Harrington Weihl, Master of ....

Arts, although the Tenants think that someday that might be "of the Universe." In other words, we were very gratified today to see the following missive from Lisa Weihman: "Please join Marilyn Francus, Sandy Baldwin and me in offering hearty congratulations to Harrington Weihl, who successfully defended his MA Thesis, '"I feel that our house is the future as well as the past": Architecture, Monumentality and Form in the Modernist Novel' this afternoon. Excellent work, Harrington!" The Tenants do indeed join in offering those congratulations. You should too.

Dr. Lantz

The Tenants are very pleased to be able to announce that Susan Jennings Lantz is now Dr. Susan Jennings Lantz after her successful dissertation defense this afternoon. The conversation with the committee (Laura Brady, Anna Elfenbein, John Lamb, Janice Spleth, and yours truly) and with the extensive Lantzian entourage that attended the defense was wide-ranging, covering everything from the suppressed eroticism evident in Shirley Temple movies to the crisis in American masculinity during the 1930's to the use of the concept of suture in film and cultural criticism. References to Divergent, Up, and The Best Years of Our Lives were thrown in for good measure, with Susan fielding questions and raising interesting points for further discussion with her typical vivacity. A good time really was had by all, and the Tenants heartily congratulate her.

The 2014 EGO Colloquium Poster & Program

(Pop) Culture

Please join us for the 2014 English Graduate Organization Colloquium on the theme of (Pop) Culture.

This year’s keynote address will be:

Dr. Melinda Maureen Lewis, Bowling Green State University:

“Keep the Job, Not the Guy:

The Problematic Pleasure of Single Girls”

The Colloquium will also feature panels, roundtables,

and creative writing readings!

Saturday, 12 April 2014

9:30AM-5:30PM

Colson Hall (Registration outside 130)

To be followed by a Potluck Dinner at Valerie Surrett’s house.

West Virginia University English Graduate Organization

2014 Graduate Colloquium

Sat. 12 April 2014

Pop/Culture

9:30-10:20: Sign In, Meet & Greet, Coffee Time, Welcoming Statement from Jeff Yeager

Colson lobby & Colson 130

10:30-11:50: First Session

Colson 130—“Women’s Work” in Post WWII American Society

Moderator: Ryan Fletcher

• Lindsey Macdonald, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University: “Cyber Battling the Virgin Mary: Freethinking Mothers’ Emergence from the Periphery.”
• Katie Garahan, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University: “Those Who Can’t Do, Teach: Women’s Work on the Margins of Capitalism.”
• Alexis Priestley, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University: “A Blog of One's Own: Gendered Culinary Practice in Online Spaces.”

Colson G06—Zizek in/and Pop Culture

Moderator: Jeffrey Yeager

• Carol Fox, WVU, :”Title TBD”
• Whitney Sandin, WVU, “"What is Normal?: The Traumatic Kernel of Buffy the Vampire Slayer"
• Heather Murton, WVU: “The Big "O": Pornography, Fantasy, and the Other in Don Jon.”

Colson 223—Poetry

• Xin Tian Koh, WVU
• Jessica Guzman, WVU
• Sara Kearns, WVU
• Patrick Nutall, WVU

12:00-1:20: Lunch Break, Morgantown

1:30-2:50: Second Session

Colson 130—Deviance/Horror in Pop Culture

Moderator: Jeffrey Yeager

• Emma Briscoe, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ: "An Exercise in Visual Disorientation: A Closer Look at Christopher Shy's Dead Space Graphic Novels"

• Kenna Day, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ: “ ‘The Night HE Came Home’: Gender, Power, and POV in John Carpenter’s Halloween”

• Elizabeth Vest, Concord Univ: “Wicked is the New Innocence”

• Victoria Dickman-Burnett, WVU: “The Aesthetics of Vulgarity in the Works of Roberto Bolaño”

Colson G06—Historicizing Pop Culture

Moderator: Greg Tolliver

• Bethany Biesinger, Univ of Pittsburgh: “Gil Junger Presents the Taming of the Riot Grrrl: An Examination of the Film Soundtrack 10 Things I Hate About You and Its Use of the Riot Grrrl Persona to Portray the Modern Day Shakespearean Shrew”

• Abby Daniel, Marshall Univ: “An Exploration of the Development of the Bedtrick:

From Medieval Literature to the Modern Sitcom How I Met Your Mother”

• Sarah Paxton, Concord Univ: “The Meth Cook and the Thief: Our Glorious Antiheroes”

• Kyle Winkler, Univ of Pittsburgh: “Popular Comedians Are Doing Rhetorical Scholarship for Us”

Colson G18— Lacan Against Humanity Roundtable

·         Harrington Weihl, WVU

·         Jay Kirby, WVU

·         Whitney Sandin, WVU

·         Dibyadyuti Roy, WVU

·         Carol Fox, WVU

Colson 223—Fiction

• Hailey Foglio, WVU: an excerpt from Through Babel

• JoAnna St. Germain, WVU: an excerpt from Virginia May

• Shaun Turner, WVU: “Tennessee Waltz”

3:00-4:00: Keynote Address, Colson 130

4:10-5:30: Session Three

Colson 130—Cultural Icons

Moderator: Sam Horrocks

• Jeffrey Yeager, WVU: “Mudsills and Rude Mechanics: Reading Melville's “Bartleby the Scrivener” through Southern Indictments of Northern Labor.”
• Aaron Rovan, WVU: “Restoring the Female Voice in Rukeyser’s The Book of the Dead and Maxo Vanka’s Murals”

• Kevin Smith, Concord Univ: “The Gonzo Effect: Hunter S. Thompson’s Indelible

Influence Upon the Modern Media”

• Clint Wilson, WVU: “Belonging for Belongingness: The Politics of Sexuality in Literature of Exile”

Colson G06—Twentieth Century American Drama

Moderator: Carol Fox

• Ryan Fletcher, WVU: “Flowers, Blood, and Skin: Maria Bonner’s The Purple Flower”

• Maria Barron, WVU: “Driving While Black: Individual and Collective Trauma in Sleep Deprivation Chamber, Boyz N the Hood, and Menace II Society”

• Valerie Surrett, WVU: “We're a Civilized Race, We Bury our Dead': Criticisms of War and Labor Propaganda in Irwin Shaw's Bury the Dead."

• Harrington Weihl, WVU: “No Way Back: Epic Theatre and The Enlightenment Origins of Brecht's Mother Courage”

Colson G18—Methods and Practices for Knowing and Teaching in Composition/Rhetoric

Moderator: Heather Murton

• Philip Zapkin, WVU: “Historiography’s Linguistic (Re)Turn: Aristotle’s Rhetoric and the Ethical Role of Multiplicity in Contemporary Historiography”

• Tia DeShong, WVU: “Empowering Basic Writers: The Politics of Literacy in the Composition Classroom”

• Katie Hubbard, WVU: “Sharing versus Submitting: The Effects of Different E-Portfolio Platforms on Student Perceptions of Ownership”

• Bhushan Aryal, WVU: “The Resurgence of Voice in Digital Composition”

Colson 223—Nonfiction Reading: “The Working Man’s MFA”

• Jessie Kalvatis, WVU
• JoAnna St. Germain, WVU
• Another writer TBD

6:00-?: Potluck Dinner at Valerie Surrett’s house! (for transportation assistance, please see a Colloquium worker)

Well, we are famous for our outstanding teaching...

—So it stands to reason that we'd also have many outstanding teachers among our graduate students. And of course we don't like to choose among them, but choose we must, just this once, at the request of the Dean's office.

So—drumroll please—this year's Outstanding GTA is Rebecca Doverspike. Should she be unable to fulfill her duties (by which I mean shaking some hands at an award ceremony or two), we'll be turning to Jessi Lewis and Dominique Bruno, who are also quite outstanding. Congratulations all around.

And, for your reading pleasure, here is the official announcement from Adam Komisaruk:

Congratulations to Rebecca Doverspike, who has been selected as the English Department recipient of the 2013-2014 Eberly College Outstanding GTA Award! Rebecca will receive a plaque at the College awards ceremony later this spring, a certificate at the English awards luncheon on Wednesday, April 16th and a free book of her choosing.

Congratulations also to Dominique Bruno and Jessi Lewis, who have received English Department Exemplary Teaching Awards! They will each be presented with a certificate at the English awards luncheon and a free book of their choosing.

The selection committee (Ballentine, Brady, Komisaruk, Samyn, Sura) had the honor of reviewing some remarkable portfolios from this year's nominees. Please join us in saluting the winners and all our graduate students for their distinguished contributions to the research, teaching and service missions of the English Department.

Matt Ferrence and the Publication of All-American Redneck

The Tenants were very pleased to learn this week that Matt Ferrence, one of our Ph.D. graduates who is now an Assistant Professor at Allegheny College, has a book coming out from the University of Tennessee Press that was based on his dissertation. The book makes its official debut at the end of the month, but is already available at Amazon, if you want to check it out. We're including the official blurb below so that you can see what Matt's thesis is (and how interesting it is).  Heartiest congratulations and an added "Boy howdy" to Matt!

The Official Blurb:

"In contemporary culture, the stereotypical trappings of “redneckism” have been appropriated for everything from movies like Smokey and the Bandit to comedy acts like Larry the Cable Guy. Even a recent president, George W. Bush, shunned his patrician pedigree in favorof cowboy “authenticity” to appeal to voters. Whether identified with hard work and patriotismor with narrow-minded bigotry, the Redneck and its variants have become firmly established in American narrative consciousness.

This provocative book traces the emergence of the faux-Redneck within the context of literary and cultural studies. Examining the icon’s foundations in James Fenimore Cooper’s Natty Bumppo—“an ideal white man, free of the boundaries of civilization”—and the degraded rural poor of Erskine Caldwell’s Tobacco Road, Matthew Ferrence shows how Redneck stereotypes were further extended in Deliverance, both the novel and the film, and in a popular cycle of movies starring Burt Reynolds in the 1970s and ’80s, among other manifestations. As a contemporary cultural figure, the author argues, the Redneck represents no one in particular but offers a model of behavior and ideals for many. Most important, it has become a tool—reductive, confining, and (sometimes, almost) liberating—by which elite forces gather and maintain social and economic power. Those defying its boundaries,as the Dixie Chicks did when they criticized President Bush and the Iraq invasion, have done so at their own peril. Ferrence contends that a refocus of attention to the complex realities depicted in the writings of such authors as Silas House, Fred Chappell, Janisse Ray,and Trudier Harris can help dislodge persistent stereotypes and encourage more nuanced understandings of regional identity.

In a cultural moment when so-called Reality Television has turned again toward popular images of rural Americans (as in, for example, Duck Dynasty and Moonshiners), All-American Redneck reveals the way in which such images have long been manipulated for particular social goals, almost always as a means to solidify the position of the powerful at the expense of the regional."

Educational Justice and Appalachian Prisons Symposium

This just in from Katy Ryan. Not only is it open to the public, it's free!

The schedule for the Educational Justice & Appalachian Prisons Symposium, April 4 - 6, is now complete: http://educationaljusticeappalachianprisons.wordpress.com/featured-events/

There will be roundtables and keynotes on imprisonment, higher education, and restorative justice. There will be artists, scholars, judges, lawyers, correctional administrators, imprisoned and formerly imprisoned people. Plenty of food and good company. Please spread the word!  

Highlights include-- 

• Dwayne Betts, Poet and author of A Question of Freedom; served eight years in Virginia prisons. (I'm teaching his memoir right now, and it's great. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2010/12/the-exchange-r-dwayne-betts-on-prison-poetry-and-justice.html
• Rebecca Ginsburg, Founder of the Education Justice Project (Univ of Illinois, Champagne-Urbana); author of Cabin, Quarter, Plantation: Architecture and Landscapes of North American Slavery (Yale UP, 2010); and co-editor of At Home with Apartheid: The hidden landscapes of domestic service in Johannesburg (U of Virginia P, 2011) 
• Jean Trounstine, Co-Director of Changing Lives Through Literature and author of Shakespeare Behind Bars: The Power of Drama in a Women’s Prison
• Kyes Stevens, Founder of the Alabama Creative Arts + Education Project (Auburn Univ.)
• Jim Rubenstein, Commissioner of the WV Division of Corrections
• Larry Starcher, former WV Supreme Court Justice
• Jim Nolan, Professor of Sociology, former police officer and FBI officer
• Valena Beety, Assoc. Law Professor and Chair of the WVU Innocence Project
• Anne Rice, Coordinator of TEDx talks inside prisons; African American Studies, Lehman College
• Graduates of the WVU English program who have been teaching in prisons, Laura Leigh Morris and Jonny Blevins
• Lashonia Etheridge-Bey, D.C. Office on Returning Citizens Affairs
• Jacqueline Sakho, Mediator in capital cases; Heinz Fellow, Duquesne Univ.

All events are free and open to the public.

2014 EGO Colloquium Call for Papers

Pop/Culture

The 2014 WVU English Colloquium is accepting abstracts for papers and panels that examine everything and anything related to pop, culture, or a mixture of both.  We will accept literature papers from all nationalities, genres, and time periods, as well as papers on rhetoric and composition. We will also accept creative writing individual submissions and panels.

Papers may deal with any of the following (not an exhaustive list):

Pop Culture

Histories of Culture (and Literary History)

Critical Receptions

Theories of Canon Formation

Adaptations

Marketing criticism

New Economic Criticism

Identity Formation

Psychoanalytic Studies

Global/Atlantic World paradigms

Postcolonial Narratives and Postcolonialism

Memoir

Race

Gender and Sexuality Studies

Narrativity

Adaptation, Appropriation, and Parody

Myth and Folklore

Transmedial Studies

Collective Memory

Nationalism and Sovereignty

Influence studies

To propose an individual paper, please submit an abstract of 300 words as an attachment to Jeff Yeager, EGO President, at jwyeager@mix.wvu.edu. Please include your name, institutional affiliation, and e-mail address in the top left corner your submission.

To propose a panel of three to four papers, please submit a group abstract of 500 words explaining the thematic concerns of the panel and short abstracts (150-200 words) of each individual paper. Submit abstracts as one attachment to jwyeager@mix.wvu.edu. Please include the names, institutional affiliations, and e-mail addresses of all participants.

To propose creative writing, send 3-5 poems or a 2-3 page excerpt from a fiction/non-fiction piece to jwyeager@mix.wvu.edu. Please include your name, institutional affiliation, and e-mail address. To propose a creative writing panel, send a 500 word group abstract along with the poems or fiction/non-fiction excerpts.

Registration will be $10.

Extended Submission Deadline: 24 March 2014

Dominique Bruno, ABD

The Tenants are very pleased to announce that, on Tuesday, Dominique Bruno passed her qualifying exams and is now officially ABD. After discussing Gender Theory, the public sphere, and the publishing industry in the eighteenth century with her, Dominique's committee, which consisted of Adam Komisaruk (Chair), Marilyn Francus, John Lamb, Valerie Lastinger, and yours truly, pronounced her ready to begin writing a conduct book (or, alternatively, to write a dissertation about them).

Faculty Research Colloquium

“Virtuosity, Disability, Documentary: Technique and the Disabled Body in Oral History Performance”

 

by Ryan Claycomb

 

 

Documentary theatre may have been the dominant form of political theatre in the first decade of the 21^st century, but the success of certain of its performances rested as much on the perceived virtuosity of its performers as on the apparent veracity of its sources.  Theatre of the Real, it would seem, worked best when staged with old fashioned mimetic brilliance.  But even as many of these performances sought to advocate for marginalized identity categories, they rested on decidedly ableist performance paradigms.  Read against Anna Deavere Smith’s Let Me Down Easy, that virtuoso performer’s 2009 performance about U.S. healthcare, two different productions of oral history performance on disability feature disabled actors offer different ways to understand both the form and its politics.  Through these shows, these performers mark their performances of disability by a different sort of virtuosity, one that emphasizes the difference of exceptional bodies, and makes visible the differences that Smith’s performances elide. 

 

 

March 19, 2014

2:30 p.m., 130 Colson Hall

English Department Writing Contests Deadline: March 7

Department of English 2014 Writing Contests:

Jon Scott Nelson Freshmen Creative Writing Contest

This contest is open to all WVU freshmen. Prizes are awarded for first ($75), second ($50), and third place ($25). 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 2012 or Spring 2013 semesters are eligible with up to three prizes awarded annually ($50 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 2012-13 academic year. Up to three prizes will be awarded (up to $50 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 ($75) 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 ($75), second ($50), and third ($25) place awards are normally awarded for each division. Please submit one example of expository writing from any class taken at WVU during 2012-13. 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 ($75 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 17 to July 20 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 7, 2014 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 cover sheet 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 cover sheet. Winners will be notified by April 14 and will be invited to the Department’s annual Awards Luncheon held on Wednesday, April 16. 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.