Upcoming Events

Co-sponsored by Latitudes and the Asian American Studies Program (ASAM) at Penn.

The English Honors Program provides majors with the opportunity to develop a substantial scholarly inquiry in close consultation with a faculty member. Selected students will explore cutting-edge research, workshop their drafts with fellow thesis writers, and present their scholarship to the Department. The final product is a 25-30 page thesis.

The deadline for applications to the 2026–27 Honors Program is March 15, 2026.

If you are accepted into the program, you will take the Honors seminar (ENGL 4097) in the Fall of your senior year. The class is primarily a writing workshop. You will read each other's work, sharing advice and intellectual support as you master the elements of critical writing.

Honors students usually continue working on the thesis in the Spring under the guidance of their faculty director. They must enroll in the English Honors independent study: ENGL 4098. Both English 4097 and English 4098 may count toward the required 13 courses for the major — both as elective seminars.

Completing the program is the only way to earn "Honors" in English upon graduation. To merit this distinction, theses must receive the enthusiastic approval of both the Faculty Director and the Director of the Honors Program. In cases where these two readers disagree, the Undergraduate Executive Committee will make the final determination.

Students wishing to write a creative thesis should consult the Creative Writing Program website at www.writing.upenn.edu for deadlines and information, or contact Julia Bloch.

Salt lakes are some of the world’s most extraordinary ecosystems, but nearly all of them—from the Great Salt Lake to the Aral Sea—are drying up, a harbinger of dust storms, rising sea levels, and worsening human health. In this dazzling love letter to strange and delicate waters and a moving odyssey into her own identity, Caroline Tracey takes readers across the American West and to Mexico, Argentina, and Kazakhstan to document salt lakes, their loss, and the efforts underway to save them. She explores how the lakes have reflected the fast–changing natural world through Mormon diaries, Soviet realist novels, and Australian Aboriginal paintings. And she unravels the lakes’ lessons for her own life as she finds queer love and a sense of home in an imperfect world. An unforgettable coming–of–age story and an exquisite work of nature writing, Salt Lakes is a moving call to fight for all that is fragile in our lives.

Caroline Tracey’s work in English and Spanish has appeared in the New Yorker, New York Review of Books, and elsewhere. She holds a PhD in geography from University of California, Berkeley, and lives in Tucson, Arizona.

This event is co-sponsored by the American Literature Working Group and the Landscape Architecture department lecture series. 

May 1st EVENT

9-4 Graduate Student Workshop on “The Novel and Labor’. (precirculated papers)

5-7 Panel on “The Novel and Reproductive Labor” (Open panel)

Speakers:  Lilith Todd, Dora Zhang, Arielle Zibrak

Dinner for all participants

Graduate papers (of max 10 pages) will be pre-circulated amongst the group and discussed in a roundtable during on May 1st.  The day will conclude with an open panel on the subject of "The Novel and Reproductive Labor."

This event follows one on March 3rd at Harvard University in the Novel Theory Seminar on The Novel and Labor (6pm-7.30 Speakers: Leah Price, Tina Lupton, Moira Ferguson)

GRADUATE WORKSHOP DETAILS:

We are soliciting working papers from projects that approach the idea of labor from all angles (paid, reproductive, expropriated, intellectual), as well as those thinking capaciously about the novel form.  We are open to those at any stage of their degree,  from those working in different periods, and at any institution (including Penn).

Attendees at the workshop will be paired with a faculty respondent and will have travel, two nights accommodation in Philadelphia, and all meals covered.

Please apply here by December 20th:

https://upenn.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_dptzjvy2Tpu7xfo

Successful applicants will be informed by mid January and will pre-circulate papers amongst the group (which will include faculty repondants) by April 1st.

Organizing Committee:  Lilith Todd, Tina Lupton, Mariana Akawi