All News

The five-day Modern Language Association workshop was designed to strengthen the teaching of reading and writing at community colleges and other schools that prioritize access over selectivity in admissions.

This October, Fall for the Book celebrates their 25th anniversary. The last two-and-a-half decades have brought many changes to Northern Virginia’s oldest book festival, but talented and storied headliners have remained a steadfast part of the festivities. This year is no different.

As George Mason University recognizes 50 years as an independent university, the College of Humanities reflects on how it has been an important part of Mason from the very start.

Watershed Lit: Center for Literary Engagement and Publishing Practice brings under one umbrella the robust and diverse initiatives that have sprouted from the Creative Writing Program since its launch in 1980. The center, which provides an efficient and effective way to articulate the community that these initiatives help cultivate, includes Fall for the Book, Stillhouse Press, the Cheuse Center for International Writers, Poetry Daily, and the Northern Virginia Writing Project, as well as literary journals phoebe and So to Speak. Each entity maintains its own focused mission, governance structure, and budget, but will benefit individually and collectively through more strategic collaboration. Watershed Lit will also foster research by faculty and professional development of students, serving as a catalyst of transformational experiences.

Dr. Lisa Gilman will join our faculty in fall 2018.

Continuing the tradition of innovation, the Folklore Studies program will offer a new course in Digital Storytelling for fall 2017. The course will combine the techniques of effective oral storytelling with open source technology to create compelling digital stories.

Within the backdrop and context of the racial tension and rioting that enveloped Washington, D.C., in 1968, the National Park Service (NPS) launched an innovative, community-based recreational and enrichment program called Summer in the Parks (SITP). Mason’s summer 2017 Field School for Cultural Documentation, a partnership between the Folklore Studies Program and the Library of Congress-American Folklife Center, offered a SITP option to graduate students seeking hands-on learning, rigorous training in oral history collection, and instruction on archiving in Library of Congress methods.

During a research trip to Newfoundland this summer, Folklore Studies faculty member Dr. Joy Fraser was featured on the Living Heritage podcast, hosted by provincial folklorist Dale Jarvis.

IIR co-hosts discussion with Middle East Institute about the contributions made by immigrant artists to the United States