Nagle Speaks at NASSR

Chris Nagle recently returned from the annual conference of the North American Society for the Study of Romanticism (NASSR) in Toronto, where he presented a paper, “‘Soils Luxuriant’: The Diverse Pleasures of Ann Batten Cristall.” This work on his favorite (obscure) late 18th-century poet was part of a Special Session devoted to Romantic Poems, Diverse Readerships, and is part of a longer contribution to an essay collection on queer literary history, currently in review.

Faculty in Full Retreat

Board appointed English faculty recently gathered at WMU's Southwest Campus in Benton Harbour for a one-day retreat to discuss the department's shared sense of purpose as well as goals and guiding ideas to strengthen our undergraduate programs.

More Comparative Drama on Project MUSE

The English Department's prestigious research journal, Comparative Drama, will be added to the Project MUSE Basic Research and Basic College collections in 2009, thus further enhancing its availability to scholars and students all over the world. Comparative Drama already is in the Premium Collection, which contains all MUSE titles, as well as in the Standard and Humanities Collections.

Below are the TOCs of Comparative Drama's two most recent issues:

Volume 42.2 Summer 2008:

• The Secular Morality of Middleton’s City Comedies, Derek Alwes
• Dragon Fathers and Unnatural Children: Warring Generations in King Lear and its Sources, Meredith Skura
• Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses: Mythic Revision as Cathartic Ritual, Miriam M. Chirico
• Staging a New Literary History: Suzan-Lori Parks’s Venus, In the Blood, and Fucking A, Carol Schafer
• “The End of Nigerian History”: Wole Soyinka and Yorùbá Historiography, Glen Odom

Volume 42.3 Fall 2008: Studies in Liturgical Drama Special Issue

• Introduction: In Memory of Audrey Ekdahl Davidson, David Bevington
• Demonstration Performance of the Cividale Planctus Mariae: A Report, Eric Strand, Matthew Steel, and Clifford Davidson
• Scenarios of the “Descent into Hell” in Two Processional Antiphons, Clyde Brockett
• Meditationes Vitae Christi in the Medieval German Marienklage: Franciscan Exegesis through Drama and Music, Peter Loewen
• Liturgical Drama and “School of Abelard”, David Wulstan
• Pilgrims and Prostitutes: Costume and Individualism in Twelfth-Century Liturgical Drama, Andrew Gibb

Literature and the Web(b)

Allen Webb and Robert Rozema just published Literature and the Web. Reading and Responding with New Technologies with Heinemann Publishers. The volume is intended as a "nuts-and-bolts guide for any English teacher looking for effective tools to boost readers' engagement and improve their responses to literature."

Heller Has Book Signings

Janet Heller, author of the award-winning children's book "How the Moon Regained Her Shape," will autograph copies of her book and answer questions at two Kalamazoo-area book signings this month.

• Tuesday, Aug. 19, from 7 to 9 p.m., Heller will be at the Home School Education Fair at Barnes & Noble Booksellers, 6134 S. Westnedge Ave., Portage.

• Wednesday, Aug. 20, from 3 to 4:30 p.m., Heller will be at Kazoo Books, 2413 Parkview Ave., Kalamazoo.

Ludwig's "Receding Shadows" on WGVU

On Tuesday 8/12, at 10 pm, WGVU is showing Tom Ludwig's "Receding Shadows: a Portrait of Recovery". For more information, please check Tom's filmography at www.ludsite.com/tom.html.