The Tenants of Colson Hall

Remembering Irene McKinney

2012-02-05T06:04:00.000-08:00

As you may know, WV Poet Laureate Irene McKinney died yesterday. She was a friend to many of us here at WVU and, through her poems, a companion to many more.

As is often the case with poetry, poems that seemed to mean one thing, now seem to mean something else, or something also. Here's one such poem from Irene's Six O'Clock Mine Report:

Taking Hold

Water. Water. Water.

Slips through our hands, eases, wets our mouths.

Such a liquid voice issuing from a rock.

And it has mouths and lips of its own.

Much faster than fire it enters the chain

of our being, and doesn't offend our fishy nature.

Its maps are trickling where I want to go.

But to be taken hold of by fire is to be lifted

into another form, so you can't know where you've been.

We are liable to be eaten in that guise, but

nature loves to hide, and I do too.

I do, I love to hide between the flare and wash,

the burning and the drink. In that clarity,

taking hold in love, I feel both flame and balm,

taking the grip of the fire for granted, taking the water

in, since that's what I already am.

Kristen Davis, ABD

2012-02-05T00:10:00.000-08:00

It gives me great pleasure to announce that, after a series of exceptionally well-written exams and a wide-ranging conversation with her committee (Chair Donald Hall, Lisa DiBartolomeo from World Languages, Adam Komisaruk, Lisa Weihman, and yours truly), Kristen Davis has passed her booklist exam and can now write ABD after her name on checks if she wants to. The only anomaly is that, in a discussion that touched on everything from Victorian imperialism to 19th-century Egyptian politics to the gothic to whether the women's room at Vice Versa constituted a queer space, there was no serious discussion of The Mummy.

Another Book Award for Mark Brazaitis

2012-02-03T10:04:00.001-08:00

Winning book prizes is no easy feat.

That our very own Mark Brazaitis has done it multiple times—the Iowa Short Fiction Award, the George Garrett Fiction Award, the ABZ Poetry Prize, among others—is truly impressive.

And now Mark has another award to add to the list: the Richard Sullivan Prize in Short Fiction from the University of Notre Dame Press.

The editors describe Mark's manuscript, The Incurables, as a "standout" in a strong field of entrants, all of whom have already published at least one book.

And of course contests of this kind receive hundreds of submissions, so "standing out" is a major achievement.

So congratulations—again!—to Mark.

Librotraficante

2012-02-02T09:38:00.000-08:00

When I was a little boy, I had the following poster on my wall:

Turns out my jump shot wasn't true, even after I got a pair of Jordans, so in the end, the weapon I chose was words. I read a good many of them, and later, I wrote some too. Now what is true, for me, is that books can shake up the world. Believe it.

Another writer who believes it is coming to WVU next week. That writer is Dagoberto Gilb, Guggenheim recipient and PEN/Hemingway Award winner, among other things. He is a former teacher of mine, and he writes from the gut and soul, from las alturas and from hoyos. He spills it on the page. (Those last two lines are lazily ripped-off from one of his books, Gritos.)

But I've gathered that we live in a digital culture, that we are a people who need something more than books. You're looking at a screen right now. Do you want some footage? Have some:

So, words are the best kinds of weapons. Consider that without the writing of Fred Cruz, there would be no footage to watch. Consider further that without the writers who later wrote of Fred Cruz, including Dagoberto Gilb (who wrote the script for Writ Writer), there would be no footage to watch. It's the passing down of the words that matters. Before you clicked the video, how many of you knew Fred Cruz's story? Of more immediate concern, how many of you know what is happening in Arizona as I write these very words? Right now, in the Tuscon Unified School District, books are being taken from the students who need them. The words of Dagoberto Gilb, among many others, are being removed from schools' Mexican American Studies programs. In the face of this absurdity, writers are employing their full arsenal of weapons, including words of outrage, hilarity, wit and wisdom. Check this out from Tony Diaz, founder of Nuestra Palabra:

Spread the word to anyone who knows or wants to know the truth about the power of books. Tell them to come to the Gold Ballroom of the Mountainlair this Wednesday, February 8th at 7:30 p.m. A writer will be reading some real words there. His name is Dagoberto Gilb.

Doug Terry, ABD

2012-02-01T19:47:00.000-08:00

This just in from Professor Ernest:

"Congratulations to Doug Terry, who passed his booklist exam. A great time was had by all--and Doug has built a solid foundation for an ambitious and important dissertation. Nice job, Doug!"

The Tenants are very pleased to be able to add their congratulations too.

Spring Break Jamaica--Global Service Learning (all majors welcome)

2012-02-01T08:11:00.000-08:00

Spring Break in Jamaica

Study and Volunteer in Jamaica for Spring Break 2012 with WVU and Amizade!

· Live with a local family

· Participate in a community development project

· Visit historical and tourist sites

· Earn university credit

· Become an active global citizen

INTS 499—Global Service Learning: Community Development in Petersfield, Jamaica (1 cr.), with Prof. Gwen Bergner, Dept. of English

This course puts global service learning into practice in Petersfield, Jamaica during one intense week of service work; cultural immersion; and the study of global citizenship. The one-week service learning component in Jamaica allows us to observe and experience the impact of globalization on the people in the community. The location is ideal: our host organization, the Association of Clubs (AOC), was founded as an outgrowth of the sugar workers’ cooperative at the Frome sugar estate, and Negril, a tourist resort, is only about an hour away from the community of Petersfield. Participating in a community service project directed by the AOC provides the opportunity to develop mutually enriching relationships across cultural and national boundaries.

Overview

· We will meet at least once before traveling to Petersfield, Jamaica and we’ll have on-line discussions before the trip. Each student will construct a blog through Google’s blogger platform to develop throughout the course.

· In Jamaica, students perform service work on weekday mornings, attend class after lunch to discuss course materials, and participate in site visits and cultural activities in the afternoon. Evenings are spent with host families.

· Activities include visits to a local sugar cane production facility, an underground slave route, and local and tourist beaches.

· After our return, each student will complete a capstone project by adding journal-type entries, links, photographs, images, and video to his/her blog.

For scholarship and financial aid information, please see: http://amizade.org/programs/service-learning-courses/financial-aid/.

For more information, please see www.amizade.org or contact Gwen Bergner at gwen.bergner@mail.wvu.edu.

Hungry Poets: Recite for Your Supper!

2012-02-01T08:08:00.000-08:00

Hungry Poets Prize

In Memory of Gabe Friedberg

$250 Prize for the winning poem

$100 Second Prize, $50 Third Prize

Finalists will read their poems at Hungry Poets Night at the Blue Moose Café in Morgantown, Saturday April 14, 8:00 p.m. Finalists will be notified the week of March 18.

Guidelines:

§ Entries must be postmarked (or hand delivered) on or before March 3, 2012.

§ Entries must be between 50 and 500 words. Only one poem (or poem series less than 500 words) per person.

§ Poems must be typed. The Contest is not responsible for lost entries - Do not send your only copy.

§ You retain any copyright to your poem, but you agree that the contest organizers may publish it in a not-for-profit medium.

§ Include your name, age, phone number and email address.

§ Applicants must be under 30 years old.

§ Each finalist must read his/her poem at Hungry Poets Night to be eligible for the prize.

§ Your poem should not have been previously published or awarded a prize or compensation of any kind.

§ $15 gift certificate to each hungry finalist for one of Morgantown’s progressive eateries.

§ Judges’ decisions will be highly subjective but final.

Send entries to:

Hungry Poets Prize

C/o Blue Moose Café

248 Walnut Street Co-sponsored by

Morgantown, WV 26505 WVU Department of English

CFP: Literary London, 2012

2012-01-29T13:58:00.001-08:00

Call for Papers
Literary London 2012

Hosted by: the Institute of English Studies, University of London
Organised by: The Literary London Society
4-6 July 2012

The 11th Annual Literary London conference will be hosted by the Institute of English Studies, University of London, on 4-6 July 2012. The Institute is located in Bloomsbury, at the centre of literary London, and just a few minutes’ walk from such attractions as the British Library, the British Museum, and the clubs, pubs, and restaurants of Soho. It is at the heart of London: one of the world's major cities with a long and rich literary tradition reflecting both its diversity and its significance as a cultural and commercial centre. Literary London 2012 aims to:

Read literary and dramatic texts in their historical and social context and in relation to theoretical approaches to the study of the metropolis.
Investigate the changing cultural and historical geography of London.
Consider the social, political, and spiritual fears, hopes, and perceptions that have inspired representations of London.
Trace different traditions of representing London and examine how the pluralism of London society is reflected in London literature.
Celebrate the contribution London and Londoners have made to English literature and drama.

Proposals are invited for 20-minute papers, comprised panels, and roundtable sessions, which consider any period or genre of literature about, set in, inspired by, or alluding to central and suburban London and its environs, from the city’s roots in pre-Roman times to its imagined futures. While the main focus of the conference will be on literary texts, we actively encourage interdisciplinary contributions relating film, architecture, geography, theories of urban space, etc., to literary representations of London. Papers from postgraduate students are particularly welcome for consideration. While papers on all areas of literary London are welcomed, the conference theme in 2012 is ‘Sports, Games, and Pastimes’. Topics that might be addressed are:

Sport: participation, spectatorship, and sporting events including the three London Olympics
Gambling
Shopping and fashion
Pubs and coffee houses
Games and hobbies
Holidays, downtime, and park-life
Child’s play
Reading and writing as pastimes

Please submit all proposals for 20-minute papers, comprised panels, and roundtable sessions using the online forms at http://www.literarylondon.org/conference/

All proposals must be received by the deadline of 1 April 2012

For more information about the conference, please contact the conference organiser, Martin Dines, at conference@literarylondon.org

The full call for papers, online proposals forms, and information about the Literary London Society and the Literary London Journal can be found at the Society’s website: http://www.literarylondon.org

Please circulate this CFP far and wide!

Best wishes

Brycchan Carey

President of the Literary London Society

The Grad Student Rap

2012-01-23T20:27:00.000-08:00

While most graduate students do not have time to type the entirety of Moby Dick on a roll of Scott, some do have time to write a serious musical composition bemoaning grad student life. Enjoy!

Material Culture

2012-01-23T14:16:00.000-08:00

For those of you interested in some of the more unworn paths of human endeavor, the Tenants have discovered a particularly novel way in which to spend your free time.* A seller on EBay named the_heppcat is currently auctioning the entire text of Moby Dick typed on toilet paper. Starting bid is $399.95 (but shipping is free). For the more sceptical among you, the webpage includes a number of videos of the_heppcat unrolling various "volumes" of the text to show that it is, in fact, complete.

Now, so far, there are no bids, but if this "mod oddity" sells, the Tenants are considering setting up a cottage industry in the barn, inscribing various literary works on non-standard items. As with those Project Runway challenges that involve making clothes out of items found at The Dollar Store, however, where contestants who select some kind of fabric are always ridiculed, we intend to eschew anything as obvious as yet another form of paper. The first project: writing the works of Emily Dickinson on Skittles.

*Not recommended for graduate students, who, as everyone knows, have no free time.

It's a very pretty book...

2012-01-20T11:34:00.000-08:00

And lovely inside too. Jim Harms' Comet Scar, that is. Just out from Carnegie Mellon. Have you gotten your copy yet? You'll be wanting to, of course. Jim will be reading on March 8 and you'll want to be ready. You can read straight through or you can do what I do, which is just open the book anywhere and begin. Here's the poem I read first:

Phoebe

She's listing the leaves again.

She's beginning with leaf

like a hand, then

leaf like a little leaf.

She's folding the leaf

like a letter into a map

to fit in her pocket.

Dear Me, How are you

but I already know.

She's licking a lemon

plucked from my tea,

the glass on a tray on

the porch steps.

She's shaking a spoon

of wet sugar.

She's lecturing a year-old

nest finally fallen

from the elm, saying

How could you? She walks

the nest to a pile of leaves;

she buries it deep, she digs it out.

She spends fifteen minutes

trying to throw it back

into the tree before

she looks at me again,

before anything else.

I like that one, don't you? Effortlessness is so hard to pull of. I learned a lot just by typing. That's how poetry works, sometimes: it sneaks up on you.

Congratulations to Jim. And remember: March 8, 7:30 p.m., in the Gold Ballroom. Until then, happy reading.

Spring Reading Series Kicks Off

2012-01-16T10:27:00.001-08:00

Our first reading of the semester—this Wednesday, January 18, at 7:30 p.m. in 130 Colson—will feature two alumni authors: Katie Fallon (MFA) and Ida Stewart (BA). Here's a little something to tide you over until then...

From Katie's Cerulean Blues: A Personal Search for a Vanishing Songbird:

My legs could barely carry me up a steep logging road, but this tiny bird had just completed a 3,000-mile trip despite tremendous odds—perhaps dodging storms, evading predators, and dealing with shrinking habitat the entire way. Since this bird was more than two years old, he'd made that journey at least six times. I admired our little cerulean a great deal. He was much stronger than I was. A bird equivalent of me would have dropped into the Gulf after only a few feet.

Greg asked if I wanted to hold the cerulean warbler. This was a silly question, of course...

The warbler cocked his head and looked at me with a clear black eye. A month earlier, he may have stared at scarlet macaws and other tropical birds during migration. He could have looked down at oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. And now, he peered at me. I swallowed, tried not to cry, and instead focused on memorizing all of his intricate markings and colors.

And from Ida's Gloss:

Enough

A mountain of song and dance.

Everybody's leading who's got feet

and not got time enough to listen.

J's on the banjo asking who knows

the words, if you do sing along,

if you don't, pick it up quick.

Red's learning the old song, a new

old way. Thinking it's too far away

from home, too fancy, everybody's got

a different notion of fancy.

The old ways, the right ways, the shortcut

up around and down

and up again. Everybody says

I got a plan, I got a plan,

then waits to see what summer says,

but she just comes and goes,

another gust of dance. This mountain,

this is me and you. All of you. This place

we're in all talk. All follow

and sidestep. All call and response.

All of you, there is no middle ground,

it's all middling, and there is no higher road.

There is no more, no more than this

song and dance has a climax,

has a peak or an end.

Hope to see you at Wednesday's reading. WV cookies provided, of course.

Dr. Justus

2012-01-13T21:43:00.000-08:00

Dr. Justus, at the precise moment of transformation.

The Tenants are very pleased to announce that regular, normal graduate student Jeremy C. Justus has become Dr. Justus. The apotheosis occurred during a conversation with his dissertation committee, a far-flung and distinguished group: Judith Halberstam, Donald Hall, Judith Roof, and Timothy Sweet, as well as yours truly. Since much of the dissertation defense centered around issues of privacy, agency, and subjectivity in an era of hyper-surveillance, with Facebook serving as a continual example of new forms of both narrative and self-fashioning, it was apt that this photo hit hundreds of people's newsfeeds even as the committee was still congratulating him.

2012 Writing Contests

2012-01-09T07:56:00.000-08:00

Jon Scott Nelson Freshmen Creative Writing Contest

This contest is open to all WVU freshmen. Prizes are awarded for first ($100), second ($75), and third place ($50). Creative writing only. Please submit one entry in fiction, creative nonfiction, or poetry (a poetry entry should be 3-5 poems; a prose entry no more than 20 pages).

Jon Scott Nelson First-Year Writing Award

All students enrolled in English 101 (or English 103) during either the Fall 2011 or Spring 2012 semesters are eligible with up to three prizes awarded annually ($75 each). Please submit one essay written in an English 101 (or 103) class.

Jon Scott Nelson Professional Writing and Editing Award

This contest is open to all students enrolled in PWE courses. All essays must have been written for English 301, 302, 303, 304, and/or 305 for the 2011-12 academic year. Up to three prizes will be awarded (up to $75 each). An entry should be no more than 10 pages but may include more than one piece of professional writing.

Waitman Barbe Creative Writing Contest

This contest is separated into three divisions (fiction, poetry, and non-fiction) and is open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors only. One prize ($100) and one honorable mention ($50) are awarded in each division. Please submit one entry in fiction, creative nonfiction, or poetry (a poetry entry should be 3-5 poems; a prose entry no more than 20 pages). This contest is funded by the James Paul Brawner Endowed Writing Award Fund.

James Paul Brawner Expository Writing Contest

This contest is separated into three divisions—English 102, undergraduate writing (including English 103 and all WVU classes), and graduate writing from any course at WVU. First ($100), second ($75), and third ($50) place awards are normally awarded for each division. Please submit one example of expository writing from any class taken at WVU during 2011-12. Students may not submit more than one entry per division.

Russ MacDonald Graduate Creative Writing Contest

This is the only creative writing contest solely for WVU graduate students. Generally, three prizes are awarded annually ($100 each). Please submit one entry in fiction, creative nonfiction, or poetry (a poetry entry should be 3-5 poems; a prose entry no more than 25 pages). This contest is funded by the James Paul Brawner Endowed Writing Award Fund.

Appalachian Writing Award

This contest is open to all undergraduate students at WVU who grew up in Appalachia, which includes all of West Virginia, and whose work is set in Appalachia. The student will receive a scholarship ($350 value) to the West Virginia Writers' Workshop, which features writers of national reputation and will be held July 19 to July 22 in Morgantown. Submit one story or essay (up to 25 pages) or five poems. This contest is funded by writer Dwight Harshbarger.

Deadline for all contests:
Friday, March 9, 2012 at 12:00 p.m. in 100 Colson Hall

All submissions must have been written for classes at WVU; doctoral dissertations and MA theses not eligible. Students' names should be omitted from the entries. Attach a 3 x 5 card to the entry which lists: name, local address, email address, local telephone number, class rank (fr, soph, etc.), 700 number, title of entry, and name of contest entering (be sure to specify which division within the contest if applicable), and instructor/class for whom the paper was written. Students’ entries will be disqualified if information is missing from notecard. Winners will be notified by April 13 and will be invited to the Department’s annual Awards Luncheon held on Wednesday, April 18. Any WVU student is eligible for these contests; however, the student’s entry must have been written while the student was enrolled at WVU. Students may not submit the same entry for more than one contest or more than one entry per contest. For more information, email Marsha Bissett at Marsha.Bissett@mail.wvu.edu

No entries submitted after the deadline will be accepted.

Spring Workshops from the Office of Graduate Education and Life

2012-01-08T10:39:00.000-08:00

Once again this semester, the Office of Graduate Education is offering a number of workshops focused on the job search:

January 17: Campus Interviews for University Faculty Positions

January 23: Grant Writing Essentials

February 6: Finding and Applying for Postdoctoral Fellowships

February 13-24: Online Teaching Statement Workshop

February 20: Fundamentals of Online Course Design

March 5: Teaching Large Classes

March 12: Writing CVs for University Jobs

March 19: Writing Cover Letters for University Jobs

April 9: Writing Teaching Statements for University Jobs

April 16: Writing Research Statements for University Jobs

To see more information and to register, follow this link to the university calendar: http://cal.wvu.edu/default.aspx?type=&view=Summary&category=48-0

Initial CFP for the MMLA in Cincinnati in November

2012-01-04T12:39:00.000-08:00

"We fully intend to build on [the success of the 2011 conference] as we prepare for this year’s meeting, which will be held 8-11 November 2012 in Cincinnati, at the beautiful Hilton Cincinnati Netherland Plaza hotel. Registration opens March 5, 2012.

The informal theme for the 2012 meeting, chosen by 2012 MMLA president Craig Dionne of Eastern Michigan University, will be:

DEBT

possible sub-themes include:

indebtedness and influence
borrowers and lenders
bonds and contracts
economies of lack
states of debt
oaths and promises
gift-giving
cultures of expenditure
Occupy literature
trans-cultural capital
deferring
symbolic economies
ecological materialism
rethinking civic missions/practices
forgiveness
gratitude
literature of demand
emotional obligation
debts of affect
student loans

Prof. Dionne has chosen an exceptionally timely and important theme, one which should inspire lively discussion. We are now accepting special session proposals. The deadline for Special Session proposals is March 9, 2012. To submit a proposal, please complete the Special Session Proposal form at: (http://luc.edu/mmla/forms.html). Watch the website (www.luc.edu/mmla) for more details, and please do plan on joining us for what promises to be another stimulating and enjoyable conference.

With all best wishes for a happy and healthy New Year--"

David Posner, Executive Director
Loyola University Chicago

Spring Semester Readings

2012-01-03T21:07:00.000-08:00

The Department of English and the Creative Writing Program have an impressive slate of readings this spring. Here they are:

Katie Fallon and Ida Stewart Reading
Wednesday, January 18
130 Colson Hall, 7:30 p.m.

Dagoberto Gilb Reading
Wednesday, February 8
Gold Ballroom, 7:30 p.m.

Zachary Schomburg & Manual Cinema
Tuesday, March 6th
123 Pleasant Street, 8:00 p.m.

James Harms Reading
Thursday, March 8
Gold Ballroom, 7:30 p.m.

Matthew Zapruder Reading
Tuesday, April 3
Downtown Library, Robinson Reading Room, 7:30 p.m.

Calliope Reading
Thursday, April 19
130 Colson Hall, 7:30 p.m.

418 Reading
Thursday, April 26
130 Colson Hall, 11:30 a.m.

MFA Reading
Thursday, April 26
Rhododendron Room, Moutainlair, 7:30 p.m.

Diamonds in the Rough?

2011-12-28T16:12:00.000-08:00

We all fight the good fight against plagiarism. But I would ALMOST relish getting that fraudulent paper if it was anything like the bogus Magna Carta essay submitted by "Henchminion" to a website for would-be plagiarists.

I think my favorite part might be the reference to Bollock and Maidenhead's Interminable History of the English Law. A classic, that.

Lara

Image from "All thine castles are within ovr possession," by Undertoad. http://cellar.org/showthread.php?t=11045

Congratulations to Brian Ballentine

2011-12-20T11:11:00.000-08:00

The Tenants are very pleased and not at all surprised to learn that Brian Ballentine has just been named Outstanding Teacher in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences. As one student evaluation put it, "Knows his stuff. Dresses very well." While the comment does not cover all of the many reasons why Dr. Ballentine received this award, the Tenants can attest that both of these things are absolutely true.

Graduate Assistant Position for Spring in the Office of Graduate Education

2011-12-15T12:26:00.000-08:00

The Office of Graduate Education & Life
Graduate Assistantship Position Announcement

Mission Statement: The Office of Graduate Education & Life actively supports the holistic development of WVU’s graduate and professional students to advance their scholarship, professionalization, and personal growth. Working collaboratively with academic programs, we are committed to providing a rich learning environment that attracts and retains students who work closely with faculty to effectively meet the evolving needs of the
State of West Virginia, the nation, and the global community through advanced graduate training.

Overview: This graduate assistant will collaborate with the staff of the Office of Graduate Education & Life to assist with day-to-day office operation, data entry and analysis, event planning, and professional development and recruitment efforts as needed.

Start date: early January (TBD). Completion date: June 30, with possibility of renewal for the following academic year.

Qualifications and Required Skills:
• Strong writing skills
• Excellent communication skills
• Highly developed interpersonal skills
• Ability to work well with a diverse group of people
• Strong organizational skills
• Ability to adapt quickly to changing priorities and demands
• Strong computer skills
• Knowledge of social media outlets
• Strong attention to detail
• Ability to work independently
• Ability to maintain confidentiality

Preferred Skills:
• Experience with assessment, qualitative research, and/or SPSS or SAS

Compensation:
• Full tuition waiver
• $1,500 per month stipend
• Graduate student insurance coverage

Application Process:

DEADLINE January 3, 2012
By January 3, 2012, please submit a cover letter, resume/CV, and a 500 word-writing sample to:
Tammy Smith
tasmith@mail.wvu.edu

*For more information about this position, please contact graded@mail.wvu.edu.

16th-Century Poem Discovered in Wise Library, Media Frenzy Ensues

2011-12-14T22:19:00.000-08:00

The story of a previously unknown Early Modern love poem that was recently discovered in the Rare Book Room at WVU's Wise library by guest lecturer Elaine Treharne started out as a university press release, which has been making the rounds on Facebook and was then picked up by LiveScience. It finally made its way to Gawker.com, one of this particular Tenant's favorite websites, which puts its own typically amusing spin on the story, as their title, "Mysterious 16th-Century Sext Discovered in Copy of Chaucer," suggests.

Teresa Pershing, ABD

2011-12-13T22:18:00.000-08:00

The Tenants are pleased to announce that Teresa Pershing has officially passed her Qualifying Exam for Doctoral Candidacy. The committee (Donald Hall, Marilyn Francus, Adam Komisaruk, Anne Mellor, and Dennis Allen) was impressed by Teresa's erudite written exams and by her highly articulate and poised performance during the oral and is now looking forward to what promises to be a very interesting dissertation on error, sexuality, and early 19th-century England (perhaps necessarily in that order).

Mary Ann Samyn Wins Caperton Award

2011-12-13T21:21:00.000-08:00

It should come as no surprise to anyone who has studied with her (or even heard her talk about her classes and her students' work) that Mary Ann Samyn has just won the Caperton Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Writing for this year. In official parlance, the award is intended to "recognize tenured faculty members who exhibit dedication and proficiency in the teaching of writing." Less officially, the Tenants are working on a sonnet in honor of Mary Ann's richly deserved award, which should be finished sometime around the end of finals if they can get the final couplet right.

Caption Contest

2011-12-10T07:04:00.000-08:00

OK, so here ya go: something to lift your spirits during these final, exhausting days of the semester: a caption contest!

Post your suggestions in the comments section.

What a great reading!

2011-12-08T11:09:00.001-08:00

Today's ENGL 418 Creative Writing Capstone reading was the best yet. Really terrific work. Thanks to all our readers—Kim Nold, Chase Fraicola, Maggie Matsko, Hannah McPherson, Josh Cooper, Chris Milam, Brittney Polen, Abby Hohn, Kayla Shane, and Caitlin Walker—and to their MFA mentors—Justin Anderson, Ben Bishop, Micah Holmes, Jeremiah Shelor, Connie Pan, Kelly Sundberg, Rebecca Childers, Lisa Beans, Shane Stricker, and Melissa Atkinson.

Here's a photo of some of these writers (back: Josh, Chris, Chase, Caitlin, instructor Mary Ann Samyn; front: Hannah, Kayla, Brittney; not pictured: Kim, famous for her cart-wheels, Maggie, who had to dash off to another capstone, and Abby, who just dashed off). Congratulations to them all!

Leave it to Pat Conner

2011-12-05T09:59:00.000-08:00

... to have not one but two retirement parties. This past Saturday we gathered at Ethel Morgan Smith's house where we ate the most darling petit fours (really!) and admired her Christmas tree and toasted Pat once again. Not that he's not deserving, of course. Pat is, as you no doubt know, a pretty big deal—as our former chair and colleague, as a teacher and mentor, and as a scholar. He's definitely earned a fete or two... though when he started speculating about next year's celebration, we began to wonder. But we'll worry about that later. For now, just lots of congratulations to Pat. And we hope you will be King Lear very soon, Pat, and break a leg and don't forget about us when you become a famous actor.

Alumni News (And A Little Bit Of Electioneering)

2011-11-30T18:47:00.000-08:00

Once again, the mail's arrived at Colson Hall, with some very good news and a little bit of politics thrown in.

Marisa Klages (Ph.D. '08) writes to say that she's been granted early tenure at LaGuardia Community College (part of the CUNY system), where she's Director of Outcomes Assessment and, now, an Associate Professor. The Tenants heartily congratulate her.

On the political side, Anthony Zias (Ph.D. '08 and now an Assistant Professor at Coppin State in Maryland) wrote to say that he is on the ballot for the MLA Delegate Assembly for the Mid-Atlantic region and would like your vote. Anthony very helpfully added that our own Professor Ballentine is running in a different contest in the same region so that you can actually vote for both of them. He did not mention whether the two of them constitute a party or, if so, what their platform might be.

ENGL 491A Poster Presentations

2011-11-30T07:55:00.000-08:00

Congrats to the ENGL 491A - Professional Writing & Editing Capstone undergraduates on their internship poster presentations on Tuesday.

Winner of the exhibit's Best Poster Competition, Alexandra Ries demonstrated how "green" writing can be repurposed for various media and audiences.
Kelsey Gaus shared interviewing techniques practiced at WV Living Magazine with interviewees including WVU men's basketball coach Bob Huggins.
Chris Kees discussed the challenges of consolidating 100-page reports on technical topics (such as isoelectric solubilization) into concise abstracts for online indexing.
Alyssa Thompson showed the importance of clear organization and good design for a service directory used by paralegals in a law firm.
Wendy Spaw acquainted exhibit visitors with the issues involved in working with an oversees author to edit a manuscript originally written in Portuguese.
Barbara Hall demonstrated the complementary nature of graphics and text in a small business' pricing sheets, business cards, and direct mail.

Thanks to everyone who walked through the exhibit to support these young writers!

CFP: Undergraduate Literature Symposium

2011-11-29T19:52:00.000-08:00

CALL FOR PAPERS

Twentieth Annual Literature West Virginia Literature Symposium for Undergraduate Students
Fairmont State University, Fairmont, WV
Saturday, 18 February, 2012

Sponsored by the School of Language and Literature, College of Liberal Arts, Fairmont State University

Analytical, theoretical, or interpretative studies of literary works, films, or culture are invited for this annual literary symposium. Presentations must be in English, though the works studied may be in any language. The top three papers will receive cash prizes. Completed papers should be appropriate for a 15-minute presentation and, therefore, should not exceed 8-10 double-spaced, typed pages (the selection committee will not read any submission beyond the tenth page). One submission per person, please. Only papers written during the 2011 calendar year are eligible. Electronic submissions are preferred. Note: Papers must be formatted either in Word or .rtf.

Attach completed paper along with your name, address, telephone number and e-mail address, AV requirements (i.e., computer projection, DVD player and TV, etc.) and send to Dr. Angela Schwer (Angela.Schwer@fairmontstate.edu).

Papers must be submitted no later than midnight, Friday, December 16, 2011. Students will be notified of their status by Friday, January 27, 2012. For more information, e-mail Angela.Schwer@fairmontstate.edu.

As Finals Approach....

2011-11-24T21:42:00.000-08:00

This Thanksgiving, about the time that the pumpkin pie was passed around in the old oak dining room of Colson Hall, the Tenants had come to a general agreement that, as Finals Week draws near, students might well take Evil Scientist Heinz Doofensmirtz as a role model, viz.:

Upcoming Capstone Events

2011-11-18T07:38:00.000-08:00

Students in English 491A, the Professional Writing and Editing Capstone, will showcase the work from their internships at a poster presentation on Tuesday, November 29, in 130 Colson. The posters will be on display from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and then from 4-5 p.m. the students will be on hand to discuss their work.

Students in English 418, the Creative Writing Capstone, will read from their work on Thursday, December 8, at 10 a.m. in 130 Colson. Chase Fraicola, Abby Hohn, Hannah McPherson, and Chris Milam will read creative nonfiction; Josh Cooper, Maggie Matsko, Kim Nold, Brittney Polen, and Kayla Shane will read fiction; and Sarah Keller and Caitlin Walker will read poetry. The students' MFA mentors will do the introductions.

Hope to see you at both of these events.

CFP: Drama, Theatre, and Performance Regional Conference

2011-11-14T09:06:00.000-08:00

CALL FOR PAPERS: “Drama, Theatre, and Performance Regional Conference”

The Drama, Theatre, and Performance Consortium at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University announces its next biannual conference for Saturday, March 31, 2012 at Pitt. We seek papers and presentations from regional scholars (grad students and faculty members) on a range of topics in the wide field of drama, theatre, and performance. Possible areas for papers include: the necessary relations among evolution, nature, and performance, American drama abroad, the formation and institutionalization of performance cultures, theatre for working-class audiences, performance and cognition, theatre as autoethnography, and relations among performances and literary production in post-colonial societies. Please send 150-word abstracts of your 20-minute paper proposal to Bruce McConachie (bamcco@Pitt.edu) or Susan H. Smith (shs1@Pitt.edu). Deadline: January 30, 2012. The Consortium will notify all applicants by February 27.

Grants for Travel to the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture at Duke

2011-11-08T09:38:00.000-08:00

The John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American
History and Culture, part of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book &
Manuscript Library at Duke University, announces the availability of
travel grants for research travel to our collections.

The John Hope Franklin Research Center seeks to collect, preserve, and
promote the use of printed and manuscript materials bearing on the
history of Africa and people of African descent.

Research grants are available to any faculty member, graduate or
undergraduate student, or independent scholar with a research project
requiring the use of materials held by the Franklin Research Center.
Grant money may be used for travel, photocopying, and living expenses
while pursuing research at the Rubenstein Library. Applicants must live
outside of a 100-mile radius from Durham, NC. The maximum award per
applicant is $1,000.

The deadline for application is January 31, 2012 by 5:00 PM EST.
Recipients will be announced in March 2012. Grants must be used between
April 1, 2012 and June 30, 2013.

For more information and to download a copy of the application form,
please visit: http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/services/grants/index.html

Applicants are encouraged to contact Jennifer Thompson, the Franklin
Research Center's research services librarian, before submitting their
application. Past applications have demonstrated that those who spoke
with a staff member about their projects produced stronger applications.
Contact information is listed below:

Jennifer Thompson
John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American
History and Culture
David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Duke University, Box 90185
Durham, NC 27708-0185
Phone: 919-660-5922
E-mail: jennifer2.thompson@duke.edu
Website: http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/franklin/

English Club Trip to See Much Ado About Nothing

2011-11-07T19:14:00.000-08:00

"Speak low if you speak love."
- William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

Much Ado About Nothing at Shakespeare Theatre Company, Washington DC
Saturday, December 3rd at 2:00 PM

All WVU Students Welcome.

Students are carpooling and departing at 7:00am. $10 covers the cost of tickets and gas. Overnight accommodation and meals not provided.

Contact Abra Sitler at abrasitler@gmail.com for more information by Friday, November 18, 2011.

Consultant Positions for Spring in Business and Economics

2011-11-07T11:18:00.000-08:00

If you're an English graduate student and need some extra money (possibly so that you can attend the benefit Jazz Concert for the Appalachian Prison Book Project, see below), we've just received the following call for consultants in the College of Business and Economics for next semester......

"The College of Business and Economics seeks to hire additional graduate level students for consultant positions in the Business Communications Center (BCC) for the spring 2012 semester. The positions are part-time, approximately10 hours per week, and the compensation is $10 per hour.

Consultants will work with business students to improve written and oral communication skills, not by proofreading or editing, but by coaching students about strategies for editing their own work. We want students to be able to assess their own overall communication skills and identify their weaknesses rather than provide a temporary 'fix.'

Some of the qualifications necessary to be a consultant include being able to respectfully communicate with the student and set priorities so that the student understands that ownership of the task belongs to him or her."

Students interested in applying for one of these positions would need to send a letter and resume via email to Elizabeth Tomlinson, Business Communications Center Director:

Elizabeth.tomlinson@mail.wvu.edu

This Friday: Benefit Concert for the Appalachian Prison Book Project

2011-11-07T11:03:00.000-08:00

Spring Semester Courses and Workshops from the Office of Graduate Education

2011-11-03T10:20:00.000-07:00

Spring Workshops:

RefWorks 2.0 - Join librarians Noel Kopriva and Penny Pugh for a hands-on workshop covering the basic features of RefWorks, an online service for managing references. In RefWorks, you can organize and store citations, create bibliographies and in-text citations, attach documents, and share references with other scholars.

November 8, 4-5:30 PM at Downtown Campus Library, Room 136.

November 10, 4-5:30 PM, Evansdale Library Classroom.

Writing Effective Conference Proposals- Learn how to craft an effective conference proposal to present your work at an academic conference.

December 5, 5:00-6:30, Oglebay Hall 107

Spring courses:

1. Preparing Future Faculty Seminar, GRAD 694

Preparing Future Faculty is a 2-credit seminar that will enlighten you on the transition from graduate student to faculty member. Participants will be expected to complete weekly readings and foster discussion on course topics, including the following:

· How to apply for academic jobs

· Teaching, research, and service responsibilities of an assistant professor

· Preparing for tenure and promotion review

· Current issues in the academic job market and higher education

· Considering non-academic jobs

2 credits, Pass/Fail

Tuesdays, 3:00-4:30

Dr. Jonathan Cumming, Dr. Jenny Douglas

2. Scholarly Teaching, GRAD 710

This course provides a foundation for teaching at the college level based on educational research. Students will learn best practices for employing active learning, fostering higher order thinking skills, and creating courses with meaningful, measurable learning goals.

3 credits

Time: Tuesdays, 2:00-5:00

Instructor: Dr. Michelle Withers, Assistant Professor of Biology

3. Teaching Capstone, GRAD 693

This course is intended as the capstone requirement for the Certificate in University Teaching. For more information about the Certificate, please contact Dr. Jenny Douglas at jenny.douglas@mail.wvu.edu

Big Doings

2011-10-25T13:57:00.000-07:00

Sorry to fall behind with the party report, but, well, you know how it is.

And yes, I did say "party report." There have been parties. Plural. Didn't you know?

First, faculty gathered to celebrate Kirk Hazen's fancy NSF grant, as mentioned a few posts ago, and, yes, I was the hostess and, yes, I really did cook that seared tenderloin with mustard-horseradish sauce. It was good; we missed you.

Then lots of faculty and current and former grad students celebrated the publication of Katie Fallon's book, Cerulean Blues: The Personal Search of a Vanishing Songbird, at a party at the MAC. Jesse Fallon, veterinarian extraordinaire, provided the intro to the intro; Kevin Oderman provided the intro itself; Katie provided the evening's highlight, a reading from the book; and Katie's dad provided a humorous anecdote about Katie's trip to Colombia and guns.

Finally, this wouldn't be a post about "big doings" if I didn't mention that Glenn Taylor was on "Saturday Night Live." Or, his book was. The skit is too stupid to include here, but Glenn's second novel, The Marrowbone Marble Company, is featured prominently in the background, right next to Eat Pray Love, as you can clearly see. If this isn't fame, I don't know what is.

And thanks to "Vitamin Steve," some crazily-named friend of Glenn's, for the screenshot.

Lonesome October

2011-10-21T22:50:00.000-07:00

The environs of Colson Hall seem to have completely skipped over the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness and gone right for that ashen and sober skies thing, with an occasional fine drizzle added. Even the graduate students are looking a little ~~crisped and sere~~ depressed.

Some of the Tenants, however, are cheered by the following vision of The Future, in which it becomes clear that, although Justin Bieber has been talking to other departments, he really only loves us and will buy us that dress we wanted and take us to a party.

Plus.....Christmas!

The Jefferson Scholars Foundation at UVA: Doctoral Fellowships and a CFP

2011-10-21T22:24:00.000-07:00

The University of Virginia seeks outstanding PhD, JD, and MBA candidates to apply to its graduate programs. Outstanding candidates will be considered for the Jefferson Fellowship. For full details about the Fellowship, please go to http://www.jeffersonscholars.org/graduate-program/the-jefferson-fellowship/.

The Jefferson Scholars Foundation requests submissions of manuscripts on the topic of Birth and Origins for consideration in the 2nd issue of our peer-reviewed academic journal, the Jefferson Journal of Science and Culture. We invite scholars in all fields to submit papers relevant to the theme. Theoretical as well as empirical manuscripts are welcome. Collaborations between scholars from different fields are particularly encouraged as are single-author works with an interdisciplinary scope.

Topics may include (but are not limited to):

• birth of a specific cultural practice

• background and origin of a specific term or element of your field

• etiology of a specific pathological or physiological process

• early histories of a paradigm or society

To submit, email your manuscript to jeffersonjournaluva@gmail.com by November 21, 2011. Please carefully review the submission guidelines provided on our website: www.jeffersonjournal.org.

Job Search Advice

2011-10-18T08:39:00.000-07:00

For job seekers:

There's a lot of job search advice out there on the academic blogosphere, some of it sound, some of it a little less so. Here are two such blogs with series on the job search. Please feel free to post others in the comments.

Tim Morton at Ecology without Nature

The Academic Gig. Begin here, and the rest you can find under the category "jobs."

Be sure to leave links to others in the comments, and I'll add them to this post as they come in.

EGO/COW Book and Bake Sale 2011

2011-10-13T18:15:00.000-07:00

The 2011 version of the EGO/COW Book and Bake Sale is coming to Colson Hall in exactly one week. This year's sale, on Thursday, October 20 from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm, may be the largest book and bake sale to date! Please let your students, friends, and even people you may not especially like know about the date and time of the sale. Thanks in advance for helping EGO and COW make this the most successful book and bake sale in recorded history. The members of EGO and COW hope to see everyone there and we look forward to feeding minds and mouths alike. See you next Thursday in Colson 130.

Next Monday: Public Talk on Mobile Storytelling

2011-10-11T19:51:00.000-07:00

"Bringing the Art of Design to the National Park Service: The Fort Vancouver Mobile Project"
Dr. Dene Grigar
Director and Associate Professor
The Creative Media & Digital Culture Program
Washington State University Vancouver

7-830pm Colson 130
Monday, October 17
Free Public Lecture

In the 21st century, how best to relate the history of the National Park Service's Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, the most popular historical attraction in the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan area and a major archaeological site, with more than 1 million visitors per year and 2 million artifacts to show? With digital stories told via mobile devices. This talk, given by Dr. Dene Grigar, focuses on the "Fort Vancouver Mobile," an NEH-funded project that brings together a team of 18 experts and scholars from throughout the digital humanities field -- including historians, archaeologists and academics specializing in digital media production as well as literature, rhetoric and writing -- to tell the story of the fascinating and multicultural history of the place once dubbed the "New York of the Pacific." Specifically, she will discuss the way design and non-fiction historical writing come together when mobile devices are used for digital storytelling.

Sponsored by the Center for Literary Computing and the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Sturm Week

2011-10-11T09:39:00.001-07:00

TCH would like to welcome poet Carol Frost, this year's Sturm Writer-in-Residence, to Morgantown.

And of course we want to congratulate the poets who will be working with her:

Melissa Atkinson (MFA, 2nd year)

Lisa Beans (MFA, 3rd year)

Ben Bishop (MFA, 2nd year)

Evan Blake (MFA, 1st year)

Melissa Ferrone (undergraduate)

Micah Holmes (MFA, 3rd year)

Sara Kearns (MFA, 2nd year)

Rachel King (MFA, 3rd year)

Matthew London (MFA, 3rd year)

Christina Seymour (MFA, 1st year)

Isabelle Shepherd (undergraduate)

Jacqulyn Wilson (MA-PWE, 2nd year)

And congratulations, too, to Emily Issacs, winner of this year's Virginia Butts Sturm Creative Writing Award.

OK, poets, we expect to hear all about the workshop with Carol and to read the amazing poems you'll be writing as a result. No pressure, though.

Postdoc at CalTech's Huntington Library

2011-10-06T16:56:00.001-07:00

The Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the Research Division of the Huntington Library invites applications for a Two-Year Postdoctoral Instructorship beginning Fall 2012. Area of specialization: early American literature and print culture, or transatlantic (British and American) long eighteenth-century literature and print culture. We are particularly interested in candidates working on issues related to religion. The teaching load is three ten-week undergraduate courses per year (quarter system). The position is contingent upon completion of Ph.D.

Interested candidates should submit a letter of application, vita, dossier with at least three letters of recommendation, thesis abstract, and writing sample by email to: englishpdi@hss.caltech.edu or mailed to: English Postdoctoral Instructor Search, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, MC 101-40, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena CA 91125. Application deadline is November 30, 2011.

Caltech is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. Women, minorities, veterans, and disabled persons are encouraged to apply.

Another Great Poet

2011-10-06T04:44:00.000-07:00

Tomas Transtromer, the great Swedish poet, has just been awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature.

The Academy cited his "condensed, translucent images" as giving us "fresh access to reality."

Sounds about right.

Here's a seasonally appropriate poem from Transtromer's 1958 collection, Secrets on the Way, and translated by Robin Fulton in 1987's Selected Poems (edited by Robert Hass):

Weather Picture

The October Sea glistens coldly

with its dorsal fin of mirages.

Nothing is left that remembers

the white dizziness of yacht races.

An amber glow over the village.

And all the sounds in slow flight.

A dog's barking is a hieroglyph

painted in the air above the garden

where the yellow fruit outwits

the tree and drops of its own accord.

And now, a word or two from Rilke

2011-10-05T18:29:00.001-07:00

Some books can and should be read many times. Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke is one such book. Have you read it? Recently? I'm reading it, again, for the creative writing capstone class tomorrow, and I'm struck, as always, by how deeply wise this book is. It's hard to choose just one passage to quote, so here are two, from the translation by Stephen Mitchell.

First, a (beautifully) humbling passage about teaching and mentoring and general advice-giving, which is what Rilke was being called on to do in response to Franz Xaver Kappus, the military student who wrote to him in 1903:

"Of course, you must know that every letter of yours will always give me pleasure, and you must be indulgent with the answer, which will perhaps leave you empty-handed; for ultimately, and precisely in the deepest and most important matters, we are unspeakably alone; and many things must happen, many things must go right, a whole constellation of events must be fulfilled, for human being to successfully advise or help another" (14).

And then, an equally beautiful and perhaps more uplifting passage about learning:

"... have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer" (34).

Rilke certainly doesn't need my commentary, nor do you, so I'll stop here.

Even More Very Good News

2011-10-03T22:12:00.000-07:00

The Tenants are pleased to see that Anthony Zias (Ph.D. '08) has just had an essay published in PsyArt (and in the same issue as a piece by Claire Kahane no less). Since the journal is online, you can actually read "The Repetition of Unrecognized Desire: An Analysis of the Traumatized Subject in Joyce Carol Oates’s Son of the Morning" without even leaving the house to go to that library place. Anyone who knows Anthony won't be surprised to learn that the essay is a Lacanian reading of Oates. You can get your "interpretation of the Other's desire" fix right here.

A warm welcome to Colson Hall's newest tiny tenant!

2011-10-01T10:02:00.000-07:00

Our heartiest congratulations and best wishes for a good night's sleep to Associate Professor Cari Carpenter, proud momma of baby Adalyn Clare Carpenter-Bowen, born on September 28 at 8:57 p.m.

That's 8:57 p.m. Mountain Time, since--fortunately for them, unfortunately for us--Cari, Eric, and Adalyn are sabbatical-ing in charming Fort Collins, Colorado* this year, so Adalyn won't be resident in Colson for awhile yet. This gives us lots of time, however, to plan many ways to spoil her rotten.

Adalyn Clare Carpenter-Bowen, 8 lbs, 3 oz and 21 inches long

* A. K. A. "Fort Fun" to those of us who once upon a time lived 30 miles east in the feed-lot/slaughterhouse town of Greeley. Good news, Cari: you can have a Rio margarita now!

Doctoral and Postdoctoral Fellowships

2011-09-27T20:10:00.000-07:00

This week, the mailbox at Colson Hall has been full of fellowship announcements:

From the UCLA Center for Seventeeth- and Eighteenth-Century Studies and the Clark Library:

ASECS/Clark Fellowships

Fellowships jointly sponsored by the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies and the Clark Library are available to postdoctoral scholars and to ABD graduate students with projects in the Restoration or the eighteenth century. Fellowship holders must be members in good standing of ASECS. Awards are for one month of residency.

Stipend: $2,500 for one month in residence.

Application deadline: 1 February 2012

Kanner Fellowship in British Studies

These three-month fellowships, established through the generosity of Penny Kanner, support research at the Clark Library in any area pertaining to British history and culture. Fellowships are open to both postdoctoral and predoctoral scholars.

Stipend: $7,500 for three months in residence.

Application deadline: 1 February 2012

From the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation:

The Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships (www.woodrow.org/newcombe) support the final year of dissertation work for Ph.D. candidates in the humanities and social sciences. Eligible proposals have religious or ethical values as a central concern, and are relevant to the solution of contemporary religious, cultural or human rights questions. The stipend for the Newcombe Fellowship is $25,000 for a twelve-month period of dissertation writing. (Deadline: November 15, 2011)

From the Very Good News department...

2011-09-27T17:56:00.000-07:00

The Tenants are super happy to congratulate MFA alum Christina Rothenbeck ('11) on the forthcoming publication of her chapbook, Girls in Art. Dancing Girl Press will do the honors and you can get your copy in August 2012.

From her new home at the University of Southern Mississippi, Christina also reports that she misses Pat Conner (hey, who doesn't?) and that her chapbook includes "a few new bank robbery poems," which is a statement you just don't hear every day.

So congrats to you, Christina... and yes, we will give Morgantown your love.

Mark Brazaitis traveled to Washington D.C. to celebrate 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps.

2011-09-26T13:28:00.000-07:00

Associate Professor and Creative Writing Program Coordinator Mark Brazaitis traveled to Washington, D.C., this past weekend to attend ceremonies celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps. Brazaitis served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Guatemala from 1990 to 1993 and as a Peace Corps trainer in the same country from 1994 to 1995. A few notable Peace Corps authors: Paul Theroux, Maureen Orth, Bob Shacochis, Richard Wiley, Mike Tidwell, Mary-Ann Tirone Smith, Norman Rush, P.F. Kluge, and John Coyne. For more, see:

As part of the celebration, Brazaitis attended a ceremony at the Library of Congress honoring writers who have been Volunteers. Chris Matthews, a Volunteer in Swaziland from 1968 to 1970 and the host of Hardball with Chris Matthews, and James Billington, the long-serving head librarian of the Library of Congress, were featured speakers.

With several other former Volunteers who served in Guatemala, he attended a reception at the house of the Guatemalan ambassador to the U.S., Julio Armando Martini Herrera (see photo). Mucha amistad!

Kelly Sundberg, Award Winner

2011-09-25T18:56:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to MFA student Kelly Sundberg, who won the "Bridging the Gap" prose contest sponsored by Slice magazine at the Slice Literary Writers' Conference in September.

Kelly received $100 and her piece will be published in the spring 2012 issue of Slice.

The contest was judged by a panel of agents and editors.

As Kelly reports, "I'm really excited. I think Slice is a great journal, and the conference was really helpful."

Not surprisingly, Kelly now has agents and editors interested in her work.

Congratulations to a terrific writer!

2012-2013 Hench Post-Dissertation Fellowship at the American Antiquarian Society

2011-09-20T10:12:00.001-07:00

Scholars who are no more than three years beyond receipt of the doctorate are invited to apply for the Hench Post-Dissertation Fellowship, a year-long residential fellowship at the American Antiquarian Society. The purpose of the post-dissertation fellowship is to provide the recipient with time and resources to extend research and/or to revise the dissertation for publication. Any topic relevant to the Society's library collections and programmatic scope, and coming from any field or disciplinary background, is eligible. AAS collections focus on all aspects of American history, literature, and culture from contact to 1876, and provide rich source material for projects across the spectrum of early American studies.

The Society welcomes applications from those who have advance book contracts, as well as those who have not yet made contact with a publisher. The twelve-month stipend for this fellowship is $35,000. The Hench Post-Dissertation Fellow will be selected on the basis of the applicant's scholarly qualifications, the appropriateness of the project to the Society's collections and interests, and, above all, the likelihood that the revised dissertation will make a highly significant book.

Further information about the fellowship, along with application materials, is available on the AAS website, at http://www.americanantiquarian.org/post-diss.htm. Any questions about the fellowship may be directed to Paul Erickson, Director of Academic Programs at AAS, at perickson@mwa.org.

The deadline for applications for a Hench Post-Dissertation Fellowship to be held during the 2012-2013 academic year is October 15, 2011.

Calliope Meeting...

2011-09-19T14:17:00.000-07:00

As just announced on the Bolton Writing Workshops blog, based on an email from Marsha Bissett, who got the info from Mark Brazaitis, here's the deal with the first meeting of the year for Calliope:

A meeting of all students interested in working on Calliope, WVU's award-winning undergraduate literary magazine, will be held on Tuesday , October 4, at 7:30 in room 130 of Colson Hall. Students interested in the top editorial positions (editor-in-chief, managing editor, fiction editor, poetry editor, etc.) as well as students interested in contributing in other ways to the editorial and publication process are encouraged to attend. No experience is necessary! Enthusiasm is a plus!

Students who are not able to attend the meeting but would like to be on the Calliope staff should email or call the magazine's faculty sponsor, Mark Brazaitis, at Mark.Brazaitis@mail.wvu.edu/304-293-9707.

Kirk Hazen Receives NSF Grant for "Phonetic Variation in Appalachia"

2011-09-16T09:22:00.000-07:00

This just in from Department Chair John Ernest:

Professor Hazen

"I'm very pleased and proud to announce that Kirk Hazen's project, "Phonetic Variation in Appalachia," has been fully funded by the National Science Foundation--a grant of $239,724. Kirk's track record is simply amazing. Since he has been at WVU, this is the third proposal he has had funded by the NSF, and all three were funded on the first review. What continues to impress me the most, however, is Kirk's commitment to this work in all of its manifestations and applications. From the classroom to the community, from his interactions with established scholars to his devoted mentoring of rising students, Kirk approaches his work with a clear sense of the importance of understanding how we have spoken our way through the world--how the world changes our language use and how our language use has the potential to change our worlds."

Susan Webster Schultz Lecture

2011-09-14T08:43:00.000-07:00

Department of English and the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences will host the English Department’s Eberly Family Distinguished Lecture Series, featuring a presentation by Susan Webster Schultz, Professor of English at the University of Hawaii. Her discussion, “Writing Alzheimer’s: It Must Be Experimental” is scheduled for Monday, September 19 in 130 Colson Hall from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Call For Applications: Mellon Dissertation Fellowships

2011-09-13T16:04:00.001-07:00

The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) is pleased to offer fellowships funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for graduate students who:

* are enrolled in a doctoral program in a graduate school in the United States

* will complete all doctoral requirements except the dissertation and be ready to start research for it as early as June 1 and no later than September 1, 2012, with approval of the dissertation proposal by April 1, 2012

* plan to do dissertation research primarily in original source material in the holdings of archives, libraries, historical societies, museums, related repositories, or a combination

* will write the dissertation and receive the Ph.D. degree in a field of the humanities or in a related element of the social sciences.

To such students, CLIR offers approximately 15 competitively awarded fellowships carrying stipends of up to $25,000 to support dissertation research for periods of 9 to 12 months. Applicants may be of any nationality and may propose to conduct their research anywhere in the world (including in multiple countries), but must be enrolled in a U.S. graduate school and be studying here, not on a campus abroad even if operated by a U.S. institution.

In partnership with the Preservation Directorate at the Library of Congress, for the 2012-2013 academic year CLIR is offering an additional fellowship award through this program to support original source dissertation research at the Library of Congress. Applicants must meet all standard eligibility requirements for the program as well as certain fellowship specific requirements, and will receive a regular stipend of up to $25,000 over the 9 to 12 month fellowship period. The CLIR/Library of Congress fellow will also be eligible to receive up to $6,000 in living expenses.

The application deadline is 5:00 p.m. Eastern time, November 15, 2011. Fellowship awards will be announced on April 2, 2012. Fellowship tenure will begin between June 1 and September 1, 2012, and end within 12 months of commencing. The application form, detailed instructions and further information are available online and may be found at http://www.clir.org/fellowships/mellon/mellon.html.

Public Lecture: "The Historian as Ventriloquist"

2011-09-13T08:58:00.000-07:00

This just in from Sandy Baldwin:

Please note the upcoming lecture by Tom Cohen (and maybe also by
Elizabeth Cohen): "The Historian as Ventriloquist: The Joys and
Pitfalls of Speaking for Past People." The presentation will be held on
Friday, 30 September at 3:30 PM in Oglebay 118.

About Tom, from the York University (Canada) website:
"Professor Tom Cohen (*Thomas* only when in print) works on
Renaissance Italy, Rome especially, and that city*s rural hinterland.
His take is a mix of cultural and political anthropology. He studies
gestures and symbols and decodes actions. As a writer, he often uses
microhistory, telling fine-grained stories about the lives of ordinary
Romans. He looks to coalitions, conspiracies, trades, bluffs, dares, and
wily dodges. A devotee of style and vividness in scholarly writing, he
tells stories about seductions, betrayals, conspiracies, murders, and
poisonings, not just for the tales themselves, but for the clues they
offer about the culture of negotiation and the habits of coalition that
made a distant world work. As a social historian with a Humanities
inclination, employs close reading to extract the hidden esthetics of
everyday language. His current main project is a book on a rebellious
village high in mountains east of Rome."

Tom's recent books include Cultural History of Early Modern European
Streets (Brill, 2009), and Love and Death in Renaissance Italy (Chicago,
2004).

There is money in poetry.

2011-09-11T16:44:00.000-07:00

That caught your attention, didn't it?

And it's only a small exaggeration. There is money, in poetry, fiction or creative nonfiction, for one lucky undergraduate who is selected as this year's Virginia Butts Sturm Creative Writing Scholarship recipient. So if you're an English major with a creative writing concentration, think about how great it'll feel to hit it big and tell your parents that being a writer does pay! Deadline: Wednesday, September 28.

And if you're a poet, grad or undergrad, don't miss the deadline---Monday, September 19---to apply for this year's Sturm residency with poet Carol Frost. She's pretty terrific. And here's a poem to prove it.

All Summer Long

The dogs eat hoof slivers and lie under the porch.

A strand of human hair hangs strangely from a fruit tree

like a cry in the throat. The sky is clay for the child who is past

being tired, who wanders in waist-deep

grasses. Gnats rise in a vapor,

in a long mounting whine around her forehead and ears.

The sun is an indistinct moon. Frail sticks

of grass poke her ankles,

and a wet froth of spiders touches her legs

like wet fingers. The musk and smell

of air are as hot as the savory

terrible exhales from a tired horse.

The parents are sleeping all afternoon,

and no one explains the long uneasy afternoons.

She hears their combined breathing and swallowing

salivas, and sees their sides rising and falling

like the sides of horses in the hot pasture.

At evening a breeze dries and crumbles

the sky and the clouds float like undershirts

and cotton dresses on a clothesline. Horses

rock to their feet and race or graze.

Parents open their shutters and call

the lonely, happy child home.

The child who hates silences talks and talks

of cicadas and the manes of horses.

Poetry in your pants

2011-09-08T09:26:00.000-07:00

Last summer, parts of Morgantown were visited by the "Midnight Poet," who would leave cryptic and frankly not very interesting poems on people's porches and doors overnight. Colson Hall tenant Cari Carpenter received one, and it was fun to speculate about what the writer might be trying to accomplish by secretly distributing poetry door-to-door. Was it performance art? A cry for help? Terrorism?

This video suggests that there might be better ways to be a poetry vandal.

--and while you're at the "Salvo Boutique," Goodwill, or Lucky's Attic, be sure to pick up the requisite pieces for this fall's retro-chic Flashdance look. Since this is a very complicated ensemble to put together, here are some helpful instructions:

And remember that when it comes to accessories, "You can even add a little bit more, all the way up your wrist, to look like a people in the 80s!"

Career Workshops for Graduate Students

2011-09-06T09:05:00.000-07:00

The Office of Graduate Education has announced the following workshops:

September 12: CVs for the Academic Job Search Oglebay 107, 5:00 – 6:30

September 19: Cover Letters for Faculty Positions Percival Hall 316, 5:00 – 6:30

September 27 & 29: How to Conduct a Literature Review

September 27: Downtown Library, 4:00 – 6:00

September 29: Evansdale Library, 4:00 – 6:00

*Please register by emailing GradEd@mail.wvu.edu or calling 304-293-7173

October 3: Teaching Statements for Faculty Positions Oglebay 107, 5:00 – 6:30

October 17: Teaching Portfolios for Faculty Positions Oglebay 107, 5:00 –6:30

October 24: Research Statements for Faculty Positions Percival Hall 316, 5:00 – 6:30

CFP: Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies (INCS) Conference

2011-08-31T11:24:00.000-07:00

One of the interesting trends in academia in the past couple of years is a growing dissatisfaction with the standard conference format and various attempts to structure conferences in a way that allows substantially more discussion between participants than the traditional three paper panel with 30 minutes for questions. As Professor Komisaruk notes, this conference has an innovative structure. According to Adam, "The format is a little different: you submit your paper online to be read in advance, present for five minutes, then spend the remaining hour in discussion."

Call for Papers
Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies (INCS) Conference
Picturing the Nineteenth Century
March 22-25, 2012
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY

Though its title foregrounds art and visual culture, this conference will treat"picturing" in all its many senses: imagining, representing, framing, mapping. We invite papers and panels that consider how the nineteenth century represented itself to itself - through depictions of subjectivity, history, and culture; through emerging technologies and disciplines; through self-conscious "meta" attempts to understand methods of representation - and how our own technologies and disciplines create multiple pictures of "the nineteenth century." Interdisciplinary papers and panels are especially welcome.

Featured speakers include Nancy Armstrong (English Department, Duke University), Julie Codell (Art History Department,Arizona State University), and Shawn Michelle Smith (Visual & Critical Studies, Art Institute of Chicago).

Themes include but are not limited to:

"The visual turn" and its technologies
Canons, institutions, and practices of art and literature
The materiality of the literary: illustrations, cover designs, advertising, publication
Display, exhibition, and spectatorship
Cartographies,real and imagined
Urban geographies and ethnographies; mapping and tracking people
Imperialism as visual practice; global mappings and re-mappings
Representations of selves and bodies; life writing
Modes of representation: narrative, image, statistics, chronology
Archives, libraries, and their histories
Digitizing the nineteenth century
Teaching the nineteenth century

Deadline: October 17, 2011. For individual papers, send a 250-word proposals; for panels, send individual 250-word proposals for each paper plus a 250-word panel description. Please include your name, affiliation, and e-mail address on the proposals.

Contact incs2012@uky.edu for more information

Humanities Summer Internship Brownbag

2011-08-29T13:09:00.000-07:00

Since Tenants Dominique, Sreya, and James are involved in this, this should be fun as well as informational:

"Humanities Summer Internship Brownbag

Come and hear English and history graduate students talk about their summer internships! In summer 2011, The Office of Graduate Education & Life funded 6 humanities doctoral students to find internships outside the university setting. Come learn about these students’ experiences and future possibilities for your own summer funding!

September 22, 12:00-1:00
Monongahela Room, Mountainlair

Drinks and snacks provided; bring a brownbag lunch"

Kate Ridinger Smorul, ABD

2011-08-25T09:44:00.000-07:00

The Tenants were very pleased to see the following announcement from Katy Ryan:

"Congratulations to Kate Ridinger Smorul for passing her booklist examination. Committee members were Ryan Claycomb, Mary Ann Samyn, Lisa Weihman, and Juliana Spahr (Mills College). Many thanks to this wonderful committee and to Kate who is poised to write a critical-creative, genre-busting dissertation. Great work."

Congratulations, Kate!

What is hip?

2011-08-23T18:10:00.000-07:00

I'm no style maven, but I will admit that I like to see what folks are wearing when fall semester starts. On my trip up High Street to campus on the first day of classes, I was walking behind a woman who was sporting a full-on Flashdance look: open-necked sweatshirt with dolman sleeves (and elbow patches!), skinny jeans, flat black leather boots, and big hair.

Now, I have very little room to critique this look, since I sported it myself in college. However, being a firm believer in the maxim that "If you wore it the first time around, you shouldn't wear it the second time around," you won't be seeing me in that getup anytime soon, although I confess that I do, in fact, still have two vintage Flashdance-y sweatshirts and a Marithe + François Girbaud stonewashed denim mini skirt in my closet. At the time, that skirt was the single most expensive piece of clothing I'd ever bought.

If you clicked the link above, you probably noted that Flashdance star Jennifer Beals is one of our people--a fellow English major who studied American literature at Yale, and sent a copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise to Brooke Shields upon her admission to the other Ivy down the road because she felt it was "necessary reading before you go to Princeton."

Well, literary fashions come and go, too. This semester I'm using the 10th edition of the Pearson American literature anthology in my English 242 class, and as I put together my syllabus, I was interested to see what had been added and, maybe more importantly, left out since the previous edition.

Fifteen or twenty years ago, you couldn't have found an American lit anthology that didn't have at least a couple of token poems by H. D., an Imagist poet who'd recently been "reclaimed" and rescued from obscurity. Everyone was talking about how she was one of the overlooked geniuses of Modernism.

In the 10th edition, there's not a single poem by H. D. There is, however, a lot more Ezra Pound than there was in the 9th edition. Guess that as the years go by, we're becoming more willing to overlook his involvement with Italian Fascism.

Ernest Hemingway, meanwhile, is relegated to a scant four pages in a 2300-page tome: he's represented by a single, fairly obscure story, "In Another Country." Yet this edition includes a few writers who previously have pretty much only been mentioned as the butt of jokes, like Carl Sandburg and Edna St. Vincent Millay. I guess those two are kind of the Flashdance sweatshirts of the literary scene this season, rescued from ridicule to be appreciated in a new context.

I think Tower of Power captured the fickleness of fashion best: "Hipness is what it is...and sometimes, hipness is what it ain't." Either way, as the song goes, "If you're really hip, the passing years will show" if you're hipper than hip, or if what's hip today becomes passé.

Let's hope, though, that none of those 70s fashions come back. Gahhh!!!!

CFP: Queer Places, Practices, and Lives Symposium at Ohio State

2011-08-22T10:21:00.000-07:00

Queer Places, Practices, and Lives: A Symposium in Honor of Samuel Steward

The Ohio State University
Columbus, OH

May 18-19, 2012

Deadline for proposals: Sept. 16, 2011.

Confirmed speakers
Joseph Boone, Tim Dean, Kale Fajardo, Roderick Ferguson, Brian Glavey, Scott Herring, Eithne Lubhéid, Victor Mendoza, Deborah Miranda, José Esteban Muñoz, Hoang Tan Nguyen, Juana María Rodríguez, Nayan Shah, Justin Spring, Susan Stryker, Shane Vogel

***

We invite proposals for the inaugural queer studies conference at The Ohio State University. The title is meant as an expansive call to consider a host of issues evoked by queer places (local/global, urban/rural, North/South, East/West, public/private, mobility/immobility …), queer practices (sexual cultures, expressive cultures, political activism, academic work …), and queer lives (biography, hagiography, psychology, sexology, history, development …). We envision the conference as an opportunity both to take stock of inter/disciplinary trends as well as provoke new ideas and frameworks for future work.

The inspiration for this expansiveness and reevaluation is Samuel Steward, an OSU alum of the 1930s and the subject of Justin Spring’s critically acclaimed biography Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade (2010). As a literary studies academic, writer, and visual and tattoo artist, Steward lived a highly varied life, coming into contact, and in some cases forming long-lasting friendships, with such figures as Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Thornton Wilder, André Gide, Thomas Mann, Alfred Kinsey, Albert Camus, Christopher Isherwood, George Platt Lynes, and Paul Cadmus. As something of a gay Casanova (and a scrupulous archivist of his sexual encounters), Steward also “linked in,” as he might say, with such movie stars as Rudolf Valentino and Rock Hudson.

In 1995, Steward’s estate donated funds to the OSU English department to further research in LGBTQ scholarship, but these funds have only recently been “rediscovered.” To pay tribute to this queer Buckeye who studied at, taught at, and invested in OSU, we are taking our points of departure for panel themes from Steward’s life and work. Papers may thus address any of the following (or related) topics:

Aestheticism, decadence, Catholicism
Archives and material culture
Biography, autobiography, life-writing
Body art and modification
Colonialism, imperialism, decolonization
Expatriatism, migration, diaspora
Genealogies, invented traditions
Modernism
Performativity, self-elaboration, world-making
Popular genres (pulp, erotica, mystery novels)
Public intellectuals and subcultural lives
Queer life in the academy, 1920-present
Race and ethnicity
Regionalism (especially the Midwest)
Rural, urban, suburban sexual geographies
Sailors, seamen, and other seafarers
Sexology (especially Havelock Ellis and Kinsey)
Sexual pleasure and perversity (BDSM, porn, hustling)
Visualities (painting, photography, film)

In addition, we are planning to publish a collection of essays on Samuel Steward after the conference. Thus, papers that focus on any aspect of Steward’s life and work are especially welcome.

Send 500-word abstract and 2-page CV by Sept. 16, 2011 to Joe Ponce (ponce.8@osu.edu).

School Starts Monday

2011-08-19T20:03:00.001-07:00

Local Boy Makes Good: Ryan Claycomb Takes Over as Placement Director

2011-08-19T12:18:00.000-07:00

This just in from the office of John Ernest, our new department chair:

"Ryan Claycomb has generously agreed to take on the role of PhD Placement Director. You'll be hearing from him soon. I know he will do a great job. He has a very savvy sense of the mysterious ways of the usually somewhat random job market, and he has a sharp sense of how to increase your chances of standing out in your application materials. Please join me in welcoming him to this new role and thanking him for his dedicated service to our program.

While I'm stepping back from the role of PhD Placement Director, I'm still going to hold the weekly practice sessions for interviews and professional presentation this fall. We'll meet on Thursdays at 4:00 in Colson 106. If you're in the doctoral program, I hope you will join us, regardless of where you are in your studies."

Twice the Poetry, Twice the Pleasure

2011-08-19T09:49:00.001-07:00

Jim Harms, a professor in our Creative Writing Program, will be publishing two books before the year is over.

What to Borrow, What to Steal will be coming out from Marick Press. Although Jim isn't calling the volume his "uncollected poems," it does tap into his wealth of unpublished gems.

Marick Press is distinguishing itself as the publisher of exceptional poetry. Its mission statement says it "seeks out and publishes the best new work from an eclectic range of aesthetics—work that is technically accomplished, distinctive in style, and thematically fresh."

Meanwhile, Jim's Comet Scar will be coming out from Carnegie Mellon University Press. It will be his sixth book of poetry with CMU Press, following Modern Ocean, Quarters, The Joy Addict, After West, and Freeways and Aqueducts.

The beginning of "Comet Scar":

Comet Scar

Grant McLennan, 1958-2006     For months after his death    Phoebe sings along    in the back seat    to "Comet Scar"    without a word    except the words    to the song. Then,    one day, she asks    "What's a comet scar?"    and I say it's what's left    from coming so far...

Glenn Taylor and Ellesa Clay High Reading

2011-08-19T09:44:00.000-07:00

Two professors in WVU’s MFA in Creative Writing Program will give a reading of their literary works September 15 at 7:30 p.m. in 130 Colson Hall. The reading is free and open to the public.

A member of the Lower Eastern Ohio Mekoce Shawnee, Ellesa Clay High is the author of Past Titan Rock: Journeys into an Appalachian Valley. She is an associate professor in the Department of English and specializes in American Indian Literature, Creative Writing, and Appalachian Literature.

In addition to her works of nonfiction, Professor High writes poetry, fiction, and scholarly essays. She is completing a book on the indigenous history and cultures of West Virginia.

Glenn Taylor, a native of Huntington, West Virginia, recently joined the Creative Writing faculty in the Department of English. He is the author of the novels The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart and The Marrowbone Marble Company.

Taylor’s first novel, The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart, was published by the WVU Press before being picked up by Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins. About the book, novelist Chuck Kinder said, “I was hooked immediately by the narrative voice, which I would describe as take-no-prisoners in tone. The combination of hyperbole and hilarity throughout is what I would call High Hillbilly in the purest form.”

Please come! It will be a great evening.

ACLS Competitions Now Open

2011-08-17T10:51:00.000-07:00

The American Council of Learned Societies has just announced that its 2011-12 ACLS fellowship competitions are open: "You will find the most updated and comprehensive information on all our programs on the ACLS website: www.acls.org/programs/comps. As in previous years, the majority of competition deadlines are in the early fall."

Newsy-ness

2011-08-14T09:47:00.000-07:00

The department is happy to welcome everyone back from summer vacation! And we'd like to give a special hello to all our new graduate students and four new faculty members: David Beach, who will be in charge of English 102; John Jones, who will teach professional writing and editing; Tom Sura, who will oversee the composition program; and Glenn Taylor, who will teach fiction writing.

David and Tom have been sequestered most of these last two weeks in the training workshop for our new grad teaching assistants, but John has been spotted carrying boxes to his office and Glenn has been seen both in his office in Colson and on his bike, with youngest son Eli happily in tow, on the streets of South Park.

We'll be having our annual department picnic on Friday, August 26, from 4:00 p.m. to dark (!) at White Park. The department provides lots of food, but as you may recall from last year, our grad students sure do like the KFC. Better plan to get there early.

Since small town news usually includes something about food, especially homegrown vegetables and homemade casseroles, I’ll let you know that the tomatoes in my garden are quite delicious, as my dog Theo can attest. He regularly helps himself to a cherry tomato or two and barks when I try to harvest them without saving one for him. Tim Sweet has also generously shared his tomato crop, though, alas, Tim was sorry to report that the zucchini were lost to pests. A real shame and disappointment, as you can imagine.

As of this writing, we have no news about casseroles, but if you want to make a casserole and deliver it to one of our new faculty, let me know and I'll post something about it!

The Council of Writers, or COW, as it is affectionately known, will hold its first event of the season this Thursday, August 18, at 7:30 p.m., at the swanky rooftop bar at the Hotel Morgan. In case you don’t know (or have forgotten, though that seems unthinkable), COW is the student organization of our MFA program. Thursday’s gathering will include food and drink (bring your allowance!) and an informal reading.

Road construction. I have nothing good to say about this other than it’ll probably be done just as the undergrads are arriving. If we’re lucky, that is.

Meet New Poet Laureate Philip Levine

2011-08-12T08:13:00.001-07:00

Even my dad knows about our new poet laureate, Phil Levine, so you better get up to speed. Of course my dad and Levine are both native Detroiters, but still.

Anyway, you can find out more about Levine here and here.

And if you'd like to hear Levine read one of his most famous poems, "They Feed They Lion," you can do so here.

Finally, isn't this a great book cover? I certainly think so.

2012 Appalachian Studies Association conference to be held in Indiana, PA

2011-08-11T11:11:00.000-07:00

This CFP caught my eye when it popped up in my mailbox. The Appalachian Studies Association is a great organization, and I've heard good things about their annual conference, although I've never been.

But here's a terrific opportunity for anyone who's looking for a national conference venue that's close by (about a two-hour drive from Morgantown) and relatively inexpensive--registration is $125 for faculty and $75 for students; both rates include a one-year membership in the ASA.

The theme of next year's conference is "The Wide Reach of Appalachia," and organizers are especially interested in papers on northern Appalachia (that's here, folks):

As mapped by the Appalachian Regional Commission, Appalachia extends as far north as southwestern New York State, but this will be the first time that a national ASA conference has met anywhere to the north of Morgantown, West Virginia. It has been remarked that in the minds of many people, “Appalachia is always somewhere to the south”—but in reality, Appalachia is to the north, too. By a large margin, there are more square miles of the Appalachian Regional Commission’s “official Appalachia” in Pennsylvania than in any other state. We especially encourage proposals on any aspect of northern Appalachia—but also, considering “The Wide Reach of Appalachia,” proposals about the Appalachian diaspora and about Appalachian influences and connections in other parts of the country.

Featured panels will include, among others, literary readings and at least one on Marcellus Shale natural gas “fracking.”

For more information, visit the conference website or download the registration details here. Deadline for proposals is October 15, 2011.

Babar Goes Back to School and So Do You

2011-08-09T07:06:00.000-07:00

Pretty soon, right? I've had that "Sunday night feeling" since last Saturday, so school must be upon us. But not in a bad way...

Anyway, Babar! Remember him? Your other favorite blogger, Dennis Allen, mentioned the return of breezes—"there was quite the cooling little zephyr" the other night—and I suddenly remembered Babar's monkey friend, who is also named Zephyr. Or Zephir. But close enough, and once I started to think about Babar, I sort of had to write this post. To cheer you up about school. Not that you don't like school, but, well, Babar had to go too and he didn't much like it and, so, um, maybe you can think of him as you get your pencil box in order and all that.

The deal with Babar's return to school was that he complained (don't do that!) and thought that going to school was easier than being a grown-up. (Who knows what he'd say about grown-ups who keep going and going to school...) Of course he was wrong. First his pencil broke; then he sat in gum. Let's not even mention the bus ride. Babar was exhausted. And, he had learned his lesson.

Now that you're remembering Babar I bet you want to know all the characters' names. I know I did. Because, in a lot of ways, Babar himself is sort of the least interesting. Isn't that often the case? So here they are. Or, most of them anyway.

They're having a party, it seems. Maybe for the littlest one's birthday. Or maybe it's their version of the back-to-school department picnic. Ok, so of course that's Babar and his wife, Queen Celeste, standing up in the back. Now the monkey is Zephir, as I told you already. The others... well... here's where I might need your help. I think the elephant with the little hat is Babar's brother-in-law, Arthur. The two younger boys and the girl who seems about their size are the triplets. Right? Pom and Alexander are the boys, and Flora (great name) is the girl. The littlest girl is Isabelle. Pretty sure. Not pictured: The Old Lady (aka Madame) and Cornelius, the wise old elephant whose head is sort of misshapen because, presumably, he's so smart.

So, ok! I feel better. Don't you? And please do feel free to chime in with your Babar knowledge. And yeah, I know, Babar is bad bad bad... those books are criticized for a bunch of things. But it's still early-ish August! Don't get all grumpy yet!

The Appalachian Prison Book Project

2011-08-03T15:52:00.000-07:00

Appalachian Prison Book Project
PO Box 601
Morgantown, WV 26507
appalachianpbp@gmail.com

August 2, 2011

"It turns out that the story I informed you of that was selected for publication has become a winner. I’ve enclosed a copy of the press release. I owe it all to a book [APBP] sent me called “The Toughest Indian in the World.” ~ A letter to APBP from a man imprisoned in Virginia

Dear Friends,

We write to you on behalf of the Appalachian Prison Book Project (APBP) in Morgantown, West Virginia. APBP is a community and student organization that provides free books to men and women imprisoned in six states (MD, KY, OH, TN, VA, WV). The Project is staffed by enthusiastic volunteers who have mailed over 8,000 books since 2006.

Each month, we send out hundreds of books that positively impact prisoners' lives, from those who are avid readers to those who are struggling to catch up on their education to those in need of medical information. Take, for instance, a man from Tennessee who wrote to us:

"I received books from you over a year ago. I would like to receive more if at all possible. My situation has changed. I have MS and am bound to a wheelchair so I spend most of my time reading. I don’t have anyone on the outside that can help me with finances or packages. You are very special people to do this for us. It transports me to different lands, tests my ability to solve murder/mystery, and laugh at the comedy."

It is our hope that APBP will continue to serve people who so clearly desire the chance to acquire knowledge and information and to improve their lives while incarcerated.

For the last three years, APBP has benefited from a WVU Public Service Grant that has enabled us to pay for postage, our primary expense (approximately $4000.00/year). We are no longer eligible for the grant, which has put a great financial strain on our day-to-day operations. It is possible that APBP will have to close its doors, temporarily or permanently, if we are unable to raise a significant amount of money.

To continue our work, we need your help. Donating just $20.00 would enable us to send books to 10 people while a $50.00 donation would enable us to provide books to approximately 25 prisoners. NO GIFT IS TOO SMALL.

Appalachian Prison Book Project
PO Box 601
Morgantown, WV 26507
appalachianpbp@gmail.com

You can also donate paperback books to the project at any time. We are especially in need of the following:
Dictionaries
Law dictionaries
Health/Medicine (asthma, diabetes, cancer, AIDS)
History
Westerns
Native American and African American cultures
Foreign languages
How to Books (Drawing, Music, Construction, Home & Car Repair)

We accept donations of supplies as well, such as business envelopes, clear packing tape, and sturdy brown wrapping paper. Brown paper grocery bags can also be used.

Please make your check payable to the Appalachian Prison Book Project, and send to this address:

Appalachian Prison Book Project
PO Box 601
Morgantown, WV 26507

You can also help us through PayPal at aprisonbookproject.wordpress.com. Additionally, if you join us on Facebook you can keep up with the latest news about fundraisers, press coverage, and how our work continues to make a difference to prisoners across Appalachia.

If you would like to be on our listserv or have any questions, please contact Katy Ryan (kohearnr@mail.wvu.edu)

Many thanks for helping us to promote literacy, education, and hope.

Sincerely,
Katy Ryan, Founder of APBP
Dominique Bruno, APBP Intern
James Holsinger, APBP Intern

Attention Tenants: Request for Help with Diversity Week

2011-07-28T12:35:00.000-07:00

Rachel Holmberg, former Tenant of Colson Hall and now a counselor at Career Services, just sent us the following query:

Is anyone in the English department interested in doing an event for diversity week?

Diversity week is Oct. 17th - 22nd and freshmen are required to attend at least one event as part of their orientation course. Our theme this year is "Peace, Love, and Understanding." The theme is just a starting point, though. If you think you have an event that helps students understand some aspect of diversity better, we will welcome it.

Currently planned events range from the African Dance Ensemble performance, to a "Swords to Plowshares" engineering design contest, talks from international students about their journey to WVU, a discussion of the Muslim practice of wearing head scarves, and a celebration of Diwali (including entertainment and great food).

If you have an event you'd like to do or just want to talk about the possibilities, please contact me, Dr. Rachel Holmberg, at Rachel.Holmberg@mail.wvu.edu.

P.S. If you have students practicing descriptive pieces, doing research, or journal entries, you might consider having them write about diversity week. It will encourage students to go and do something to promote tolerance and growth as well as writing about something different and interesting. Most events are free (all except those that include food, like Diwali), on both campuses, and are running during the days and evenings, so access should not a problem for them.

As mentioned on my other blog...

2011-07-24T15:52:00.000-07:00

It's not that I don't love you best, Tenants, but I do have a job, ya know. So this is a post that's also on the Bolton Writing Workshops blog, which of course you'll want to start frequenting so you can know what's up with creative writing in the residence halls.

Ok, enough apologies and pleas. Here's the scoop:

There will be a meeting for this year's Boltoneers—that is, the program's MFA students who will lead the workshops—on Wednesday, July 27, at 2 p.m. in the 2nd floor meeting room in Colson Hall.

If you're an MFA student and interested in participating in this year's program, send me an email (maryann.samyn@mail.wvu.edu) and come to Wednesday's meeting.

Call for articles

2011-07-24T05:29:00.000-07:00

I am editing the Essays on Art column of the September issue of Connotation Press an online journal. I am looking for writers who may be interested in contributing a short, informal but well-informed article on a movie. The topic is "Cities in Celluloid" which is about famous and not so famous movies where a historic city features as the main character. So basically it's about movies which have been succesful in capturing the particular essence of a city in celluloid. Its a lot like a movie review, but more spontaneous. There is no word limit and the official deadline is the 10th of August although that is negotiable! The chosen articles will be published in the September issue of Connotation Press. If you are interested, please send me an email, with a brief bio and a photograph (not the Passport ones please) as early as possible.
I can be reached at sreyachatterjee86@gmail.com

The Matter of Our Mascot

2011-07-22T19:09:00.000-07:00

Summertime is the time for idle chatter, so, Tenants, let's talk about our mascot, the Scone.

It certainly has its charms, but I'm thinking it might be too . . . um . . . inanimate for our purposes.

Perusing the creatures of the bestiary (as one does when one is a medievalist), it seems to me that the Magpie might be good fit, since it is likened to a poet. Here's what Pliny the Elder has to say about it:

"they become fond of some words, and not only repeat them but can be seen to ponder them. To learn a word they must hear it said often, and if a word is too difficult for them to learn they may die. When they forget a word they cheer up greatly when they hear it spoken."

Let us hope that our own poets never encounter words that are too difficult. And try this: when you see Jim or MaryAnn in the hallway looking melancholy, shout out a few forgotten words to see if it perks them up.

Cruel Summer

2011-07-20T15:15:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since the Tenants posted a cheezy video, and given the current heat wave Bananarama's "Cruel Summer" seems meterologically appropriate, even if the song itself doesn't quite stack up to "I Heard a Rumour" or "Venus." Note that video contains most of the very best features of British videos of the early '80's, viz.:

1. A $37 budget
2. Most of which went to hair and makeup
3. "Choreography"
4. NYCophilia
5. Costumes left over from the last Dexy's Midnight Runners video.

The unexpected benefit here is an homage to The Dukes of Hazzard.

Cultural Studies theorists should be glad to see that the ending fully confirms Richard Dyer's assertion about the musical as a vision of plenitude and social harmony in the final "dancing with Boss Hogg" sequence.

Where Are They Now?

2011-07-19T21:42:00.000-07:00

....or, more accurately, where will they soon be? The Tenants are pleased to note that two recent doctoral graduates have taken fulltime positions for the coming academic year:

Aparajita De (PhD 2009) will be a Visiting Professor of English at Towson University (in Maryland)

Lori Zerne (PhD 2011) will be a Visiting Professor of English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (in...uh...Pennsylvania).

Internship in Women's Studies

2011-07-19T11:12:00.000-07:00

Position Description: Women’s Studies Internship

The West Virginia University Center for Women’s Studies is advertising a position for an intern who will help publicize and coordinate activities for the Center during the 2011/2012 academic year. This person should be currently enrolled as a WVU student with a background in women’s studies and/or a commitment to social justice issues. The position is part-time (10-15 hours per week depending on need and availability) with a pay rate of $10 per hour and will start during the fall 2011 semester. The intern will be responsible for the following tasks:

1) Develop and communicate information about events and activities associated with the program through the WMST website and other social media

Maintain the program’s Facebook page to communicate with WMST constituents

Take photographs and organize documents associated with the program’s activities to post on Facebook and the website

Update calendar and assist in communication about activities with university and community members

2) Develop brochures, announcements, and other publicity for events and activities

Utilize graphic design skills

Help schedule activities organized by the program on campus

Work with news and information office to advertise events

3) Possess excellent communication and organizational skills

Strong writing and speaking skills necessary to communicate with diverse people associated with the Center for Women’s Studies

Ability to work independently and cooperatively
Application deadline: August 24, 2011

Please send a letter of application outlining your qualifications for this internship, a WVU transcript (copies will be accepted), and two letters of reference to:

Dr. Ann Oberhauser, Director
Center for Women’s Studies
PO Box 6450
West Virginia University
Morgantown, WV 26506
http://wmst.wvu.edu
Ann.oberhauser@mail.wvu.edu
# (304)293-2339 ext. 1155

John Ernest Blogs on Marriage, Slavery, and the Family

2011-07-18T11:24:00.000-07:00

From: http://zmblackhistorymonth2011.blogspot.com/2011/02/feb-4-sally-hemings-mother-to.html

About a week ago an Iowa conservative organization called The Family Leader came up with the Marriage Vow, a pledge for Republican presidential candidates to sign. Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum immediately did so, but the pledge has turned out to be very controversial, particularly in its assertions about slavery.

When UNC Press asked our own John Ernest, Eberly Family Distinguished Professor, to give them a contribution for their blog, his post was about the Marriage Vow's inacurate picture of African-American families under slavery. We're happy to link to it: "Saving Marriages by Divorcing History." You'll enjoy this one.

Now, is it just me or does that pledge also seem a little....I don't know....homophobic?

Grading News

2011-07-14T15:47:00.000-07:00

Just in case you thought grade inflation was a myth, Inside Higher Ed just published a report on a recent study that confirms that, depending on the type of college you attend, anywhere from 70.8% to 89% of the children are, indeed, above average.

We have not forgotten about you, our faithful readers!

2011-06-30T15:59:00.000-07:00

So it's the end of June and the blog is, well, languishing as it has every right to do.

Nonetheless, don't think we've forgotten about you or that we aren't improving our minds while baking in the sun. We are English majors! We are always paying attention!

Even when we're on vacation.

As I was recently. In La Quinta, California (think: Palm Springs), where I had time to kind-of-read and not-really-write and where I sat where Greta Garbo once sat (!!!) and figured out the secret to successful screenwriting.

That's right, Garbo came to La Quinta, the resort that gave its name to a town, to be "let alone."

This was her favorite spot:

And here's the historical marker that proves it:

As the sign says, sometimes she let John Gilbert hang out with her. In case you don't remember him, here they are together:

Yep, I know, there's a lot to say about that photo. And they sure don't make movies like that anymore.

And speaking of movies... La Quinta is also where Frank Capra holed up... in the very lovely San Anselmo casita.... to write some stuff you may have heard of: "It Happened One Night," "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town," "You Can't Take It with You," "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," "Meet John Doe," and—brace yourself—"It's a Wonderful Life."

The resort was, he said, his "Shangri-La for script writing."

I guess so.

... and that's all you have to do, too: just head to the desert, check into a swanky hotel, order some room service, and start writing. What are you waiting for?

Graduate Assistant Position with the Regents BA Program for Fall

2011-06-21T21:15:00.000-07:00

AVAILABLE GRADUATE ASSISTANT POSITION

REGENTS BACHELOR OF ARTS PROGRAM

Academic Year 2011-2012

Nature of Program: The Regents BA (RBA) Program is a state-wide program offered at WVU through the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences. This program serves non-traditional students through an innovative program and provides a comprehensive general education without the requirement of a major. The RBA program advices over 300 students per semester with emphasis on individualized program of student to fit the student’s particular needs. RBA students are diverse in age, experience and interests.

Position Requirements: The GA position requires helping adult students plan their programs of study, assisting them with registration, updating RBA files and spreadsheets, and contributing to the general operation of the RBA office as needed.

The assignment requires 20 hours of work per week in the RBA office during regular office hours. Specific times are flexible to accommodate the GA’s classroom schedule as well as the needs of the students.

Qualifications:

· Enrolled at WVU in a full-time graduate program 2011-12. Preference given to Eberly College of Arts and Sciences students.

· Excellent communication skills and working with diverse student populations are essential.

· Ability to work effectively both independently and with supervision

· Knowledge of WVU’s program offerings and registration system is helpful.

· Word processing and computer skills are necessary.

· Ability to create and analyze spreadsheets for student trends and records management is necessary.

Eligibility: To be eligible for this position, applicants must have been admitted to a full-time graduate program in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences. If no suitable candidate is found, applicants outside the college will be considered.

Stipend: $11,200 for nine months plus tuition waiver and basic health insurance. Starting date: August 16, 2011 and runs through May 15, 2012.

Application: For an application contact the Regents BA Office, 221 Armstrong Hall. Phone: 293-5441. Interview is required. Priority consideration will be given to applications received by June 29, 2011 and continue until a suitable candidate is found.

Stiff Dick and other Appalachian wonders

2011-06-07T13:44:00.000-07:00

Illustration by L. Leslie Brooke in The
House in the Wood and Other Fairy
Stories (London, 1909)

Stop me if you've heard this one.

Once upon a time,

...this orphan boy's a going along, traveling, [and] he had him a paddle. Walking along, [he sees] seven of these big old green flies a settin'. And he upped his paddle and killed seven at the lick. He traveled on, and then he went and had a buckle put on his belt and had it printed on his buckle,

Stiff Dick:
Killed Seven at a Lick.

First thing he knowed, he got to the king's house, and he went in and stayed 'til dinner. And the king, he got done eating and he happened to notice this on his belt. When he got done eating, he said, "You must be a terrible warrior." Says, "Here it is on your belt: 'Stiff Dick: Killed Seven at a Lick.'"

Says, "You're the very man I've been looking for. I've got a job for you. There's a unicorn and a lion and a wild boar in these woods that destroyed--no telling the people and stock that they destroyed. I never could run acrost no man brave enough to destroy 'em--til you."

Some of the tenants might recognize this as a cognate of the Grimm Brothers' "The Brave Little Tailor," but this version was collected in 1939 from Samuel Harmon of Maryville, Tennessee. And it's one of many traditional European folk- and fairy tales that migrated to the U. S., and specifically to Appalachia, that Carl Lindahl of the University of Houston will be focusing on with participants in the English Department's 20th annual Summer Seminar in Literary and Cultural Studies.

Even if you're not participating in the whole seminar, though, you can find out more about these narrative gems when Prof. Lindahl kicks off the seminar with a public lecture titled "The Magic of the Eternal Frontier" this Thursday evening, June 9th, at 7:30 p.m. in 130 Colson Hall.

Please join us for the lecture and stick around for a reception afterward. Honorary belt-buckle to be awarded to the attendee who can eat seven Flying WV cookies in one lick.

If you're feeling more low-brow, check out this 1938 Mickey Mouse version.

BTW, the hero of Harmon's story never quails at the prospect of catching giants or killing unicorns. Get it together, Mickey!

Please Welcome Our Newest Tenant...

2011-06-07T05:47:00.001-07:00

Miss Jordan Ruth Woods, daughter of our very own Jill Higgins and her husband, Josh Woods (he's from sociology, but we guess that's ok).

Here's the family celebrating Jordan's 24-hour birthday.

And I just saw the three of them walking along Maple Ave. last week and I can attest to the cuteness of Miss Jordan and the happiness of mom and dad.

Congratulations!

Congratulations to Renee Nicholson

2011-06-02T18:13:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Renee Nicholson, who has been named the 2011 Emerging Writer-in-Residence at Penn State-Altoona. She'll be in Altoona for the Fall 2011 semester, and she'll teach one creative writing class, give a couple of readings, and have lots of time to write.

This is an excellent opportunity. How excellent? Read up about it here: http://www.aa.psu.edu/ivyleaf/fa04/cnews7.asp

Altoona will get as good as it gives: Renee, who holds an MFA from WVU, is a terrific teacher, and Penn State-Altoona's students will be fortunate indeed to have her on campus.

Way to go, Renee!

WVU student bulletin, June 1951

2011-06-01T11:11:00.000-07:00

Cover of the 1951 student bulletin, featuring Wise
Library (the newer part of the current library
occupies the lawn seen in the foreground).

On a recent visit, my mother (a WVU alum, M. A. 1951) gave me a copy of the WVU Bulletin from June 1951. She'd found it--where else?--in the basement/family archive, where my dad (also an alum: B. A. 1949, M. A. 1951) had squirreled it away.

I mean, you never know when you might need to know whom to write to for information about off-campus housing, which was even then at a premium. Ladies, you need to contact the Dean of Women. Good luck finding her.

Since it's been exactly sixty years since its June 1951 printing, it seemed like a good time to take a stroll down memory lane and see what campus life was like back in the day. Clearly, some aspects of academe are immemorial...but others have changed radically.

(Note: you should be able to click on the photos to see larger versions of them. It's worth it to read the captions.)

Here's Colson Hall, then the College of Law:

--which appears on a page with several other recognizable edifices:

Can you imagine a time when Brooks was the fancy new building? And the English Department was in Armstrong?

Here's a classic shot of English majors and one of their professors doing English-y stuff:

Looks to me like the woman second from the left is more interested in the guy across the table than in that old book. Again: then as now. But when was the last time anyone saw a professor, much less a student, in a coat and tie?

Advising obviously hasn't changed much in sixty years either. Only now, the headache this guy appears to be getting is as likely to be caused by STAR or Degree Works as by a student.

The Mountainlair existed then, but it was a different building on the same site. Can't help but feel a little nostalgic about some of the amenities the old one had, like a real soda fountain:

However, I think we can safely say that locating showers inside the dorm has become more or less de rigeur:

Dresser scarves, however, no longer are. More's the pity.

But there were Gleeks!

It's hard not to look at some of these pictures and imagine that Morgantown and WVU were much more glamorous, upstanding, hardworking places in 1951, though I know from my parents' stories that both had their share of vice, drunkenness, sexism, racism, callousness, and idiocy. Then as now. Notably, I don't think there's a single person of color anywhere in this bulletin, and no mention of services for students who might fall outside of the lily-white, straight, middle-class, able-bodied norm. But again, I know from my folks' stories that there were plenty who did.

Their absence may well have been a conscious part of the university's marketing strategy sixty years ago.

Just remember, folks, it's all about balance: "Student social life at the University is carefully planned and supervised. It offers a wholesome type of recreation without taking emphasis off education."

Pat Conner Honored at Kalamazoo

2011-05-18T08:38:00.001-07:00

Those interested in the goings-on in Colson Hall may be interested to know that I recently returned from the big medieval conference at Kalamazoo, where I was delighted to participate in a series of panels honoring our recently retired colleague Pat Conner. He was feted with all due ceremony and hilarity (including the presentation of a Pat Conner action figure, complete with grey hair, mustache, and tall buff body), and a stellar series of speakers. Pat was rightly remembered for his signature contributions to the paleographical and contextual study of the Exeter Book (which is surely the most remarkable manuscript collection of vernacular verse to survive from any Eurpoean tradition before 1000), as well as for having been perhaps the most important motivating figure in bringing digital scholarship to Old English Studies, both through ANSAX-NET (an early and still thriving listserv focused on matters Anglo-Saxon) and through his groundbreaking Beowulf Workstation. Either contribution alone would have marked him as having had a significant impact on the field.

All of the Pat Conner panels were extremely well attended, literally standing room only in two cases (and it would have been three, but one panel was fortunately held in a very large area). Besides my own small contribution (a paper using metrical analysis to offer a bit of additional confirmation for Pat’s theory about the tripartite structure of the Exeter Book), there were papers presented from a raft of stars in the field, including the following:

Michelle Brown, former Keeper of Illuminated Manuscripts at the British Library, speaking on depictions of facial hair in Anglo-Saxon manuscript illumination.

Kevin Kiernan, perhaps the world’s leading expert on the Beowulf manuscript, speaking on The Electronic Beowulf, which included a nod to Pat’s groundbreaking Beowulf Workstation.

Elaine Treharne, from Florida State, with a fascinating paper on Exeter guild documents, which both responded to Pat’s work on Exeter guilds and argued for the reinterpretation of a whole genre of texts which have always been seen as manumissions but may more properly be understood as guild memoranda.

Tom Hill, of Cornell Univeristy, on The Wanderer, a paper which noted that The Wanderer very likely includes the first recorded account of a Germanic homage ritual, making that Exeter poem of exceptional historic, as well as literary, significance.

Papers by Timothy Graham, Susan Deskis, Donald Scragg, and Carol Farr rounded out the panels nicely, and the sessions as a whole were a beautiful international tribute to Pat, who has been friend, mentor, and inspiration to more than one generation of students and scholars. And as even this summary of papers presented suggests, Pat’s work continues to be influential, which will surely extend Pat’s influence to a further generation as well.

It was a great experience all around, and a wonderful tribute to Pat from his friends and colleagues from here and abroad.

Lost Cat

2011-05-17T11:58:00.000-07:00

Lorca

Jim Harms' and Amanda Cobb-Harms' cat Lorca has gone missing in the South Park neighborhood in the vicinity of Grand and Wilson streets. He's orange with white stripes and wearing a blue collar with a bell and mood ring attached.

Lorca is greatly missed. If you find him, you can contact Amanda at: acobbharms@gmail.com

Happy Retirement, Jo Ann!

2011-05-16T08:38:00.000-07:00

Some CWE folks gathered this past Sunday to help Jo Ann Dadisman celebrate her retirement.

Among those in attendance was Vern Dolmage, direct from Canada and appearing one night only with his guitar.

Toward the end of the party, Jo Ann told one of her signature stories... which she said was about how fortunate she's been to work with us, but we're pretty sure it's the other way around.

So, thanks, Jo Ann, and best wishes, and yes, we do want to visit the farm and see all the cats. Just let us know when!

Congrats and Best Wishes...

2011-05-13T10:49:00.000-07:00

...to the following undergrads and grads who are going on to MA, MFA, and PhD programs. Don't forget to send us a postcard or two, ok?

WVU undergraduates headed to English and creative writing grad programs:

Zac Cromie: Clemson, MA

Aaron Dawson: WVU, MA

Chelsea Hensey: Georgia College & State University, MFA

Yonina Hoffman: Ohio State University, MA/PhD

Veronica Kidwell, WVU, MA

Elizabeth Staggers: WVU, MA

Ben Welton: University of Vermont, MA

WVU MA, MA-PWE, and MFA students headed to PhD programs:

Sarah Einstein (MFA): Ohio University, PhD in Creative Writing

Pat Herald (MA): University of Kentucky, PhD in English

Allison Hitt (MA-PWE): Syracuse University, PhD in Composition and Cultural Rhetoric

Christina Rothenbeck (MFA): University of Southern Mississippi, PhD in Creative Writing

Dr. Zerne

2011-05-10T20:29:00.000-07:00

Jean-Baptiste Chardin, The Governess, 1739

This just in from Professor Francus: "Congratulations to Lori Zerne, who successfully defended her dissertation, 'Dwindling into a Wife: Women and the Culture of Marriage in Britain, 1760-1820,' in a discussion that featured governesses, chaperons, and mothers in law--and multiple subversions of marriage. Well done, Lori!" The Tenants are very happy to be able to add their own congratulations.

Either the mechanisms of chaperone-assisted protein folding or
a graphic representation of the plot of Belinda.

Plagiarism Fun!

2011-05-09T08:42:00.000-07:00

For some semester-end shock and fun, check out what angry, technologically-adept Germans are able to reveal about plagiarism:

A politician, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, was recently discovered to have plagiarized parts of his doctoral thesis. The extent to which he plagiarized is now coming to light, and it is a jaw dropper.

Language Log, from which I stole this idea for a post, notes that because of this fellow's reaction (which has been to laugh it off in a rich, playboy kind of way) plenty of people have put some effort into assessing his work. The result is as visually appealing as the plagiarism is morally reprehensible.

This image is a barcode "scan" of his dissertation with representation as the fraction of pages (original page here): The blue lines are table of contents, bib, and other addenda. The black lines are pages with plagiarism from a single source. The red lines are pages with plagiarism from multiple sources. The white lines are pages with no plagiarism.

Be sure to check out the markup of individual pages here.

The moral of the story is easy: If you are a fabulously wealthy politician and you want to get a graduate degree, make sure the person you hire to write your thesis actually writes it and does not just plagiarize most of it from other sources. A lack of quality control can lead to inconvenient embarrassment.

So Many Things!

2011-05-09T08:24:00.002-07:00

So many things to tell you and so many things have gotten in the way of the telling. Sorry 'bout that!

OK, so let's begin.

First, and maybe most importantly, the MFA reading was held April 28. This is, as you well know, the event of the season, and this year's writers did not disappoint. Here's a pic of our grads: Sarah Einstein, Aaron Hoover, Christina Rothenbeck, Charity Gingerich, Tori Moore, Rebecca Schwab (turning nicely in the other direction), Danielle Ryle, Heather Frese, and Alex Berge. Don't they clean up nicely? And they write well too, which means we can go ahead and give them their degrees after all. Whew!

The next day we kicked off our weekend celebration of the MFA program's 10th anniversary with a gathering of 20 or so current and former students and faculty at Black Bear where we hung out, ate burritos with interesting names, and watched some folks (not us) "dance" to the live music. I'd say more about that, but you sort of had to be there.

On Saturday we gathered for a fancy dinner at Hatfield's. Yep. And even Dean Bob Jones was there to help us celebrate 10 great years of writing and friendship. The reading was truly impressive. MFA friends Rudy Almasy, Laura Brady, and Tim Sweet were also in attendance, as was everyone's favorite, Gail Adams. Here we are looking all proud in a 10th anniversary kind of way.

Finally, here's a pic of this semester's grad poetry workshop. They look cute, don't they? And relieved---no doubt because they had finished writing sonnets and were now free to try to stop hearing iambs everywhere they go. Good luck with that, poets!

So that's it, pretty much. You're caught up. Don't you feel better? I know I do.

Funding for Female Faculty--Call for Applications--WVU Advance Project

2011-05-07T12:42:00.000-07:00

This just in from Ann Oberhauser in Women's Studies:

Melissa Latimer, Department of Sociology

The WVU ADVANCE Sponsorship Program is an external mentoring program supported by the NSF ADVANCE program for women in NSF funded disciplines in CEMR and ECAS. The WVU ADVANCE project aims to catalyze institutional climate change, promote diversity and inclusivity, support women in science and engineering, and promote the success of all faculty.

The Sponsorship program uses a mentoring approach developed by Hunter College’s NSF ADVANCE funded Gender Equity Sponsorship Program, where WVU faculty (Associates) will be paired with mentors (Sponsors) to work on a clearly identified project with specific outcomes. Associates may receive up to $10,000 to support their work and Sponsors will receive $5,000 for their participation.

To apply click the Faculty Equity Initiative link at the top of the WVU ADVANCE page (http://advance.wvu.edu/.) For more information, contact Dr. Kasi Jackson at (304) 293-2339 ext. 1154 or kasi.jackson@mail.wvu.edu .

Applications are due May 31, 2011.