Working Groups
The English Department is home to a number of working groups that bring graduate students and faculty together around a shared scholarly interest.
Poetics Reading Group
Includes faculty, Ph.D. students, and M.A. students, and meets 1-2 times per semester. Readings drawn from recent theoretical and practical writing about poetry.
Environmental Reading Group
Includes faculty, Ph.D. students, and M.A. students, and meets 1-2 times per semester. Readings consider both the environment's depiction in literature and ecocritical theory.
American Studies Working Group
Includes faculty, Ph.D. students, and M.A. students, and meets 1-2 times per semester. Topics include guest speakers, how to turn a seminar paper into a conference presentation, and other areas of student interest.
Pedagogy Seminar
The Pedagogy Seminar is a student-run seminar where Ph.D. students in
Boston College's English Department meet to collaborate on best
pedagogical practices. Second and third-year students must attend, but
seminar offerings are open to all. The Pedagogy Seminar meets
approximately once a month during the academic year. We share our
times and locations using Google Calendar Event invitations. If you'd
like more information about our meetings, please email the 2023-2024
Directors, Noël Ingram and Kelly Gray, to get connected.
Rhetoric and Writing Reading/Discussion Group
This Working Group will explore current trends in the field through readings and discussions, ranging from pedagogical practices for teaching writing as well theories and methodologies/methods for conducting research in Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies. Topics might include: designing activities for writing courses, developing strategies for facilitating peer review, writing and revising conference proposals or articles, creating job materials, developing a research project that engages in archival, interview, rhetorical, or ethnographic methods, and more. This group will include faculty, Ph.D. students, and M.A. students, and interested undergraduate students and will meet 1-2 times per semester.