Last Spring Quarter Prof. John Shanahan became the Associate Dean and Director of Liberal Studies leaving his position as Director of the MA in English. This Fall Prof. Richard Squibbs has officially assumed the position of Director of the MA in English and MAE program advisor.

Prof. Squibbs’s teaching and scholarship range across the British and American long eighteenth centuries, with special emphasis on transatlantic literary and cultural relations. His first book, Urban Enlightenment and the Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essay: Transatlantic Retrospects (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), is the first literary history of the Enlightenment essay serial spanning the long eighteenth century, and the first to show how these essayists and their critics conceived their work not as topical ephemera, but as posterity-oriented contributions to a tradition of urbane moral-civic writing with roots in classical antiquity.
Ex Libris would like to congratulate both Prof. Shanahan and Prof. Squibbs, and forward a short welcome to the school year from Prof. Squibbs.

Welcome (or welcome back) to the English graduate program! I hope you’re settling in to the first week of classes comfortably enough. We’ve got a fascinating roster of courses on offer this year, which you can find on Ex Libris. The DePaul Humanities Center has programmed a number of interesting and relevant events, including talks on Don Quixote (Oct. 21), Lolita (Jan. 25), and Moby Dick (Apr. 11); the Chicago Humanities Festival is getting underway (chicagohumanities.org); and the Newberry Library is hosting a range of free public events throughout the year (newberry.org). So there’s a fertile intellectual and cultural environment both inside and outside of DePaul that can enrich what you’re doing in your coursework, and organizing some outings to these events with your peers is a great way to establish a cohort. As your program advisor, I’m available to answer any questions or deal with any concerns you might have, so don’t hesitate to email me or drop by my office to chat. Best of luck with your new courses, and I’ll see you around the department.

Prof. Squibbs

Director MA in English