What we've been up to...

Season's Greetings

Holiday Reading (Sort of)

You might think that life at Colson Hall primarily consists of waking at noon and then playing a little tennis or taking a stroll through The Poet's Garden, which contains all the plants mentioned in the works of e.e. cummings, before it's time to dress for dinner, but, in fact, the Tenants live lives crammed with incident, spending much of their time pursuing research. As it so often does, the Internet seems to have noticed, and we present a couple of bits of holiday reading, although, to be honest, these are mostly holiday reading in the sense that you can peruse them while you're waiting for the cookies to be ready to come out of the oven.

The first is an interesting news story from WBOY (Channel 12) on some of Kirk Hazen's research on West Virginia dialects.

The second is an equally interesting writeup by Eileen Joy on the special issue of the journal postmedieval on "The Intimate Senses" that our own Lara Farina co-edited with (somebody else's) Holly Dugan.

 

 

Coming up next in our series of misleadingly holiday-themed posts: the substantially less misleading Auld Lang Syne post, in which we survey the whereabouts and doings of some of our alums. 

 

End of the Semester Revelry

Some of the doctoral students celebrating the holiday season:

Stolen off of Facebook in complete violation of intellectual property laws.

 

The faculty celebrating the last day of Finals (hidden cam footage):

The Appalachian Prison Book Project Makes a Video

Always on the cutting edge of the 21st Century, this week the Tenants are saturating the media. As you already know, Mark Brazaitis has been on the radio, and, as you'll soon learn, Lara Farina has entered the book trade while Kirk Hazen has been hanging out with people from television. In the meantime, Katy Ryan appears in a video on that YouTube thing that all the kids like. You can see it below:



It would be completely unlike her, so we don't give any credit to the rumor that, every time Professor Ryan passes Professor Brazaitis in the hall, she softly hums "Video Killed the Radio Star."

In Case You Missed Mark Brazaitis's Interview....

Thanks to the magic of technology, in which the radio is now an internet (or something like that), those of you who missed Mark Brazaitis's radio interview on the Diane Rehm Show can find it  here.

Jacques Derrida, Unlikely Meme

.....which is somewhat, but not entirely, different from "Jacques Derrida, Unlikely Mime." In any case, here you go:

 

 

 

Our thanks to undergraduate extraordinaire Jack Flesher, who came running into Colson Hall with the clipping in his hand, saying "Look at this! Look at this!"

Mark Brazaitis, Radio Star

Mark Brazaitis will appear tomorrow (Tuesday) at 11 a.m. on the Diane Rehm Show to discuss his short story collection The Incurables. Broadcast from Washington, D.C.—a block from Mark's high school—the Diane Rehm Show has been called "the gold standard of civic, civil discourse" and reaches more than 2.2 million listeners via NPR. Past guests have included Bill Clinton, Desmond Tutu, Julie Andrews, and Toni Morrison. 

"I have a lot in common with these guests," Mark says. "We are, for example, all inhabitants of planet earth."

He goes on to say, “I’m thrilled to talk about my book, and about how the themes of my book connect to the work I’ve been doing at WVU—my teaching, my work with the Appalachian Prison Book Project, and my talks at the Health Sciences Center on the importance of listening to and understanding patients.”

The Diane Rehm show is broadcast from WAMU 88.5.  For more information about Mark's upcoming appearance, see: http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-12-11/mark-brazaitis-incurables

Last Lecture Postponed

Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond mine, Lisa's, or Lowell's control, the Last Lecture will need to be postponed until an as yet undecided date in January.

When more info becomes available, I will keep you appraised of the situation.

A Very Colson Christmas, Part III

Since our GTAs are, indeed, the best, for the first time this year we decided to decorate the foyer of the Graduate Student Spa as a token of our appreciation. Note the bust of Mary Ann:

We're in the newspaper!

Yes, really! Not one but two items on today's "Campus Life" page of The Dominion Post.

First, there's an article about our new T-shirts with their ill-fated motto. Except this was written before we found out that our motto is totally against the rules. So one more moment in the sun, I guess, and then hang on to those suddenly collectible shirts and hoodies. Vintage happens pretty fast, sometimes.

Second, and much more thrilling, is the profile of MFA Rebecca Childers. Yep, Rebecca is featured in this week's "WVU Student Spotlight." Just how does this happen to someone? Maybe Rebecca can fill us in. As you no doubt know, the "spotlight" includes all kinds of info about the selected student's spare time activities (petting cats and playing disc golf and reading romance novels, says Rebecca) and favorite foods and celebrities (fried chicken and Cary Grant) and best-loved book (Middlemarch) and best class ("English 101!"). What is Rebecca's one wish? "For all the cats to have somebody to hug them." Isn't that just about the sweetest thing you ever heard? Our GTAs truly are best... which is why we put up this year's Christmas tree early when they begged. 

Christmas at Colson, Part II

As part of our ongoing series on the Colson Hall Christmas decorations....

On their way to turn in their English 101 portfolios, two freshmen pause to gaze in wonder at one of the Christmas trees in the main hall:

Christmas Comes to Colson Hall

Since we know that many of our alums and loyal blog followers will want to see this year's Christmas decorations, we thought we'd post some photos as part of a continuing series. First off: the tree goes up in the GTA Dining Room. (Note the portrait of Mary Ann.)