News for English and Film Studies Students

October 25 - November 8, 2019

Carved pumpkins

Hours

The English Advising Office is open Monday thru Thursday for appointments from 8:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.

Appointments

Please go to Canvas (under Account--> Settings--> MyPlan--> My Success Network--> Kathleen Lacey). The schedule tab will allow you to see what times are available for individual appointments. You can also search for Kathleen Lacey in the MyPLAN Directory. You are also welcome to call 402-472-3871 to schedule an appointment.

Walk-in Hours

No appointment necessary

Walk-in hours are Fridays from 8:30 am - 11:30 am.

Connect with us

Reminders

October 28 (Mon.) - November 12 (Tue.)  Priority Registration for Spring Semester 2020

Courses to Check Out

English 364: 18th-Century British Literature Spring 2020

Talk about a period with a bum rap! People sometimes say the 18th century was dull and boring. FAR FROM IT! It was witty, bawdy, mad for science, committed to social transformation and world-changing in its politics. It pretty much invented the modern world. This century produced three revolutions, each of which changed the world. We will look at the end of the old world and the birth of the new through the dynamic and interdisciplinary lens of literature, visual arts, music, and contemporary culture. During this period, literature and the arts "went public" as authors and artists appealed to a broad public audience, and the works that resulted were often wildly entertaining. Even if they were also serious - even revolutionary. You do NOT need to be an expert in history, literature, or anything else. We will think about the arts, the sciences, technology, and human behavior generally, trying to make sense of how things change, and why. Sampling these diverse materials will give us a taste of the culture that gave rise to what we think of as "the modern world."

The class will be mostly discussion based, with occasional quizzes, two working papers, a research portfolio on a subject of your choice, and a final exam.

The class will meet Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 10:30 - 11:20

For more info contact Professor Behrendt at sbehrendt1@unl.edu or at Andrews 319

English 219: "Bad Girls of Film Noir" Spring 2020

In this class, we will focus on “bad girls” and female “heavies” in film noir films and related film genres, such as neo-noir. We celebrate women who manipulate, destroy, and kill in order to get what they want, in a society that soften denies women agency and control over their bodies. We will examine the gender politics of film noir, a film genre that deploys the evil woman as a defiant force who works against the grain of patriarchal gender roles, and view her as a transgressive and disruptive figure who upsets norms and defies gender: the bad woman who is so fun to watch. We will explore the rise of the “femme fatale” as an American anti-hero in American cinema.

 

Far from shrinking violets or mere objects of the male gaze, femmes fatales in film noir go well beyond the routine and limited choices offered to women in Hollywood. “Bad girls” of film noir are beautiful, brainy, challenging, outspoken and cunning. They hold audiences captive as much as they do their onscreen victims. We also study female spectatorship and analyze the popularity of female anti-heroines and onscreen femme fatales, such as Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck and many other silver screen legends, as well as more contemporary “bad girls” and female “heavies.”

 

Films screened will include: Born to Kill, Crime of Passion, Mildred Pierce, Gilda, Leave Her to Heaven, Out of the Past, In This Our Life, The Great Lie, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Straitjacket, Mommie Dearest, Misery, Fatal Attraction, Jennifer’s Body, Bound, Gone Girl.

The class with meet every Wednesday from 1:30 - 4:40pm and is taught by Gwendolyn FosterPoster for film course

SUMMER 2020: Classic Horror Films during Pre-Session in English 439/839

This class covers the horror film between 1930 to 1970, a period in cinema history that saw worldwide change in the film medium, and an unprecedented growth in the horror film, as well as experimentation within the film medium itself.

See twenty classic horror films in just three weeks.

Films screened include the original versions of FRANKENSTEIN, DRACULA, THE WOLFMAN, THE MUMMY, SON OF DRACULA, HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, CAT PEOPLE, I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE, THE UNDYING MONSTER, HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL, THE DEVIL COMMANDS, HOUSE OF WAX, THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM, HORROR OF DRACULA, HALLOWEEN, CARRIE and many more.

Class meets Monday - Friday 9:30AM – 12:20PM during Pre-Session from May 18 – June 5, 2020 in RVB 123; the small Ross Theater. Requirements: daily attendance, screenings, discussion, readings, three five page papers. 

Department of English Announcements and Events

Places and Plains Workshop Series: Ng’ang’a Muchiri

“Land Rights and the Zimbabwean Chimurenga” will be presented.

Addition info found here.

  • October 25, 3:00 - 5:00pm;Center for Great Plains Studies Commons, Hewit Place

Reading by Author Terese Svoboda

“GREAT AMERICAN DESERT is a devious and extraordinary new collection of stories from one of our best writers, Terese Svoboda. A kaleidoscopic tour through the Plains that spans decades and beautifully fuses the tonal worlds of comedy, horror, …

  • October 28, 5:00 - 6:00pm;Bailey Library, Andrews Hall, UNL Campus

Humanities on the Edge Presents Claire Colebrook

“What would you do (and who would you kill) in order to save the world?: Post-Apocalyptic Cinema and Extinction.”

  • October 31, 5:30 - 7:00pm; Sheldon Museum of Art

No Name Reading

The No Name Reading Series features the best in poetry and prose from graduate student writers in the English department of the UNL. Readings take place several times each semester.

  • November 1, 6:30 - 8:00pm, Location: Indigo Bridge Books

Building Your Career: Alt-Ac, Publishing, Fellowships, and Fulbrights

UNL alum Dr. Tracy Prince, professor at Portland State University’s American Indian Teacher Program in the College of Education, will talk about the things she wished she knew in grad school: hints on academic publishing, trade publishing, writing …

  • November 4, 12:00pm; Bailey Library, Andrews Hall, UNL Campus

All English Department Events for November

  • Places and Plains Workshop Series: Cory Willard. November 22, 3:30 - 5:00pm; Hewit Place

All English Department Events for the Fall Semester

  • No Name Reading. December 6, 6:30 - 8:00pm; Indigo Bridge Books

University Announcements and Events

Phantom at the Opera

Cameron Mackintosh’s spectacular new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera comes to Lincoln as part of a brand new North American Tour. This production, which retains the beloved story and thrilling score, boasts exciting new special effects, scenic and lighting designs, staging and choreography and has been hailed by critics as “bigger and better than ever before.”

The Phantom of the Opera will take the Lied Stage for seventeen shows from Oct 23-Nov 3.

UNL students may purchase half-price tickets online at liedcenter.org, then pick them up from the Box Office with their NCard.

For more info see here.

  • October 23 - November 3, Times Vary; Lied Center

Agency, Power, and Social Justice

Historically, power has been conceived as a dyadic relation between individuals: A has power over B. In recent decades, however, power has been reconceived as part of the social field for all social agents. This talk develops this alternative account of power and considers how it might be employed in understanding unjust systems such as White supremacy, capitalism, and male domination, and how agents, together, can resist injustice.

Sally Haslanger is Ford Professor of Philosophy and Women’s and Gender Studies at MIT. Haslanger’s work links issues of social justice—especially concerning gender, race, and the family—with contemporary work in epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind. A collection of her papers that represent this effort over twenty years was collected in Resisting Reality: Social Construction and Social Critique (Oxford 2012); it received the Joseph B. Gittler award for outstanding work in philosophy of the social sciences.

  • November 7, 3:30 - 5:30pm; Heritage Room, Nebraksa Union

Epistemic Standpoints and the Epistemology of Injustice

Sally Haslanger is Ford Professor of Philosophy and Women’s and Gender Studies at MIT. Broadly speaking, Haslanger’s work links issues of social justice—especially concerning gender, race, and the family—with contemporary work in epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind. Recent work in social epistemology has focused on the significance of situated knowledge. Recognizing the situatedness of knowledge, after all, would seem to be just good practice for someone committed to a minimal empiricism.

Participants in the colloquium are expected to have read the paper in advance.
Copies will be available in Room 305, Louise Pound Hall or via email: jhaley1@unl.edu.

  • November 8, 3:30 - 5:30; Room 308, Lousie Pound Hall, UNL Campus

All English/Film Studies Related University Events for the Fall Semester

  • "Befriending the Mighty Mo: Missouri River as Ally". November 23, 3:30pm; Center for Great Plains Studies, Downtown Lincoln

  • Global Cafe: Writing an Undergrad Thesis. November 30,12:00 - 1:00pm; Room 827, Oldfather Hall, UNL Campus

Internships, Jobs, and Professional Development

Collision Literary Magazine Seeking Submissions

Poetry Editor of Collision Literary Magazine at the University of Pittsburgh. Collision is currently open for submissions of undergraduate fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art, and we welcome your students to submit! We're also looking for submissions for our fall zine, Border Crossing, which will feature fiction, nonfiction, poetry and black-and-white visual art revolving around international and intercultural experiences. By submitting to either the annual magazine or the themed zine, students will be considered for our writing contests, wherein they could win monetary prizes. 

Submissions for the annual magazine close Friday, Feb. 21, but we read on a rolling basis. Zine submissions close Friday, Oct. 25. You can find more information about the magazine and our submission guidelines at https://www.collision.pitt.edu. If you have any questions, please contact collision.pitt@gmail.com

Lincoln Public Schools Gifted Students Mentorship

Lincoln Public Schools is seeking Juniors, Seniors, or Graduates to mentor students up to one hour per day in the following areas:

  • English and Language Arts
  • Mathematics
  • World Languages
  • History/ Social Studies
  • Visual Arts

The mentorship pays $18.91 per hour for working with the students, as well as mileage reimbursement for travel between schools for those assigned at multiple LPS locations.

The mentorship provides a wealth of experiences to discuss in interviews for those considering the job market after graduation.

The following requirements need to be met in order to be considered for the program:

  • Overall GPA of 3.0 or above
  • 15 college course hours in the subject to be mentored
  • A minimum of 3.5 GPA in these courses

For those interested in applying, the application can be found here.

Join The Artifice Writing Group

The Artifice

The Artifice is an online magazine that covers a wide spectrum of art forms, including Film, Anime, Comics, Literature, Games, and Arts. It is collaboratively built and maintained by the writers. The platform has an established audience of millions. See here

Instead of recycling the same entertainment news stories or publishing commonplace editorials, The Artifice focus on unique topics that are intellectually stimulating and meaningful.

We are currently expanding and we would like to provide an opportunity for your students, staff, and faculty to join our team of writers.

Our writers range from undergraduates to emeritus professors.

If you are interested in joining the team, see here.

Literary News

The World’s Top Economists Just Made The Case For Why We Still Need English Majors

"As humanities majors slump to the lowest level in decades, calls are coming from surprising places for a revival. Some prominent economists are making the case for why it still makes a lot of sense to major (or at least take classes) in humanities alongside more technical fields.

Nobel Prize winner Robert Shiller’s new book “Narrative Economics” opens with him reminiscing about an enlightening history class he took as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan. He wrote that what he learned about the Great Depression was far more useful in understanding the period of economic and financial turmoil than anything he learned in his economic courses."

Read more from Heather Long @ WaPo.

Film News

Showing This Week at the Ross

Lucy in the Sky

Greener Grass

Jojo Rabbit

Stay tuned for more film news