The Department of English

As long as any of us can remember, there has been an old parka in the glass case in Merrifield Hall, at the south end of the English Department. The little plaque reads: "This caribou coat, made by an Eskimo woman, was worn by Ben Eielson, an alumnus of the University of North Dakota and noted Arctic explorer, on his epochmaking flights in the north country (Produced and presented by the Blue Key Society)."

None of us still uses the term "Eskimo," and we are not sure who the Blue Key Society was, or why the parka is on display in Merrifield Hall, but forgive us for thinking that it sums up something about us--not just because, metonymically, it reminds us there is something north of Grand Forks (Winnipeg, Churchill, Hudson's Bay, indeed almost all of Canada is north of us). It also characterizes (metaphorically) the way we have evolved as a department, and the way we are sometimes a mystery to ourselves. The word "diversity" doesn't quite say it.

Our department is often characterized by particular specialties: a successful creative writing program and the Summer Institute of Linguistics.

We are affiliated with two literary magazines: the North Dakota Quarterly, which is edited here, and Edebiyât, Journal of Near Eastern Literatures, one of whose co-editors is on our faculty.