English Dept. Hires Five New Junior Faculty

Five new junior Faculty members, the cream of a crop of more than 1,000 applicants, will join the Department of English as assistant professors in the fall, Department Chair Lawrence Buell said yesterday.

The appointments are part of an annual hiring process for junior Faculty that is common among most departments. For the English department in particular, the new appointments will serve to replenish the department's Faculty, which has lost at least 10 junior members to other universities since 1997.

All the new hires are currently Ph.D. candidates in English at other universities and will come to Harvard having recently completed their doctoral theses.

The appointments will fill holes created by some of the more recent departures of junior Faculty, most notably that of gender studies specialist Ann Pellegrini '86. Pellegrini will step down at the year's end to accept a tenure-track post as an associate professor at Barnard College.

According to Buell, two of the appointees--18th-century literature authority Lynn M. Festa and 19th-century British literature and romantic poetry specialist Ann Rowland--have expressed their interest in gender studies and may help take up some of the slack left by Pellegrini's departure.

In addition, Yunte Huang, a specialist in Asian-American literature and American modernism who is completing his Ph.D. in trans-Pacific literature at the State University of New York at Buffalo, will expand the department's offerings in the realm of Asian-American literature, an area which currently has no instructors.

Oren J. Izenberg, a 1991 summa cum laude graduate of Harvard and former resident of Pforzheimer, then North House, will join the department as a specialist in 20th century poetry.

Izenberg is currently completing a dissertation at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland.

Former Quincy House resident Sharmila Sen '92,now a Ph.D. candidate at Yale, will focus onpost-colonial literature and English literature ofthe non-British and American worlds.

The incoming Faculty will teach a full courseload next term--including a combination of100-level courses, 90-level seminars and sophomoreEnglish tutorials.

According to Buell, the new appointments arethe result of an exhaustive hiring process, whichbegan in September when the department beganadvertising its interest in hiring candidates fromeight or nine different fields.

With applications from more than 1,000scholars, Buell said the department interviewedabout 25 candidates, making a total of sevenoffers.

One candidate declined Harvard's offer, and asecond is still in talks with the department.

Buell said he was excited by the depth of thedepartment's selections.

"We're delighted that we have such a strong newcohort of junior colleagues with diversestrengths," he said.

Although Buell said the appointments were "notdesigned as replacements or equivalents" to thethree junior faculty who have announced plans toleave Harvard, he said the department's selectionsaimed to strengthen the areas in which the currentFaculty could not meet student demand.

Huang said he was initially excited byHarvard's decision to advertise for a specialistwho had studied both traditional American andAsian-American literatures, a field he said isless desired by other schools.

"For me it's a new mission to integrate the twofields--injecting ethnic blood into canonicalAmerican literature," Huang said. "I was veryexcited over that possibility."

Festa said she is looking forward to her roleas an instructor, not to mention some of the otherperks of Harvard life.

"I've heard great things about the quality ofthe students...and people have raved about howstimulating the teaching is," Festa said.

"I've also been drooling at the libraries," shequipped

Former Quincy House resident Sharmila Sen '92,now a Ph.D. candidate at Yale, will focus onpost-colonial literature and English literature ofthe non-British and American worlds.

The incoming Faculty will teach a full courseload next term--including a combination of100-level courses, 90-level seminars and sophomoreEnglish tutorials.

According to Buell, the new appointments arethe result of an exhaustive hiring process, whichbegan in September when the department beganadvertising its interest in hiring candidates fromeight or nine different fields.

With applications from more than 1,000scholars, Buell said the department interviewedabout 25 candidates, making a total of sevenoffers.

One candidate declined Harvard's offer, and asecond is still in talks with the department.

Buell said he was excited by the depth of thedepartment's selections.

"We're delighted that we have such a strong newcohort of junior colleagues with diversestrengths," he said.

Although Buell said the appointments were "notdesigned as replacements or equivalents" to thethree junior faculty who have announced plans toleave Harvard, he said the department's selectionsaimed to strengthen the areas in which the currentFaculty could not meet student demand.

Huang said he was initially excited byHarvard's decision to advertise for a specialistwho had studied both traditional American andAsian-American literatures, a field he said isless desired by other schools.

"For me it's a new mission to integrate the twofields--injecting ethnic blood into canonicalAmerican literature," Huang said. "I was veryexcited over that possibility."

Festa said she is looking forward to her roleas an instructor, not to mention some of the otherperks of Harvard life.

"I've heard great things about the quality ofthe students...and people have raved about howstimulating the teaching is," Festa said.

"I've also been drooling at the libraries," shequipped