ARNIE AWARD winning plays @ New Play Project

On Tuesday evening, the audience at this summer's New Play Project saw the three award-winning plays as script-in-hand staged readings. The audience included Dr. Arnie Johnston, Professor and Chair emeritus at Western's English Department, and Francine Rossi, 2007-2008 English Department Distinguished Alumna. The New Play Project, now in its seventh year, is a collaborative effort among faculty and students in the Departments of English and Theatre.

Redding Reviews

English PhD student Adrienne Redding recently published her review of The Consolation of Queen Elizabeth I: The Queen's Translation of Boethius's De Consolatione Philosophiae, eds. Noel Harold Kaylor, Jr. and Philip Edward Phillips; Tempe, Arizona: ACMRS, 2009, for the journal Prolepsis: The Heidelberg Review of English Studies. Read it HERE.

The Tony, the Emmy, the Grammy, and the Arnie...

The Seventh Annual New Play Project closes this Tuesday, January 29th, at 7 PM in the York Arena Theatre in the Gilmore Complex with script-in-hand staged readings of this year's Arnie Johnston Award winning plays.

A wine and cheese reception celebrating the playwrights will immediately follow the hour-long reading. Admission to the reading and reception is free.

Last year in honor of the retirement of our colleague and friend Arnie Johnston, the English Department established an award to celebrate excellence in student playwriting: The Arnie Johnston Undergraduate Playwriting Awards. Two “Arnie’s” are given each year: One to a promising WMU undergraduate to partially fund his or her participation in having a play developed through the New Play Project; and one to a playwright from our five state region (MI, IL, IN, OH, and WI), so the winning playwright can attend a reading of his or her play at the New Play Project and focus attention on the substantial new play work being done at Western. This year’s WMU winner is Kristina House, and the regional winner is Patrick McLean from De Paul University.

Now in its seventh summer, Western Michigan University’s New Play Project has developed and presented over ninety plays to audiences in the York Arena Theatre. Each summer fifteen student-plays are selected for a developmental rehearsal process with a company of actors and directors from the Theatre Department that culminates in a series of script-in-hand productions.

Please join us to celebrate these talented students, see some terrific theatre, and honor and support the playwriting legacy of Arnie Johnston. If you have questions about the evening or the “Arnie” Award please feel free to contact Dr. Steve Feffer at steve.feffer@wmich.edu.

Hruska and Bush receive Dean's Appreciation Award

It is my great pleasure to announce that one staff (Michelle Hruska) and one faculty member (Jonathan Bush) are recipients of the Dean's Staff and Faculty Appreciation Award. Needless to say that both of them are truly exceptional members of our unit and greatly deserving of this recognition. Please congratulate them when you have the opportunity.

AAC&U American Association of Colleges and Universities

Call for Participation: General Education for a Global Century

AAC&U has announced a new project – General Education for a Global Century – funded with a generous grant from the Henry Luce Foundation. The project seeks to build the capacity of colleges and universities to prepare today’s college students to grapple with big global challenges and thrive in a globalized economy as socially responsible and engaged citizens and workers.

Part of AAC&U’s ongoing initiative, Shared Futures: Global Learning and Social Responsibility, this curriculum and faculty development project will build upon innovative efforts to reframe general education courses and programs. Participants will create coherent curricular designs that address complex, global issues across divisions and disciplines.

Teams from thirty colleges and universities will be selected through a nationwide, competitive application process to lead a high-profile, national effort to

articulate essential global learning outcomes for all students;
refine and disseminate models of global general education curricula that can be adapted across all institutional types;
provide faculty development opportunities to assist college faculty in designing and teaching interdisciplinary, integrative courses that focus on real-world global issues; and
develop rubrics to assess global learning outcomes.
The Call for Participation is available online. The deadline for applications is September 15, 2010.

For additional information, please e-mail Chad Anderson or call 202-387-3760. We look forward to reading your applications.

Questions about any of AAC&U's meetings? Email meetings@aacu.org. To unsubscribe from AAC&U Calls for Proposals and Meeting Announcements, click here.

Association of American Colleges & Universities
1818 R Street, NW
Washington, DC 20009
www.aacu.org

Utz publishes on the History of Chaucer Studies

Richard Utz recently published "The Colony Writes Back: F.N. Robinson's Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (1933) and the Translatio of Chaucer Studies to the United States," in the refereed journal Studies in Medievalism 19 (2010), 160-203. The essay, which delineates the genesis and reception of the precursors to the famed Riverside Chaucer of 1987, reveals a number of post-/neo-colonial translationary moves by F.N. Robinson, the editor of the Complete Works, meant to give Chaucer studies a new home in the U.S.

New Play Project Seven Rolls On with Plays By Joseph Sanders and Emilia LaPenta

New Play Project Seven rolls on with two more script-in-hand staged readings of new student written work. Tomorrow night features "An Interesting Man" by WMU MFA playwriting student Joseph Sanders and "Rooted" by Emilia LaPenta, a playwright from Kalamazoo College that is part of our annual playwright exchange with K. All this and you're out in time to see Celtics/Lakers game seven.

The readings are Thursday, June 17th at 7 PM and free and open to the public in the York Arena Theatre in the Gilmore Complex.

Lone Star College Grant Funded Positions

Faculty, Dev. English ~ Anticipated - Multiple Positions (Grant-funded), #40705

Lone Star College-Montgomery (Houston, TX)

Distinguished by excellence in teaching, innovation, and responsiveness to community needs, the Lone Star College System (LSCS) is one of the fastest growing community college systems in the great state of Texas. We are the largest institution of higher education in the greater Houston area and second largest community college in the state, serving over 62,000 credit students each semester.

Lone Star College System is currently seeking applicants for a Developmental English Faculty. This grant-funded temporary position is located at our Montgomery campus. If possible, please distribute to any colleagues, students or alumni that you feel may be interested in this opportunity.

Position Summary:

Teaches full range of developmental English courses. Engages in scholarly activity within English or college English education. Provides learning activities and support that lead to the achievement of course objectives and contribute to the educational environment of the Lone Star College System and the community. Responsibilities include learning facilitation, personal and professional development, and institutional and community service. Primary functions are to plan, develop, and teach courses within the curriculum in a manner that facilitates student learning.

Requirements:

Bachelor's Degree with a major or minor in English or in a related field such as education, reading, writing, linguistics, or language arts; or Master's Degree in English or in a related field such as education, reading, writing, linguistics, or language arts; or Bachelor's degree with related teaching or training experience in one or more of the above mentioned fields.

To apply for any position within the Lone Star College system, simply visit http://jobs.lonestar.edu , review the job details, and if interested, submit your online application to be considered for these positions.

Application Process: For the complete job descriptions, submission requirements, and access to our on-line application, please visit our Web site at www.lonestar.edu click on Employment, Job Seekers, Search & Apply Now, and then Search Postings. All positions are subject to a criminal background check. AA/EEO. There is no contact with applicants unless they are selected for interview. In that event, you will be contacted by a hiring manager or search committee member to schedule an interview. APPLY ON-LINE ONLY. Do not fax, email or mail any documents outside the electronic application process.

Tarbox, LaHaie, Meeusen, and Halko Present at ChLA

On Saturday, June 12, 2010, Gwen Tarbox, doctoral candidate Jeanne LaHaie, and WMU alums Dr. Gabrielle Halko (Assistant Professor, West Chester University) and Meghann Meeusen (doctoral candidate, PhD in Children's Literature program at Illinois State University) presented papers at the Children's Literature Association Conference, hosted this year by Eastern Michigan University. Their panel, "Mommy Dearest, Derailed, or Dangerous: The Maternal Figure in Contemporary Children's and Adolescent Literature," generated lots of lively discussion.

Also presenting at the conference were former visiting Assistant Professors Dr. Lance Weldy (now at Francis Marion University) and Dr. Tammy Mielke (now at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte), as well as WMU English Education alum, Dr. Thomas Crisp (now an Assistant Professor at the University of South Florida).

'Erotic Screen and Sound: Culture, Media and Desire' Conference
15-18 February 2011, South Bank, Brisbane, Australia

Few subjects are as simultaneously commonplace and controversial as the erotic. While sex, gender, identity and desire have been traditional mainstays of artistic, academic and public discourses, the erotic often continues to provoke fears, anxieties and resistances. 'Erotic Screen and Sound: Culture, Media and Desire' is a four day interdisciplinary conference presented by the Griffith Centre for Cultural Research, Griffith University and the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane.

Confirmed keynote speakers include Professor Judith Halberstam, Professor Alan McKee and Associate Professor Kelly Dennis. The conference will draw together contemporary research and historical thinking on the erotic and associated discourses across the fields of the visual and sonic arts, film, television and media studies, literature, cultural sociology, cultural history, communications and journalism. We invite scholars and graduates from a range of disciplines to examine, explore, theorise, and historicise erotic moving images, sounds, visual arts, performances, texts, taboos and practices.

The deadline for abstracts and panel proposals is 3rd September 2010.

More details can be found on our website at http://www.griffith.edu.au/arts-languages-criminology/centre-cultural-research/news-events/erotic-screen

New Play Project Seven Continues Thursday, June 3rd at 7 PM

New Play Project Seven continues this Thursday, June 3rd at 7 PM in the Zack York Arena Theatre in the Gilmore Complex with four more script-in-hand staged readings of new WMU student written, acted, and directed plays. This Thursday's playwrights are Shana Wolstein, Mickey Moses, Angela Santili, and Elle Ridge. It's free. And unlike previous years, as we have more performances dates, you'll be out by nine.

So far we're having a really productive and joyful summer of developing new plays, please attend and share it with us. For more information please contact Steve Feffer at steve.feffer@wmich.edu.

English faculty recognized

Yesterday, WMU honored all recently tenured and/or promoted faculty during a luncheon at the Bernhard Center. In the English department, Beth Bradburn, Tony Ellis, Cynthia Klekar, Todd Kuchta, and Scott Slawinski were tenured and promoted to the rank of associate professor, and Eve Salisbury was promoted to the rank of full professor. English faculty received personal congrats from President John Dunn.

Herb Scott to be remembered on June 10

The life work of the late Herbert S. Scott, an award-winning poet and longtime English professor at Western Michigan University, will be celebrated Thursday, June 10, during a reading from a new selected collection of his poems. The free, public event is set for 5:30 p.m. in the Meader Rare Book Room of WMU's Waldo Library. READ MORE

Adam Schuitema Interview

This article from the Grand Rapids Press features an interview with WMU English Department alum, Dr. Adam Schuitema, who mentions the work of Bonnie Jo Campbell, as well as the experience of teaching undergraduate creative writing workshops. Adam's upcoming local appearances include:

• Treehouse Books — 37 E. Eighth St., Holland, 7 p.m., June 4

• The Book Nook & Java Shop — 8726 Ferry St., Montague, 4 p.m. June 27

• Grand Valley State University — 7 p.m., Sept. 28