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Dr. Jennifer L. Holberg

Professor of English, Chair of the English Department, Director of the Calvin Center for Faith & Writing
English

Biography

Professor and current Chair of the English Department, Jennifer L. Holberg grew up as a "military brat," moving nine times before her high school graduation. Calvin's first woman “Professor of the Year” (2002), she is passionate about teaching, both in her classroom and in her scholarship as the founding co-editor of the Duke University Press journal, Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture, which celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2025.

 

Holberg teaches a wide range of courses in British and world literature as well as first year composition and the senior seminar. One of her favorite classes is Dante's Divine Comedey, which includes taking students to Florence every other year!
Besides her duties as department chair, Holberg has served on numerous departmental, campus, and disciplinary committees, including serving as Associate Director of the Honors Program, Head Teaching Fellow, faculty leader of the Faculty Senate for six years, and as the long-serving chair of the all-university Educational Policy Committee. She currently serves as the moderator of the all-chairs meeting. 
An enthusiastic advocate of public scholarship, Holberg directs the Calvin Center for Faith and Writing, the home of not just the biennial Festival of Faith and Writing but a host of other initiatives. Her deep interest in the intersections of faith and literature shows up in her contributions to the Reformed Journal blog (since 2012), which examines contemporary issues through a Reformed Christian lens. She also teaches CALL (Calvin Academy of Lifelong Learning) each semester and frequently speaks to churches and other community groups. 
Her book publications also explore this territory: her first book, Shouts and Whispers: 21 Writers Speak About Their Writing and Their Faith, published by Eerdmans in 2006, received a coveted starred review from Publishers Weekly. Her latest book, Nourishing Narratives: The Power of Story to Shape Our Faith, was published by InterVarsity Press Academic.

Favorite Books

  • Middlemarch by George Eliot
  • Persuasion by Jane Austen
  • Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield
  • The short stories and essays of Flannery O’Connor
  • The work of Marilynne Robinson
  • Dante’s Divine Comedy
  • The poetry of Christian Wiman, Jane Kenyon, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Christina Rossetti, Alfred Tennyson

Education

Professor Holberg was granted a BA in English and history from New Mexico State University in 1990; she graduated with the highest honors as the university's valedictorian. She went from there to the University of Washington, where she completed her MA and PhD in English in 1991 and 1997, respectively. She joined the English department faculty at Calvin in 1998.

Academic Interests

  • the power of story to shape faith/the intersections of faith and literature
  • 19th-, 20th-, and 21st-century British literature
  • the scholarship of teaching
  • the "middlebrow" woman novelist (currently working on a book-length study of the writer E.M. Delafield)

Awards

Publications

Shouts and Whispers

IMG_7549

Nourishing Narratives

Jennifer L. Holberg

Contact Me

616-526-6598
289 Covenant Fine Arts Center

Where to Find Me

Visit personal website

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