CLA: Department of English

English senior Joshua Capodarco has won the College of Liberal Arts Stark Award, which was created based on a generous donation from Dr. Matthew "Matt" Stark, a former professor at the University of Minnesota and former executive director of the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union. The award recognizes a CLA student who has demonstrated "distinguished service, writing, teaching, involvement, or public leadership in one of more of the following areas: civil liberties, civil rights, public education and social justice." The honor is presented annually at the December CLA Commencement Ceremony and carries with it a financial award of $1000. Capodarco has an extensive background in service learning, taught English in Senegal (he wrote about it here), and is currently serving as undergraduate TA for the English course Literature of Public Life. Congratulations Josh!

Posted by Department of English at 1:06 PM | Permalink

Alumnus Garrison Keillor (BA 1966) stopped by the English course "Introduction to Creative Writing" last week and told students: "The world is waiting to hear from you. We're bored with our own generation." More....

Posted by Department of English at 10:42 AM | Permalink

Two English faculty contributed to A New Literary History of America, the well-reviewed Harvard University Press collection edited by Greil Marcus and Werner Sollors which covers American culture since 1507 via literature (and blues and FDR's fireside chats, etc.). David Treuer was on the editorial board and contributed two essays, one on Longfellow's Hiawatha, and Paula Rabinowitz wrote about the aforesaid FDR.

Posted by Department of English at 10:31 AM | Permalink

The Department of English's Creative Writing MFA Program is ranked 14 in a listing of the top 50 MFA programs in Poets & Writers's November/December issue. The ranking is based on an on-line list maintained by poet Seth Abramson and based upon research and MFA applicant surveys. The top 20 ranking reflects the Program's (and the Department's) dedication to full-funding for each MFA candidate, the strength of its faculty (60 plus books published in a decade), and the impressive record of alumni accomplishments. Cheers!

Posted by Department of English at 10:02 AM | Permalink

Long-time Department of English lecturer Eric Daigre (PhD 2001) writes about literacy and service learning-oriented English courses for the new issue of Diversity & Democracy produced by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU). The article is entitled "Literature, Literacy, and Multiculturalism in the Expanded Classroom." . . . English professor David Treuer wrote the article "I'm Holding Out for an Anti-Hero" for the LA Times. . . . MFA alumna Laurie Lindeen offers a music-influenced craft essay in Columbia College's literary journal Fictionary.

Posted by Department of English at 3:10 PM | Permalink

The Department is pleased to present the first in our 2009-10 eNow!
series on public engagement NEXT MONDAY OCT 5 at 2:30 pm in Lind Hall 207A.

The Publicly Engaged Classroom: Service Learning & Beyond!
English professors Josephine Lee and Ellen Messer-Davidow, PhD alumnus
Mitch Ogden, and long-time English service learning instructor Eric
Daigre (PhD 2001) will discuss and provide models for courses
incorporating service learning components, publicly engaged scholarship,
and other classroom engagement possibilities.

Professor Lee has included service learning components in drama and
Asian American Studies classes. Professor Messer-Davidow has taught such
publicly engaged classes as GWSS 4502/ENGL 4090 Women and Public Policy
and ENGL 1907W Social Texts (to read her syllabi in advance, email
sutt0063@umn.edu). Daigre has taught ENGL 3505/06 Community Learning
Internships since the course was conceived by Daigre and former
professor Tom Augst, as well as ENGL 3741 Literacy and American Cultural
Diversity. Ogden incorporated a service learning component in his
Introduction to Shakespeare course, as a graduate student here.

Join us for chocolates, a glass of wine, and a lively discussion!

Posted by Moira Pirsch at 9:34 AM | Permalink

Please join the English Department for various discussions and presentations on Public Engagement and Service- Learning. The following link will bring you to dates and times for these events:

http://english.cla.umn.edu/engagement/events.html

Posted by clay0114 at 4:11 PM | Permalink

Monday, Sept. 28 9-10am 207a Lind Hall
With Bagels, Fruit and Juice!

Want to research something you love? Want to create a curriculum for your future teaching career? Want to study more in depth something you've learned in class? AND would you like to get paid $10/hour for it?
The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) is your chance to work with a faculty mentor on a creative activity or research project with financial support from the University of Minnesota. UROP Students receive stipends of up to $1400 and expenses of up to $300. UROP is available to ALL students in ALL colleges. Come to Lind 207a to hear from past English UROP Students and Professors. Don't let this opportunity pass you by!

Thousands of students and faculty across the University have already discovered the benefits of these hands-on research opportunities in laboratories, studios, libraries, and field sites. Participating students have developed detailed knowledge of research methods while their faculty sponsors have gained the assistance of enthusiastic and capable students.

To find out more about undergraduate research and the UROP program, visit http://www.research.umn.edu/undergraduate/. Application materials for UROP are available on the web at http://www.research.umn.edu/undergraduate/UROP/urop_how_to_apply_2.htm. The application deadline for Spring 2010 projects is October 5. If you have questions about UROP, please contact Rebecca Rassier at rassi003@umn.edu.

UROP ALUMNI!! Have you participated in a UROP project that pertained to your English major? If so please send a short description of your project that details your experience in order to help fellow English majors with their literary research and endeavors. Please send information regarding your UROP project to Emily Claypool, clay0114@umn.edu.

Posted by Moira Pirsch at 12:09 PM | Permalink

Please Welcome International Exchange Students in English studies for 2009-2010: Xu C. (China), Hyoeun C. (Korea), Jeongwon L. (Korea), Maria F. (Austria), Joo Yun L. (Korea), Manuela N. (Austria), Silvio G. (France), and Morgane D. (Belgium). Some are here for fall semester only, others for the full academic year. They are taking a variety of courses in literature, American Studies, ESL, writing, business, and other subjects.

Posted by Department of English at 8:44 AM | Permalink

The Undergraduate Studies Office in the Department of English would like to welcome three new student staff members to its office for the 09-10 Academic Year.

Both Raven H. and Moira P. are working as peer advisors. They are excited and eager to work with our staff and with students! Stop by Lind Hall 227 to meet Raven and Moira and ask them any questions you have about the Department or yours courses.

We would also like to welcome Emily C. as our Research Assistant!

We are thankful to have such great students working with us this semester. Remember to stop by Lind Hall 227 anytime to schedule an advising appointment or just talk with our students and staff.

Posted by capod001 at 3:09 PM | Permalink

Five current or recently graduated English BAs contributed to the August-September issue of Alive Magazine, a national publication by and for young women that kicks the usual "celebrities, sex, and dieting" content to the curb. Two are Alive interns who wrote and/or designed for the issue: Regan Smith (BA '09) and undergraduate Meghan Hanson. Former Alive intern Jamie Joslin Millard (BA '09) is now Alive's development director. Spring '09 graduates Allie Riley and Derek Swart also wrote for the issue. All but Riley were members of the 2009 Ivory Tower staff, Hanson as co-Editor-in-Chief; Riley published a poem in the latest Ivory Tower, which is the undergraduate literary magazine of the University of Minnesota created by a year-long English course.

Posted by Department of English at 10:24 AM | Permalink

Geoffrey Sirc (PhD 1985) is now serving as the interim chair of the Department of English. Professor Sirc is the author of English Composition as a Happening (Utah State University Press, 2002) and, with Anne Frances Wysocki, Johndan Johnson-Eilola, and Cynthia L. Selfe, Writing New Media: Theory and Applications for Expanding the Teaching of Composition (Utah State UP, 2004). He joined the Department in 2006 from the University of Minnesota General College. Former chair Paula Rabinowitz wrapped up her three-year term at the end of June. The Department offers our thanks for her dedicated service! . . .Thank you also to Professors Lois Cucullu and Julie Schumacher, who finished their terms as Director of Graduate Studies and Director of the Creative Writing Program, respectively. Professor Ray Gonzalez takes over as the Director of the Creative Writing Program. Regents Professor Madelon Sprengnether is Director of Graduate Studies.

Posted by Department of English at 11:42 AM | Permalink

The Dirt Riddles, a debut collection of poetry from Michael Walsh (MFA 2006), won the inaugural Miller Williams Poetry Prize from the University of Arkansas Press and will be published in 2010. His fiction can be found in the 2008 anthology Fiction on a Stick (Milkweed Editions). . . . Matt Burgess (MFA 2009) will publish his debut novel Dogfight with Doubleday in fall 2010. . . . Lightsey Darst (MFA 2003) publishes her first full-length collection of poetry Find the Girl with Coffee House Press in spring 2010. Her chapbook Ginnungagap is available now from Red Dragonfly Press. . . . Erin Hart (MFA 1995), the author of Lake of Sorrows and Hallowed Ground, presents the new mystery False Mermaid (Scribner) in spring 2010. Congratulations!

Posted by Department of English at 1:35 PM | Permalink

Dislocate, the international literary magazine edited and produced by MFA graduate students in the Department of English, presents its fifth issue available at bookstores and online. The Transitions issue celebrates creative work from writers and artists on the subject of political, social, geographic and cultural transitions. The journal includes acclaimed authors Kevin Wilson, Peter Johnson, Nin Andrews, Todd Boss, and poetry by Haitian poet Jacqueline Beaugé-Rosier, published for the first time in English and French.

Posted by Department of English at 3:32 PM | Permalink

Edelstein-Keller Professor of Creative Writing Charles Baxter publishes a review of Katherine Anne Porter's Collected Stories and Other Writings (Library of America) in the June 11 New York Review of Books. "There has been a tendency among quite a few of Porter's critics," Baxter writes, "to criticize her life instead of her work and to give it low marks." While acknowledging the flatness of her novel Ship of Fools, Baxter compares her best short stories to Tolstoy's, "unsurpassed in American literature in their genre."

Posted by Department of English at 3:49 PM | Permalink