GLEANINGS

New Issues Authors Kevin Fenton and Rachel Eliza Griffiths Read Their Work: Spring 2012 Gwen Frostic Reading Series

2012-01-29T20:02:00.002-05:00

We welcome you to join us for our second reading of the Spring 2012 Gwen Frostic Reading Series. We're honored to have poet Rachel Eliza Griffiths and fiction writer Kevin Fenton read their work this Thursday, February 2nd. The reading will take place at the WMU Bernhard Center, in room 157-158, starting at 8:00 PM. We look forward to seeing you there. This reading is co-sponsored by New Issues Poetry & Prose.

2012 Creative Writing Awards Call for Submissions

2012-01-29T19:55:00.003-05:00

The deadline for this year's Frostic Creative Writing Awards is Friday, February 3rd. The awards are open to current students at WMU. We very much hope you'll consider submitting your work.

Here are the details. Be sure to follow all guidelines:

• Submissions will be accepted in four genres: Fiction, Poetry, Non-Fiction, and Drama.

• You may submit to as many genres as you would like; you may submit up to three poems, one story, one essay, and/or one play.

• Your submission should include a cover sheet with your name, the title(s) of the submission, your contact information, and whether you are a GRADUATE or UNDERGRADUATE student. Also put this cover sheet information into the body of the email.

• The manuscript of the submitted work must not include any identifying information.

• Email submissions to Steve Feffer (steve dot feffer at wmich dot edu), and copy to Dustin M. Hoffman (dustin dot m dot hoffman at wmich dot edu).

• Please note the genre and whether you are a graduate or undergraduate student in the subject line.

• If you have any questions, please direct them to Dustin.

Creative writing faculty will determine the finalists in each genre and classification (GRAD and UNDERGRAD), which will then be passed on to outside judges. Those judges will pick a SINGLE overall winner in each genre and classification. Fiction submissions will also be considered for the annual Gordon Prize in Fiction.

All the best,

Steve Feffer
Spring Coordinator, Creative Writing

Gender, Sexuality & Language @ UM

2012-01-27T22:58:00.000-05:00

Gender and Sexuality: What's Language Got to Do With It?
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM

Hatcher Graduate Library, Room 100, Gallery

Speakers:

Anne Curzan
University of Michigan, English, Linguistics and Education
Scott Kiesling
University of Pittsburgh, Linguistics
Robin Queen
University of Michigan, Linguistics
Shelley Swearingen
University of Michigan, Linguistics

In this panel, four scholars of language consider how language has been used to construct and perform gender and sexuality. They will examine a history of approaches to language, gender and sexuality; the connection between language, sexuality and masculinities; the erasure of lesbians from queer linguistics; the encoding of gender and sexuality in the grammar and lexicon and efforts to change the language.

Witschi's American West a Choice Outstanding Title

2012-01-26T12:31:00.003-05:00

A Companion to the Literature and Culture of the American West (Wiley-Blackwell 2011), edited by Nicolas S. Witschi, has been named by Choice as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2011. According to the official notice posted online, "Every year, Choice subject editors single out for recognition the most significant print and electronic works reviewed in Choice during the previous calendar year. Appearing annually in Choice’s January issue, this prestigious list of publications reflects the best in scholarly titles and attracts extraordinary attention from the academic library community. The 2011 feature includes 629 titles in 54 disciplines and subsections." The full list of awardees may be found at this link.

Russo on the Once and Future (Medieval) Classroom

2012-01-25T15:53:00.003-05:00

One of our WMU Ph.D. students in Medieval Studies, Keith Russo, just published his first essay, based on his experience as a classroom teacher at the IMG Pendleton School in Bradenton, FL. Please find his essay, "21st Century Inferno: Exploring Dante's Digital Legacy with Your Students," HERE. Two years ago, Keith co-edited (with Richard Utz and Christine Havens) an essay cluster on Culture and the Medieval King, in UNIversitas: The University of Northern Iowa Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity.

Bérubé on Open Access to Scholarship

2012-01-25T14:32:00.001-05:00

Please find Michael Bérubé's recent open letter regarding Open Access to scholarship at the Modern Language Association's WEBSITE.

Third Coast 2011 Fiction Contest Winner Chosen for Anthology

2012-01-24T21:53:00.004-05:00

Third Coast is pleased to announce that Sarah Elizabeth Schantz's story "The Sound of Crying Sheep" (winner of the 2011 Fiction Contest) has been selected for inclusion in New Stories from the Midwest 2012!

WMU Poet Nancy Eimers reads on Thursday.

2012-01-24T14:06:00.000-05:00

Nancy Eimers will be reading at 7 p.m. on Thursday, January 26, at the Olmsted Room in Mandelle Hall at Kalamazoo College.

Bill Zorn in 'Never The Sinner'

2012-01-24T14:02:00.001-05:00

KALAMAZOO — They were still in their teens, of high-intelligence and wealthy families, and should have had a bright future ahead of them.

“They were charming, witty, engaging, good-looking, and had a summer with nothing to do, so they decide to kill somebody just to see if they can get away with it,” D. Terry Williams said of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb.

The Leopold and Loeb kidnapping and murder of 14-year-old Bobby Franks was the original “crime of the century,” sparking a media frenzy in 1924. It inspired Alfred Hitchcock’s 1948 film “Rope” and Richard Fleischer’s 1959 film “Compulsion.”

The movies didn’t cover all the details that are in “Never the Sinner,” however. Western Michigan University theater department emeritus Williams will direct it at the York Arena Theatre running Jan. 26 through Feb. 5.

John Logan based his 1985 play on years of research, sealed family archives and court transcripts, Williams said.

“To say that Leopold and Loeb were ‘monsters’ is too easy. To say that they were ‘evil’ is too facile,” Logan wrote in the introduction to the play. He chose to portray them as human beings, who are “tormented” and “brutal.

It’s a courtroom drama plus an intense character study. “I’ve always been fascinated by this play ... because of their complex personalities,” Williams said.

They were from wealthy Chicago families. Leopold, 19 at the time of the crime, had a genius-level IQ, was multi-lingual, published ornithology articles and was already attending the University of Chicago law school. Loeb, 18, was at the time the youngest graduate in the history of the University of Michigan.

Their relationship was complicated by a factor not covered in previous dramatizations. “They were lovers,” Williams said. “Leopold gets sex in return for collaborating in risky crimes dreamed up by Loeb.”

Enthralled by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of the “superman” not ruled by society’s morals, they commit what they think is the perfect crime.

“They were very sophisticated — but not civilized,” Williams said.

Certain hanging awaited them at the end of their trial, but their lawyer, Clarence Darrow, turned the case into an argument against capital punishment.

The cast will sit among the audience until needed onstage. They are Max Rasmussen (Leopold), David Cooper (Loeb), Bill Zorn (Clarence Darrow), Ben Maters (Robert Crowe), Jenna Wyatt, Taylor Keenan and Sophie Scanlon.

It’s easy to be charmed by the characters of Leopold and Loeb, Williams said, “then you step back and say, my goodness, how can I like these two psychopaths?”

He brought in a consultant from the WMU psychology department, Lester Wright, “who has been very helpful to the cast in explaining these types of personalities.”

Wright helped the cast explore how such crimes can occur by comparing Leopold and Loeb’s to Jerry Sandusky’s alleged acts, Williams said.

What makes this compelling drama is its examination of criminals who commit heinous acts but feel justified “in their own world of rules and regulations,” Williams said.

If you go
‘Never the Sinner’

When: 8 p.m. Jan. 26-28, Feb. 2-4; 2 p.m. Feb. 5
Where: York Arena, Gilmore Theatre Complex, Western Michigan University
Cost: $20, $15 seniors and WMU faculty/staff, $5 students
Contact: 269-387-3227, wmutheatre.com

Tererai Trent visits WMU tomorrow !

2012-01-24T09:32:00.002-05:00

Oprah's favorite guest Tererai Trent will speak at WMU

Dr. Tererai Trent, whose moving story of being "the woman who buried her dreams" earned her the designation last May as Oprah Winfrey's favorite guest of all times, will speak at Western Michigan University Wednesday, Jan. 25.

A WMU alumna, Trent is returning to Kalamazoo to speak at Southwest Michigan First's Catalyst University. Before her Catalyst University appearance, she will address a WMU campus audience to tell her inspirational story at 10 a.m. in the Kirsch Auditorium of the Fetzer Center. The WMU event is free and open to the public. Those interested in attending the talk are asked to reserve a spot by sending email to office-of-the-provost@wmich.edu.

Trent is also scheduled to meet with a WMU Evaluation Center group for a noontime discussion on cross-cultural evaluation techniques, her academic area of specialty.

Trent, who grew up in poverty in Zimbabwe, realized one of her goals in December 2009 when she earned a Ph.D. in interdisciplinary evaluation from WMU. She started her adult life as an impoverished cattle-herder who defied a culture that places little value on the contributions of women. She educated herself, setting a path and an example for her own five children and for other women in similar circumstances.

Trent's story was retold on Winfrey's highly anticipated May 20 episode in which the host identified her favorite guest among those she has interviewed in 25 years of broadcasts. Winfrey called Trent the guest whose story "epitomizes everything I've been trying to say on this show for 25 years."

Trent's story was first chronicled on the pages of the New York Times, and in a book, "Half the Sky," by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. An October 2009 episode of "Oprah" placed Trent on the national stage, where she became known as the woman who "buried her dreams."

Both the book and the "Oprah" show detailed how Trent developed a list of goals for herself as a very young woman living in a rural village. Her list was buried in a tin piece behind her home in a field where she herded cattle. Over the next 20 years, she accomplished each goal, retrieving the list each time to cross off the achieved goal and move on to the next one.

Trent plans to return to her nation in the future. Her dreams of building a school there will become a reality, thanks to a $1.5 million donation from Winfrey. The school and an initiative with Save the Children are expected to impact 4,000 children in Zimbabwe.

Sex of Men in Premodern Europe event--U Mich

2012-01-22T18:46:00.001-05:00

LINK FOR EVENT HERE

English prof’s “hat-trick”…three books at once!

2012-01-20T14:02:00.000-05:00

Dr. Allen Webb, professor of English at WMU, just scored a book publishing “hat trick”—three books at once! All three books focus on contemporary topics in the teaching of English.

The first is “Teaching Literature in Virtual Worlds: Immersive Learning in English Studies.” This cutting-edge book is the result of the Presidential Innovation Grant that Dr. Webb received in 2006 that funded a team of scholars and graduate students in English developing on-line virtual worlds for literature study. The edited collection includes chapters by 13 Department of English faculty and graduate students.

The second book is “Teaching Literature of Today’s Middle East.” This book provides much-needed resources, ideas and strategies for secondary and college teachers who seek to address current issues from the Middle East in their classes, including the Arab Spring, women in the Middle East, the Iraq and Afghan Wars, Palestine-Israel conflict, teaching about Islam, and Muslim Americans. The book includes contributions from WMU faculty Blain Auer (Religion) and Vivan Steemers (Foreign Languages).

The third book is “Teaching to Exceed the English Language Arts Common Core Standards: A Literacy Practices Approach for 6-12 Classrooms.” Dr. Webb is a co-author (along with Richard Beach and Amanda Thein) of this book setting forth meaningful and exciting ways for teachers across the country to address the new curriculum standards (adopted by 44 states).

All are professional books that will be sold not only in the United States but also in Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and South Africa.

After his B.A. in English at Swarthmore College (Honors Program), Allen studied for a secondary teacher certificate and taught high school English for six years. He earned an MAT in English and Education at Lewis and Clark College, and an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at the University of Oregon. His doctoral studies focused on postcolonial literature in English, Spanish, and French and American minority literatures.

He has published 25 articles, presented at 100 conferences, including several keynote addresses, maintains 10 websites, and has won five grants totaling $1.5 million. He serves on the Executive Committee of the National Conference on English Education, and is one of the authors of the State of Michigan 9-12 Language Arts Content Standards.

He designed the “Classroom of the Future” English Education Labs and his virtual world for teaching literature won the A+ Award by WebEnglish Teacher. Webb won the Faculty Achievement Award for Teaching from the WMU College of Arts and Sciences in 2004.

A retired mountaineer, he made the first American assent of the highest peak in the Hindu Kush (Tirich Mir, 25,253′) in 1982.

Webb’s scholarship and teaching focus on English education, postcolonial and minority literature, and internet learning. Webb is the principal investigator on the WMU Literary Worlds project, and past president of the Michigan Conference on English Education (MCEE).

LINKS:

Dr. Webb’s profile

Teaching with Technology

“Virtual Worlds” in LiteraryWorlds.org

Congratulations Dr. Witschi !

2012-01-20T13:59:00.001-05:00

Professor Commissioned to Write for National Exhibit
by Helena Witzke

Dr. Nicolas Witschi, WMU professor of English, has been commissioned by the Bank of America’s Art in Our Communities program to write the official companion essay for an exhibition showcasing art, artifacts and images of the American West.

The Bank of America created the Art in Our Communities program in order to increase community stability through the support of museums and nonprofit galleries. It lends communities the use of special exhibitions in its expansive corporate collection at no cost. The exhibition, titled “Searching the Horizon: The Real American West 1830-1920,” will focus on both the common mythologies and the realities of the American West.

Ranging from works of art and photographs of people, places, and artifacts, the exhibition underscores the many different perceptions of the American West. Spanning a period of just under a century, the works available display a vast and teeming array of peoples, cultures, and a nation’s worth of ambition.

“It strikes a wonderful balance between showing the West of people’s imaginations and the West as it was lived historically,” Witschi says. “My hope is that it affects viewers positively by prompting them to rethink their ideas about the history of the American West.”

Western American history has always been convoluted, and at times brutal, as the companion essay discusses. However, it also holds an overpowering place in the popular imagination of what “America” is, and this reputation, Witschi believes, does not always follow.

“We use it [the American West] as a symbol of all quintessentially American ideas and ideals, but beyond the symbolic value lies a complex arrangement of cultures, only some of which may rightly be called ‘American,’” he says.

“Searching the Horizon” will allow communities across the nation the chance to explore and continue the discussion of the impact of this symbolism. The exhibition is currently on view at the New Britain Museum of American Art, in New Britain, Conn., until April, and will travel to different locations across the country over the next few years.

Call for Papers

2012-01-20T08:04:00.002-05:00

Oxford/Cambridge International Chronicles Symposium
5-7 July 2012, University of Oxford
Call for Papers

The Oxford/Cambridge International Chronicles Symposium (OCICS) is a biennial conference devoted to the interdisciplinary study of historical and related texts in the medieval and Early Modern periods.
The theme for the 2012 conference is 'Bonds, Links, and Ties in Medieval and Renaissance Chronicles'.

Keynote addresses will be given by Prof Pauline Stafford (Liverpool), Prof Elizabeth van Houts (Cambridge), and Dr James Howard-Johnston (Oxford). The conference will take place at Oxford’s Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies.
Abstracts of no more than 300 words for papers of 20 minutes must be submitted to the organizers via e-mail (at ocics@history.ox.ac.uk) by 31 January 2012.
Topics may include, but are not limited to genealogies (real or imagined), family bonds, textual links, breaks and discontinuities, links between past, present, and future, ties of religion and faith, law, order, and disruption, oaths, promises, and betrayals, local, regional, and national identities.

A limited number of graduate student bursaries will be available.
www.ocics.co.uk

Nagle on L.E.L.

2012-01-19T02:54:00.000-05:00

Chris Nagle's essay on Letitia Elizabeth Landon (known as ‘L.E.L.’ to her contemporaries) is part of the recently released Encyclopedia of Romantic Literature published by Wiley-Blackwell under the general editorship of Frederick Burwick. The three-volume project is described as “an authoritative resource that covers British artistic, literary, and intellectual movements between 1780 and 1830, within the context of European, transatlantic and colonial historical and cultural interaction.” One of the long essays devoted to major authors, Nagle’s contribution explores the productive tensions manifest in Landon’s life (and mythic death) and in her prolific and influential body of work that spanned all genres during the 1820s and 1830s. He argues that ultimately Landon’s exploitation of multiple (often loosely autobiographical) personae—and a newly commercialized aesthetic that she helped in large measure to create—require reading strategies that attend to the multi-layered and poly-vocal artifice animating her work, especially her poetry.

Utz to serve as external reviewer

2012-01-17T20:04:00.001-05:00

Richard Utz has accepted an invitation by Middle Tennessee State University to serve as external reviewer of its graduate programs in English this spring. MTSU's Department of English offers a Master of Arts degree with advanced studies in American and British literature; Popular Culture and Film; the English language; Rhetoric and Composition; and Linguistics. It also offers the Ph.D. with specializations in American Literature; Anglophone Literature; British Literature; Children’s and Young Adult Literature; Folklore; Linguistics; Literary Theory; Popular Culture and Film; and Rhetoric, Composition, and Pedagogy.

Andrew Carroll visits WMU

2012-01-17T15:45:00.000-05:00

Best-selling American author, editor and activist, Andrew Carroll, will share correspondence from U.S. soldiers from American Wars during a visit on Friday, Feb. 10, to the campus of Western Michigan University.

Sponsored by the Department of Military Science in the Haworth College of Business and the University Center for the Humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences, Carroll’s talk is scheduled for 2 p.m. in Brown Auditorium, in Schneider Hall. The event is free and open to the public. His talk will be followed by a question-and-answer period and a reception at 3 p.m. Reservations for the talk can be made by contacting 269.387.5050. Parking is available in the nearby Fetzer Center parking lot.

Carroll is the editor of several New York Times best sellers, including “War Letters” and “Behind the Lines.” He also edited, on a pro bono basis, “Operation Homecoming: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Home Front, in the Words of U.S. Troops and Their Families.” The book inspired the film “Operation Homecoming,” which was nominated for an Oscar and won an Emmy for best documentary.

In 1998, Carroll founded the Legacy Project, an all-volunteer initiative that honors veterans and active-duty troops by preserving their wartime letters and e-mails. Carroll has traveled to all 50 states and more than 40 countries, including Iraq and Afghanistan, to seek out letters, and he has collected, to date, an estimated 85,000 previously unpublished correspondences from every war in U.S. history.

In 2001, Carroll revived the “Armed Services Editions” (ASEs), which are pocket-sized editions of bestselling books originally distributed to service members overseas during World War II. He worked with major publishers to reissue them, and he has distributed a quarter of a million free ASEs to U.S. troops around the world, including thousands of books he personally handed out in Baghdad and Kabul.

Carroll’s efforts have been profiled on “NBC’s Nightly News,” “FOX News,” CNN, PBS, The History Channel, NPR, “CBS Sunday Morning,” “The Today Show,” “Good Morning America,” and “Nightline,” and he was featured as a “Person of the Week” on “ABC’s World News Tonight.” Carroll has also been a contributing editor and writer to numerous publications, including the New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Time, and National Geographic.

Carroll’s interest in letters began in 1989 after his home in Washington, D.C. burned down. Although no one was hurt in the fire, all of Carroll’s possessions, including his letters, were destroyed. The loss prompted Carroll to realize the value of letters and how important it is to preserve them for posterity.

More recently, Carroll founded the “Here Is Where” campaign in association with National Geographic Traveler. The project is an all-volunteer effort to photograph and document historic locations in the United States.

Carroll graduated magna cum laude from Columbia University in 1993, and, among other accolades, he is the recipient of the DAR’s Medal of Honor; The Order of Saint Maurice, bestowed by the National Infantryman’s Association; and The Free Spirit Award, presented by the Freedom Forum.

Carroll lives in Washington, D.C. He edited “Operation Homecoming” on a pro bono basis.

Related Links

Legacy Project

“Here Is Where”

National Geographic Traveler

T. Geronimo Johnson Reads His Work: Spring 2012 Gwen Frostic Reading Series

2012-01-17T11:13:00.001-05:00

We welcome you to join us for our first reading of the Spring 2012 Gwen Frostic Reading Series. We’re honored to have this year's WMU Creative Writing Program Visiting Fiction Writer T. Geronimo Johnson read his work this Thursday, January 19th. The reading will take place at the WMU Bernhard Center, in room 157-158, starting at 8:00 PM. We look forward to seeing you there.

Frostic Reading, Thursday February 2nd

2012-01-16T11:23:00.001-05:00

New Issues Poetry & Prose

January 2012

About Us

New Issues Poetry & Prose was established in 1996 by poet Herbert S. Scott.

Congratulations,
Khaled Mattawa!

Tocqueville

winner of

The Poetry Center

Book Award

The Arab American Book Award

Academy of American Poets

Fellowship

Spring 2012

the body | of space| in the shape of the human

Andrew Allport

The Radio Tree

Corey Marks

Two-Headed Nightingale

Shara Lessley

Fall 2012

The Right Place to Jump
by
Peter Covino

The Frame Called Ruin
by
Hadara Bar-Nadav

A Penance
by
CJ Evans

We would be honored if you would join us for the Gwen Frostic Reading Series. The first reading of the series features novelist Kevin Fenton and poet Rachel Eliza Griffiths. It will be held Thursday, February 2nd at 8:00 p.m. in WMU's Bernhard Center, rooms 157 & 159.

This reading series usually draws a large crowd, so we encourage you to arrive early. The reading is free, and last approximately 45 minutes. Books will be available to purchase, and the authors will be happy to sign their works.

Hope you can join us!

Kimberly Kolbe

Managing Editor

Kevin Fenton's first novel, Merit Badges (New Issues), won the AWP Prize for the Novel. Publishers Weekly writes, "An impressive vitality, droll wit, and affecting nostalgia lift Fenton's first novel." His fiction has appeared in the Northwest Review, the Laurel Review, and the Emprise Review. His writing on graphic design has been anthologized in Looking Closer 2 and Emigre No. 70: The Look Back Issue. He holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Minnesota and a J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School. He lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota and works as an advertising writer and creative director.

www.meritbadgesthenovel.com

Rachel Eliza Griffiths is the author of Mule & Pear (New Issues), Miracle Arrhythmia (Willow Books) and The Requited Distance (Sheep Meadow Press).

Reviewer Roxane Gay (The Rumpus) writes, "Griffiths tackled sex(uality), slavery, the strength of women, the mark of history, and the power of language, in fierce poems that were so memorable I return to them over and over."

A Cave Canem Fellow, she is the recipient of fellowships from Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Vermont Studio Center, New York State Summer Writers Institute, the Cave Canem Foundation and others. A photographer and painter, her visual work has been published widely in both national and international magazines and journals. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in New York.

www.rachelelizagriffiths.com

February Art Hop at Fire, featuring
Rachel Eliza Griffiths

Mule & Pear

Griffiths will also read her poetry on Friday, February 3rd at Fire Historical and Cultural Arts Collaborative, 1249 Portage Rd., where her artwork will be on display as part of Kalamazoo's February Art Hop.

www.thisisfire.com

Our titles are available online through Amazon.com
and spdbooks.org.

Natalie Giarratano published in Hayden's Ferry Review.

2012-01-11T12:46:00.004-05:00

Congratulations to Natalie Giarratano, poetry Ph.D. candidate, one of her poems has been selected for publication in Hadyden's Ferry Review, Fall/Winter 2011-2012, Issue 49.

"Asena, the Gray Wolf, to Tu Kueh after Many Years"

by Natalie Giarratano

1

I’ve dented the side of an iron
mountain with my head. What can

I say: out of frustration. Tried to
hide it with tree bark but honey

nothing hides itself well enough
once a whole empire has walked

out of a woman, this woman who
doesn’t mind doing all the work

and respects that you are all torso
and pretty face and the father

of legions of limbs, but sometimes
I do wish I’d found you before they

removed your arms and legs,
so I’d have something with which

to pin you down. These lupine muscles.
This longing for reciprocated touch.

I’m sure the flesh of your belly is some
divine window that I have yet to learn

to look into at the people after us—
children with their hearts licked clean.

2

I sense this is all dissolving. The smell
of your skin on my fur is almost extinct.

Our bodies have stopped communicating.
No guts to spill, not even to spew.

Sometimes I think of the coldness of these
metal Altais. Mine and yours. So cold

with our lack of want for what gravity
owns. In this sedentary life you have no

choice but to claim, even storms that fly
down to us from the mountains

into these valleys of wasting away
are miraculous. The lightening awakens

instincts that have been forgotten
in this dale with no memory that tries to erase

us with its silence, its slow, deep breaths,
its green sighs. But instinct eventually

comes back to me, like misunderstanding.
Say: Loyal dog. Where else could I be at home?

Alum Peter Geye to be published this fall.

2012-01-10T14:49:00.002-05:00

PhD (2008) alum Peter Geye's second novel to be published this fall by Unbridled Books. The Lighthouse Road tells the story of a young Norwegian immigrant woman and her misbegotten son at the turn of the twentieth century. Set against the northern Minnesota wilderness and on the waters of Lake Superior, it explores the themes of love and family and what it means to make an honest living in a corrupt world. Geye's first novel, Safe from the Sea, won the Indie Lit Award and the Northeastern Minnesota Book Award.

Death of Vaclav Havel

2011-12-18T12:01:00.000-05:00

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

2011-12-16T11:37:00.002-05:00

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!

2011-12-14T15:59:00.001-05:00

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!

2011-12-13T12:35:00.001-05:00

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)

2011-12-09T21:12:00.001-05:00

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.
---

Congratulations Sean Hoen

2011-12-07T13:09:00.001-05:00

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

2011-12-06T22:51:00.001-05:00

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

2011-12-05T18:50:00.002-05:00

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

2011-12-02T09:37:00.005-05:00

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.

Steelman Seeking Eden

2011-11-30T12:03:00.000-05:00

On November 4 graduate student Sheridan Steelman presented "Seeking Eden: The Power of Paradox in Andrew Marvell's Poetry" at the Midwest Conference on British Studies, hosted by Indiana State University. Her essay observes that the sacredness of the green world becomes the antithesis of a rude society and therefore medicinal in its purpose: man will only find Paradise if he leaves God’s work untouched. She discusssed Marvell’s poetry in light of colonization and the paradox inherent in man’s need to control.

"Grand Illusion" Premiere 12/4@Kalamazoo 10 ~ new Bentley film starring WMU students, faculty, alum

2011-11-30T11:44:00.001-05:00

N.B.: tickets are FREE, but also limited (first-come, first-served) for this one-time screening at the cinema. If you want to be certain, you can reserve a seat in advance by emailing: chuckbentley@gmail.com

Comics Studies Poster Event - December 7

2011-11-30T10:36:00.003-05:00

On Wednesday, December 7, from 4:10-6:10 pm in 4002 Brown Hall, students in ENGL 4100, Graphic Narratives, will be putting on a poster presentation of their semester projects.

If you have an interest in comics and graphic novels or if you are curious about the sort of scholarship that English students conduct in the field of comics studies, please feel free to attend. You are welcome to bring friends, colleagues, and students. As an added enticement, delicious baked goods will be on offer.

The event is set up in four sessions, each running for a half an hour. During each session, seven students will be standing next to their digital posters, ready to answer questions and to discuss their work. In the past, these sessions have been lively events, where participants and attendees have learned a great deal. Many of the students enrolled in the course are seniors, most of them are members of Sigma Tau Delta, and all of them would welcome the opportunity to show you their work.

Feel free to drop by for a few minutes -- or stay for the whole event!

Anne Fausto-Sterling visit to WMU ~ 12/1, 12/2

2011-11-29T12:06:00.001-05:00

The WMU Department of Anthropology
Gender and Sexuality Speaker Series…

ANNE FAUSTO-STERLING

Nancy Duke Lewis Professor of Biology and Gender Studies
Brown University

"How does a child know it is male or female?
From presymbolic to symbolic embodiment"
7-8:30 p.m.
Thursday, Dec. 1
Fetzer Center

Reception following
Free and open to the public

Faculty Seminar

9:30 a.m.
Friday, Dec. 2Moore Hall Anthropology
Seminar Room
RSVP requested but not
required to: bilinda.straight@wmich.edu

Special Student
Meeting
1 p.m.
Friday, Dec. 2
WMU Center for the Humanities
Knauss Hall
Snacks will be available

For more information contact:
bilinda.straight@wmich.edu

Sponsored by: College of Arts and Sciences, Departments of English;
Gender and Women’s Studies; Psychology; University Center for the
Humanities; University Cultural Events Committee;
Visiting Scholar Program; School of Medicine; Women’s Caucus

LINK TO WMU NEWS: http://www.wmich.edu/wmu/news/2011/11/067.html

WMU Alumni Writers Read Their Work: Fall 2011 Gwen Frostic Reading Series

2011-11-28T10:49:00.003-05:00

We welcome you to join us for our final reading of the Fall 2011 Gwen Frostic Reading Series. We're honored to have three WMU alumni: poet Elizabeth Knapp, fiction writer Melinda Moustakis, and fiction writer Jason Skipper. They will read their work this Thursday, December 1st. The reading will take place at the WMU Bernhard Center, room 157-158, starting at 8:00 PM. We look forward to seeing you there.

2011-11-19T09:23:00.004-05:00

The Fall 2011 issue of Comparative Drama, volume 45.3, is now available on-line at Project MUSE. Hard copies will begin mailing in early December. This volume features the following contributions:

Essays
Adapting “The Liberal Lover”: Mediterranean Commerce, Political Economy, and Theatrical Form under Richelieu
Ellen R. Welch

Why did Steele’s The Lying Lover fail? Or, The Dangers of Sentimentalism in the Comic Reform Scene
Aparna Gollapudi

“Allow, accept, be”: Terrence McNally’s Engagement with Hindu Spirituality in A Perfect Ganesh
Raymond Frontain

Opening The Notebook of Trigorin: An Analysis of Tennessee Williams’s Adaptation of Chekhov’s The Seagull
Zackary Ross

Play Doctor, Doctor Death: Shaw, Ibsen, and Modern Tragedy
Bert Cardullo

Reviews
Deathly Experiments: A Study of Icons and Emblems of Mortality in Christopher Marlowe's Plays
by Clayton G. MacKenzie
reviewed by Clifford Davidson

Shakespeare’s Freedom
by Stephen Greenblatt
reviewed by Coppélia Kahn

French Origins of English Tragedy
by Richard Hillman
reviewed by Hassan Melehy

Shakespeare and His Contemporaries
by Jonathan Hart
reviewed by Hillaire Kallendorf

Pageantry and Power: A Cultural History of the Early Modern Lord Mayor's Show, 1585-1639
by Tracey Hill
reviewed by Kara Northway

Performing Bodies in Pain: Medieval and Post-Modern Martyrs, Mystics, and Artists
by Marvin Carlson
reviewed by Barbara Ellen Logan

Declan Kiberd @ Notre Dame, Fri., 11/18

2011-11-17T11:57:00.001-05:00

Call for Manuscripts

2011-11-16T09:28:00.000-05:00

Knox Robinson Publishing (2010) is unique in that we are an international, independent publisher specializing in historical fiction, historical romance and medieval fantasy. We are keen to sign authors who write in these areas. We welcome the submission of well-written, original and engaging manuscripts in the areas in which we specialize. Unagented manuscripts direct from the author are accepted.

As an international company based in London with a presence in New York, we currently publish writers from five countries. We have enjoyed international success with our books, and we are looking for promising new writers to join us. Click here for submission guidelines.

News
Call For Reviewers
Are you an avid reader? Would you like to receive free books?

We are looking for reviewers of our upcoming novels. If you have an interest in our books and you have an active blog or if you are a regular reviewer on sites such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble, we will provide free copies of our upcoming novels in ePub (iBooks and Nook), Mobi (Kindle), or PDF format. Hardcovers and paperbacks are available if essential.

To apply to become a reviewer, email us at reviews@knoxrobinsonpublishing.com. Please provide us with links to your online reviews.

Free eBooks

Medieval Fantasy

In Torquemada's Spain during the Inquisition, scholar and manuscript hunter Richard Longmoor knows that everything is not always as it seems...Read more

Historical Fiction

Geoffrey Hotspur is one of the most talented squires in the hall of John of Gaunt; but his place rests on the good will of the lady of the hall and she does not suffer fools gladly.... Read more

Historical Romance

Escaping a brutal father, Briony runs to James, the man she loves. With his family's blessing, they marry and prepare for a new life in a new country – America....Read more

Upcoming Books

ISBN - 978-1-9084830-3-4
Hardcover - 8 December
Paperback & eBook - 6 September 2012

Podcast with the author available

Easter Monday, 1809: Kirkley Hall manor house is mysteriously burgled. When suspicion falls on Jamie Charlton... Read more

ISBN - 978-0-9567901-1-8
Hardcover - 8 December
Paperback & eBook - 6 September 2012

A Viking saga that begins with a fateful kidnapping in Brittany, on to intrigue in Constantinople and ends on a battlefield in England in 1066... Read more

ISBN - 978-1-9084830-6-5
Hardcover - 8 December
Paperback & eBook - 6 September 2012

Podcast with the author available

1494 Barcelona. As Torquemada lights the fires of religious fervor, accused heretics are not the only victims..Read more

Excerpts

The Hermetica of Elysium
1498, Spain

Nadira awoke long before dawn when she felt Marcus roll onto her, his elbow digging into her ribs. He apologized before he got up from his bedding, pulling her to her feet with a strong arm. He passed his hands chastely up and down the sides of her body from her shoulders to her hips.

“Did I crush anything?” His voice was soft and low, a hint of a smile beneath the black beard.

Nadira shook her head, pulling bits of dry grass from her dark braid. He bent double, rolled his bedding with hers. "I spend days keeping you from harm only to squash you myself," he joked, his

blue eyes twinkling.The others were moving about as well, gathering the horses and loading them with bedding and tools. The two boys worked the pack animals while Garreth, already mounted, rode alone up the trail in front of them. Nadira waited until Marcus was ready with his horse, but instead of hauling her up beside him as he had always done before, he led her to one of the packhorses.... Read more

Literally Dead
Chicago, 1935

Ernest Hemingway and I met in the spring of 1935. "April is the cruelest month," a fellow expatriate of his wrote. Hemingway's train from New York was three hours late. Chill rain was falling in Chicago on its arrival. America was in its sixth year of Depression. All that and, to be blunt, the man considered by many as the greatest living prose stylist was just plain pissed about just plain everything.

I recognized him immediately. Broad, large head, bushy mustache, high forehead, and immense eyes were right off the dust jackets of his books. But his mouth was different. I had seen it

photographed clenched as he typed. Crinkled with private irony in pictures from the Twenties. Even smiling over a kudu carcass he'd bagged on safari. On the platform of Union Station that mouth was curled in the most malevolent sneer I ever encountered. Despite being forewarned about his volatile moods, I had a duty to perform...Read more

The House of Women
Leeds, England 1870

Montgomery Woodruff scowled at the low, dirty clouds as though they had appeared just to torment him. He tugged at his lapels, jerking his greatcoat close as the wind tried its best to wrestle a way into his inner garments. The end of January had been unrelenting with blizzards, storms and freezing temperatures. Woodruff entered his carriage and yanked at the folded blanket on the seat, his impatience sending it sliding to the floor.

With a muttered oath, he arranged the blanket to better suit his needs, ignoring his clerk who stood dithering in the elements waiting for last minute instructions.

Woodruff sent him a withering glare before a curt command from his driver, Sykes, sent the showy black horses away from the three-storey Georgian building to merge with the traffic in the bustling streets of the great Yorkshire town. Sighing heavily, Woodruff stretched his neck from the starched collar, trying to relax as they traversed around pedestrians and vehicles. Winter gloom and the cold sent most people hurrying home, shop keepers were packing up, women scolded children towards their own hearths while business men headed for the warmth and smoky atmosphere of expensive clubs... Read more

Harald Hardrada: The Last Viking
Coast of Brittany, 1031

The men from the sea sank for cover in the trees on the far side of the clearing, waiting for the scout to return. Across the glade they grouped together. No word was spoken by any, but a longer shaft of light from the moon lit up bearded faces both tense with expectation and alight with the anticipation of what was to come. Here and there a tongue moistened dry lips, while broken-nailed fingers flexed on the shafts of swords, axes and spears.

At length, the scout returned and spoke in a low murmur to one of the crouching men, one whose face in the moonlight was incongruous in its youthfulness, his only flaw an arm hideously scarred

by a crudely administered cauterization.

"Nothing moves, leder. No lights, no sound. What now?" Harald looked about him, gestured to another shadowy form and pointed wide and to the right. "Skallagrim - your party to cut the road."
“Aye, Harald."

Ten men rose and moved off at a trot in the direction given. The main body moved carefully and slowly through the trees until they thinned, revealing the outlines of several buildings clustered about a small, whitewashed church with a bell tower at its seaward end. Harald whistled softly, and two men turned to him.

“Thorkill and Sweyn - to the church,” he said. “That bell must not ring. Go."Read more

www.knoxrobinsonpublishing.com

Playwright Carlos Murillo Presents His Work: Fall 2011 Gwen Frostic Reading Series

2011-11-14T12:44:00.002-05:00

We welcome you to join us for our fourth reading of the Fall 2011 Gwen Frostic Reading Series. We’re honored to have playwright Carlos Murillo present his work this Thursday, November 17th. The reading will take place at the WMU Bernhard Center, room 157-158, starting at 8:00 PM. We look forward to seeing you there.

2011-11-12T14:42:00.001-05:00

Seth Abramson & Matthew Guenette

Kalamazoo Book Arts Center

Poets in Print: Saturday, Nov. 12, 2011, 7-9 p.m.
Broadside artists: Elizabeth King and a collaboration between Alta Price and Jonah Koppel

Join us for the Poets in Print reading featuring Seth Abramson and Matthew Guenette. Readings are free and open to the public. Doors open at 6:30 with time to browse current exhibitions, the broadsides and books by the poets available for purchase and signing.

Seth Abramson is the author of two collections of poetry, Northerners, winner of the 2010 Green Rose Prize from New Issues Poetry & Prose, and The Suburban Ecstasies (Ghost Road Press, 2009). He is also the co-author of the forthcoming third edition of The Creative Writing MFA Handbook (Continuum, 2012). In 2008 he was awarded the J. Howard and Barbara M. J. Wood Prize for Poetry, and his poems have appeared in such magazines and anthologies as Best New Poets 2008, American Poetry Review, New American Writing, Boston Review, Colorado Review, and New York Quarterly. A regular contributor to Poets & Writers magazine and The Huffington Post, he is a graduate of Harvard Law School, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is currently a doctoral candidate in English Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Matthew Guenette is the author of Sudden Anthem, winner of the 2007 American Poetry Journal Book Prize from Dream Horse Press. His latest book, American Busboy, a Finalist and Editor’s Choice of the 2010 University of Akron Press Poetry Prize, will be published in 2011. His work has appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, Barn Owl Review, DIAGRAM, Cream City Review, The Greensboro Review, Indiana Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, Southern Indiana Review, and other publications. He is an English instructor at Madison College in Madison, Wisconsin.

Kalamazoo Book Arts Center

326 W. Kalamazoo Avenue, Suite 103A

Kalamazoo, MI

Nagle has Queer Time in Ireland

2011-11-10T23:21:00.001-05:00

Chris Nagle recently returned from a conference on “Queer Temporalities” held at the Humanities Institute of Ireland, University College Dublin, where he was invited to discuss the recent work of Elizabeth Freeman, whose Time Binds conceptualizes chrononormativity, temporal drag, and erotohistoriography, offering one of the most important interventions in queer theory and cultural studies of the past decade. The event was sponsored by The(e)ories: Critical Theory & Sexuality Studies, an interdisciplinary seminar series that has been convened by Noreen Giffney and Michael O'Rourke since 2002, and which has established itself as one of the leading queer theory seminars in the world.

Sigma Tau Delta to Induct 58 on Sunday, Nov 20

2011-11-10T22:09:00.015-05:00

Inductees, returning members, faculty, and friends of Sigma Tau Delta: Please join us on Sunday, November 20, at 3 p.m., in 3025 Brown Hall, as we welcome our Fall 2011 inductees to the Alpha Nu Pi chapter of Sigma Tau Delta. We will induct 58 new members on November 20, making the Fall 2011 induction class the second largest in our chapter’s history.

And thanks to continuing support from faculty, friends of the Department of English, Dean Alex Enyedi and the College of Arts and Sciences for the Sigma Tau Delta Membership Fund, all 58 inductees will receive their lifetime memberships free of charge. (Faculty, friends, alumni: Please click here if you’d like to contribute to the fund. A gift of only $50 makes it possible to provide a deserving student with a lifetime membership to Sigma Tau Delta.)

The festivities will include (in the immortal words of 2007-08 chapter president Dan Kenzie), a “short but moving ceremony,” with a reception to follow, featuring a cake created by WMU senior and cake baker/decorator extraordinaire Cody Mejeur (Fall 2010 inductee).

Inductees, please invite your family, friends, and significant others. Returning members, please join us in welcoming our new members.

Hope to see everyone on November 20!

Congratulations to our Fall 2011 inductees:

Shantell Ann Aiken

Brittany Marie Aguinaga

Nicole Lynnae Allen

Catherine Bailey

Briana Marie Barnett

Kalani Barbara Bates

Michael Berry

Dustin Brown

Rosie Sharhonda Capps

Micah Isaac Carlson

Emily Chaney

Andrew J. Draper

Madison Edwards

Roslyn Marie Ellis

Erin E. Faultersack

Sebastian Fryer

Beth A. Fuller

Michael Joseph Gahry

Allison Glismann

Melissa Hall

Patrick Heflin

Thomas Kimble

Valerie Krzewski

Jared Seth Madden

Kimberly Ann Mattern

Kelsey McClure

Christen McCool

Shannon Katharine McCullough

Christy McDowell

Christopher George Miller

Kaitlyn Mitchell

Benjamin Adam Moran

Ellen Rachel Murad

Jessica Neuenschwander

Erin Maureen O’Connor

Maureen Elizabeth Pfaff

Kelsey L. Pretzer

Kimberly May Reikow

Cheryl Ririe-Kurz

Jordan Samuel Rossio

Devin Ryan

Samantha Rae Sandler

Nickolas Schrader

Tracy Sever

Joshua Paul Soloc

Alex J. Stacy

Jacob P. Szydzik

Katherine Nicole TerBerg

Taline Breann Topouzian

Paige Van De Winkle

Krista Lynn Van Prooyen

Lauren Vitu

Ashley Lauren Wall

Sarah J. Watkins

Molly Elizabeth White

Jennifer Leigh Wiley

William R. Witters IV

Amy Yuengert

[CANCELLED] Hoad on Wilde and Savagery - Visiting Lecture 11/10

2011-11-09T09:07:00.000-05:00

*************************************************************************

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS EVENT HAS BEEN *CANCELLED* & WILL BE RESCHEDULED FOR A FUTURE DATE TBA!

*************************************************************************

NEVILLE HOAD (University of Texas-Austin)

“Wildean Savagery”

In his lecture Hoad locates Victorian origin narratives, both Darwinian ontogeny/phylogeny recapitulation and Freud's theories of psychosexual development, as sites which produced curious and deeply imbricated discourses of the primitive and the homosexual. He proceeds to investigate how racial and imperial rhetorics of savagery and sexual deviance became entrenched in the writings of Oscar Wilde as well as in public declarations about the author, particularly during his infamous 1895 trial.

Thursday, November 10, 2011
7:00PM / Knauss 2500 (Center for the Humanities)
a reception will follow

Neville Hoad is an associate professor of English and affiliated faculty with the Center for Women's and Gender Studies, the Center for African and African American Studies, and the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice. He authored African Intimacies: Race, Homosexuality and Globalization (Minnesota, 2007) and co-edits (with Karen Martin and Graeme Reid) Sex & Politics in South Africa (Double Storey, 2005) and currently is writing a book on the literary and cultural representations of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Sub-Saharan Africa. His areas of research include African and Victorian literature, queer theory, and the history of sexuality.

Utz on Semantic Concepts, Temporality, and Medieval Rituals

2011-11-07T06:20:00.000-05:00

Richard Utz recently published "Negotiating Heritage: Observations on Semantic Concepts, Temporality, and the Centre of the Study of the Cultural Heritage of Medieval Rituals," Philologie im Netz 58 (2011): 70-87. This essay is a revised version of a paper originally presented at the "Fifth Conference on the Cultural Heritage of Medieval Rituals" at University of Copenhagen on October 26, 2009. It seeks to review the interdisciplinary scholarship done by the Centre of the Study of the Cultural Heritage of Medieval Rituals, a project funded by the Danish National Research Foundation since 2001, from the perspective of Reinhart Kosellek's work on semantic concepts and temporality, focusing specifically on a 2009 Centre publication: Negotiating Heritage: Memories of the Middle Ages, edited by Mette B. Bruun and Stephanie Glaser as volume 4 in Brepols Publishers' book series, Ritus et Artes: Traditions and Transformations. By bringing the "father" of conceptual historiography to bear on some of the scholarship in Negotiating Heritage, the essay contributes to tracing, from a meta-perspective, the momentous mutations through which Western societies and their scholars continue to conceive their experiences of the medieval past.

Third Coast poem wins Pushcart Prize

2011-11-04T22:31:00.004-04:00

Kathleen Flenniken's poem "Horse Latitudes," which appeared in Third Coast's Spring 2010 issue, was selected by the editors of the Pushcart Prize series for inclusion in Pushcart Prize XXXVI: Best of the Small Presses.

The FYW Professional Development Series Proudly Presents

2011-11-03T14:02:00.000-04:00

Dr. Dànielle Nicole DeVoss

Friday November 11, 2011 in Brown 1002

Dr. DeVoss is a professor of Professional Writing in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures at Michigan State University. Her numerous publications include a National Writing Project book, Because Digital Writing Matters (in collaboration with Elyse Eidman-Aadahl and Troy Hicks) and the 2007 Computers and Composition Distinguished Book Award winning title, Digital Writing Research: Technologies, Methodologies, and Ethical Issues (with Heidi McKee). Her work has also appeared in publications such as Computers and Composition; Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy; The Journal of Popular Culture; among others. See https://www.msu.edu/~devossda/bio.html for a full bio.

WORKSHOP (10:00 a.m. -11:30 a.m.)
"Text and Typography"

This hands-on workshop will provide some scaffolding discussion of the importance of text as a design element and documents as designed objects. Participants will look at some theory and scholarship about text—from rhetoric and writing studies and from graphic design. Participants will then explore different typefaces and the ways they can express meaning, and do some downloading, playing, and creating of different designed texts. All participants will leave with a jump drive of teaching materials and readings.

SEMINAR (12:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.)
"Digital-Visual Rhetorics: Themes, Issues, and Questions"

This presentation will introduce seven dominant themes, issues, and questions related to issues of digital-visual rhetorics. For each of the themes, Dr. DeVoss will share contemporary, situating theory and scholarship, and also contemporary, circulating examples. After the initial discussion of the seven themes, attendees will discuss the implications of these themes in our teaching and scholarship, and work to identify other emergent themes.

If you would like to attend either the workshop or seminar (or both), please RSVP to Jessica Neuenschwander, jessica.m.neuenschwander@wmich.edu, by Friday Nov. 4, 2011.

Words, Imagination, and Calls to Action

2011-11-03T11:37:00.000-04:00

Monday November 14th

6:00pm, Edwin & Mary Meader Rare Book Reading Room (#3016), Waldo Library, WMU

Alison Swan, Adjunct Professor, Western Michigan University

Title: No Complacency: Words, Imagination, and Calls to Action

Description: Award-winning writer and wildlands advocate, Alison Swan, has been immersed in the literary arts for as long as she can remember. Poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction have been central to her connection and commitment to the wild places that have shaped her. She’ll talk about this, and read from some of the poems and prose she’s written as she works to preserve space for wild nature in an increasingly built-up Michigan.

The lecture series is co-sponsored by the WMU University Center for the Humanities and the Department of English. The reading is free and open to the public.

Poets Gerald Stern and Anne Marie Macari Read Their Work: Fall 2011 Gwen Frostic Reading Series

2011-10-31T14:40:00.002-04:00

We welcome you to join us for our third reading of the Fall 2011 Gwen Frostic Reading Series. We’re honored to have poets Gerald Stern and Anne Marie Macari read their work this Thursday, Nov. 3rd. The reading will take place at the WMU Little Theatre, starting at 8:00 PM. We look forward to seeing you there.

Medievalism in 2012

2011-10-28T11:09:00.002-04:00

As President of the International Society for the Study of Medievalism it is my pleasure to invite you to join us at the 27th Annual International Conference on Medievalism.

With collegial regards,
Richard Utz (Western Michigan University)

----------

The meeting will be hosted by the Kent State University Regional Campuses on October 18-20, 2012, and the focus will be on:

Medievalism(s) & Diversity

Is there diversity in medievalism? How has medievalism represented diversity of religion, race, nationality, ethnicity, sexuality, gender,...? How have medievalist works supported issues concerning equity and inclusion? How have medievalist works oppressed and suppressed? Are there elements of bigotry and discrimination? What about human rights as a medieval concept, as a contemporary concept? Media to consider might include (but are not limited to) any of the following: novels, plays, films, art works, the Internet, television, historical works, political works, comics, video games. Angles to consider might include (but are not limited to) any of the following: race, gender, sexuality, disability/ability, religion, corporation and/or class, nationality, human rights, political correctness, marginalization, anti-marginalization tactics, rewritten codes, rewritten ideologies, re-affirmed codes, re-affirmed ideologies.

Conference Location: Nestled on 200 beautiful acres, yet only minutes from the hustle and bustle of The Strip and Westfield Belden Village Mall, Kent State University at Stark provides a quiet, serene and picturesque setting for students and the community to enjoy. With rolling hills, a pond, walking trail, and a Campus Center and Food Emporium, it is located in Jackson Township, just five minutes from the Akron-Canton Airport and easily accessible from Interstate-77.

Publication Opportunities: Selected papers related to the conference theme will be published in The Year’s Work in Medievalism.

Deadline: June 1, 2012
Please send paper and/or session proposals to either Carol Robinson (Conference Chair) or to Elizabeth Williamsen (Conference Assistant Chair).

Carol L. Robinson, Conference Chair
International Conference on Medievalism
Kent State University Trumbull 4314 Mahoning Avenue, NW Warren, Ohio 44483 EMAIL: clrobins@kent.edu FAX: 330-437-0490

Elizabeth Williamsen, Conference Assist. Chair
International Conference on Medievalism
Kent State University Stark 6000 Frank Avenue, NW North Canton, Ohio 44720 EMAIL: ewilli46@kent.edu FAX: 330-437-0490

For more information, please visit: http://www.medievalism.net/

Utz presents on Robin Hood, Frenched

2011-10-23T00:07:00.003-04:00

Richard Utz presented a paper, "Robin Hood, Frenched," at the 26th Annual International Congress on Medievalism at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. He also presided over a section that discussed "Camelot on the Small Screen: Enchantment and Authority." The conference was held under the auspices of the International Society for the Study of Medievalism as whose president Utz currently serves.

New Issues Currently Accepting Submission for the First Book Prize

2011-10-22T12:13:00.000-04:00

We are currently accepting submissions for our First Book Prize. This year's judge is Jean Valentine:

Jean Valentine won the Yale Younger Poets Award for her first book, Dream Barker, in 1965. Her eleventh book of poetry is Break the Glass, just out from Copper Canyon Press. Her previous collection, Little Boat was published by Wesleyan in 2007. Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems 1965–2003 was the winner of the 2004 National Book Award for Poetry. The recipient of the 2009 Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, Valentine has taught at Sarah Lawrence, New York University, and Columbia.

Submissions may be sent to:

New Issues Poetry Prize

New Issues Poetry & Prose

Western Michigan University

1903 W. Michigan Ave.

Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5463

Entries can also be uploaded to submishmash:

http://newissuespoetryprose.submishmash.com/submit.

Nagle on Poly Pedagogy

2011-10-19T12:06:00.000-04:00

Chris Nagle’s essay on “Teaching the Polyamorous (Long) Eighteenth Century” appears as the lead piece in a new special issue on “Eighteenth-Century Studies and the State of Education” in the online journal Digital Defoe: Studies in Defoe and his Contemporaries. The cluster of essays gathered there began as conference presentations from a session devoted to pedagogy at an earlier meeting of the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies. Nagle’s piece draws from both an introductory pilot course on the subject as well as his seminar from the current semester. The essay can be accessed through the link above.

Wed. November 9, 2011 at 7 p.m. Reading with Judith Rypma

2011-10-19T11:39:00.003-04:00

Two WMU Poet with New Book

Judith Rypma, author of Rapunzel's Hair, Forget-Me-Not and Holy Rocks, will be reading from and autographing her new poetry book at Kazoo Books, 2413 Parkview Ave., Kalamazoo, Michigan 49008. The reading is free, and refreshments will be served. For more information, e-mail read@kazoobooks.com ; or go to the website http://www.kazoobooks.com

Scholarly Speakers Series Presents Dr. Randy Bomer

2011-10-14T09:30:00.000-04:00

Dr. Randy Bomer, Associate Professor in the College of Education at University of Texas Austin and and Director of the Heart of Texas Writing Project, will give a talk entitled "Building a Literacy Curriculum on Student Strengths: Learning to See What Already Exists" on Thursday, October 27, at 7:00 p.m. in Brown 2028.

On Friday, October 28, Dr. Bomer will lead an informal conversation on "Teaching English for a Better World: Bringing Students into Literacy Practices for Social Change." This will take place at the new University Center for the Humanities (2500 Knauss Hall) from 10-11:30 a.m.

All department members are warmly encouraged to attend both events. Dr. Bomer's visit is co-sponsored by the WMU Department of Education and Human Development and the Third Coast Writing Project.

"The Cannibal War-Machine - Sacred Empowerment and the New World Order"

2011-10-13T12:38:00.001-04:00

Presentation date: October 20 at 5:30 pm. at 3025 Brown Hall.

Dr. Whitehead will lead a graduate seminar for faculty and graduate students on October 21 from 10:00 to 11:00 am in 4028 Brown Hall.

Dr. Whitehead's visit has been supported by WMU's Visiting Scholars's series, the Department of Anthropology, Africana Studies, English, and Global Studies and the Haenicke Institute.

Contact Dr. Mustafa Mirzeler for more information regarding Dr. Whitehead's visit to WMU.

Thursday night October 28, 7:00, 2028 Brown

2011-10-11T10:21:00.002-04:00

Building a Literacy Curriculum on Student Strengths: Learning to see what already exists

Sometimes, in the rush to pull a curriculum into alignment with official standards, we might neglect to consider the literacy practices in which our students already engage. But as educators have long understood, and as research is increasingly demonstrating, it's necessary to build new learning on the basis of what students already know. This conversation will allow us to become acquainted with strategies for bringing students' existing competence into the English classroom and then connecting those discoveries to the growth of advanced, academic literacies.

Friday morning 10-11:30 (probably in the Brown Humanities Center, room still awaiting confirmation)

Teaching English for a Better World: Bringing students into literacy practices for social change

Reading and writing can position students as powerless or powerful, as passive receptors or active world-changers. Teachers make decisions about the kinds of people who will be produced by the curriculum they offer, and enacting that curriculum, they help create the social world. In this conversation, we will examine first the ways the classroom itself promotes democracy, and second, some of the literacy practices we might make available to students that can build capacity in them to be agents of social justice.

Fiction Writer Sterling Watson Reads His Work: Fall 2011 Gwen Frostic Reading Series

2011-10-10T13:08:00.003-04:00

We welcome you to join us for our second reading of the Fall 2011 Gwen Frostic Reading Series. We’re honored to have fiction writer Sterling Watson read his work this Thursday, October 13th. The reading will take place at the WMU Bernhard Center, in room 157-158, starting at 8:00 PM. We look forward to seeing you there.

Alumni visit Brown Hall and Medieval Literature

2011-10-07T20:46:00.001-04:00

Robert Bradley and Karl Sandelin, English Department Distinguished Alumni 2008-2009 and 2009-2010, respectively, visited their academic home department as part of their 2011 Homecoming activities. Both of them took classes with Dr. William R. Brown, the English Department's second chair, after whom Brown Hall was named. Sandelin and Bradley were greatly pleased to see their former professor honored by the new mural recently added on the left of the Brown Hall main entrance. They also visited Richard Utz's ENGL 5300 class on The Matter of Troy in Medieval Literature, speaking to students in the class about their experience at Western and actively participating in classroom discussions about Benoit de St. Maure's Roman de Troie, Boccaccio's Il Filostrato, and other matters regarding various cultural, literary, and political translationes of texts from Classical Antiquity through the Middle Ages.

Mark your calendars for December 1, 2011 !

2011-10-06T13:34:00.000-04:00

Anne Fausto-Sterling will give a public lecture in Fetzer Auditorium with schedule as follows:

> 7-7:50 p.m. Public lecture,
> 7:50-8:30 p.m. Informal Q & A with audience immediately following
> lecture
> 8:30-9:15 p.m. Reception

"5 Under 35"

2011-10-04T15:11:00.000-04:00

The National Book Foundation’s
“5 Under 35” Fiction, 2011

5 Under 35 LogoThe National Book Foundation will recognize the 2011 5 Under 35, five young fiction writers selected by National Book Award Winners and Finalists, on Monday, November 14, once again at powerHouse Arena in DUMBO, Brooklyn. This year’s celebration will be hosted by filmmaker and author John Waters, with poet and National Book Award Finalist Patricia Smith as DJ.

Rebecca Keith, Program Manager at the National Book Foundation, who oversees the 5 Under 35 program, comments, “Host John Waters writes in his essay collection, Role Models, ‘Don’t let me ever hear you say, ‘I can’t read fiction. I only have time for the truth.’ Fiction is the truth, fool!’ This could well be the mantra for 5 Under 35, a program which has honored some of the best young fiction writers in the game since its inception in 2006. We’re pleased to see this year’s list of authors expand into new territory, with John Corey Whaley, the first ever Young Adult novelist honored, and Shani Boianjiu, one of our youngest 5 under 35 authors ever, at 24, who is completing the manuscript for her first novel.”

5 Under 35 Honorees

The 2011 5 Under 35 Honorees are:

* Shani Boianjiu, The People of Forever Are Not Afraid
(Hogarth, an imprint of Crown Publishers, forthcoming in 2013)
o Selected by Nicole Krauss, National Book Award Fiction Finalist for Great House, 2010

* Danielle Evans, Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self
(Riverhead Books, 2010)
o Selected by Robert Stone, Winner for Dog Soldiers, 1975, and Finalist for A Flag For Sunrise, 1982 and 1983, Outerbridge Reach, 1992, and Damascus Gate, 1998

* Mary Beth Keane, The Walking People
(Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009)
o Selected by Julia Glass, Fiction Winner for Three Junes, 2002

* Melinda Moustakis, Bear Down, Bear North: Alaska Stories
(The University of Georgia Press, 2011)
o Selected by Jaimy Gordon, Fiction Winner for Lord of Misrule, 2010

* John Corey Whaley, Where Things Come Back
(Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2011)
o Selected by Oscar Hijuelos, Fiction Finalist for The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, 1989

5 Under 35 Honorees

Shani BoianjiuShani Boianjiu was born in Jerusalem in 1987, from an Iraqi and Romanian background. She was raised in a small town on the Lebanese border. At the age of 18, she entered the Israeli Defense Forces and served for two years. She is at work on her first novel, The People of Forever Are Not Afraid.
(Photo courtesy of Shani Boianjiu)

Danielle EvansDanielle Evans is the winner of the 2011 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize. A graduate of Columbia University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, her stories have appeared in The Paris Review, A Public Space, The Best American Short Stories 2008, and The Best American Short Stories 2010. Her collection of stories, Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, is her first book. She lives in Washington, D.C.
daniellevaloreevans.com
(Photo by Nina Subin)

Mary Beth KeaneMary Beth Keane graduated from Barnard College in 1999, and received an MFA from the University of Virginia in 2005. She was a winner of the Chicago Tribune's Nelson Algren Prize, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. One of her stories was selected as a PEN/O. Henry Recommended Story for 2009, and her first novel, The Walking People, received Honorable Mention at the 2010 PEN/Hemingway Awards. She is currently working on her second novel, and lives in Pearl River, New York with her husband and two sons.
marybethkeane.com
(Photo by Carina Romano)

Melinda MoustakisMelinda Moustakis was born in Fairbanks, Alaska and raised in Bakersfield, California. She received her MA from UC Davis and her PhD in English and Creative Writing from Western Michigan University. Bear Down, Bear North: Alaska Stories, her first book, won the 2010 Flannery O'Connor Award in Short Fiction. Her stories have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Kenyon Review, Conjunctions, and elsewhere. She is currently a visiting professor at Pacific Lutheran University. www.melindamoustakis.com
(Photo by Emily Stinson)

John Corey WhaleyJohn Corey Whaley is a former teacher from Springhill, Louisiana. Where Things Come Back is his first novel. He was named a Spring 2011 Flying Start Author by Publishers Weekly. His novel was a Spring 2011 Okra Pick by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance and is currently a nominee for the American Library Association's Best Fiction for Young Adults 2012. The ABC Children's Group also included Whaley on their New Voices for Teens Top Ten List this year. He found an agent for Where Things Come Back through www.webook.com, being the first author to do so using this medium, and you can watch him on YouTube as WeBook’s #1 AgentInbox Success Story. For more information, visit his website, www.johncoreywhaley.com, or follow him @corey_whaley. (Photo by Ashley Bankston)

National Book Award Authors

Julia GlassJulia Glass is the author of Three Junes, winner of the 2002 National Book Award for Fiction; The Whole World Over; I See You Everywhere, winner of the 2009 Binghamton University John Gardner Book Award; and most recently The Widower’s Tale in 2010. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Her short fiction has won several prizes, and her personal essays have been widely anthologized. She lives in Massachusetts with her family. (Photo by Dennis Cowley)

Jaimy GordonJaimy Gordon’s fourth novel, Lord of Misrule, won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2010, and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award; it also won the Tony Ryan Award for the year’s best book about horse racing. Gordon’s previous novels include Bogeywoman, a Los Angeles Times Best Book for 2000, and She Drove Without Stopping, which brought her an Academy-Institute Award from the American Institute of Arts and Letters. She has been a Fellow of the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center and the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College. Among her other books are Shamp of the City-Solo and Circumspections from an Equestrian Statue. She has translated several works of Maria Beig from German, most recently Hermine, an Animal Life. Born in Baltimore, Gordon teaches at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo and in the Prague Summer Program for Writers. (Photo by Alan Ritch)

Oscar HijuelosOscar Hijuelos is the international bestselling author of eight novels, including The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, for which he became the first Latino to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and a memoir, Thoughts Without Cigarettes. He has also received the Rome Prize and prestigious grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. He lives in New York City.
(Photo by Dario Acosta)

Nicole KraussNicole Krauss is the author of Great House, which won the ABA Indies Choice Honor Award and the Anisfield-Wolf Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award and shortlisted for the Orange Prize. She is also the author of the international bestseller The History of Love, which was published by W. W. Norton in 2005. It won the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing and France’s Prix du Meilleur Livre Ėtranger, was named the Amazon.com Editors’ #1 Choice in Literature and Fiction, and was short-listed for the Orange, Médicis, and Femina prizes. Her first novel, Man Walks into a Room, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Award for First Fiction and was selected as a Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2002. In 2007, Krauss was selected as one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists, and in 2010, she was included as one of The New Yorker’s 20 under 40 best writers. Her fiction has been published in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Esquire, and Best American Short Stories, and her books have been translated into more than thirty-five languages. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York.
www.nicolekrauss.com
(Photo by Joyce Ravid)

Robert StoneRobert Stone is the acclaimed author of seven novels: Dog Soldiers (winner of the National Book Award), A Hall of Mirrors, A Flag for Sunrise, Children of Light, Outerbridge Reach, Damascus Gate, and Bay of Souls. His short-story collection, Bear and His Daughter, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His memoir, Prime Green, was published in 2006. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Stone lives with his wife in New York City. His most recent book, a collection of short stories entitled Fun with Problems, was published in 2010. (Photo by Gigi Kaeser)

The 5 Under 35 Celebration’s Host

John WatersJohn Waters is an American filmmaker, actor, writer, and visual artist best known for his cult films, including Hairspray, Pink Flamingos, and Cecil B. DeMented. He is most recently the author of Role Models and lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
(Photo by Greg Gorman).

The 5 Under 35 Celebration’s Featured DJ

Patricia SmithPatricia Smith is the author of six books of poetry, including Blood Dazzler, chronicling the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, which was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award, and one of NPR's top five books of 2008; and Teahouse of the Almighty, a National Poetry Series selection. Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah will be released in spring of 2012. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, TriQuarterly, Tin House, and both Best American Poetry 2011 and Best American Essays 2011. She is a Pushcart Prize winner and a four-time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam, the most successful poet in the competition’s history. She is a professor at the City University of New York/College of Staten Island, and is on the faculty of both Cave Canem and the MFA program of Sierra Nevada College. And she plays good music. http://wordwoman.ws/
(Photo by Rachel Eliza Griffiths)

Our Video Interviewer, Emma Straub

Emma StraubEmma Straub is the author of the story collection Other People We Married, as well as the forthcoming novel Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures. She also works as a bookseller at Brooklyn's BookCourt. Follow her thoughts about books, baked goods, and trashy television @emmastraub, and at www.emmastraub.net.

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Press inquiries
contact Sherrie Young
syoung@nationalbook.org

2011 5 Under 35 is
sponsored by:

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Photobooth LogoPhotography provided by
The Photobooth Party

Images from Photo Booth Party, 2010

View Photobooth images from the 2010 5 Under 35
Celebration

5 Under 35 Selections

2010
2009
2008
2007
2006

Donations and support
provided by:

BOE

Milk Truck

Stella Artois

Purdue Conference on the King James Bible

2011-09-29T17:36:00.003-04:00

Beth Bradburn and Grace Tiffany presented papers last week at the biannual conference on Renaissance prose at Purdue University, held this year in honor of the 400th anniversary of the first publication of the King James Bible. Beth Bradburn's paper discussed the KJV's status as an (or as the) original seventeenth-century prose poem. Grace Tiffany discussed Shakespeare's adaptation of biblical parables to comedy, history play, and tragedy.

Utz reviews Post-Historical Middle Ages

2011-09-27T11:59:00.000-04:00

Richard Utz recently reviewed the following volume for the Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 110/4 (2011), 520-22:

The Post-Historical Middle Ages. Edited by Elizabeth Scala and Sylvia Federico. The New Middle Ages. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

The front cover of this essay collection gives equal space to a picture of Karl Marx and a medieval manuscript, but neither of them is at the center of what the editors and contributors really have in mind for their readers. In fact, George Edmondson’s essay on the “Naked Chaucer” in Brian Helgeland’s 2001 movie A Knight’s Tale may serve to explain why Marx and manuscripts can only serve as backdrops to the scholarship presented in this volume....

READ COMPLETE REVIEW HERE.

Arnie Johnston as King Lear

2011-09-26T09:06:00.002-04:00

Good Morning All,

We are pleased to share with you early reviews of King Lear. Arnie Johnston returns to the Civic as King Lear! Follow the link for information on Johnston along with dates and times of the show.

http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2011/09/arnie_johnston_tackles_king_le.html

Dupuis, Tiffany and Witschi Open Scholarly Speakers Series

2011-09-20T14:26:00.000-04:00

This semester's keynote talk in the Scholarly Speakers Series will be given by Professors Meg Dupuis, Grace Tiffany and Nic Witschi. Their presentation, entitled "Collecting Wisdom: Editing as Scholarly Work" will be Thursday, September 29 at 7 p.m. in Brown Hall 3025. All members of the English Department community are warmly invited to attend.

Poet William Olsen Reads His Work: Fall 2011 Gwen Frostic Reading Series

2011-09-20T10:59:00.002-04:00

We welcome you to join us for our first reading of the Fall 2011 Gwen Frostic Reading Series. We’re honored to have WMU faculty member and poet William Olsen read his work this Thursday, Sept. 22nd. The reading will take place at the WMU Bernhard Center, in room 208-209, starting at 8:00 PM. We look forward to seeing you there.

Queering Paradigms IV Conference (Rio/July 25-28, 2012)

2011-09-19T11:54:00.000-04:00

Call for papers

[CFP page in English -- http://alab.org.br/eventosalab/queering/pag.php?view=article&id=98&lang=en]

Character of the conference and contributions:

Following the success of the three international, interdisciplinary Queering Paradigms conferences held thus far on three continents, the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Applied Linguistics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), the Graduate Program in Social Memory at the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO) and the Brazilian Association of Applied Linguistics (ALAB) are proud to announce Queering Paradigms IV, to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from the 25th to the 28th of July, 2012.

Our confirmed keynote speakers are Annamarie Jagose (University of Sydney, Australia), José Quiroga (Emory University, USA), Alípio Sousa Filho (Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil), Jack Halberstam (University of Southern California, USA), Luiz Paulo da Moita Lopes (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and Jô Gondar (Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil).

As in the previous conferences, we use the term 'queer' to refer to an indefinite, borderless domain of non-normative genders, sexualities and bodily practices that is also affiliated with critical analytic approaches, while recognizing that the term does not resonate globally as it emerged from Western experience. 'Queering' thus questions, contrasts, challenges and destabilizes heteronormativity, but is not restricted to it: homo-, class-, religion-, scientific- and academic-normativity are also part of its scope of analysis.

The aim of the conference is thus to analyze the status quo and the future challenges of Queer and LGBTIQ Studies from an ample, inter/multidisciplinary perspective, in order to problematize/destabilize (i.e. to queer) discourses and paradigms. Our intention is to bring together researchers from many countries in an exploration of queer and LGBTIQ social practices, presenting from disciplines as diverse as, but not limited to, anthropology, sociology, language studies, theology, political science, law, social medicine, philosophy, geography and social psychology.

Proposals for Papers and Panels:

Paper and panel proposals are invited on any aspect of Queer or LGBTIQ Studies. They shall be grouped into the following areas:

Queering ethics

Queering institutions

Queering language practices

Queering art and literature

Queering media practices

Queering races and ethnicities

Queering epistemologies and methodologies

Queering activism

Queering temporalities and geographies

Queering bodies, embodiment and identities

The proposals will undergo a peer-review process by our international board of reviewers and should be submitted through our website: http://www.alab.org.br/eventos/queering-paradigms-iv, by 15 December 2011.

Proposals for individual papers: These should take the form of abstracts with a minimum of 1500 and a maximum of 3500 characters, followed by three keywords.

Panel proposals: Panels may have between four and six participants, one of whom shall be the organizer. The submission must include a panel rationale of between 1500 and 3500 characters followed by three keywords, as well as four to six paper abstracts of the same length, each also including three keywords. The organizer is responsible for writing the panel rationale, collecting the participants' abstracts, and submitting everything together through our website.

Proposals may be submitted, and papers may be presented, in English, Portuguese or Spanish, but due to the international nature of the conference, the use of English is highly encouraged. Abstracts should be written in the intended language of presentation. For those who use English as a second/foreign language, please note that what matters for our conference is not so-called near-native fluency, but rather the ability to communicate ideas clearly, which may be further enhanced by visual props such as slides. Papers may be single- or co-authored. Potential participants may submit up to two proposals.

The proceedings of this conference will be prepared for peer-reviewed publication in the Queering Paradigms Series, made available by the international academic publishers Peter Lang.

Requests for further information can be sent by email to: queeringparadigms4@gmail.com.

You can also learn more on our website (http://www.alab.org.br/eventos/queering-paradigms-iv), and follow us on Twitter (@QueeringP4) and on our Facebook page (Queering Paradigms 4).

Newberry Grad Student Conference (deadline Oct.15)

2011-09-15T21:05:00.000-04:00

Center for Renaissance Studies2012 Multidisciplinary Graduate Student ConferenceConference Dates: Thursday, January 26 – Saturday, January 28, 2012Call for Papers Submission Deadline: Saturday, October 15, 2011

The Center for Renaissance Studies annual graduate student conference, organized and run by advanced doctoral students, has become a premier opportunity for maturing scholars to present papers, participate in discussions, and develop collaborations across the field of medieval, Renaissance, and early modern studies.Participants from a wide variety of disciplines find a supportive and collegial forum for their work, meet future colleagues from other institutions and disciplines, and become familiar with the Newberry Library and its resources. Each year since 2007, selected papers have been published in a peer-edited online conference proceedings. Call for Papers We invite abstracts for 15-minute papers from master’s or Ph.D. students on any medieval, Renaissance, or early modern topic, in Europe or the Mediterranean or Atlantic worlds. We encourage submissions from disciplines as varied as the literature of any language, history, classics, art history, music, comparative literature, theater arts, philosophy, religious studies, transatlantic studies, disability studies, and manuscript studies. Eligibility ♦ Presenters must be enrolled students in a master’s or Ph.D. program at the time of the conference, at a member institution of the Center for Renaissance Studies consortium.♦ Submissions from presenters at last year's conference will be given lower priority.♦ Due to the multidisciplinary nature of the conference, all papers must be read in English.Note that students from consortium schools may be eligibile to apply for travel funding to attend this program Submit a proposal Submissions must be made online. The submission form will require a paper title, an abstract of not more than 300 words, and a biographical paragraph, also of not more than 300 words.Complete the online submission form here no later than October 15, 2011. Organizers Partial list (three more to come):♦ Lara Apps, History, University of Alberta♦ Mary Channen Caldwell, Music, University of Chicago♦ Julia Finch,History of Art and Architecture, University of Pittsburgh♦ Abigail Stahl, French and Francophone Studies, Northwestern University♦ Jenny Toms, English, Michigan State University Conference registration Online conference registration, for presenters and organizers and for those simply attending the conference will be available by late fall 2011.Faculty and graduate students from Center for Renaissance Studies consortium schools are eligible to apply for travel funding to attend CRS programs or to do research at the Newberry Library. Contact your school's faculty representative in advance for details.http://www.newberry.org/renaissance/conf-inst/gradstudents.html

Arnie Johns on as King Lear

2011-09-15T12:01:00.002-04:00

A tragedy of consuming force, King Lear is widely regarded as Shakespeare’s crowning artistic achievement. Lear, the aging King of Britain, decides to step down from the throne and divide his kingdom among his three daughters. In an attempt to give the “largest bounty” to the one who loves him most, he puts his daughters through a test, asking each to tell him how much she loves him. Lear’s older daughters, in an attempt to gain his favor, shower their father with flattering answers. But Cordelia, Lear’s youngest and favorite daughter, remains silent, saying that she has no words to describe how much she loves her father. Lear flies into a rage and disowns Cordelia. Ultimately, to his great cost, the King learns which of his daughters has loved him most dearly.

PERFORMANCE DATES:

Friday, September 30, 8:00pm
Saturday, October 1, 8:00pm
Thursday, October 6, 7:30pm
Friday, October 7, 8:00pm (Interpreted performance date)
Saturday, October 8, 8:00pm
Sunday, October 9, 2:00pm
Friday, October 14, 8:00pm
Saturday, October 15, 8:00pm

YOU WON’T WANT TO MISS SHAKESPEARE’S CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT!
“King Lear is perhaps the greatest of all Shakespeare’s dramas…”
– The Telegraph

For TICKETS call 269-343-1313 or visit www.KazooCivic.com

Fall 2011 Gwen Frostic Reading Series

2011-09-12T10:46:00.003-04:00

The WMU Creative Writing Program would like to invite you to the Fall 2011 Gwen Frostic Reading Series. This semester, we'll host five different readings featuring eight readers. All of the readings are free and open to the public. We look forward to seeing you there.

Schedule of Events:

Poet and WMU Faculty Member, William Olsen:
September 22nd, 8:00 PM, WMU Bernhard Center 208-209

Fiction Writer, Sterling Watson:
October 13th, 8:00 PM, WMU Bernhard Center 157-158

Poets, Gerald Stern & Anne Marie Macari:
November 3rd, 8:00 PM, The Little Theatre

Playwright, Carlos Murillo:
November 17th, 8:00 PM, Bernhard Center 157-158

Alumni Reading: Elizabeth Knapp, Melinda Moustakis & Jason Skipper:
December 1st, 8:00 PM, Bernhard Center 157-158

Graphic Narratives Poster Presentation Event - 12/7/11

2011-09-10T17:14:00.008-04:00

SAVE THE DATE: Wednesday, December 7, 2011, from 4:00-6:00 pm in 4002 Brown Hall. The entire WMU English Studies community is invited to a poster presentation event showcasing the work of students enrolled this fall in Dr. Gwen Tarbox's course, ENGL 4100, Graphic Narratives. You'll have the opportunity to ask students questions about their research into the comics medium and to enjoy light refreshments. Please mark your calendars and join us.

To learn more about the course, visit the ENGL 4100 blog.

Gazette showcases University Center for the Humanities

2011-09-06T13:02:00.006-04:00

KALAMAZOO — The provost of Western Michigan University is calling it “a living room for conversation.”

A professor of Islamic studies says it can “help us come to grips with the social and economic challenges we face today in the U.S.”

Its founding director sees it as “kind of an incubator for ideas and projects” and a way to “take up intellectual and social questions that can’t be answered by any one discipline.”

All three say they want it to bring together faculty, staff, students and the broader Kalamazoo community.

They’re talking about the new University Center for the Humanities, which is scheduled to have its grand opening Oct. 5 and whose official founding is up for a vote by the WMU Board of Trustees on Sept. 28.

The center is in Room 2500 of Knauss Hall, a renovated space that was once the Space Gallery. Its organizers already have a full slate of lectures and other free events planned for the new academic year.

“Our speakers will be talking about big issues of interest to the community and to the wider world and showing how the humanities has an impact on real-world issues,” said Katherine Joslin, a longtime WMU English professor and the center’s founding director.

For example, prominent bioethicist Arthur Caplan will discuss health-care rationing, and New York University professor Richard Arum will talk about his study revealing that some undergraduates on the nation’s campuses are learning very little during their college years.

Humanities centers have grown in number at colleges and universities, and the WMU center was proposed two years ago by three new faculty members:

* Blain Auer, who teaches Islamic studies in the Department of Comparative Religion
* Natalio Ohanna, of the Spanish Department
* Lofton Durham, who teaches theater history.

They went to Provost Timothy Greene with the idea, and he was very supportive, Joslin said.

Greene said Joslin is being modest in not taking some credit for the idea. She made a similar proposal several years ago, he said. Joslin and two other employees — one full time and the other part time — are staffing the center, which also has a 10-member advisory board composed of faculty members. The center is funded through the Office of Academic Affairs.

Joslin said she was thrilled the new faculty members “were energized to bring the humanities back to the fore at Western.”

Discussing, solving issues

The term humanities refers to subjects such as literature, philosophy, ethics, history, religion, archeology, anthropology, geography, economics, political science and sociology. But no matter what area you might be working in, “the minute you step back to ask why you’re doing it, what the implications are, what the social impact is,” that is when you are dealing with the humanities, Joslin said.
Humanities events at WMU

These events planned by the University Center for the Humanities are free and open to the public:

Keynote speakers

David Carrasco, of Harvard University — “Borderlands and Cultural Encounters: Stories and Rhythms of Latin(o) American Lives,” a multimedia presentation on the cultural encounters among Spanish, Aztec and African people that formed the Mexican Americas, 4 p.m. Oct. 27, Room 2008, Richmond Center.

Jim Torczyner, of McGill University — “Fifteen Years Creating Engaged Citizenry in the Middle East: Building Strong Communities in Jordan, Israel and Palestine through Rights Advocacy,” 4 p.m. Jan. 26, Room 2008, Richmond Center.

Other events

Amanda Katherine Rath, of Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany — A talk on “Artworld(s) in Indonesia,” 5:30 p.m. Sept. 22, Room 2008, Richmond Center. Related to an exhibit called “Installation Arts: Indonesia” at the Richmond Center.

Opening reception for University Center for the Humanities — “Barbecue and Books,” Room 2500, Knauss Hall, 4-6 p.m. Oct. 5. WMU humanities scholars and writers are asked to donate signed copies of their books and articles for the center’s collection.

Film: “Alambrista” — About a Mexican man who enters the United States to find work to support his family, 7 p.m. Oct. 7, Little Theater.

Richard Arum, of New York University — An analysis of four years of student data by the author of “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses,” and a look at how students are faring in the current U.S. economic crisis, 5 p.m. Nov. 3, Room 2000, Schneider Hall.

Claudia Stevens, of Boston University — “Pigeon,” a theatrical performance and discussion about famed environmentalist and animal-rights champion Dame Miriam Rothschild, 7 p.m. Nov. 8, Dalton Center Lecture Hall.

Arthur Caplan, of the University of Pennsylvania, health care talk on “The Inevitability of Rationing and How to Be Fair About It,” 4 p.m. Feb. 23, Room 2008, Richmond Center.

Sonya Bernard-Hollins, journalist and WMU graduate — “How to Uncover the Hidden Treasures in Your Archives and Bring Them to Life,” 4 p.m. March 22, Room 2500, Knauss Hall.

Merze Tate Exhibit — Photographs, letters and tickets that document Tate’s travels and accomplishments, March 1-30, Room 2500, Knauss Hall.

Jen Bervin, poet and visual artist — “Small Infinities — Emily Dickinson’s Manuscripts,” 4 p.m. March 28, Meader Rare Book Room. Her large-scale works will be on exhibit at the Kalamazoo Book Arts Center, Suite 103A, Park Trades Center, 326 W. Kalamazoo Ave., where she will present her own poems at 7 p.m. March 29.

At WMU, about 4,000 of approximately 20,000 undergraduates major in the humanities, but all students take humanities courses as part of general education requirements, Auer said.

The humanities “contribute greatly to critical thinking and creativity and provide a basis for common discussion,” Greene said.

Auer voiced a similar view. “The humanities provide a grounding for a civil and civic society,” he said. “ ... They can provide the kind of forum that is essential to democracy. It’s not just the five-minute sound bite you get in a newscast. It’s deeper, more concerted efforts to understand the core issues of the day and how we can solve these, not just in the short term but in the long term.”

Auer said he would like the center to facilitate discussions on issues such as the economy, globalization, politics, democracy and representation, the media and information technology. And he’d like to see discussions about providing adequate education for all American citizens and preventing environmental catastrophes like the oil spill in the Kalamazoo River.

In October, the center is planning a free screening of the film “Alambrista,” which is about a Mexican man who slips across the border into the United States to find work to support his family back home. Auer said he has been talking with Hispanic organizations, farm workers and immigration-rights lawyers to let them know about the event.

Last year, when about 10 people were working on getting the humanities center started, they brought Martha Nussbaum, professor of law and ethics at the University of Chicago Law School, to WMU to talk about why democracy needs the humanities.

“That was an excellent example of an activity that the center would host that drew a very large crowd into the Bernhard Center, with people from the community and faculty and staff attending,” Greene said.

The center also is involved in two work groups, one planning a two-day conference for medical professionals and the other planning to teach humanities classes to low-income people for free.

Joslin said to have the center up and running just two years after it was proposed is quite unusual.

“Normally, it’s hard to make things happen that fast at the university,” she said. “I think it indicates a pent-up desire for it.”

Makers of the Middle Ages now available online

2011-09-05T19:19:00.001-04:00

Richard Utz and Elizabeth Emery, eds. Cahier Calin. Makers of the Middle Ages. Essays in Honor of William Calin. Print: Kalamazoo, MI: Studies in Medievalism, 2011, is now available in electronic format. You can access a .pdf of the complete volume at: http://works.bepress.com/richard_utz/86/ (please be patient since it is a huge file).

Here is the Table of Contents:

Jesse G. Swan: Erasmus, Calin, Reading and Living -2 Alicia C. Montoya: Madame de Sévigné’s Aristocratic Medievalism -3 William Paden: Pound’s Troubadours -5 Roy Rosenstein: Helen Waddell at Columbia: Maker of Medievalists -6 M. Jane Toswell: Seamus Heaney and Beowulf -9 Tom Shippey: Rudyard Kipling -10 Gwendolyn Morgan: J.R.R. Tolkien: Medievalism and Middle Earth -12 Edward Risden: Shakespeare: Making Medieval Character -13 Barbara K. Altmann: Christine de Pizan as Maker of the Middle Ages -15 Nils Holger Petersen: B.S. Ingemann: Danish Medievalism of the Early Nineteenth Century -17 Veronica West-Harling: Errol le Cain’s Fairy Tales as Manuscript Illustration -18 Carol Robinson: Edna Edith Sayers (f.k.a. Lois Bragg) -20 Pam Clements: Margaret Atwood and Chaucer: Truth and Lies -21 Richard Utz: Bernhard ten Brink and German English Studies in Lotharingia -23 Gayle Zachmann: Marcel Schwob’s Archeologies and Medievalism -24 Elizabeth Emery: Albert Robida, Medieval Publicist -26 Gina Psaki: C.S. Lewis: More Maiorum -29 Kathleen Verduin: The Medievalism of Charles Eliot Norton -30 Karl Fugelso: Tom Phillips’ Dante -32 Caroline Jewers: Six Views of William Morris -33 List of Contributors -35.

New Issue of Comparative Drama

2011-09-03T11:04:00.002-04:00

The summer 2011 issue of Comparative Drama, volume 45.2, was published online at Project MUSE in August. Hard copies of this issue will begin mailing by mid-September.

This issue includes the following contributions:

Essays
How to Do Witchcraft Tragedy with Speech Acts
Eric Byville

A “Birthright into a New World”: Representing the Town on Brome’s Stage
Denys Van Renen

Remaking the Chorus: Charles Mee Jr.’s Orestes 2.0
Peter Campbell

Fear Mongering, Media Intimidation, and Political Machinations: Tracing the Agendas Behind the All God’s Chillun Got Wings Controversy
Jeffrey Ullom

Performative Reading and Receiving a Performance of the Jour du Jugement in MS Besançon 579
Karlyn Griffith

Reviews
The Ethos of Drama; Rhetorical Theory and Dramatic Worth
by Robert L. King
reviewed by Martin J. Plax

Philosophers and Thespians: Thinking Performance
by Freddie Rokem
reviewed by Lydia Goehr

Shakespeare, Sex, and Love
by Stanley Wells
reviewed by Elizabeth Klett

Shakespeare and Biography
by David Bevington
reviewed by R. A. Foakes

Don Pedro Calderón
by Don W. Cruikshank
reviewed by Hilaire Kallendorf

Staging Spectatorship in the Plays of Philip Massinger
by Joanne Rochester
reviewed by Julie Sanders

Shakespeare’s Opposites: The Admiral’s Company 1594-1625
by Andrew Gurr
reviewed by Melissa D. Aaron

Shakespeare, Politics, and Italy: Intertexuality on the Jacobean Stage
by Michael J. Redmond
reviewed by Jason Lawrence

Euripides: Suppliant Women
by Ian C. Storey
reviewed by Eric Dugdale

Adam Pasen and Joe Sanders earn recognition at American College Theater Festival.

2011-08-31T09:15:00.001-04:00

Adam's play "Spats," which was a regional winner at ACTF last January, was a co-winner along with Joe Sanders' play "Fly-Over State" at the Actors' Theatre of Grand Rapids "Living on the Edge VIII: Secrets and Lies" festival of new 10-minute works. It was also in the top 40 for the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival in New York under a pseudonym, and performed at the Lion Theatre on 42nd Street. Here is the website: http://oob.samuelfrench.com/index.php/the-final-forty/spats-by-adrian-singleton/

Adam's dissertation play Tea with Edie and Fitz, which was produced in York Arena in July, has been awarded an Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation grant of $1000. The Foundation awards grants to projects that present LGBT figures in an actual historical context, and awarded the grant based on Tea's exploration of the sexual and gender dynamics between Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald as well as Henry James' struggle with his own latent desires.

Fall 2011

2011-08-30T16:21:00.002-04:00

New Issues Poetry & Prose

FALL 2011

Fall releases from New Issues by Susanna Childress, Lizzie Hutton, and Rachel Eliza Griffiths are now available for pre-order.

About Us

New Issues was established in 1996 by poet Herbert S. Scott.

Winner of the 2011 New Issues Poetry Prize

Andrew Allport has won the 2011 New Issues Poetry Prize for his manuscript the body | of space | in the shape of the human.

David Wojahn, author of World Tree, judged.

Andrew wins a $2,000 award and publication of his manuscript in the spring of 2012

Dear Friends,

Thank you so much for making our anniversary a success! We had a wonderful time, and enjoyed a sampling of Susanna Childress' and Lizzie Hutton's new works, which will be available very soon.

Here's a preview of our third fall release, Rachel Eliza Griffiths' Mule & Pear:

Mule & Pear, New Poems by Rachel Eliza Griffiths

Sincerely,

Kimberly Kolbe
New Issues Poetry & Prose

Here's a poet whose intelligence and imagination value truth above any of its enemies: comfort, decoration, lovely music, the blurring of the line between the personal and the human. The poems feel emotionally and intellectually spontaneous, as if we were present at their coming-into-being, a genuine writer-reader intimacy that's hard to achieve at any stage, let alone in a first book. The poems about childhood and adolescence are among the most powerful I've ever read. Tough, sexy, probing, tender, devoid of sentimentality, fiercely intelligent, and always a step ahead of the reader, She'd Waited Millennia is an important debut. --Chase Twichell

Susanna Childress writes at the cutting edge of the long tradition of love poetry. Her poems often involve tense negotiations between a sharp cultural intelligence and a body that craves its fulfillment. She writes with grace about love and lust, and she unfailingly delivers rhythmic and linguistic pleasures to her lucky readers as they follow the course of these inquisitive, unpredictable poems. --Billy Collins

Smart, nuanced, lush in their beauty, yetnever unaware of beauty's price, the poems in Mule & Pear meditate on what to do with the ghosts of history by which, as if inevitably, we find ourselves now shaped, now cornered, and now inhabited-each of us, then, an unwitting vessel made to carry the past forward. Griffiths is a master at capturing persona, and uses that gift, especially, to consider the notion of heritage-how much is inherited, how much is imposed? How much of what we believe is what we're told is true? The ambition of these poems dazzles, as does indeed their

achievement.--Carl Phillips

Our titles are available online through Amazon.com and spdbooks.org.

New Issues Event Sunday, August 28

2011-08-24T13:05:00.000-04:00

New Issues Poetry & Prose

SUMMER 2011

In This Issue

About Us

2011 New Issues Poetry Prize

Book of the Year Award

About Us

New Issues was established in 1996 by poet Herbert S. Scott.

Winner of the 2011 New Issues Poetry Prize

Dear Friends,

Can you believe it's been 15 years? By the end of this year New Issues will have published 135 books, and we couldn't have done it without you. Come celebrate this anniversary, and help us show appreciation for all of the hard work and dedication put forth by our departing Managing Editor, Marianne Swierenga.

The event will take place at Bell's Brewery, 355 E. Kalamazoo Ave. on Sunday, August 28 from 2:30 pm-5:00pm. We'll feature readings by novelists Jaimy Gordon & Bonnie Jo Campbell, and poets Susanna Childress & Lizzie Hutton. A $5.00 donation will be requested; as a non-profit we greatly appreciate your generosity!

Sincerely,

Kimberly Kolbe
New Issues Poetry & Prose

Fall releases from New Issues by Susanna Childress andLizzie Hutton will be available for pre-order.

Translation by Jaimy Gordon

It's not just a dog's life-it's a pig-cow-rat's life. In this deftly executed allegorical novel, Beig (Lost Weddings) gives an episodic, animal-centered account of the life of a young woman in rural Germany between the two world wars. Brief chapters-"Horse," "Cat," "Pig," etc.-recount the protagonist's less-than-idyllic encounters with the natural world. At birth, Hermine resembles a mutant horse; at school, she finds herself unable to write the assigned essay "Hurray, We're Slaughtering!" As a young teacher, she inadvertently causes the injury of a pupil during a spirited game based on a bear hunt, and she maims a badger with her motorbike. Disowned by her family for killing their pet goose, she is even scolded by her husband: "No one can have an animal with you around." Granted, "some days Hermine liked well enough," but most days she loses her battle with the bestiary. . . .This earthy, unsentimental novel is the perfect holiday gift for nihilists with a sense of humor. --Publisher's Weekly

It would be too bad if, because of Campbell's realistic style and ferocious attention to her setting, "Once Upon a River" were discounted as merely a fine example of American regionalism. It is, rather, an excellent American parable about the consequences of our favorite ideal, freedom. --Jane Smiley, The New York Times

Our titles are available online through Amazon.com and spdbooks.org.

Desire—Grad Conference@CUNY (Nov. 2011)

2011-08-15T22:07:00.002-04:00

CUNY Graduate Center (365 5th Avenue, New York, New York)
November 10-11, 2011

Desire: From Eros to Eroticism

The students of the Department of Comparative Literature at the City University of New York Graduate Center present an interdisciplinary graduate student conference on November 10-11, 2011.

The concept of desire has been the subject of much examination throughout centuries of literature. From the ancient Greek idea of eros to psychological analysis of the subject through contemporary negotiations of love and desire, the interpretation of desire has evolved, but it has always held a central role in literature and discourse. Desire serves as the motivation for action, and yet the most satisfying desire is often the one that remains unfulfilled. This conference will explore desire as it impels us forward in our pursuit of an end that may ultimately be unattainable.

We invite papers from all disciplines focusing on works from any period that explore desire as it is portrayed in literature, philosophy, theory, art, film, or society. Some of the questions this conference seeks to answer include, but are not limited to:

• How does desire serve as a motivating force?
• Must desire be fulfilled or does it serve another purpose?
• In what ways are the repercussions of desire demonstrated?
• How has the definition of desire evolved between different cultures or time periods?
• In what way does desire figure into political landscapes, contemporary or otherwise?
• What is the relationship between desire and cultural production and entertainment in the age of the Internet and other technologies?
• How does an author’s desire factor into the creation of a text?
• How does a character’s lack of desire affect the text?
• How does comprehension of desire help us to explore the human psyche?
• How is desiring the “undesirable” presented and addressed?
• How does desire relate to discussions of gender, sexuality, race, and other intersections of sexual politics?
• How does desire relate to other concepts such as love, seduction, intoxication, and pleasure?

Please submit a 300 word abstract for a 15-20 minute paper by September 15, 2011 to desireconference2011@gmail.com. Proposals should include the title of the paper, presenter’s name, institutional and departmental affiliation, and any technology requests. We also welcome panel proposals of three to four papers.

This conference is co-sponsored by the Writers’ Institute at the City University of New York Graduate Center, an un-MFA program devoted to bringing together the country’s most talented writers and today’s most celebrated editors, and by the Doctoral Students’ Council, the sole policymaking body representing students in doctoral and master’s programs at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

English Department Initiative in Digital Commons Newsletter

2011-08-11T12:11:00.002-04:00

Our department's EDGE (English Department Global Endeavor) initiative was recently recognized. See Courtney Smith, "First Adopters at WMich: How ScholarWorks and SelectedWorks serve a key objective of the English department at Western Michigan University," Digital Commons Subscriber Newsletter (Summer 2011), 3. The department collaborated with the Waldo Library (Maira Bundza) on the Digital Commons project, which is also supported by Provost Greene.

New Issues Poets and Staff Win Awards

2011-08-08T19:48:00.001-04:00

Congratulations to these New Issues poets on awards for their new works:

Diane Seuss, Cultural Center of Cape Code Poetry Competition
Katie Peterson, Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant
Heather Sellers, Friends of American Writers Literary Award
Goldie Goldbloom, Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award
AND ForeWord Review's Gold Medal in Literary Fiction
Paul Guest, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship
Jennifer Perrine, University of Utah Press' Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry

And:
Congrats to New Issues' staffers, Natalie Giarratano & Jonathan Rice for their inclusion in Best New Poets! http://bestnewpoets.blogspot.com/2011/08/best-new-poets-2011-final-fifty.html

Congratulations Natalie and Jonathan !

2011-08-08T08:05:00.003-04:00

Saturday, August 6, 2011
Best New Poets 2011 Final Fifty
We’re pleased to announce the fifty final selections for Best New Poets 2011 as made by D.A. Powell.

2011 Finalists

Scott Abels, “As Rambo Lay Dying” (nominated by Juked)
Kaveh Bassiri, “See Also”
Ash Bowen, “How Gravity Hated Us”
Thea Brown, “Anxieties of the Living Dead”
Eric Burger, “The Friendly Neighbor”
Zach Buscher, “Nanopharmacology”
William Camponovo, “Elegy”
Brittany Cavallaro, “At the Illinois State Fair”
Charlie Clark, “Essay Against Symbolism”
Claudia Cortese, “She Wants to be All Horse”
J. K. Daniels, “Unmapped” (nominated by George Mason University)
James Davis, “Aa”
Jesse DeLong, “The Amateur Scientist's Notebook: Phosphorus”
Ansel Elkins, “Ghost at My Door”
Natalie Giarratano, “New Coyote”
David Gorin, “from Dust Jackets”
Rae Gouirand, “Ice Plant”
Kimberly Grey, “Conjugated”
Christian Harder, “A Difficulty of Flowers”
Rebecca Hazelton, “Book of Janus”
Hilary S. Jacqmin, “Wedding Album”
Janine Joseph, “Wreck”
Eric Kocher, “A Taxonomy of the Etiquette of Brandos”
Virginia Konchan, “Cafe Noir” (nominated by the University of Illinois at Chicago)
Kate Lebo, “Every Beginning Wants a Good Place to Start”
Julie Lein, “Fennel”
Nate Liederbach, “Untitled [There’s only one kind of kindness...]”
Jennifer Luebbers, “Recess”
Jodie Marion, “The Exile's Wife”
Ayako Matsushita, “Lingering Summer Heat”
Gerardo Mena, “So I Was a Coffin”
Sara Michas-Martin, “Cage” (nominated by The Believer)
Hemant Mohapatra, “All That Bravery Got Us Nowhere”
Jacob Newberry, “Outdoor Sermon on the Concrete Foundation of What Was the First Baptist Church of Gulfport, Mississippi”
Angelo Nikolopoulos, “Daffodil”
Sarah Rose Nordgren, “Don’t”
Pamela Johnson Parker, “Housewifery: An Annotation”
Nancy Reddy, “My Girlhood Apothecary”
Jonathan Rice, “Soon Ghost”
Matthew Ritger, “Thirty”
Dean C Robertson, “St. Catherine Yearning in North America”
Aubrey Ryan, “Sam and Lulu at the Very End of the World”
Nicole Sealey, “An Apology for Trashing Magazines in Which You Appear”
Emily T. Smith, “Sacagawea, That Strange Bird”
Jeff Tigchelaar, “Blurbs”
Stephen Neal Weiss, “Four Color Process”
David Welch, “17 Movements in Spring”
Josh Wild, “Self-Portrait after Paul Morphy's Stroke”
Cori A. Winrock, “Anterior of a Razed Room” (nominated by Black Warrior Review)
Chelsea Woodard, “Finding the Porn Magazines”

Statistics

Number of submissions: 1363
Number of submissions sent to the guest editor: 185 (some with one poem, some with two)
Number of final selections: as always, 50
Number of male finalists: 24
Number of female finalists: 26
Number of finalists selected who were nominated by a journal or school: 5
Number of finalists selected from the Open Competition: 45

Biographies

“New Coyote”
NATALIE GIARRATANO is a PhD candidate in poetry at Western Michigan University. Recent poems appear or are forthcoming in American Literary Review, Laurel Review, and Hayden’s Ferry Review. She was poetry editor for Third Coast for two years and an assistant editor at New Issues Poetry and Prose for three.

“Soon Ghost”
JONATHAN RICE’s poems have been published in AGNI Online, Colorado Review, Mississippi Review, Sycamore Review, and Witness, among others, and were included or are forthcoming in The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume V: Georgia, A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry, Best of the Web 2009, and Best New Poets 2008. His poetry was also selected for the 2010 Indiana Review Poetry Prize, the 2010 Richard Peterson Poetry Prize from Crab Orchard Review, the 2008 Gulf Coast Poetry Prize, the 2008 Milton-Kessler Memorial Prize from Harpur Palate, the 2008 Yellowwood Poetry Prize from Yalobusha Review, and the 2006 AWP Intro to Journals Awards. He received an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University, and is currently a PhD candidate at Western Michigan University.

Natalie and Jonathan we could not be more proud of you.

Utz comes to terms with Medievalism

2011-08-05T05:58:00.001-04:00

Richard Utz recently published, in the European Journal of English Studies, volume 15/2, 2011 (special issue on Medievalism, ed. Ute Berndt and Andrew James Johnston), an essay entitled "Coming to Terms With Medievalism."

Abstract: "Medievalism, the continuing reception of medieval culture in post-medieval times, has existed as an amphibolous term since the mid-nineteenth century, when it was employed as a synonym for the medieval period. Following the foundational theoretical work by conceptual historian Reinhart Koselleck, this essay investigates the history of the concept, ‘medievalism,’ as a linguistic performance responding to particular pressures inside and outside the academy. The concept can be shown specifically to be the product of what Koselleck calls the process of ‘temporalization’ (Verzeitlichung) which marks the transition from early modern mentalities to modernity and the modern university. Rejected as the dilettante ‘Other’ of academic medieval studies in the late nineteenth century, the English term survived probably due to the unique continuity postmedieval British subjects have felt with their medieval past. ‘medievalism’ has since transmuted into a scholarly practice (‘medievalism studies’), spawned a subfield (‘Neomedievalism’), competed with coeval movements (‘New medievalism’), and become, most recently, the linguistic and epistemological weapon of scholars who would like to bridge the rigid alterity toward medieval culture with the assistance of presentist empathy, memory, subjectivity, resonance, affection, desire, passion, speculation, fiction, imagination, and positionality. Based on its historical priority and conceptual inclusiveness, ‘medievalism’ is apt to encompass and reconfigure the various ways in which we will continue to receive medieval culture inside and outside the academy."

Legacy Seeks Applicants for Website Position

2011-08-03T08:17:00.000-04:00

The editors of _Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers_ seek the assistance of an individual committed to enhancing the journal’s online presence. Interested parties should possess technological skills in creating modern website design, coding content for display in modern web browsers, programming dynamic text and graphic content repositories, monitoring use of the website, and troubleshooting technical problems in the website. Also required are editing experience, knowledge of the field of U.S. women’s writing from the colonial period to the early twentieth century, and the ability to work independently and meet deadlines.

Responsibilities will include designing, maintaining, monitoring, improving, and updating the _Legacy_ website http://legacy.ucsd.edu/ ; selecting (in consultation with other editors) materials for publication on the website; editing materials that appear on the website; seeking grant funding opportunities; and carrying out other activities to enhance the journal’s web presence. Individuals at any rank, ranging from advanced graduate students to senior faculty members, are encouraged to apply. Interested parties should be aware that there is no financial support available for taking on such a role; all of _Legacy_’s editors and consultants work in a volunteer capacity, although they are encouraged to seek support for their work with _Legacy_ from their home institutions.

If interested, please send your c.v. (including the names of at least three references), a statement of your qualifications, and a letter summarizing your interests in the fields covered by _Legacy_ to Legacy-editor@ucsd.edu . Review of applications will begin on 1 Sept. 2011 and will continue until the position is filled. Nominations are also welcome.

Save the date

2011-07-29T13:04:00.000-04:00

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

2011-07-29T11:54:00.000-04:00

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!

2011-07-29T11:52:00.002-04:00

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.

Funding Opportunity from NEH

2011-07-22T10:03:00.000-04:00

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

2011-07-22T04:46:00.000-04:00

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.

Queer People Conference (Cambridge '12)

2011-07-13T01:20:00.004-04:00

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

Gwen Tarbox on Harry Potter (Detroit News)

2011-07-11T12:57:00.000-04:00

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

Review of English Studies Prize

2011-07-10T21:59:00.003-04:00

*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

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

2011-07-09T10:00:00.004-04:00

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.

Detroit Free Press article highlighting our Creative Writing program

2011-07-07T12:41:00.001-04:00

Here is a very nice article highlighting some of the great work of our graduate creative writing program.

http://www.freep.com/article/20110703/FEATURES05/107030390/Michigan-s-west-side-hot-spot-writers

New Issues Novel Wins Book of the Year Award

2011-07-01T15:43:00.000-04:00

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

9/11 Ten Minute Playwriting Contest

2011-06-29T09:03:00.000-04:00

The 9/11 Ten Minute Playwriting Contest

Can you write a 10 minute play about 9/11 before Sat. 30th July 2011?

Think of 9/11 as a metaphor for Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East, USA, Pakistan, England, Syria, Israel, Kuwait, War, Peace, Muslims, Jews, Christians,Heathens, Chaldren, Sunni, Shiite, Oil, Koran, Bible, Torah, Bubba, God, Hillary, Mohammad, Buddha, Jesus, George W.,Osama, Obama, Sistanni, Saddam, 41, Kerry, Gore, Clinton, Powell, Chaney, Chalaba, Sadr, Blair, Rumsfeld, Pervez, Satire, Comedy,Drama, Prophet, Iran, Baghdad, Hezbollah, Ashura, CIA, Palestine, WMD, Scuds, Islam, Tribes, Taliban, McCain, ISI, Mullah, Al-Qaeda,Beirut, Crusaders, No-Fly Blacklist, Hamas, Sheiks, Clans, Occupation, Patriot Act, IED's, Congress, FBI, Northern Alliance, Mullah,Pentagon, Terrorists, Yeman, Bhutto, Guantanamo, Desert Storm, Jihad, Parable, Democracy, Imam, Persian Gulf War, NSA,Madras, Rendering, Rabbi, SaudiaArabia, Peshmerga, Sovereign Nation, Egit, Hijab, Together Forward, SERE, Surge, Arab, Kut, Gonzales,Law, Supreme's, Caliphate, Taiz,Love,Mecca, 5 Pillars, Mujaheddin, Coalition,Saladin,Condi, Barney, etc., etc. Can you write about soldiers and civilians dying? Non- partisan 1st prize $100, 2nd prize $25, 3rd prize $25, 4th - 1th prizes $10.

There will be 25 semi-finalists , then 10 finalists.
The 10 finalists chosen by independent judges
will have a staged reading in Los Angeles on 9/11, 2011.
On 9/11 , independent judges will decide the #1 winner.
Semi-finalists and finalists will be notified.

          Submission Guidelines:
1.     Play must be  Unpublished , unproduced and not have won any other contests.
2.       No longer than 10 minutes
3.         One page biography .
4.       Include Two copies of each script.
5.        No e-mail scripts accepted.
6.      Include brief character descriptions.
7.    A voluntary donation of 3 first class stamps from your country.
8.     Contest open to Earth Citizens, including Canadians and Mathematicians.
9.    Deadline: Sat. 30th July 2011.

Please mail to: American Science Theatre

Short Plays

P. O. Box 291 460

Los Angeles CA 90029 USA.

( Please, no registered scripts).

www.americansciencetheatre.com

We are also looking for Plays/Screenplays , from 10 minutes to full length about science and/or scientists. Please mail to above address. Each writer will be contacted before we perform your script.

We are also seeking Sponsors/Donations for productions. Interested? Any suggestions? Please contact :john at americansciencetheatre dot com

Lynn Welsch tribute

2011-06-22T14:17:00.001-04:00

By Karen Vocke and Ellen Brinkley

English faculty, area teachers and Third Coast Writing Project teacher consultants across southwest Michigan are saddened by the recent death of Lynn Welsch, a middle school English language arts teacher at Fennville Middle School. She retired from teaching at the Fennville Public Schools in June of 2010, after 31 years as a seventh grade language arts teacher.

Lynn was a member of the Western Michigan University Third Coast Writing Project (TCWP)’s first Invitational Summer Institute in 1994 with Dr. Ellen Brinkley, director. Lynn continued to be an active participant. Just a few days before she passed away, she was making plans to coordinate a summer workshop for TCWP on the topic of English Language Learners. Lynn was a recent MAET graduate of our department. As a part time instructor, Lynn taught ENGL 3770, Language and Literacy in the Multilingual Classroom.

A longtime advocate and teacher for for migrant and English Language Learners, Lynn focused on the needs of students in Fennville Public Schools whose families spoke little English and often moved away in the fall, returning in the spring. Too often these students were given worksheets and seated in the back of the room. Lynn worked with one of the National Writing Project (NWP)’s special divisions, the English Language Learners Network, to collaborate nationwide with other educators to learn about and to train other educatiors about approaches to teaching that were especially effective in working with English learners.

Lynn regularly lead conference sessions on ELL issues and served as a member of the leadership team for the National Writing Project’s English Language Learners Network. Lynn worked very closely as well with Dr. Karen Vocke on a research project on migrant education in southwest Michigan. Lynn’s chapter on digital storytelling is featured in Karen’s book, Where Do I Go From Here? Meeting the Unique Educational Needs of Migrant Students (Heinemann, 2007).

A memorial service was held on June 17^th at the Fennville United Methodist Church where Lynn was a member. She is survived by her husband Douglas W. Welsch; son Justin and Sarah Welsch of Dimondale, MI; daughter Gwendolyn and Brian Lesperance of Okemos, MI; granddaughter Emma Lynn Welsch; mother Margaret AnnaLou Marek of Tinley Park, IL; sister Joan and Rollin Dilworth of Frankfort, IL; and her mother-in-law Ruth Welsch of Fennville, MI.

Tiffany on Shakespeare's Miracles

2011-06-18T18:35:00.003-04:00

Grace Tiffany's "Shakespeare's Miracle Plays," a paper presented at last year's Medieval Congress, has been accepted for publication by the journal English Studies.

Hiscox publishes in The Writer's Chronicle

2011-06-17T16:10:00.000-04:00

Elizabyth Hiscox, PhD student in English (Creative Writing/Poetry), recently published (together with C. Hogue and L. Roma-Deeley) "A Conversation with Martha Collins" in The Writer's Chronicle 43.6 (May/Summer, 2011), pp. 24-32.

A Special Issue of Comparative Drama

2011-06-16T17:16:00.002-04:00

Comparative Drama Volume 44/45 • Winter/Spring 2010/11 • No. 4/1 was published earlier this month.

This special double issue, Translation, Performance, and Reception of Greek Drama, 1900–1960: International Dialogues, was guest edited by Amanda Wrigley who recently spoke at WMU as part of the Department of English's Scholarly Speaker Series.

The contents of this special issue include:

Essays
Greek Drama in the First Six Decades of the Twentieth Century: Tradition, Identity, Migration
Amanda Wrigley, guest editor

Toward a National Heterotopia: Ancient Theaters and the Cultural Politics of Performing Ancient Drama in Modern Greece
Eleftheria Ioannidou

Oedipus, Shmedipus: Ancient Greek Drama on the Yiddish Stage
Debra Caplan

‘The Kingdom of Heaven within Us’: Inner (World) Peace in Gilbert Murray’s Trojan Women
Simon Perris

Touring the Ivies with Iphigenia, 1915
Niall W. Slater

Is Mr Euripides a Communist? The Federal Theatre Project’s 1938 Trojan Incident
Robert Davis

Oedipus and Afrikaans Theater
Betine Van Zyl Smit

"Now the struggle is for all!" (Aeschylus's Persians 405): What a Difference a Few Years Make When Interpreting a Classic
Gonda Van Steen

Oedipus, Suez, and Hungary: T. S. Eliot’s Tradition and The Elder Statesman
Michael Simpson

Research Notes
African-American Classicist William Sanders Scarborough and the 1921 Film of the Orestia at Cambridge University
Michele Valerie Ronnick

Alberto Savinio’s Alcesti di Samuele in the Aftermath of the Second World War
Giulia Torello

Politics, War, and Adaptation: Ewan MacColl’s Operation Olive Branch, 1947
Claire Warden

Aristophanes and Douglas Young
C.W. Marshall

Afterword
Lorna Hardwick

Salisbury and Schulman join Advisory Board of Medievally Speaking

2011-06-15T10:29:00.006-04:00

Eve Salisbury and Jana Schulman, both medievalists at Western Michigan University, have recently joined the advisory board of Medievally Speaking, the online review arm of Studies in Medievalism, the leading publication investigating the ongoing reception of the Middle Ages in postmedieval times. While Medievally Speaking draws from a vast pool of international scholars dedicated to the multilingual and interdisciplinary negotiation of medievalia, it is also firmly anchored in the English Department at WMU, with Richard Utz as editor and Mustafa Mirzeler, Eve Salisbury, and Jana Schulman as members of the advisory board.

Eve Salisbury studied English literature and language at the University of Rochester and the State University of New York at Geneseo and has taught at Eastman School of Music and Rochester Institute of Technology. At Western Michigan University, she teaches the works of late medieval poets—Dante, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Gower, Christine de Pizan, and Marie de France—Middle English and Arthurian literature, Medieval Literary Theory, British Literature I, and Medieval Drama. She has also taught a graduate seminar on medieval marriage at the Newberry Library in Chicago.
Her publications include three volumes for the Middle English Text Series—The Trials and Joys of Marriage, Four Romances of England, and The Middle English Breton Lays—an edited collection, Domestic Violence in Medieval Texts, in which her essay on Chaucer's 'wife' and the law appears, and essays in journals such as Medieval and Early Modern English Studies, Studies in the Age of Chaucer, a monograph series (Speculum Sermonis), and special collections on medieval violence. She has written book reviews for Speculum and reviewed submissions for PMLA, The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Chaucer Review, and Brepols. Her current research focuses on domesticity and the concept of the child in Chaucer's work as well as intersections of poetry, legal fiction, and historical documentation. Salisbury has presented her work in over forty conferences both in the U.S. and abroad. She has served as senior editor of Comparative Drama since 2003.

Jana K. Schulman studied medieval English, German, and Scandinavian languages and literatures at the University of Minnesota. At Western Michigan University, she teaches Old English (Introduction and Seminar), Old Norse (Introduction and Seminar), Medieval Literature, British Literature I, and Western World Literature, and her scholarship centers on law and literature in medieval Iceland and Anglo-Saxon England as well as on women and epic. She is the editor of The Rise of the Medieval World (Greenwood, 2002), co-editor of Women and Medieval Epic: Gender, Genre, and the Limits of Epic Masculinity (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2007), co-editor of Beowulf at Kalamazoo: Essays in Translation and Performance (MIP, Forthcoming), and editor and translator of The Laws of Later Iceland: Jónsbók (A-Q Verlag, 2010). Her essays have appeared in Scandinavian Studies and the Germanic Review as well as in essay collections; she has reviewed publications for the Journal of English and Germanic Philology and Speculum. Schulman has been the recipient of a FRACASF grant from WMU (2003-2004), a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for College Teachers (2001), and several Fulbright grants for research in Iceland.

Utz reviews Mapping Medievalism

2011-06-14T11:34:00.004-04:00

Richard Utz recently reviewed: Kathryn Brush, ed., Mapping Medievalism at the Canadian Frontier. London, ON: Museum London & McIntosh Gallery, 2010.

In 2012 it will be 20 years that I attended my first Medievalism conference at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Then, as a European greenhorn who thought that growing up among the remnants of medieval architecture automatically conferred authority on me to speak of the Middle Ages, I voiced some glib doubts about the location for the conference among palm trees and close to Busch Gardens. The conference participants and their papers convinced me otherwise. In fact, ... READ THE FULL REVIEW.