Department of English Newsletter November/December 2022
Upcoming Department Events
Publications & Acceptances
Marco Abel and Jaimey Fisher’s co-edited volume, The Berlin School and Its Global Contexts: A Transnational Art Cinema (Wayne State UP, 2018), was published in German translation as Die Berliner Schule im globalen Kontext: Ein transnationales Arthouse-Kino by transcript Verlag, which is distributed in the US by Columbia UP. It joins a very small number of Anglophone German film studies books that have ever been translated into German. transcript Verlag approached the editors with the suggestion to produce a translation based on the original English-language version’s shortlisting for the German “Willy Haas Award” for “an important international...publication…on German cinema.” The editors are grateful to Valie Djordjević for her work on the translation.
Matt Cohen’s latest book, The Silence of the Miskito Prince: How Cultural Dialogue Was Colonized, was published by the University of Minnesota Press. Focusing on the first two centuries of North American colonization, the book asks how colonial histories can be told in ways that invite intercultural conversation within humanistic fields that are themselves products of colonial domination. Each chapter focuses on one of five concepts frequently used to imagine solutions to the challenges of cross-cultural communication: understanding, cosmopolitanism, piety, reciprocity, and patience.
Amelia ML Montes published her essay, “Los Rumbos Que Marcan El Cuerpo/Places That Mark The Body,” in Hostos Review/Revista Hostosiana: An International Journal of Literature and Culture. The issue (#18) is entitled “Contemporary Nepantlas: Writing on Crossing Borders From the Americas.” The entire journal is available online at Hostos Review/Revista Hostosiana.
Caroliena Cabada’s short story “One Fall” was published in Five on the Fifth on November 5th, 2022.
Chinụa Ezenwa-Ọhaeto has an essay, “The Green Passport,” published in Isle Magazine.
Ilana Masad has published numerous reviews in a variety of publications over the course of the semester. These include several new contributions to NPR’s Books We Love, which has been updated to include the entirety of 2022, as well as reviews of The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias and Diary of a Misfit by Casey Parks. Forthcoming is Masad’s first piece for The Atlantic as well as a longform piece for Vulture about the prevalence and problematics of fluffy Holocaust novels. Masad has also been accepted to the Corsicana Artist & Writer Residency in Corsicana, Texas, which will take place in January of 2023.
Jessica Poli’s debut poetry collection Red Ocher, which was a finalist for the Miller Williams Prize, is now available for preorder from the University of Arkansas Press.
Conferences, Readings, Workshops & Presentations
Rachel Azima presented “Interrupting the Effects of Systemic Racism in the Educational Ecosystem” with Kelsey Hixson-Bowles of Utah Valley University and Neil Simpkins of the University of Washington-Bothell at the International Writing Centers Association Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia.
James Brunton presented his paper “The Politics of Self-Declaration in Recent Irish Transgender Cinema” at UNO’s European Studies Conference.
Timothy J. Cook delivered a paper on November 18 at the 63rd Midwest Modern Language Association Convention that was held in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Chairing the panel “Peace, Literature, and Pedagogy (2 of 2),” Cook also shared his work, “H. D.’s Helen in Egypt and the Cold War: A Final Poetic Protest.”
Arden Eli Hill led a creative writing workshop titled “Poetry, and Fiction, and Creative Non-Fiction in Motion” for veterans in Omaha. The in-person and zoom workshop involves writing generation stations and fits folks with a range of physical abilities.
Arden Eli Hill, Hope Wabuke, and Stacey Waite will be reading at the Lincoln Barnes and Noble on Saturday, December 3rd at 7:00 pm as part of a benefit for Bluestem Montessori Elementary School.
Amelia ML Montes read from her recently published essay (on zoom), “Los Rumbos Que Marcan El Cuerpo/Places That Mark The Body,” for the Hostos Review/Revista Hostosiana journal publication launch that took place in New York, Tuesday, October 26, 2022 from 5 - 7 p.m. (CST). On Friday, November 4th, 2022, she attended, also via zoom, the El Mundo Zurdo Conference in San Antonio, Texas by participating in the Latin American Writers Institute (LAWI) - Hostos Review Roundtable, “Composing Hostos Review/Revista Hostosiana no. 18: New Writings on Borders and Borderlands During the Global Pandemic as Coyolxauhqui Process.” On November 11, she presented “Discursive Transnational Inscriptions in the Music of Lila Sánchez Downs” at the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
On December 1, Julia Schleck had a lively discussion about her book Dirty Knowledge on the podcast Humanities on the High Plains with Ryan Brooks of West Texas A&M University.
Ng’ang’a Wahu-Mũchiri presented a paper titled “Decolonial Cartographies: Alternative Maps & Colonial Land Treaties” at the African Studies Association annual conference in Philadelphia, PA. The research is from an ongoing digital humanities project titled The Ardhi Initiative.
On October 14, Caroliena Cabada presented “The Climate Change Fight in Tales of Vesperia” at the Midwest Popular Culture Association/Midwest American Culture Association’s 2022 conference in Chicago.
Jordan Charlton and Kasey Peters, as Associate Nonfiction Editors for Prairie Schooner, gave a joint presentation on submitting to literary magazines and journals as part of Poets and Writers online workshop “Mapping the Maze: Chart Your Path to Publication.”
Leah Hedrick, Kathleen Dillon, and alum Dr. Nicole Green presented “Was ‘Normal’ Really That Great?: Investigating Disability & Labor Expectations in the Writing Center” at the National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing in Omaha, Nebraska.
Ilana Masad will be a featured guest speaker at the Antioch MFA Residency in December 2022, and her talk will draw from her comps essay, “Experiment, Embodiment, Liberation.”
Activities, Accolades, & Grants
The German-language podcast Cuts-Der kritische Podcast talked with Marco Abel for 2.5 hours about the Berlin School of contemporary German cinema.
After a nearly three-year hiatus, the National Theatre Live Discussion Series will again be presented by the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center. After the 1 p.m. encore of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing on Sunday, December 4, there will be a brief discussion of Simon Godwin’s production facilitated by Kelly Stage, Rafael Untalan of the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film, and Steve Buhler.
Ng’ang’a Wahu-Mũchiri received a $4,900 award through the CAS Research Impact and Engagement Grant. This funding will support indexing, partial translation, and publication of Writing on the Soil: Land & Landscape in Literature from Eastern & Southern Africa (University of Michigan Press, May 2023).
Have news or noteworthy happenings to share?
The Department of English encourages our faculty and current students to submit stories about their activities and publications of note by filling out the Department Newsletter Submission Form.