May 2019 saw the bicentennial of the American poet Walt Whitman’s birth. Born in 1819 in Long Island, Whitman would radically challenge the poetic conventions of his time and open to the door to experimental and free verse poetry. Bursting onto the literary scene in 1855, his self-published collection Leaves of Grass captivated and repulsed readers in equal measure. Famed for his frank, sensual expression and queer egalitarianism, Whitman has had a profound impact on readers, poets and activists in the years since his death.

Ms. Davida Mottram-Epson, a student who has just finished her second year in Liberal Arts at Warwick, has won the award of “Highly Commended" as part of the Greg Wells Prize in the Centre for Renaissance Studies. This competitive prize is open to students from across the university for an essay between 2,000 and 5,000 words on any subject within the scope of Medieval or Renaissance Studies, and recognises undergraduate “scholarly work of outstanding merit, quality, and value” in the field.

Ceara Webster (BA Hons Liberal Arts 2020) has been appointed to a Warwick Innovation Fellowship.

Dr. Bryan Brazeau has recently published an essay on using the earthly paradise as a way of teaching the romance epics of Boiardo, Ariosto, Tasso, and Spenser.

An article by Dr. Bryan Brazeau has just been published in the journal The Italianist (based at Cambridge, Leeds, and Reading).