"As the holiday season approaches and the Twin Cities strings up its lights," notes Professor and Chair Ellen Messer-Davidow, "English has plenty of dazzle to contribute to the festivities." For news about faculty, student, and alumnae/i accomplishments and awards, check out the winter 2011 alumni magazine, English@Minnesota. Professors Nabil Matar, Maria Damon, and Peter Campion are featured, along with lots more!
PhD candidate Anne Roth-Reinhardt will defend her dissertation in Lind Hall 207A on Friday, December 16th at 9 a.m. The dissertation is entitled "Material Remnants: Clothing as Text in Historical American Fiction, 1789-1860." All are welcome to the public portion of the defense, which will include a brief presentation followed by a question and answer session.
The next Graduate Studies job placement meeting will take place Friday, October 28, from noon to 2 pm in Lind 207A. The main focus of this meeting will be first-round interviews. We will go over details about the MLA convention, sample interview questions, how to prepare for these interviews, and much more. In preparation for this meeting please read the nine documents on the password-protected placement section of the department website under "First Round/MLA Interviews" and the relevant sections of Kathryn Hume's book.
Graduate Studies kicks off a new brown bag lunch series on teaching this fall with Thursday events in October and November. "Do's and Don'ts of the Classroom: Top Teaching Tips" will take place at 12:30 pm October 13 with two of the department's award-winning teachers, Professor Siobhan Craig and Professor Rebecca Krug. They will reveal their secret strategies for encouraging discussion, enlivening the classroom, avoiding dullness, and more. November 10 at 12:30 pm, "Behind the Podium: Lecturing 101" will feature two of our award-winning lecturers, Professor John Watkins and Professor Brian Goldberg, sharing tricks of the trade for keeping large groups of students enthralled and excited. Bring lunch and questions--these events will begin with our featured speakers, followed by lots of time for Q&A/general discussion. Soda and coffee served. Lind Hall 207A.
Governor Mark Dayton announced that Joyce Sutphen (English BA 1982, MA in English & Creative Writing 1993, English PhD 1996) will serve as the Poet Laureate for the State of Minnesota, following inaugural state Poet Laureate Robert Bly. In this role, Sutphen will promote and support poetry in Minnesota. "Joyce Sutphen is a talented writer and teacher who will be a great voice for poetry in Minnesota," Governor Dayton said. Sutphen won a Minnesota Book Award in Poetry for her third collection of poetry, Naming the Stars (Holy Cow! Press, 2004). Her latest collection is First Words (Red Dragonfly Press, 2010). She teaches literature and creative writing at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter.
Adam Barrows (PhD 2006) published the article "Time Wars" in the Boston Globe last month, on the topic of challenges to Universal Coordinated Time (based on Greenwich Mean Time). Barrows' dissertation was recently published as The Cosmic Time of Empire (University of California Press).
The following PhD candidates were the recipients of awards from outside the University: Patricia Baehler, Thomas F. Wallace Fellowship for her dissertation "'Convey'd to Your Hand': The Delivery and Circulation of Letters in Eighteenth-Century Fiction, 1684-1815" (adviser Brian Goldberg); Lelaine L. Bonine, Fellowship from the Japanese government to present "Master of (Global) Suspense: Digital Hitchcock and Cinephilia Gone Global," at the Nagoya American Studies Summer Seminar, Nanzan University, Japan (adviser Jani Scandura); Keith Mikos, National American Philosophical Society fellowship for summer research in Philadelphia for his project, "Magnification: Meaning, Metaphysics and the Microscope" (Scandura); Jessica Orton, spring Fulbright Grant to conduct research and teach in Rome, Italy; Davu Seru, Phillips Fellowship, Archie Givens Sr. Collection of African-American Literature and Life (adviser John Wright); Maurits Van Bever Donker, South African National Research Foundation Prestigious Doctoral Fellowship and Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change/Mellon Foundation Doctoral Research Fellowship (advisers Qadri Ismail & Tom Pepper). Congratulations to all!
The following PhD candidates in English were the recipients of University and department awards: Erik Carlson, Graduate School Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship for his dissertation project "The Old English Language of Fear" (adviser Andrew Scheil); Elissa Hansen, Graduate School Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship for her dissertation project "Signs of the Time: Temporality in Fourteenth Century English Contemplative Writing" (adviser Rebecca Krug); Josh Mabie, Consortium Fellowship, University Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment, and the Life Sciences (adviser Dan Philippon); Eric Brownell, Samuel Hold Monk Memorial Prize for Published Scholarship, for his article "Our Lady of the Telegraph: Mina as Medieval Cyborg in Bram Stoker's Dracula," Journal of Dracula Studies, 12 (December 2010), 29-51 (adviser Lois Cucullu); Emily Anderson, Garner/McNaron/Sprengnether Summer Fellowship in Feminist Literary Studies, for her project "Marrying Monsters, Becoming Bridezillas: The Reimagining of the Gothic in 21st Century Narratives of Marriage" (Cucullu); and Eun Joo Kim, Audrey Christensen Library Acquisition Prize (adviser Josephine Lee). Congratulations to all!
PhD candidate Sara Cohen will be defending her dissertation, "Medical Screening" at 2 pm on Friday, May 13 in the Wright Room. All are welcome to the public portion of the defense.
PhD candidate Nicholas Hengen will be defending his dissertation "Texts as Tactics: How People Practice Politics with Books" at 8 am on Tuesday, May 24 in Lind 207A. All are welcome to the public portion of the defense.
PhD candidate Ryan J. Cox will be defending his dissertation, "Premonition of a Future Line We Will Be Writing: Politics, Language and Identity in English Canadian Experimental Poetry" at 1 pm on Thursday, May 12, in Lind 204. All are welcome to the public portion of the defense.
The recipients of the Graduate Research Partnership Program (GRPP) summer awards for 2011 are: Eric Brownell, "The Winking Portrait: Joseph L. Mankiewicz's The Ghost and Mrs. Muir as Postwar Pastiche" (Faculty sponsor: Lois Cucullu); Sarah Fox, "Mother Substance" (Madelon Sprengnether); Kate Johnston, "Silence(d): An Inquiry into Meditation and Solitary Confinement" (Ray Gonzalez); William Kanyusik, "The Problem of Recognition: The Disabled Male Veteran and Masculinity as Spectacle" (Siobhan Craig); Michael Rowe, "Affect, Ethic, and Intention in the Archive: The 'Project' of Djuna Barnes Nightwood" (Cucullu); Katie Sisneros, "Representations of the Ottoman Empire in English Ballads: The Caroline Period and the Battle of Vienna" (Nabil Matar). Congratulations!
PhD candidate Becky Weaver will be defending her dissertation, "The Urgency of Community: The Suturing of Poetic Ideology During the Early Years of the Loft and the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics," on April 25, at 2:45 pm, in Lind Hall 216. All are welcome to the public portion of the defense.
The Department of English welcomes prospective graduate students March 24-25. Scheduled events include a reading by MFA author alums, class visits, library tour, and dinner with graduate students and faculty. We look forward to meeting you!
Nick Robinette (PhD 2010) has accepted a tenure-track position at James Madison University in Virginia. He had previously held a position as Visiting Assistant Professor at Oberlin College. . . . Chang-Hee Kim (PhD 2009) has accepted a tenure-track position at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Engineering in South Korea. . . . PhD candidate Renee Delong has accepted a tenure-track position at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. . . . PhD candidate Patricia Baehler was awarded a Thomas Wallace Fellowship from the Graduate School for the 2011-12 academic year. Congratulations to all!
Three recent graduates of the PhD program published first books this past fall: Adam Barrows (PhD '06), The Cosmic Time of Empire: Modern Britain and World Literature (University of California Press), Marcela Kostihova (PhD '04), Shakespeare in Transition: Political Appropriations in the Postcommunist Czech Republic (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), and Anca Parvulescu (PhD '06), Laughter: Notes on a Passion (Short Circuit/MIT Press, 2010). Parvulescu is featured in the Washington University in St. Louis Newsroom. Congratulations to all!
Four Department of English alums are finalists for Minnesota Book Awards: William Reichard (poetry, Sin Eater), Lightsey Darst (poetry, Find the Girl), Swati Avasthi (young people's literature, Split), and Matt Burgess (novel and short story, Dogfight, a Love Story). Winners will be announced at the 23rd Annual Minnesota Book Awards Gala on Saturday, April 16, in Saint Paul.
Our next (and final) placement meeting of this semester will be Friday, December 17, from 12-2 pm in Lind 207A. At this meeting we will discuss all aspects of the on-campus interview.
On Friday, December 3, Chris Kamerbeek will be defending his PhD dissertation, "The Ghost and the Corpse: Figuring the Mind/Brain Complex at the Turn of the 20th Century." All are welcome for the public portion of the defense, which begins at 2 pm in the Wright Room (Lind 202).
The next placement meeting for advanced graduate students will be Friday October 29, from noon-2 pm in Lind 207A. The main focus of this meeting will be first-round interviews (i.e., phone interviews and MLA interviews). We will go over details about the MLA convention, sample questions, how to prepare for these interviews and much more. We will also, as usual, be holding mock interviews with faculty for all students on the market after Thanksgiving near the end of the semester. Contact Andrew Scheil for material to be read before the meeting.
On Friday, October 8, Laura Zebuhr will be defending her PhD dissertation, "The New Work of Friendship: Antebellum American Literature, Democracy, Impossibility." All are welcome for the public portion of the defense at 3 pm in Lind Hall 207A.
On Friday, September 17, Gregg Murray will be defending his PhD dissertation, A Performative Study of Playfulness in Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Frank O'Hara, and Elizabeth Bishop. All are welcome for the public portion at 1:30 pm in Lind Hall 207A.
The first placement meeting of the 2010-11 academic year for job seekers will be Friday, September 17, from 12-2 pm in Lind 202 (the Wright Room). The meeting is open to all graduate students, but graduate students on the job market this year and next are particularly encouraged to attend. We will overview the entire job search process and discuss application materials and other issues.
Becky Peterson will defend her dissertation "Experimentation, Identification, Ornamentation: Avant-garde Women Artists and Modernism's Exceptional Objects," on Monday, August 23rd, at 3 pm in Lind 207A. Her adviser is Professor Paula Rabinowitz. All welcome for the public portion.
Madhurima Chakraborty will defend her dissertation "Liberative Ideology and Postcolonial Writing" on Thursday, August 19, from 10 am to noon in Lind 202 (Wright Seminar Room). Her adviser is Professor Timothy Brennan. All welcome.
Congratulations to the following award recipients: Graduate School Best Dissertation Award in the Arts and Humanities: Elizabeth Weixel (PhD 2009), Assistant Professor of English, Western Kentucky University, "The Forest and Social Change in Early Modern English Literature, 1590-1700" (Adviser John Watkins). Graduate School Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships: Nicholas Hengen, "Texts as Tactics: A Literary Critical Politics" (Adviser Tim Brennan); Lucia Pawlowski, "High Theory, the Teaching of Writing, and the Crisis of the University" (Adviser Geoff Sirc); Lisa Trochman, "Fatal Femmes: Noir Anxiety and the Woman Criminal" (Adviser Paula Rabinowitz); Adam Schrag, "Surface to Surface: War, Image and the Senses in the Screenic Era" (Adviser Paula Rabinowitz). Graduate Research Partnership Program: Emily Anderson, "Monsters Without Voices: The Creation and Uses of Fear in Silent Horror Film" (Sponsor Lois Cucullu); Lelaine Bonine, "For the Love of Film: In Search of Hitchcock on the Secular Pilgrimage" (Sponsor Jani Scandura); Jonah Charney-Sirott, "Order of Call: Stories of Conscription" (Sponsor Julie Schumacher); Nicholas Hengen, "Weapons in the War: The U.S. Military's Literary Regime During World War II" (Sponsor Paula Rabinowitz); David Malley, "The Devil's Own: A Ballad for Albert Hicks" (Sponsor David Treuer); Eunha Na, "Ritual in Contemporary Theater: A Global Perspective on African American and Korean Theatres" (Sponsor Josephine Lee). Samuel Holt Monk Prize for Published Scholarship: Chris Kamerbeek, "Appearing Acts: Celebrity, Biography and Henry James's Ghosts of the 1890s." The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association, 42:2 (2009). Philanthropic Education Organization (PEO) Award: Molly Kiefer Gage, "Sorting Scraps: The Archive and the Future of Democracy" (Adviser Paula Rabinowitz). Jay and Rose Phillips Fellowship: Davu Seru. Ruth Drake Dissertation Fellowship: Ryan Cox, "Premonition of a Future Line We Will Be Writing: Politics, Language, and Identity in English Canadian Experimental Poetry" (Adviser Paula Rabinowitz).
Three recent (or forthcoming) PhD or MFA graduates have accepted tenure track positions: Madhurima Chakraborty, Columbia College, Chicago; Gregory Murray, Georgia Perimeter College; and Luke Pingel, St. Catherine University, St. Paul. Four recent PhD alumni/ae accepted visiting professor appointments: Laura Zebuhr, King's College, Halifax, Nova Scotia; Nick Robinette, Oberlin College; Renee DeLong, Normandale Community College; and Steve Healey, Michigan State University. In addition three others accepted multi-year post-doc fellowships: Lauren Curtright, Kathleen Howard, and Jennifer Miller. Congratulations to all!
Each year the University of Minnesota Graduate School recognizes the University's top recent PhD graduates by presenting "best dissertation" awards in four broad disciplinary areas. The recipients receive an honorarium of $1000. The department is proud to announce that Beth Weixel (PhD 2009) won the 2010 Best Dissertation Award in Arts & Humanities for "The Forest and Social Change in Early Modern English Literature, 1590-1700." Her adviser was Professor John Watkins. Weixel is currently assistant professor at Western Kentucky University.
Lauren Curtright (PhD candidate), who defended in April, was awarded the Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellowship at Georgia Tech, a three-year fellowship. Her dissertation adviser is Paula Rabinowitz. Jennifer Miller (PhD 2009) received the Lilly Postdoctoral Fellowship, a two-year fellowship at Valparaiso University. Her dissertation adviser was David Treuer.
MFA alumna Gayla Marty published her memoir Memory of Trees this month with University of Minnesota Press, and she was interviewed in the Minneapolis Star Tribune Saturday April 10. Marty will read 4 pm April 13 at the University Bookstore in Coffman and, with Patricia Hampl, 7:30 pm April 22 at Common Good Books.
Professor of English Edward Griffin is retiring this spring after 44 years at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. A beloved teacher of both graduate and undergraduate students, Professor Griffin recently was pranked by an undergrad class, which then reported the joke to the Daily. (No joke: Griffin has won most every teaching award at the U: the University of Minnesota Award for Distinguished Contributions to Post-Baccalaureate Graduate and Professional Education, the CLA Arthur "Red" Motley Exemplary Teaching Award, and the Ruth Christie Distinguished Teaching Award in English.)
PhD candidate Lauren Curtright presents her dissertation "Poe Mo: Modernism and the Politics of Gothic Adaptation" Friday April 9 at 2:30 pm in Lind 202 (Wright Room). All welcome for the first part of the defense.
Erik Carlson, a fourth-year PhD student in English, has won the John Leyerle-CARA Prize for Dissertation Research, a fellowship sponsored by The Medieval Academy of America. The fellowship goes to one student in an international competition and provides $1000 dollars to fund a research trip to use the collections at the University of Toronto. Erik will use the collections' Dictionary of Old English project for research related to his dissertation. His adviser is Andrew Scheil. . . . Kathleen Howard, who defended her dissertation "The Word Made Flesh: The Perception of Holiness in the Texts of Late Medieval and Early Modern Women in England" under the direction of Rebecca Krug in 2009, has just been awarded an ACLS Postdoctoral Fellowship. She will be serving her appointment as a Visiting Assistant Professor at SUNY Stony Brook from 2010-12.
Congratulations to 2010 SASE/Jerome Grant recipients Brian Laidlaw (MFA candidate), Margie Newman (MFA alumna), and Mike Rollin (MFA alumnus), who received between $2000-3000 as emerging writers.
Professor of English Ray Gonzalez, MA alumna (1992) Alison McGhee, and MFA alumnus (1998) Scott Muskin have been nominated for 2010 Minnesota Book Awards. Professor Gonzalez is up for his third Minnesota Book Award with the poetry collection Faith Run (University of Arizona Press). McGhee's Song of Middle C (Candlewick Press) is nominated for best children's literature, and Muskin's The Annunciations of Hank Meyerson, Mama's Boy and Scholar (Hooded Friar Press) for best novel and short story. Winners will be announced April 17.
The MFA Program announces the recipients of new research fellowships for MFA students: Colleen Coyne (poetry), Claire Stanford (fiction), and David Malley (nonfiction). These fellowships of $1,000 go toward supporting the completion of the MFA thesis. . . . Brian Laidlaw was awarded the MFA Progam's first annual Book Arts Fellowship for his project, "Americana Mantra--Boxed Set." His proposal was selected from among several outstanding projects. There will be a public presentation of the project in the spring. . . . Colleen McCarthy (poetry), Sara Culver (fiction), and Priscilla Kinter (nonfiction) were nominated by the MFA program for the Associated Writing Programs' 2010 Intro Journals Project. Winners selected by AWP's panel of judges will have their writing published in participating journals such as Hayden's Ferry Review, Mid-American Review, and Quarterly West.
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.
The Graduate School awarded Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships for 2009-10 to the following four English PhD students: Sara Cohen for "Medical Screening: Illness, Cyber-bodies, and Digital Death in 21st- Century Visual Culture" (advisers Paula Rabinowitz and Siobhan Craig); Molly Kelley Gage for "Sorting Scraps: The Archive and the Future of Democracy" (adviser Paula Rabinowitz); Kevin Riordan for "Dying Words and the Mechanics of Haunted Reading" (adviser John Mowitt); and Sharin' Schroeder for "Non-consensus Realities: Fantasy and the Child in Victorian Religious Debates" (adviser Brian Goldberg). . . . The Graduate School also awarded Thesis Research Grants to PhD students Amy Griffiths, Nicholas Hengen, and Laura Zebuhr. Congratulations!
Adam Schrag has received the Graduate School’s Leonard Film Fellowship. Steve Healey will teach next year at Michigan State University as the CIC Postdoctoral Fellow. Anne Roth-Reinhardt won the Ruth Drake Dissertation Fellowship. The first Garner/McNaron/Sprengnether Dissertation Fellowship goes to Renee DeLong. Emily Anderson received the Samuel Holt Monk Memorial Prize for Published Scholarship. The two winners of the Audrey Christensen English Library Acquisition Prize are Sunyoung Ahn and Gregory Murray. Donald Swanbeck won the FLAS Fellowship for this summer and the coming academic year. Congratulations!
The Graduate Research Partnership Program Fellowships this year go to: Sara Cohen for "Watching While Looking Away" (Project adviser: Jani Scandura); Molly Kelley Gage for "Sorting Scraps: The Archive and the Future of Democracy" (Paula Rabinowitz); Eun Joo Kim for "Modern Structural Shifts and Postmodern Concerns: Reading the Korean Language in Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dictee" (Jigna Desai); Joshua Mabie for "'Finding the Place': T.S. Eliot's Search for Dwelling in the English Landscape" (Edward Griffin); Edward McPherson for "America, 1899: A Novella" (Charles Baxter); Joshua Morsell for "Threats, Bombs, and Frame-Ups: The Dirty History of the Timber Wars" (Dan Philippon); Kevin Riordan for "Noh Archives and the Global Repertoire" (Josephine Lee); Maurits Van Bever Donker for "Writing the subject after Apartheid, or learning to 'learn to live'" (Quadri Ismail); and Jewon Woo for "'Feel Right': Creating the Culture of Critical Sympathy and the Amistad in 1839" (John Wright)
On Wednesday May 6th at 3:30 pm in Ackerman Hall Room 309 the Department of English will hold a workshop on the job search process for students at all stages in their graduate career. Participants will learn what the job search entails and how they might begin positioning themselves vis-Ã -vis this important process. Following the general workshop on the job search there will be a meeting for all students going on the job market in fall 2009. This second meeting will begin at the conclusion of the first. Those who are considering going on the market this year should attend both sessions.
The Department of English welcomes prospective graduate students March 26-28. Events scheduled include a faculty roundtable, library visit, tour of the Twin Cities, and meeting with graduate students. We look forward to meeting you!
The English Graduate Student Organization and the Nineteenth-Century British Subfield present a lecture by Professor Susan Wolfson of Princeton University: "Byron's Ghosts" April 16, 2009, 4pm, 207A Lind Hall. Support for this event has been provided by the Department of English, the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly, the Coca-Cola Activity Initiative, English Graduate Studies, and the College of Liberal Arts, Research and Graduate Programs.
The next Job Placement Workshop, which will cover the on-campus interview and debriefing from MLA interviews, will be held on Thursday, 8 January 2009, from 3-5 pm, in 207A Lind. If you're on the job market, feel free to email Professor Scheil or Professor Brown with any updates or last-minute questions.
A reminder that the next meeting will be 4:30 pm Wednesday November 19 in Lind 207A. The topic: a review of the tricks of the trade necessary to conduct the best interview ever.
Plan to attend the "Faculty Roundtable on the Job Market" Wednesday, Oct. 29 at 4 pm in 207A Lind. Four dynamic faculty members advise about interviewing, applying, and more. Whether you're on the job market this year or not, you are welcome to come ask questions and benefit from faculty experience. Refreshments!
A Fall Welcome Luncheon and Meeting of Graduate Students will be held in 207A Lind, Wednesday, 8 October, from 11:15 AM to 1PM. This will be an opportunity to discuss plans for the year to include among others: our new initiative of faculty observation of graduate student teaching, the Department's new dossier account with Interfolio, fall fellowships, spring teaching assignments, May and summer teaching. Please RSVP to Karen by Friday 3 October, if you plan to attend the meeting and noon luncheon.
The Department of English welcomes LaRose Davis, who won the prestigious Graduate School Postdoctoral Fellowship and chose to be housed in English. Davis comes from Emory University where her work has centered on African American and American Indian literary and cultural intersections. Olabode Ibironke will be our CIC Postdoctoral Fellow: He has a doctorate from Michigan State University and specializes in African literary history and postcolonial literary theory. Jan Hein Hoogstad is a visiting assistant professor fall semester from the University of Amsterdam; he is teaching Medial Operations: Sound, Music & Digitality. Other visiting adjunct faculty include Debra Blake, Joe Hughes, Tim Jones, Emily Swanson (PhD 2008), and Michael Tortorello. Finally our CIC Fellow from last year, Dan Mrozowski, who students voted "best lecturer of 2008," returns this year to teach a variety of courses on American literature and literary theory.
The Department of English's continuing website feature 5 Questions + spotlights New Yorker Amy Shearn (MFA 2005), who publishes her debut novel How Far Is the Ocean From Here? in August 2008 with Shaye Areheart/Random House. Read more.
PhD candidate Ann Pitugshatwong will defend her dissertation on Friday, September 5 from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. in Lind Hall, Room 202. Her dissertation is titled "Crossing Boundaries: Domestic Fiction and Nineteenth-Century Women's Travel Narratives." All are welcome to attend.
PhD candidate Mitch Ogden will defend his dissertation "Refugee Utopias: (Re)Theorizing Refugeeism through the Cultural Production of the Hmong Diaspora" at 10 am June 26, 2008, in Lind 207A. Ogden examines how Hmong magnetic media (audio and video cassettes) shape a novel concept of homeland, how the many competing Hmong writing systems challenge and uphold cultural and political ideologies, and how a burgeoning literary movement reflects the energy of a dynamic global diaspora. Throughout, he proposes that the persistent cultural image of refugee-as-perpetual-victim be updated, expanded, and discarded in favor of a view that acknowledges the vibrant, creative force of cultural production that animates contemporary refugee communities.
Lois Cucullu (English) and John Campbell (Psychology) share the "Best DGS" award for 2008. A special committee appointed by the dean of the Graduate School selects the recipients. Each receives a $1,000 honorarium and a plaque. There will be a reception to honor the award winners at a celebration on Wednesday, May 14, from 3 to 4:30 p.m. in the Upson Room of Walter Library.
English Literature PhD and Creative Writing MFA defenses are taking place through May 23. PhD candidate Sara Berrey will defend her dissertation at 8:45 am May 14 in Lind 202, followed by PhD candidate Jean Jacobson 1 pm May 23 in Lind 207. MFA candidates defend their creative theses in Lind 207 as follows. May 12: Emily Bright at 1:30 pm. May 13: Phillip Fuller at 9 am; Karen Ahn at noon; and Andrew Luckham at 2:30 pm. May 14: Karen Stout at 10 am; Ann Linde at noon; and Nathan Slawson at 2:30 pm. May 15: Brett Gastineau at noon. May 16: Tara DaPra at 9 am; Jake Mohan at 2:30 pm. For more information, contact the Graduate Studies and Creative Writing Program offices.
On May 15th at 4.30 p.m. in Lind 207A the department will hold a workshop on the job search process for students at all stages in their graduate career. Subjects include what the job search entails and how you might want to begin to prepare for this important process. Following the general workshop on the job search there will be a meeting for all students going on the job market this fall.
A new volume of LUNA: a journal of poetry and translation has just been released. Edited by professor Ray Gonzalez and MFA alum Alex Lemon, the issue features the work of Robert Bly, Jaswinder Bolina, Juan Felipe Herrera, Major Jackson, George Kalamaras, Alessandra Lynch, Simone Muench, Joan Murray, Craig Morgan Teicher, translations of Luis Cernuda (by Ruben Quesada) and Nguyen Do (by Nguyen Do and Paul Hoover), and much more. Please visit LUNA for ordering information.
The Department of English MFA / Dislocate Reading Series holds its final 2007-08 event Tuesday, April 29th at 7 pm in Lind Hall 150. Edelstein-Keller Professor in Creative Writing Charles Baxter will read, along with MFA candidates Matthew Burgess, Thomas Cook, and Emily Freeman.
Congratulations to MFA candidates Emily Freeman and Shantha Susman, who are first and second place prize winners (graduate student category) in this year's ArtWords contest. They will read their work at the ArtWords and ArtSounds Program and Reception 7 pm April 16 at the Weisman Museum. Come hear them read their work at the Weisman on April 16. This is the 10th anniversary of the ArtWords program, in which students write short poems, prose, and (now) musical compositions in response to work in the Weisman's galleries. Reception follows.
The GSO and the Nineteenth-Century British Subfield Symposium takes place Saturday, April 5, from 8 am to 4 pm in Lind Hall 207A. Graduate students from our department and from the University of Wisconsin-Madison will present papers, including: Kate Hannah, "Threats to Masculine Roles, Male Poets, and the Production and Performance of Poetry in the Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson"; Brenda Helt, "The Victorian Violet Soul: Homospirituality before 'Homosexuality'"; Heather McNeff, "Invitation and Anxiety in the Early Poetry of William Jones"; Sunyoung Ahn, "Liberty and its Use in J.S. Mill's 'On Liberty'"; and Sharin' Schroeder on Lewis Carroll. The Medieval & Early Modern Research Group holds its annual colloquium with guest speaker Katherine Zieman from the University of Notre Dame on Friday, April 11, starting at 11 am in Nolte 235. Graduate students and topics are: John Sievers, "Dryden's Battle with Music in King Arthur: The Bracegirdle Hurdle"; Christopher Flack, "'Mearcstapa': The Acculturation of the Liminal"; and Lindsay Craig, "Damned by Saints Praised: The Old Woman's Invocations in Le Roman de la Rose."
Congratulations to the recipients of 2008 Gesell Awards in Fiction, Creative Nonfiction and Poetry, given to MFA candidates within the Creative Writing Program. Luke Pingel won for poetry, with Jim Novak as honorable mention. The co-recipients for creative nonfiction are Wilson Peden and Katie Leo, with Holly Vanderhaar as honorable mention. Ethan Rutherford won the fiction award, with Laura Owen as honorable mention. The judges were poet Eleanor Lerman, creative nonfiction writer Fenton Johnson, and fiction writer Jim Shepard.
The Department of English welcomes prospective graduate students March 26-30. Events scheduled include a faculty roundtable, library visit, tour of the Twin Cities, and meeting with graduate students. We look forward to meeting you!
The Esther Freier Endowment presents Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, speaking 7:30 pm, Wednesday, March 26, at the Ted Mann Concert Hall--a free event and open to the public. No tickets necessary. Parks is the author of Topdog/Underdog, Venus, and In the Blood. The Framing Suzan-Lori Parks series, presented with the Department of Theatre, Frank Theatre, the Playwrights' Center, and McKnight Special Events, concludes Tuesday, April 1, with a discussion of Parks' place in the history of African American theater. Panelists include e. g. bailey, Pamela Fletcher, Josephine Lee, Alexs Pate, and Dominic Taylor (7:30 pm, Cowles Auditorium).
In 1980, the feminist subfield was initiated in the Department of English. To mark more than a quarter century of feminist achievements in literary research, we are hosting a spring semester inquiry into the place of feminist theory in British literary studies. IMPACTS: Feminist Theory and British Literary Studies will kick off March 5 with Rutgers professor Kate Flint (The Woman Reader, 1827-1914) and continue with Brown professor Nancy Armstrong (Desire and Domestic Fiction: A Political History of the Novel) on April 9 and NYU professor Mary Poovey (The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer) on April 30.
MFA candidate Dhana-Marie Branton (nonfiction) received an SASE Emerging Writer Fellowship and a Minnesota State Arts Board Grant for 2008. MFA candidates Emily August (poetry) and Emily Freeman (fiction) were finalists for the SASE fellowship. . . . MFA candidate Laura Owen (fiction) received a Minnesota State Arts Board Grant for 2008 and was also a finalist for the SASE fellowship. . . . MFA candidate Katie Leo-Keast received a Cultural Collaboration Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board in collaboration with Stages Theatre Company in Hopkins. She has been commissioned to adapt the children's book Baseball Saved Us. The book is about Japanese internment camps, and the grant will enable Katie to travel to LA and conduct archival research at the National Japanese American Museum. . . . MFA alum Amanda Fields has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize for her short story "Boiler Room," featured in the Indiana Review.
The Libraries, in collaboration with the Office of the Vice-President for Research, will present a workshop, "Grant Funding for Graduate Students," on February 20 (12:30-1:45 pm, Walter Library First Floor). Learn how to locate internal and external funding sources, search funding databases, and set up alerts for new funding opportunities. Registration required; for questions, contact Julie Kelly at jkelly@umn.edu.
In the next job search workshop, we will cover such topics as on-campus interviews, adjunct work, spring job listings, various forms of "damage control" for the job market, "what do I do now," etc. Please bring any questions you might have about this stage of the job search process, whether you expect to have on-campus interviews or not. Thursday, January 10, from 2-3 pm, 207A Lind Hall.
On Monday, November 12, 4-5:30 pm, the Department is hosting a faculty roundtable on the job market. Michelle Wright, Omise’eke Natasha Tinsley, Nabil Matar, and Maria Damon have generously agreed to provide an inside scoop on the state of the profession. This is a wonderful chance to hear their words of wisdom. Please come even if you're not on the market this year, and bring a friend. Refreshments! 207A Lind Hall.
The Department of English's eNow! series of faculty and graduate student presentations continues with a special program on language: English associate professor Evelyn Ch'ien addresses the question "Is English Getting Weirder?" with reference to novelist Juno Diaz, visiting professor Steven Winduo reads his poems in the Tokpisin Pidgin language, and Linguistics and Cognitive Science graduate student Ellen Lucast explores "What Do You Know? Theory of Mind in Communication." All welcome. Refreshments! Monday November 19, 2:30 pm, Lind Hall 207A.
English graduate students have organized a November 16-18 conference here about fantasy literature featuring keynote speakers Neil Gaiman, author of the Sandman series of graphic novels, and Jack Zipes, noted UM scholar of fairy tales and folklore. Other featured authors are Patrick Rothfuss, Pamela Dean, Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, and many local fantasy writers including MFA alumna Haddayr Copley-Woods.
The Department of English announces a new website feature, 5 Questions +, in which we offer up the requisite number of queries to an alumnus or alumna of our B.A., M.A., or Ph.D. programs. Our first Q & A spotlights former New Orleans resident Michael Tisserand (B.A. 1992), who recalled some advice from English professor Michael Dennis Browne while writing his second book, Sugarcane Academy. The memoir follows Tisserand's family and friends in the post-Katrina diaspora, as they set up a one-room schoolhouse for their evacuated children. Read more.
PhD candidate Mitchell P. Ogden is a recipient of the Harold Leonard Memorial Fellowship in Film Study for 2007-8. As part of the fellowship, he is headed to Thailand at the end of September for three weeks with Hmong American filmmaker Moua Lee on Lee's film shoot there.
Julie Gard (MFA 2000) has published her first book with Finishing Line Press: Obscura: The Daguerreotype Series, a collection of prose poems. . . . The documentary film Arid Lands by Josh Wallaert (MFA 2007) has just been released on DVD by Bullfrog Films. . . . Pudding House Press published the chapbook Glances Back by MFA candidate Emily Bright. . . . A long poem by Shana Youngdahl (MFA 2006) entitled Donner: A Passing has been accepted for publication as a chapbook with Finishing Line Press. Congratulations to all!
MFA candidate Emily Freeman (fiction) and MFA alumna Margie Newman (nonfiction) have been selected for the 2007-2008 Loft Mentor Series. The Mentorships, presented by the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, offer advanced criticism and professional development opportunities to twelve writers a year. Three MFA alumni were finalists: Marge Barrett, Wendy Fernstrum, and Jennifer Johnson.
Timothy Sweet (PhD 1988) was awarded the 2006 Richard Beale Davis Prize for his article "'What Concernment Hath America in These Things!' Local and Global in Samuel Sewall's Plum Island Passage." The Davis Prize honors the best article published in Early American Literature in a publishing year. Sweet is Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of English at West Virginia University.
William Reichard (PhD 1997) reads from his latest poetry collection This Brightness (Mid-List Press) at 8 pm July 20 and 21 at Patrick's Cabaret. Reichard also joins Eireann Lorsung (MFA 2006) at BirchBark Books 7 pm July 26 for a reading. Lorsung's debut poetry collection music for landing planes by (Milkweed) was published this past spring.
Eric Dregni (MFA '07) will be reading and offering travel tips from his books Weird Minnesota and Midwest Marvels June 25 at the Brooklyn Park Library, June 27 at the Maple Grove Library, and July 9 at the Ridgedale Library, all at 7 pm. Interviewed by the Minnesota Daily about Weird Minnesota, Dregni noted, "We can't be proud of having the Colosseum or the Eiffel Tower, but we can be proud of a talking Paul Bunyan."
MFA candidate Emily August and 2001 MFA alumnus Michael Seward are among the readers at "OUT @ the Library," a special PRIDE event featuring "some of the finest GLBT writers in the Twin Cities." The reading, presented by the Carol Connolly GLBT Reading Series and part of a continuing library exhibit, will take place 7 pm Wednesday, June 27 at the Minneapolis Central Library, 300 Nicollet Mall.
Laurie Lindeen (MFA ’04) celebrated the release of her debut memoir Petal Pusher: A Rock and Roll Cinderella Story June 16 at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul. Lindeen, whose book follows her from teen music fan to musician in the band Zuzu’s Petals, was interviewed by Current personality Mary Lucia. She also read from her book and performed with the reunited Zuzu’s Petals. Other musical guests included Lori Barbero (former Babe in Toyland), Mark Olson (former Jayhawk), and Paul Westerberg (former Replacement). The performance was aired on the Current (89.3 FM) Sunday June 24. Lindeen will read at the Edina Barnes & Noble July 10 at 7:30 pm.
Medievalist George Shuffleton visits the Department of English this fall semester from Carlton College, where he is assistant professor of English. Shuffleton will teach ENGL 8110-001 Popular Literature of Late Medieval England. He has a particular interest in Chaucer, Langland, and Gower, and his current research focuses on the relationship between miscellany manuscripts and Middle English poetry.
The Fantasy Matters Conference, set for November 16-18 at the University of Minnesota, is looking for paper, panel, and author reading submissions by June 15. This conference takes the position that fantasy literature plays an important role not only in popular culture, but also in the realm of literature itself. Scholars of fantasy literature at any level (fan, undergraduate, graduate, or professional) are invited to submit abstract proposals of 250 words. Keynote speakers will be Neil Gaiman, author of the Sandman series of graphic novels, and University of Minnesota professor Jack Zipes, noted scholar of fairy tales and folklore. The Name of the Wind author Patrick Rothfuss will be a featured reader, among others.
Professor Matar, hired under the Presidential Initiative on Arts and Humanities, will call the Department of English home starting next fall. Matar's research and writing focus on 16th- and 17th-century interactions between Europe, especially England, and the world of Islam. He will be teaching the English graduate level course Britain & Islamic Mediterranean: 1588-1713, which will trace the intellectual and historical contacts between early modern England and the Muslim Mediterranean through drama, travel literature, captivity accounts and theological polemic. Among his numerous publications are Britain and Barbary: 1589-1689 (University Press of Florida, 2005) and Turks, Moors, and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery (Columbia University Press, 1999). Matar received his PhD at the University of Cambridge. He was Professor of English at the Florida Institute of Technology.
Congratulations to Graduate Research Partnership Program awardees and their faculty mentors: Lauren Curtright (John Wright); Mitch Ogden (Jigna Desai); Ethan Rutherford (Julie Schumacher); and Lisa Trochmann (Paula Rabinowitz). . . . Graduate School Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships were granted to Becky Peterson, Stoyan Tchaprazov, Elizabeth Weixel, and Maria Zavialova. . . . This year's Charles Christensen Library Acquisition Prize went to Lindsay Craig and Lucia Pawlowski. . . . Congratulations also to Arlene Kim and Emily Bright, recipients of the Academy of American Poets' James Wright Prize for Poetry.
The workshop will interest all graduate students in literature programs who intend to pursue a career in academia. Broadly conceived, the workshop’s aim is two-fold: to outline the job search process and to suggest how students at all stages of graduate school can begin to prepare. Following the general workshop, there will be a meeting for all students entering the job market this fall. 2:30 pm, May 14, in Lind 207A.
Dislocate, the literary journal produced by English graduate students, releases its third issue with a party 7:30 pm Tuesday April 17 at the Ritz Theater, 345 13th Ave. NE, in Minneapolis. Local poets Jon Vick, Matt Rasmussen, and Portland writer Erin Ergenbright will read. The Ivory Tower, the undergraduate literary magazine and English course, hosts a launch party for their 2007 issue at 6 pm on April 27 at the Weisman Art Museum, Dolly Fiterman Riverview Gallery. Creative Writing chair and professor Julie Schumacher will speak, along with journal contributors and editors.
Kelly Hulander read her paper "'[Her] Kindness...Was Inexhaustible': Condescension and Entitlement vs. Cross-Class Friendship in British New Woman and Socialist Fiction" at the 2007 British Women Writers Conference, University of Kentucky in Lexington, this April. Chris Kamerbeek's article "Parks and Wreck: Anxiety and Amusement at Turn-of-the-Century Coney Island," will appear in the forthcoming Summer 2007 issue of Popular Culture Review. Gregg Murray presented: “‘(The Joking Voice, a Gesture I Love)’: Familiarizing Discourse in Elizabeth Bishop’s ‘Manuelzinho’� at the PCA/ACA Conference in Boston, Massachusetts, April 2007; “I Say No More and Walk Barefoot: Feet in Jean Genet’s Le Miracle de la rose� at the Graduate Symposium in Romance Languages at the University of Minnesota, March 2007; and “Historicizing Elizabeth Bishop’s Hierarchical Distance in Brazil� at the Red River Graduate Student Conference in Fargo, North Dakota, February 2007.
The following students won CLA grants to support the research and professionalization of graduate students in English: Mitchell Odgen, Becky Petersen, Liz Hutter, Elizabeth Weixel, Sara Berrey, Stoyan Vassilev Tchaprazov, Karen Steigman, Nicholas Hengen, and Adam Schrag.