his rubric brings together a wide range of work centered on the literary practices of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The department has attracted graduate students and faculty with highly developed interests in modern and contemporary literature, culture, theater, and film, and its faculty includes scholars of both modernism and later twentieth century literature, some of whom are also distinguished creative writers. Fiction writers Joanna Scott (MacArthur Foundation Fellow, Lannan Literary Award, Pulitzer Prize finalist) and Dimitri Anastasopoulos, and poets Barbara Jordan (Barnard New Women Poets Prize), and James Longenbach ("Discovery" Award from The Nation) continue the department's long history of including acclaimed literary authors on its faculty. The newly opened Hyam Plutzik Library of Contemporary Writing, which houses the William and Hannelore Heyen collection of manuscripts, broadsides and first editions of twentieth century poetry, a remarkable collection containing thousands of items, provides unique research opportunities for the advanced study of contemporary writing. The department's Plutzik Memorial Reading Series is coordinated with courses in contemporary literature, and in recent years, students have had the opportunity to interact with such notable writers as Louise Glück, Robert Pinsky, Salman Rushdie, Jorie Graham, John Ashbery, William Kennedy, Michael Ondaatje, Grace Paley, and Mark Strand. The ongoing project of contemporary writing is thus an integral part of the research and teaching of the department.
Faculty in the department offer courses in contemporary African American and Asian American literature as well as postcolonial literatures and gender studies; as well as in film, media, and contemporary popular culture. The department also draws on the resources of faculty in allied departments (such as Modern Languages and Cultures and Visual and Cultural Studies), who contribute significantly to the study of critical theory and contemporary culture. Graduate seminars and teaching assistantships for creative writing offer special opportunities for students to combine literary scholarship with the development of their own writing. With a strong research profile in twentieth-century literature and culture and contemporary critical theory, and with unique resources for advanced study, Contemporary Writing has proved to be one of the department's leading fields for graduate study. Advanced students who wish to work with the Heyen collection are eligible for dissertation research fellowships offered through Rush Rhees Library's Department of Rare Books and Special Collections.
