October 2008

Pulitzer Prize Winner To Be First Wang Visiting Professor in Contemporary English Literature

Edward P. Jones, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and D.C. resident, will teach and deliver public readings of his work as GW’s first Wang Visiting Professor in Contemporary English Litera¬ture. Jones, who will join GW for the spring semester, will teach an advanced creative writing course, lead a literary reading group for undergraduates, and give readings open to the public.

“We are deeply honored to have an author of Edward P. Jones’ caliber share his expertise, art, and experience with our undergraduates and the GW community as a whole,” says Jeffrey J. Cohen, chair of the Department of English. “Not only is Jones a world-renowned writer, but he also is a part of our own city of Washington, D.C. He is the most celebrated novelist we have had in residence at GW. Studying with him will provide our students with an invaluable experience—one that we hope they’ll remember long after they graduate from GW.”

Jones adds, “I have always enjoyed teaching and am eager to be in the classroom at GW. I am looking forward to getting to know the English Department and the students.”

Jones won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2004 for his novel The Known World. Set in antebellum rural Virginia, the story centers on a black slave owner and is a meditation on racism, humanity, memory, and the power of art. Jones also is the author of two collections of short stories set in Washington, D.C.: Lost in the City, which won the 2004 PEN/Hemingway Award, and Aunt Hagar’s Children. He has won numerous other literary prizes, as well as a MacArthur Fellowship.

Jones’ visiting professorship was created through a gift by Albert Wang and his family. The gift is one of the largest philanthropic commitments to the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of English. The family gift includes the Wang Visiting Professorship in Contemporary English Literature that will fund Jones’ professorship and the Wang Endowed Fund in English Literature and Literary Studies that will support an annual series of lectures by prominent authors and scholars of English literature and literary studies.

Send feedback to: bygeorge@gwu.edu