Humanities Summer Fellows, 2014 (Some are fellows, and some are not.)

There was a good deal of commotion in the front hall of Colson today, and the Tenants came down to breakfast to discover a veritable sea of suitcases and steamer trunks and realized that we were witnessing the annual departure of the three Humanities Summer Fellows. These are doctoral students who, thanks to generous support by the Office of Graduate Education, receive funding to spend the summer in internships, expanding their skill sets and/or exploring possible career opportunities beyond the standard academic options.   

One of this year's interns is Kwabena Opoku-Agyemang, who will spend the summer working at the Ministry of Education in Ghana. An older Tenant (well, me), who is getting a bit hard of hearing, initially thought that Kwabena would actually be the Minister of Education, but the remaining Tenants think that it will take at least until June for him to be promoted.

As to the remaining interns, here is the official description of their appointment:

"This summer, two interns will be assisting [Professor] Julia Daniel with archival research for her book Building Nature: City Planning, Landscape Architecture, and Modern American Poetry. The interns will be working with unique archival materials, such as schematics and planting maps for public parks in Chicago, Hartford, and Paterson NJ from the 30s and 40s, advertisements and legislation for Mount Rainier National Park, as well as hundreds of photographs that document the changing physical and social landscapes of these spaces." 

Less formally speaking, the Tenants suspect that some of the details of the project are still being sorted out since they noted that Intern Number 1, otherwise known as Allyson DeMaagd, was wearing climbing gear and carrying surveying equipment while Intern Number 2, more commonly referred to as Kayla Kreuger-McKinney, was in an Edwardian traveling outfit and earnestly consulting Baedeker's 1909 guide to The United States, with excursions to Mexico, Cuba, Porto Rico, and Alaska, looking for good restaurants in Chicago.   

Needless to say, the Tenants envy all three of them what look to be exciting and productive summers.



Mt. Rainier, prior to being either surveyed or contemplated aesthetically. 

One Day Symposium on Computer Gaming! Free!

It's taking place here, with an international cast of scholars, it's free, and it's about computer games. What more could you ask for?

**The 3rd International Symposium on Computer Gaming Across Cultures**

130 Colson Hall, WVU, May 14, 2014,
Free and Open to the Public
Part of a UKIERI-funded trilateral collaboration between Bangor University (Wales), Jawaharlal Nehru University (India), and West Virginia University

The one-day symposium features presentations by scholars from three continents, providing perspectives on computer games and culture. Panel topics include "Films, Fans, Ethics"; "Crossdisciplinarity"; "Gaming as Culture/Culture as Gaming"; and "Conversations between Playing and Writing."

The program is available at the following URL: http://tinyurl.com/pal8smg

Direct questions to Sandy Baldwin at clc@mail.wvu.edu.

Here they are!

… your newly minted MFAs: Christina Seymour, Troy Copeland, Jessi Lewis, Sara Lucas, Rebecca Doverspike, Jesse Kalvitis, and Nathan Holmes.

It really was one of our best readings ever. Congratulations and thanks to these writers. It's been great working with all of you.

For more pics, visit the creative writing blog. 

The Perks of Being the WVU Figure Skating Club Adviser

With Olympic gold-medal-winning ice dancers Meryl Davis and Charlie White after a "Stars on Ice" show in Pittsburgh...

Interesting Course for Fall: FCLT 393L -SPTP GENDER, SEXUALITY & FILMS

If you're an undergrad and you're still working on your schedule for next fall, there's a special topics course in the World Languages Department that looks really interesting. Gender, sexuality, and films: what more could you ask for?

Poem in Your Pocket Day is tomorrow

Best be prepared. Here's a poem that you can carry around. After all, many people have, for many years.

They Flee from Me

  by Thomas Wyatt

They flee from me, that sometime did me seek,
With naked foot stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them, gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild, and do not remember
That sometime they put themselves in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range,
Busily seeking with a continual change.

Thanked be Fortune it hath been otherwise,
Twenty times better; but once in special,
In thin array, after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
And she me caught in her arms long and small,
And therewith all sweetly did me kiss
And softly said, "Dear heart, how like you this?"

It was no dream, I lay broad waking.
But all is turned, thorough my gentleness,
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
And I have leave to go, of her goodness,
And she also to use newfangleness.
But since that I so kindely am served,
I fain would know what she hath deserved.

The 2014 CONference Schedule

   Two Steps Forward, Three Steps Back:

the ENGL 680 Spring CONference 

 

(wherein literary research methods are simulated, stimulated, undermined, overthrown, explicated, illuminated, de-luminated, and generally ridiculed)

 

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

4 pm

Colson Hall, 130

 

4:00 – 4:20     Plenary Session

Introduced by ?

·       Sarah Neville: “The History Book on the Shelf is Always Repeating Itself: Collation, Cruzes, and Spandex in Abba’s ‘Waterloo’”

 

4:20 – 4:40     Losing Your Fruits: Wayward Epistemologies in 20th and 21st Century

Texts

Chaired by Rachel Hoag

·       Sara Kearns ~ “Revising Bedlam: Sexton and Plath in a Psychiatric Treatment Setting”

·       Victoria Dickman-Burnett ~ “Trapped in the Bananastand: Arrested Development as a Rewriting of Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit”

 

4:40 – 5:00     Pulling Her Hare: Transgressive Accelerations in Modern Mass Culture

Chaired by Natalie Carpini

·       Meagan Szekely ~ “Swift Studies: Quick Queries about a Rapid Relationship” (Taylor Swift)

·       Jonas Oliver ~ “Write of the Lepus: Lagomorphic Violence in Heinrich Hoffmann’s Slovenly Peter and Beyond”

 

5:00 – 5:20     Restriction and Release: Reconceptualizing Captivity Within and Without the Academy

Chaired by Jonas Oliver

·       Tatiana Robinson ~ Tying the Knot: Princesses and Bondage in the Films of Disney

·       Rachel Hoag ~ “Me-search” and Therap “e-cards”: Creating Online Mental Health Spaces for Graduate Students

 

5:20 – 5:40 Peniary Session

Introduced by Meagan Szekely

·       Natalie Carpini ~ “The Penicule of Their Existence: Penis Graffiti as Evidence of Increased Literacy”

 

6pm   Adjourn to the Black Bear: All Welcome!

Faculty Research Colloquium

The Department of English presents:

 

The Faculty Research Colloquium

 

“‘Break[ing] into this woman’s mood’ The Lab Space of

Shakespeare’s Henry IV” 

by Sarah Neville 

In Jean Howard’s words, Shakespeare’s histories seem to “tap into a yearning for a return to masculine rule and marital values.” By 1598, when the first part of Shakespeare’s Henry IV was being written, the virgin queen Elizabeth had been ruling England for over 30 years, and concerns over her succession were reaching fever pitch. Shakespeare’s similar preoccupation with primogeniture in his two Henry IV plays – a preoccupation that he passes along to his titular character – is thus rooted in the specific concerns of his present day. My talk will explore the ways that the current production of Henry IV onstage at WVU’s Creative Arts Center subverts the underlying patriarchal messages at the root of Shakespeare’s tetralogies to turn a pair of history plays into a feminist tragedy for our modern age. 

The talk is accompanied by an exhibition of the First Folio and other Shakespeareana curated by Stewart Plein, WVU libraries.

 

                                                 Free Public Lecture

April 23, 2014

2:30 p.m., Robinson Reading Room, WVU Downtown Library

Congrats to PWE capstone students on a successful poster exhibit!

On Tuesday the Professional Writing and Editing (PWE) program hosted the biannual PWE Poster Exhibition. PWE concentrators are required to complete a capstone internship  in professional or technical communication, and their posters are an opportunity for them to showcase their work for the university community. This spring, eleven students shared posters at the event, representing a diverse range of internships, from the English department’s own Center for Literary Computing and Writing Center to WVU Library Services and FiT Publishing.

Prizes are awarded for the best posters, and this semester the top prize went to Brianna Pethtel for her poster "Working Remotely: Writing to Connect Academic Researchers with Industry Partners," which showcased her work for WVU’s LIINC program.

 Second prize went to Rebecca Sandmeier for her poster “Connecting Literature and Technology: Interning at the Center for Literary Computing.”

Third prize went to Shawnee Moran for her poster “New South Media: Regional Publications for National Audiences.”

(Photo credits to PWE graduate and former poster winner Alex Ries.)

Congratulations to all of the interns on their accomplishments this term, including:

• Jonathan Cook, who interned with the CLC. His poster highlighted the collaborative nature of an editor’s job (and the revolving door an editor’s desk becomes).
• Emilee Justiss, who interned with WVU Library Services conducting research on the types of resources used most frequently by composition students.
• Alexandra Kirk, who interned with FiT Publishing, proofreading journals and designing PowerPoint presentations to accompany sports management textbooks.
• Jonathan Miltenberger, who interned with the CLC, and astutely communicated the long-term benefits of editing for clarity and consistency in the early stages of a book project.
• Shelby Schwabb, who interned with the Make-A-Wish Foundation. She worked on fundraising and wish-fulfillment communications, successfully balancing the advantages of form letters with the unique stories of individual children’s wishes.
• Mollie Simonton, who interned with the Writing Center, designing marketing materials, editing tutorials on working with STEM students, and researching multilingual students’ experiences in writing-intensive courses.
• Allen Utterback, who interned with the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center. He wrote and edited articles and speeches for special events and internal publications.
• Margery Webb, who interned with Administrative Technology Solutions, developing training materials for WVU’s Mountaineer Administrative Processes website.

Thank you to everyone who supported these talented English majors by attending the poster exhibit, especially the three graduate students (Sara Ash, Jay Kirby, and Will Deaton) who performed the difficult task of evaluating and narrowing down the top three poster presenters.

MFA Thesis Season

Once again, we have come to the happy conclusion of another MFA thesis season. Congratulations to the writers, and their committees, who made us proud. And remember to come out and hear them read their work on Thursday, April 24, at 7:30 p.m. in the Rhododendron Room.

And now—drumroll, please—we present our graduating MFAs:

Jessi Lewis, She Spoke Wire (novel). Committee: Mark Brazaitis (chair), Kevin Oderman, Glenn Taylor.

Christina Seymour, This Perfect World (poems). Committee: Mary Ann Samyn (chair), Jim Harms, Kevin Oderman.

Sara Lucas, Wheatfield (novel). Committee: Glenn Taylor (chair), Mark Brazaitis, Rosemary Hathaway.

Rebecca Doverspike, When an Aspen Quakes (essays). Committee: Kevin Oderman (chair), Mary Ann Samyn, Lara Farina.

Jesse Kalvitis, Lives Like Dollars (essays). Committee: Kevin Oderman (chair), Ethel Morgan Smith, Tim Sweet

Nathan Holmes, The First Regent (novel). Committee: Mark Brazaitis (chair), Glenn Taylor, Ethel Morgan Smith.

Troy Copeland, Myself That I Portray (essays). Committee: Kevin Oderman, Mark Brazaitis, Katy Ryan.