History of the English Department

For the first ten years of its existence, instruction in English at the University of Mississippi was given by its presidents, Dr. George F. Holmes, Judge A. B. Longstreet, and Dr. F. A. P. Barnard. English was taught as rhetoric, an aesthetic appreciation of elegance in expression.

Holmes

Remarkably early in its history, in 1858, the University established a chair (or department) of English studies; but it was not until 1872, with the coming of Dr. J. L. Johnson to head the department, that English began to be taught, like Latin and Greek, as a linguistic science. Freshmen studied advanced grammar, then continued philology as sophomores and juniors, capping off their training with literature in their senior years.

Longstreet

When Dr. Johnson was succeeded in 1890 by Professor William Rice Sims, the emphasis on linguistic science was replaced by one on literature, with secondary attention to the history of the English language. Freshmen still received a grounding in grammar and the elements of composition, and sophomores studied Anglo-Saxon and the history of the language; but Professor Sims, apparently strongly supported by then-Chancellor Edward Mayes, pioneered at the University in many of the methods and procedures now considered norms. Contemporaneous with his appointment to the chairmanship a “School of Belles Lettres” (a division within the department) was created, to last until 1905. English literature still emphasized, but gradually American literature too was recognized as worthy of study - then still a fairly radical idea. Reportedly a brilliant teacher, Professor Sims also offered the first seminar courses in English at the University, notably a semester-long course in the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Professor Sims’ successor, Dabney Lipscomb (1894-1904), continued Professor Sims’ innovations and added his own, introducing specific entrance requirements which stressed preparation in literature and composition, further reducing the teaching of aesthetics and philology to freshmen and sophomores, and replacing them with training in practical composition and a historical survey of English literature.

Mayes

The history of the English Department from 1904 till 1960 is largely the result of growth in numbers (both students and faculty) and adjustments to changing concepts of the role of English professors. In 1904 one professor and one instructor taught all the classes needed. By 1960 the faculty numbered nine professors and five instructors. Contributing to the need for more faculty were master’s degree candidates, who increased in number steadily after the establishment of the Graduate School in 1927.

After the first, experimental decades of its existence in the mid-nineteenth century, the department has experienced its greatest development in the years since 1960, when it first offered a Doctor of Philosophy program. The number of faculty members rapidly increased to what is now more than double its number in 1960. In 1972 the department instituted a Doctor of Arts program and, shortly thereafter, a Specialist Degree in English. During this time, too, the Department led the way in founding the annual Faulkner conference and strongly supported the founding of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture.

Barnard

Over the last ten years, the department has been enriched by the funding of two important endowed positions, a chair and a name professorship, and the endowment of two visiting writers programs. Dr. Ben McClelland was named to the Ottilie Schillig Chair of Composition and Dr. Donald Kartiganer became Howry Professor of Faulkner Studies. In 1993 John and Renée Grisham endowed a program to bring several distinguished writers to speak on campus each year, and another program to hire an emerging Southern writer-in-residence for one semester each year. These programs enhance the department's creative writing program which, in the last decade, has steadily developed so that each year there are at least two distinguished creative writers in the department, and the department is currently instituting an M.F.A. degree program in creative writing.