
Please join us for a panel on Expanding Employment Horizons for English PhDs. Both faculty and grad students welcome!
Hurst Lounge
Workshop on Applying to Writing Jobs
Please join us on November 14th from 12:30-2:30pm in Duncker 101 for a workshop to discuss the process of applying to a job to teach writing.
Duncker 101 | Lunch provided.
Visiting Hurst Professor Rosa Alcalá Reading
Hurst Lounge, Duncker Hall
English Department Showcase - Arts & Sciences WOWS Fall 2025 Series
Virtual | Zoom
Visiting Hurst Professor Rosa Alcalá Craft Lecture
Hurst Lounge, Duncker Hall
A Conversation on Religion and the Environment: Academia, Community, Activism
The planetary ecological crisis impacts every dimension of human life, not least the religious and spiritual. This event will feature flash-talks and panel discussion from six speakers whose academic research, environmental activism, and faith-based community building are informed in distinct ways by concern for life on our planet. Their backgrounds span the humanities and STEM, and blend community leadership inside and outside academia. This event seeks to speak across disciplines, and to build bridges between the university community and the broader public. All are welcome; food and drinks provided!
Ann W. Olin Women's Building Formal Lounge | Standing reception to follow
MFA in Writing Department Showcase - Arts & Sciences WOWS Fall 2025 Series
Virtual | Zoom
MFA in Writing Department Showcase - Arts & Sciences WOWS Fall 2025 Series
Virtual | Zoom
Workshop - Serious on All Sides: Working on a Creative-Critical Continuum
The English Department is hosting visiting Hurst Professor Rosamond S. King the week of October 27-31. Her schedule includes two public events, which all are welcome to attend. Please feel free to publicize or circulate this information as widely as you wish.
Hurst Lounge, Duncker Hall