The English Department of Dordt University believes that "nothing matters but the kingdom of God, but because of the kingdom, everything, literally everything, matters." (Gordon Spykman, Dordt College commencement 1988, "Kingdoms in Conflict")
From that perspective, we teach students how to read poems, stories, plays, and essays. Such reading requires examining how an author uses language to create imagined worlds and to communicate meaning. It also requires that the reader examine how literature from a variety of time periods and cultures challenges or affirms our values and enriches our lives. We aim to foster life-long reading in all our students.
We also demand that students respond to specific selections they read as well as to the broader world in which they live. Thus we teach our students to write poems, stories, essays, and research papers, all of which may help them articulate their Christian understanding of literature and life.
Because we expect all of our graduates will write for publication, we aim to teach them to write clearly, concisely, and forcefully so that the ideas they express and the causes they represent will be advanced.
Submissions from 2023
If my Grandfather were a Poet, Bob De Smith
Pee Wee Herman is Dead, Josh Matthews
Poetry to Break the Power of the Empire: A Review of Touch the Earth, Howard Schaap
Shetek Moonrise, David Schelhaas
Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story (Book Review), Howard Schaap
Ten years ago I wrote poems about having babies, Rose Postma
The Road: A Review of Touch the Earth, Rose Postma
Uninvited Guests and Ghosts, Mary Dengler
Where am I?, Bob De Smith
Submissions from 2022
Again Today, Mary Dengler
A Grim Reality, a Good Hope: A Review of Fortune, Howard Schaap
A Reform(ul)ational Life of Faith: A Review of Faith Life and Theology: A Reorientation, John C. Vander Stelt, Shaun Stiemsma
Christians and Climate Change, David Schelhaas
Confronting Kuyper: A Review of Calvinism for a Secular Age (Chapter Seven: On Race), Shaun Stiemsma
Language as Communion, James C. Schaap
Moonshine Promises (Book Review), Shaun Stiemsma
Questions So Simple, Answers So Far Beyond, David Schelhaas
Small Wonders: A Museum of Missouri River Stories (Book Review), Howard Schaap
Stories: Early Memories, Bob De Smith
The Revealing Art of Film: A Review of Seeing is Believing, Joshua Matthews
The Youngest Boy (Book Review), James C. Schaap
Wild Hope: Prayers and Poems (Book Review), Rose Postma
Faculty Work from 2021
A Church Bound in Prairie Armor Holds a Tragic Tale, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
A House Divided, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
A Massacre, A War, An Impalpable History, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
August, Mary Dengler
A Vet Remembers Coming Home to His Wife and the Farm Crisis, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
Big Bones in the Badlands, Lies, and a Promise Kept, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
Blinded by Privilege in 1968 - When I Heard MLK was Assassinated, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
Bountiful Garden Produce Inspires Poetry, David Schelhaas
Decomposition, Rose Postma
False Spring, Rose Postma
God at Babel, Rose Postma
Golden Dreams of the Great White North, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
Honeymooning on the Oregon Trail, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
Improving the Land, Making Money, and the Great American Story, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
Invocation, Rose Postma
I Show You a Mystery, David Schelhaas
London Street: A Memoir (Book Review), James C. Schaap
Prescience, Bob De Smith
Proceedings of the 28th Northern Plains Conference on British Literature, Bob De Smith
Prospects from Prospect Hill, Part 1: Saved by a Mulberry Bush, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
Prospects from Prospect Hill, Part 2: The Prayer Meeting, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
PTL, James C. Schaap
Rare Books, Bob De Smith
Reformed and Always... Deconstructing?, Howard Schaap
Review of Idiocracy, Joshua Matthews
September 11, 2001, Highland, Iowa: Lessons from a Ghost Town Brought Back to a Changed World, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
Shadowlands, James C. Schaap
Snapchat, Anti-Asian Hate, and Meritocracy, Howard Schaap
The Adjective Green, David Schelhaas
The Ancient Wanderers Among Us, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
The Bells of Helmus (Book Review), James C. Schaap
The Chilean Songbird that Soundtracks the Prairie, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
The Devil's Tower: What's in a Name?, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
The Epic of Anne Rubin Boermann in a Time of Broader Understanding, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
The Love of a Teacher: Ada B. Caldwell and Harvey Dunn, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
The Nobel Cheese Prize? Sinclair Lewis in Minnesota, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
The Prophetic and Black and Pentecostal Voice: A Review of Shoutin' in the Fire, Howard Schaap
Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much, Rose Postma
The Voice in My Head is Populist. And White., Howard Schaap
Unsettled Ground: The Whitman Massacre and its Shifting Legacy in the American West (Book Review), James C. Schaap
Where Our History Cuts Deep, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
Why is Jesse James the Hero?, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
Words That Couldn't Be Spoken, James C. Schaap
Zitkala-Sa: Native Journalist Who Uncovered Murder, Graft, and Exploitation, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
Faculty Work from 2020
A Christmas Story... Sort Of, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
Acknowledgements, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
A Dream in a Town Named Academy, South Dakota, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
All of Life from the Castles at Slim Buttes, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
Ascension, David Schelhaas
Bad Quarto, Bob De Smith
Bdote: Where Rivers Come Together and People Fall Apart, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
Big Bluestem, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
Christians Want Power? Sioux Center Pushes Back on New York Times Story, Lee Pitts
Fearful, Mary Dengler
Forced from First Class, Emma Coger Fought for Equal Rights and Entered History, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
For Dr. Marlin Vanden Bosch: Professor, Poet, and Pitcher, James C. Schaap
Galena and the General, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
Horizons of Hope, Howard Schaap
Humbuggery, Medical Hoaxes, and Sweet Promises in Eureka Springs, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
Hunger in the Fields: Mother Bloor Comes to Sioux City, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
In the Moment, Bill Elgersma
Labor Day: For the Essential Workers, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
Labor Day: Stories of Work, James C. Schaap
Little Cathedral on the Prairie, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
Living, Mary Dengler
Love in the Time of Coronavirus, David Schelhaas
Meisy's Resistance, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
Monuments of the West on Our Blue Highways, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
Movie Review: 1917, Joshua Matthews
Movie Review: Onward, Joshua Matthews
Movie Review: Parasite, Joshua Matthews
Nightcrawler: A Review, Joshua Matthews
No Heart of the Ioway, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
Pancake Democracy in America, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
Seven Stanzas at Easter, David Schelhaas
Shenandoah: Our Thirst for Home, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
Silas Soule and the Courage to Stand Against the Tide of Injustice, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger
Siouxland's Response to the Spanish Flu, James C. Schaap and Mark Munger