Friday, July 29, 2011

Save the date

Last year's event was a success thanks to your support!


Dear colleagues:

I'm happy to announce that New Issues Press will hold its third fundraiser / party at Bell's Brewery August 28, 2:30-5. We will be celebrating the 15th anniversary of the press. We'll also be showing our gratitude to Marianne Swierenga, who has stepped down as Managing Editor. Readers will include upcoming New Issues Authors Susanna Childress and Lizzie Hutton, with special guest Jaimy Gordon. The reading will last 45-50 minutes.

Please mark the date of this auspicious occasion! We look forward to seeing you and bringing in the new school year with good cheer and good writing.

All best,

Bill Olsen

Mark the Date! -- New Issues Press @ Bell's, August 28

Dear colleagues:

I'm happy to announce that New Issues Press will hold its third fundraiser/
party at Bells Brewery August 28, 2:30-5.  We will be celebrating the 15th
anniversary of the press.  We'll also be showing out gratitude to Marianne
Swierenga, who has stepped down as Managing Editor.  Readers
will include upcoming NIP Authors Susanna Childress and Elizabeth
Hutton, with special guest Jaimy Gordon.  The reading will last 45-50
minutes.

Please mark the date of this auspicious occasion!   We look forward
to seeing you and bringing in the new school year with good cheer
and good writing.

All best,

Bill Olsen

English NCATE Accreditation!

Our secondary English Education program has received certification as being "nationally recognized" from NCATE (National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education). This recognition puts our department in the top-tier of English language arts teacher education programs in the US. It involved an enormous amount of work. My deep thanks to Karen Vocke, who led the certification process, along with the entire English Education Committee.

In the past few years, NCATE accreditation has become an extremely rigorous process, with many of our peer institutions failing to re-certify. It is a credit to our entire department, and the education our students receive in all their English courses, that we were able to achieve it.

I also want to recognize the work of the Children's and Adolescent Literature faculty, whose input and extra efforts in building assessment measures for their courses was essential in achieving the certification, along with the outstanding efforts of Ilse Schweitzer, whose work in aiding Karen was invaluable.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Funding Opportunity from NEH

Here's an opportunity. Thanks to Scott Slawinski for sharing it.

The National Endowment for the Humanities offers grants of up to $25,000 to support the development of an undergraduate course on an enduring question. This course would encourage undergraduates and teachers to grapple with a fundamental question addressed by the humanities, and to join together in a sustained program of reading in order to encounter influential thinkers over the centuries and into the present day. Up to four faculty members in any discipline may develop the course, although each co-director must teach it separately. The application deadline is September 15, 2011. Applicants are encouraged to consult with NEH staff as they plan their projects. For more information, please visit http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/EnduringQuestions.html and contact NEH at enduringquestions@neh.gov or (202) 606-8380.

Medievally Speaking to Sponsor Session @ Medieval Congress in 2012

Medievally Speaking and Studies in Medievalism are co-sponsoring three sessions at next year's Medieval Congress: 1) Imagining the Crusades in the Nineteenth Century; and 2) Coming to Terms with Medievalism; a third section, Medievalism and the Corporate, will be cosponsored and -organized with MEMO. Please consider participating.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Queer People Conference (Cambridge '12)





Queer People VI


Art and Lives: Studies in the History and Representation of Sexualities


Christ’s College, Cambridge, July 4th-7th 2012




Call for Contributions:

After a decade of Queer People, we reach our sixth conference: a time for reflection or a time for looking forward? Or both? Has anything changed, and if so in what directions? Are there different goals in sight from when we began? Should queer academia respect the creative impulse in the same way as the critical?

We invite stories, other artworks or performances as well as papers and proposals for panel sessions from any and all disciplines on the subject of sexuality. Please send an abstract of no more than 300 words for a twenty-minute piece to the organizers. Please also attach a brief biography.


Please send abstracts &c to:



Dr. Caroline Gonda
St. Catharine’s College,
Cambridge
CB2 1RL

Dr. Steve Joy
University of Cambridge
25 Trumpington Street
Cambridge
CB2 1QA

E-mail: queerpeopleconf@gmail.com

Conference website: https://sites.google.com/site/queerpeopleconference/home

Monday, July 11, 2011

Gwen Tarbox on Harry Potter (Detroit News)

Gwen Tarbox is quoted extensively in this Detroit News article,

Harry Potter casts spell for last time, but magic will stay alive for years: http://detnews.com/article/20110711/ENT02/107110334/Harry-Potter-casts-spell-for-last-time--but-magic-will-stay-alive-for-years#ixzz1RohXpRGV

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Review of English Studies Prize

*Submit your work to the RES Essay Prize*

The editors of The Review of English Studies invite contributions to the RES Essay Prize on any topic of English literature or the English language from medieval times to the twentieth century. The winner will receive:

- Publication of the winning essay in The Review of English Studies
- A cash prize of £250
- £250 worth of OUP books
- A free year's subscription to The Review of English Studies

*How to enter*
Visit http://www.oxfordjournals.org/page/4274/1 for entry guidelines and full details of the competition rules.

Entries should be submitted through our online submission system. Go to http://www.oxfordjournals.org/page/4274/2 to access the system and submit your paper.

· Word limit: maximum of 10,000 words

· The closing date for submissions is 30 September 2011

*Further details*
For more information visit the RES Essay Prize webpage at http://www.oxfordjournals.org/page/4274/3

You can read past winning essays for FREE at
http://www.oxfordjournals.org/page/4274/4

Best Wishes,
Oxford Journals

Oxford University Press
Great Clarendon Street
Oxford OX2 6DP

Saturday, July 9, 2011

PhD Candidate Adam Pasen's Dissertation Play to be Staged at York Arena




The jazz age and the gilded age collide in Tea with Edie and Fitz by WMU PhD candidate Adam Pasen. The play is a historical account of the explosive meeting of expatriate literary icons Edith Wharton and F. Scott Fitzgerald in Paris in the 1920s. Scott's outrageous Southern wife Zelda Fitzgerald and the sardonic Ghost of Henry James are also featured. Tea coincides with a major resurgence in interest in F. Scott Fitzgerald within the last year; Scott and Zelda just appeared as characters in Woody Allen's latest film Midnight in Paris and an upcoming remake of The Great Gatby starring Leonardo DiCaprio is slated for next year. Even more exciting, the play marks a milestone in collaboration between the Theatre and English Departments at Western. At WMU playwriting is technically part of the English Department, making it unique among playwriting programs in the county for allowing students to pursue a PhD with a creative emphasis. Tea, however, will be the first creative dissertation at WMU to ever be staged in York Arena using theater department resources. Former chair of the department D. Terry Williams directs and the cast is comprised of Western actors and teachers alike, including Elizabeth Terrell, Chris Grazul, Chelsea Morgan, Susannah Parr, Mitch Voss, and G. William Zorn . Tackling such issues as gender, war, and the role of the artist and bursting with literary allusions and raucous Charlestons, the play has something for everybody. Both nostalgic and timely, Tea with Edie and Fitz is the living embodiment of Fitzgerald's famous quote: "so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." York Arena, July 15, 16 at 8:00 pm 17 at 2:00 pm.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Friday, July 1, 2011

New Issues Novel Wins Book of the Year Award

Goldie Goldbloom's novel Toads' Museum of Freaks and Wonders (New Issues Press, 2010) has won the gold from ForeWord Reviews.

Winners of the Book of the Year Award from ForeWord Reviews represent the best independently published books from 2010 and were selected by a panel of librarian and bookseller judges.

Book of the Year 2010 Winners in Fiction - Literary Category

* Gold: Toads' Museum of Freaks and Wonders by Goldie Goldbloom
* Silver: Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon
* Bronze: John Doe No. 2 and the Dreamland Motel by Kenneth Womack
* Honorable Mention: Journey to Virginland: Epistle I by Armen Melikian