The English Department faculty believes everyone should have already or will soon, read the books listed below.  Some of the recommendations were a surprise (i.e. Doug Downs suggesting Harry Potter - obviously) and other's were not (i.e. Gretchen Minton suggesting Shakespeare - original). So, start reading and enjoy!

 

Zack Bean

Associate Professor

Ph.D. University of Houston

Fiction, Poetry, Writing, Culture

    • A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
    • The Overstory by Richard Powers
    • Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
    • The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
    • Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay
    • Frank: Sonnets by Dianne Seuss

Robert Bennett

Professor

Ph.D. University of California - Santa Barbara

The Beat Generation, Cultural Studies, The American West, Brad Pitt

    • The Ramones by The Ramones
    • Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables by Dead Kennedys
    • Highway 61 Revisited by Bob Dylan

Kirk Branch

Professor

Ph.D. University of Washington,

Composition, Rhetoric, Linguistics

    • The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
    • The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
    • My Brilliant Friend and the rest of the books in Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan series
    • Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
    • Don Juan by Byron
    • Emma by Jane Austen

Doug Downs

Associate Professor

Ph.D. University of Utah, Salt Lake City

Rhetoric and Composition

    • Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
    • Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
    • The Pacifier and Other Tales by Mark Helprin
    • The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
    • Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling

Will Fassbender

Assistant Professor

Ph.D. University of Georgia

Secondary English Education, Digital Tools in Secondary English Classrooms, Graphic Narratives

    • Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
    • Reality +: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy by David Chalmers
    • The Gift: How the Creative Spirit Transforms the World by Lewis Hyde

Linda Karell

Associate Professor

Ph.D. University of Rochester

Western American Literature

    • Beloved by Toni Morrison
    • Love  Medicine by Louise Erdich
    • Watchmen by Alan Moore

Susan Kollin

Professor

Ph.D. University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

Western American Literature, Gender Studies, American Studies

    • A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
    • The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History By Elizabeth Kolbert
    • The Heartsong of Charging Elk by James Welch

Ben Leubner

Assistant Professor

Ph.D. Northeastern University

Poetry, Modernism, American and European Literature of the 19th and 20th centuries

    • The Waves by Virginia Woolf
    • Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
    • Something to do with Paying Attention by David Foster Wallace
    • The Following Story by Cees Nooteboom
    • Two Trains Running by August Wilson

Gretchen Minton

Professor

Ph.D. University of British Columbia

Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama, the English Reformation and Renaissance, Christian Late Antiquity, Drama, Textual Editing

    • The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
    • The Bible
    • Hamlet by William Shakespeare
    • Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
    • The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot

Kate Ryan

Associate Professor

Department Chair

Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Rhetoric and Composition

    • Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
    • Why History Matters by Gerda Lerner
    • The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline
    • Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations co-edited by Gavin Van Horn, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and John Hausdoerffer

Allison Wynhoff Olsen

Associate Professor

Director of Graduate Studies

Director of Yellowstone Writing Project

Ph.D. Ohio State University

Students writing in classrooms and experiences of rural English teachers

    • Emma by Jane Austen
    • Permission to Feel by Mark Brackett
    • Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone by Brené Brown
    • all about love: New Visions by bell hooks
    • Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
    • Aristotle and Dane Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz