Wheeler Winston Dixon has published a new article, “Obsession and Madness in The Hands of Orlac,” in Senses of Cinema 87 (June, 2018).

Gwendolyn Audrey Foster published “Vera Chytilová’s Something Different (O necem jinem 1963),” in Senses of Cinema 87: (June, 2018). Three of her short films have been curated by Coral Short for Fortune Unfolded, sponsored by COVEN BERLIN a sex-positive transdisciplinary genderbender collective focused on feminism, love, gender, sexuality and art. The exhibition is on view at NGBK: Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst, Berlin from July 7th through September 2nd. Selected films screen on August 18th.

Ted Kooser’s poems appear in current or recent issues of The Antioch Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, The Briar Cliff Review, Ibbetson Street, Iron Horse, Mantis, and New Poetry from the Midwest. He has new work forthcoming in Hudson Review, Kenyon Review, Plume and Third Wednesday. His most recent book, Kindest Regards, has received warm receptions in The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, and The National Review, with a starred review in Booklist and a pick by Library Journal as one of five top poetry titles for 2018.

Pascha Sotolongo Stevenson’s short story “The Moth” has won Ninth Letter’s 2018 Literary Award in Fiction and will be published in the Fall/Winter issue. Additionally, Pascha’s short story “These Ones” has been accepted for publication in the next issue of The Pinch Journal.

Kristi Carter’s recent and forthcoming publications include her article “‘Contempt for her Practice’: Elizabeth Ashbridge’s Quest for Religious Freedom through Pious Rhetoric and Rebellious Female Agency” in Women’s Studies: An inter-disciplinary journal and her two poems, “From She Who Bears the Name of Deliverance” and “Between Oranges,” in NILVX II(I): JULY 18, the Divine Androgyne Issue. Her interview with Sheila McMullin was published in Tinderbox Poetry as the second part of “Documenting the Collection of Removal: A shared interview between poets”.

Crystal Bock Thiessen, instructor in Programs in English as a Second Language (PIESL), worked on a one-month U.S. Department of State program as an English Language Specialist in Belarus and Ukraine in June as a teacher-trainer. The Belarus assignment focused on current methodologies and topics in English language instruction, including photography and video projects for language-learning, effective error engagement and mistake management, and reflective practices for improved teaching. In Ukraine, Bock Thiessen traveled to the current conflict zone of Donbass in the East with a team from the Regional English Language Office at the U.S. Embassy, Kyiv. There, she conducted workshops and institutes for English teachers on resilience, peace-building, conflict resolution, student-centered learning, mixed-ability classes, and current methodologies and technologies in language teaching. Bock Thiessen was chosen as one of approximately 80 U.S. citizens each year selected to serve on an English Language Specialist assignment abroad. This is her fifth year serving as a Specialist in Ukraine and sixth year working as a teacher trainer in Eastern Europe.

Wheeler Winston Dixon presented a one person show of his recent film work at Filmhuis Cavia, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, with a lecture and Q&A session afterwards on July 6, 2018. Films screened include the complete, uncut version of Dixon’s film An American Dream, as well as Look, Take One, Lost, Shopping, Sketchbook, Access Granted / Access Denied, Risk, The Ninth Circle, Recreation II, Desert Places, Life of Luxury, Escape, Memory and other films. The films were enthusiastically received - next up is a gallery screening of Dixon’s “Catastrophe Series” - ten short films on the concept of disaster - as part of the Studio 44 Film Festival, Stockholm, Sweden, August 14-19, 2018.

Gwendolyn Audrey Foster presented a one-woman show, Gwendolyn Audrey Foster: Queer Feminist Punk Experimental Films, on July 6th, at Filmhuis Cavia in Amsterdam. Curated by Ronald Bijleveld. (Invited).

Wheeler Winston Dixon and Gwendolyn Audrey Foster were invited to present their films and lecture on their video artwork for a Polish Radio/TV program entitled Artistic Couples/Arty-Stycze Pary (along with video artists Irena Izabela Imanska and Witold Stypa) at Jerzy Harald Concert Studio, Polski Radio/TV, Katowice, Poland. Foster screened short films such as Genderqueer Doll Party, Bisexual Materialist Ragtime Party, Making Gender Great Again Again, Kiki’s Film, Making America Straight and White Again. Dixon screened Point of Purchase, An American Dream, The Empty Room, Statistics, Abstraction for Harry Partch, and other selected films. The screenings were followed by a Q&A session with Dixon and Foster, translated into Polish for a live audience and broadcast live on Polski Radio/TV on June 7, 2018. This program highlighted Dixon and Foster’s film/video retrospective screening at BWA Contemporary Art Gallery, in Katowice in March and April.

Julia Schleck spoke on the plenary panel “Fighting Back against Targeted Faculty Harassment” at the national AAUP’s Summer Institute at the University of New Hampshire on July 20. She was joined by Johnny Williams of Trinity College and Kyle Rudick of University of Northern Iowa, both past targets of such attacks, as well as Shannon Freire, one of the members of AAUP’s investigating team who visited UNL last January.

Kristi Carter read in St. Louis in July as part of River Styx’s Hungry Young Poet’s Reading Series.

In June, Gina Keplinger had the opportunity to attend the 55th Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program training in Romeoville, IL. There, Gina worked closely with professors and graduate students from across the country, as well as incarcerated men housed at Stateville Correctional Center. In a pedagogically intensive week, she learned how to effectively facilitate a college classroom with both inside (incarcerated) and outside (university affiliated) students within correctional facilities. She had the rare chance to tour Stateville’s F House or roundhouse, the last operating panopticon in the country. F House was shuttered in 2016 due to growing safety concerns and inhumane living conditions. Touring the facility heightened her awareness of the practical humanity that ought to be kept at the core of Michel Foucault’s theory of panopticism. Gina deeply thanks the Inside-Out institute, the men at Stateville, the Department of English, and the Joy Currie Graduate Travel Fund for their financial, academic, and emotional support.

Steve Buhler was dramaturg for Flatwater Shakespeare’s 2018 summer production of The Tempest. Richard Nielsen (UNL English Ph.D. 1991) starred as Prospero. The show’s run started at The Swan Theatre, located in The Stables at Wyuka, and then continued with a tour of Lincoln city parks, with free performances sponsored by The Cooper Foundation. Steve was also the Humanities Adviser for two free, sonnet-based educational programs presented by Flatwater Shakespeare and funded by Humanities Nebraska: Little But Fierce (Grades K-6) and Sonnets & Songs (Grades 7-12). Steve (with guitars) was a Teaching Artist for Sonnets & Songs.

Gwendolyn Audrey Foster is honored to have been selected once again to serve as a Peer Reviewer and judge for the Fulbright Fellowships offered by the Fulbright Scholar Program, The Council for International Exchange of Scholars.

Kristi Carter was interviewed, along with 19 others, as part of the grant-funded initiative LGBTQ+ Voices: The Queer Omaha Archives Oral History Project.

Matthew Guzman was selected as the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s representative in the inaugural year of the Big Ten Emerging Lecturer series. He will give a talk at Michigan State on Walt Whitman, the American Civil War, and nonhuman animals in September.