Today, just in time for the beginning of the new semester, I updated the Grammar Badgers website with student projects from the fall, including a survey-based one, created by Katalina, Carly, Maggie, Haru, and Naamon. …
News
Books of the year
Every December, someone from the Cap Times asks UW faculty members about their books of the year. This year, I recommended two books. Only one made it into the article, so here is what I …
Grammar Badgers Student Projects
It’s the time of the semester when students present their projects. Most of my classes have an engagement component — students will create a podcast of video geared towards the general public. We call this …
Publication out (well, almost): Bad grammar and metalinguistic awareness
Lynn Zhang and I have a paper in the soon-to-appear volume New Horizons in Prescriptivism Research. The book is now available on advance orders (alas, not to customers in the US yet), at a whopping …
PhD in English Language and Linguistics
It’s grad school application season! Our department offers a PhD in English with tracks in Composition & Rhetoric, Literary Studies, and English Language and Linguistics. We are also home to a highly ranked MFA program …
Collaboration
It’s wonderful to co-publish with a former graduate student! Difei (Lynn) Zhang and I collaborated on a survey of grammar items that are still listed as ‘bad grammar’ in many style guides or are presented …
Back to school!
Back to school! It’s never easy to jump into a new semester after a year-long leave, but it’s made easy for me because I get to teach two new courses related to my research. English …
Greater Madison Writing Project
As department chair during the pandemic, I had less opportunity than I thought I would have to overhaul programs and build more efficient and more equitable structures in the department. There were just too many …
Learning from Volunteering with Dogs on Call
Since I was on leave this past year, I had more time to do daytime visits on campus (and other places) for Dogs on Call, an all-volunteer local therapy animal organization. Many of these visits …
Remembering Susan Stanford Friedman (1943-2023)
The English Department mourns the loss of Susan Stanford Friedman, trailblazing scholar and program builder, former department chair, and generous mentor to many who are now leaders in the global study of literature. As a …
Remembering Rebecca M. Blank (1955-2023)
I was deeply saddened to hear of Chancellor Emerita Rebecca ‘Becky’ Blank’s passing this weekend. She had shared the crushing news of her cancer diagnosis just as she was ready to become the first female …
Book trailer!
The book trailer for Discourse Syntax is out! Thanks to Difei (Lynn) Zhang’s design skills, it looks really good.
Book recommendation: True Biz by Sara Nović
The Capital Times asked UW-Madison professors about their favorite books of the year. I recommended True Biz by Sara Nović. The book is, at its heart, a coming-of-age story of a deaf girl, Charlie, who grew …
Multilingual UW-Madison
What does it tell you about an institution when its leader at one of the most public events of the year, attended by dignitaries, faculty, staff, students and their families, merrily launches into full-blown mockery …
Brief reflection on writing a textbook
CUP published our brief reflection on what it’s like to co-write a textbook on its academic blog, Fifteeneightyfour. We are lucky to work at institutions (Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf and the University of Wisconsin-Madison) that recognize the …
Discourse Syntax Book Release
October 27, 2022, was the official release date for Discourse Syntax — English Grammar Beyond the Sentence, published by Cambridge University Press! I’m thrilled to see Discourse Syntax out in the world (with some delay …
The Power of Alumni Giving
I’m delighted to have my new book (to be published in 8 days!) and my collaboration with dissertator and graphic designer extraordinaire Difei (Lynn) Zhang featured as an example of “The Power of Alumni Giving” …
Wanner out
One last look and…Wanner out. From a growth perspective, I could probably not have chosen three better years to be department chair, but it was growth that went hand in hand with massive disruption and …
Annotations, Spring ’22 Edition
In our Spring edition of Annotations, I had the opportunity to reflect on 3 years as department chair in a conversation with my fabulous colleague and incoming chair, Professor Christa Olson. You can read the …
End-of-year celebration
Big thanks to everyone who came out to celebrate the end of the academic year and the retirement of three wonderful colleagues — Robyn Shanahan, our longtime graduate coordinator, Mary Fiorenza, associate director of English …