The Value of English
The Value of English Series
The Value of English is an informational series with alumni English majors and minors, who talk about how their training in English has supported their successes in a wide range of careers. Designed to introduce current students to potential career paths, practical advice, and networking opportunities, The Value of English highlights how recent alumni in a variety of fields find daily value in their English degree. Recent speakers have thriving careers in teaching, law, medicine, publishing, marketing, and higher education administration.
Take a look at some of our past sessions below!
Value of English 2024: Ask Me Anything
Alumni respond to current student questions about career paths and coursework.
Value of English 2023
Alumni discuss how their English degrees have been valuable in their careers. Audio only.
Please contact our English department advising team at english@ku.edu for information about future events, or to declare a major/minor and automatically receive notifications about future events. Get on the list!
2025 Gunn Memorial Lecture with KU Alumnus C.L. Clark
2025 Gunn Memorial Lecture
In 2025, author C.L. Clark presented our annual Gunn Memorial Lecture titled "Fantasy of War, Fiction of Peace". Clark is an alumnus of the KU English BA program, and a past participant of our Value of English series. Watch the full lecture above!
What is with our obsession with war in the fantasy genre? Is it simply the nostalgia of couch-based would-be conquerors? The reflection of our embattled times? Or is there something deeper behind the waves of grimdark and revolution? This talk will endeavour to pull back some of the layers and look curiously at this deep-seated human impulse turned fantasy.
C.L. Clark is a BFA award-winning editor and Ignyte award-winning author of several books, including The Unbroken (Magic of the Lost trilogy), Fate’s Bane (a novella), and Ambessa: Chosen of the Wolf (an Arcane novel). She's a University of Kansas alumnus and graduated from Indiana University’s creative writing MFA and was a 2012 Lambda Literary Fellow. Her work has appeared in various SFF venues, including Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, Tor.com, Uncanny, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies.