Death of Vaclav Havel

Vaclav Havel, a dissident playwright who was jailed by Communists and then went on to become Czech president and a symbol of peace and freedom after leading the bloodless "Velvet Revolution," died at age 75 on Sunday.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/18/us-czech-havel-idUSTRE7BH08W20111218

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/theater/vaclav-havel-an-intertwining-of-artist-and-politician.html

Havel's website: http://vaclavhavel.cz/

Medieval Kalamazoo

A collaborative project at Western Michigan University, sponsored by the Medieval Institute, will negotiate the resonances of medieval culture in a modern North American city. The project leaders are Dr. Richard Utz (English) and Dr. Elizabeth C. Teviotdale (Medieval Institute). LEARN MORE HERE

YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO A PUBLIC READING OF ADAM PASEN'S ENGL 2980 CLASS IN SCREENWRITING!

Casey Mckittrick will speak briefly on the practice of screenwriting as an art and a business. The reading is from 10:15-1:15ish in 3025 Brown Hall and PUNCH AND PIE (and some other stuff) will be served! Hope to see you all there --

The two scripts selected for the reading by the students are:

MEET MARIE by Colin McDonnell
Two lifelong friends get sent back to high school to avoid jail time for a party they threw. Their mission: to get close to Marie Carbone, daughter of New York city mobster Nicky Carbone and find some dirt on her father.

COVER YOUR EYES by Adam Stutsman
A madman in a Catholic priest robe and mask kidnaps people to create an "alternate world" where he is God and they are his mankind, by keeping them in an abandoned church.

Adam

Medieval Drama at MLA!

Eve Salisbury is scheduled to preside over a session organized by the Division on Middle English Language and Literature, Excluding Chaucer at the 127th Annual MLA Convention in Seattle, to be held January 5-8, 2012. Entitled Medieval Drama and Performative Theology, the Sunday morning panel (#680 in the program) includes:

1. “Performing Christians Performing Jews,” Sylvia Tomasch, Hunter College, City University of New York

2. “‘The Word Made Flesh’: A Barfieldian Analysis of Ritual Creation in the York Cycle,” Jefferey H. Taylor, Metropolitan State College of Denver

3. “Performing Justice: Law and Theology in the York Plays,” Emma E. Lipton, University of Missouri, Columbia

4. “‘Be Ye Thus Trowing’: Medieval Drama and Make-Believe,” Garrett P. J. Epp, University of Alberta

INQUIRE invites submissions (especially from grad students)

Inquire invites article submissions for its fourth issue, scheduled for publication in the summer of 2012. Please refer to the website for submission guidelines and suggested topics of interest: http://inquire.streetmag.org/submissions. An abridged call for papers is included below.

Thank you,

Gabrielle Kristjanson, Editor
Inquire: Journal of Comparative Literature
inquire@ualberta.ca

Call for Papers: Inquire: Journal of Comparative Literature

Literary Violence

Inquire invites article submissions that consider the relationship between literature and violence.The representation of violence in literature is commonplace and complex, occurring by various means (e.g., physical, psychological), in many forms, across all literary traditions, past and present. Literature can expose, challenge or oppose violent conditions, yet literature can also fall victim to violence, arising from internal (e.g., institutional) or external (e.g., political, economic) forces. In focussing this issue on violence (understood broadly as the exercise or exhibition of force, including any act of oppression, intimidation or unwanted control by individuals or groups, for whatever purpose), Inquire seeks to provide a forum for the investigation of tensions—private and public, regional and global—that speak to the cultural and historical production of identity and community.

Submission Deadline: March 15, 2012.

Inquire is an international, peer-reviewed journal of comparative literature based at the University of Alberta. Inquiries and submissions can be sent to inquire@ualberta.ca.

Inquire particularly seeks graduate student contributions. Also, if you would like to write a book review on the same topic, you can contact: lisaann@ualberta.ca.
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Congratulations Sean Hoen

BOMB is pleased and proud to announce the winner and runners-up of our 2011 Fiction Contest, judged by author Rivka Galchen.


This is BOMB’s 5th year holding our fiction contest, and we are excited to reveal the winner of this year’s competition. We’re proud to report that we received over 300 submissions. Canadian-born novelist and essayist Rivka Galchen, author of 2008’s Atmospheric Disturbances, winner of the William J. Saroyan International Prize for Fiction, kindly donated her literary expertise to aid us in the difficult process of selecting the contest’s frontrunners. Judging literary merit is never simple, never black-and-white. With due consideration and diligence, Rivka has selected this year’s winner and two runners-up.

Our winner is the short story titled “Label” by Sean Hoen. Sean is a current resident of Brooklyn, but was raised in Dearborn, Michigan. “Label” is his first submission to a literary contest.

This year’s runners-up are “Thirteens” by Richard Weber, a New Yorker currently living in Carouge, Switzerland, and “The Man-Moth” by Naomi Williams of Davis, California.

Congratulations to our winner and runners-up, and here again is a list of this year’s finalists:

“The Last Days of Vander Clyde Broadway” by Christopher Backs

“Letter to Henry Miller” by Suzanne Freeman

“Crisp White Sheets” by Travis Freeman

“A Village in the Country” by Michael Halmshaw

“Aunt Gin in Solipsistic Slope” by Kristopher Jansma

“How to Render Alexa” by Kelly Shriver

“Eta Translator” by Paul Vidich

Thank you to everyone who took the time to submit and patiently awaited the contest’s results.

eLLe Kalamazoo ~ 12/8-10

Episode 5 of the local Kalamazoo ELLE project continues this week, written, directed, and featuring performances by current and former WMU students.

Purchase your ticket by midnight tonight for the eLLe/fuel fundraiser Winter Plate. Dec. 8, and they will feed you a vegan meal by fuel [unpredictably vegetarian], provide live music and include a viewing of eLLe 5 (a play series inspired by the L Word). Tickets at $35. Purchase at thisisfire.com under the events tab.

Show alone only $10, $7 for students any of the nights, Thursday through Saturday, 10:00pm.

Shakespeare's Parables

Grace Tiffany's article, "Shakespeare's Parables," a version of which was presented at the 2011 Renaissance Prose conference at Purdue, will be published in the upcoming issue of the journal Reformation.

Witschi Writes for Art Exhibit

Nic Witschi has been commissioned by Bank of America's Art in Our Communities program to write the official companion essay for an exhibition that will travel to museums around the country over the next few years. Entitled “Searching the Horizon: The Real American West, 1830-1920,” the exhibit makes its first stop at the New Britain Museum of America in Connecticut from 26 Nov. 2011 to 4 March 2012.