Emily Herrick of Programs in English as a Second Language (PIESL) and Jean L. Arnold of Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand have published “6 Teaching-with-Music Myths Busted” in the October edition of TESOL Connections. TESOL Connections is the newsletter of TESOL International, the largest professional organization for ESL/EFL teachers.

Patrick T. Randolph’s article Using Observation Journals to Awaken Observation Skills and Increase Comfort with Writing was published in TESOL’s Second Language Writing Interest Section News. This piece shows how his unique version of observation journals encourages ELLs to pay better attention to their local communities, target language, classroom dynamics, and natural surroundings while simultaneously becoming more confident and comfortable in their writing. The article looks at what these journals entail, and particular pitfalls and solutions are also addressed. Randolph also helped review work in Applications of CALL Theory in ESL and EFL Environments. This is a recently published book that looks at various ways that CALL is used in the ELL world. The volume is edited by Perren, Kelch, Byun, Cervantes, and Safavi (2017). Randolph also contributed a teaching idea in the recent TESOL publication, New Ways in Teaching with Music, edited by Jean L. Arnold and Emily Herrick. His contribution is titled Emotional Involvement: Using Music as the Writing Muse, pp. 35-36.

Wheeler Winston Dixon has published a new book, The Films of Terence Fisher: Hammer Horror and Beyond, from Auteur Press (London) and Columbia University Press (US).

Tracing the entire career of the British director Terence Fisher, best known for his Gothic horror films for Hammer Film Productions―such as The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and Dracula (1958)-The Films of Terence Fisher: Hammer Horror and Beyond covers not only his horror films, but also his film noirs, comedies, and early apprenticeship work to create a full picture of Fisher’s life and work.

Based on the work Dixon did in his groundbreaking study The Charm of Evil, this is an entirely revised and rewritten work with new research, new details, and fresh critical insights. Brimming with rare stills, interviews, and detailed analysis of Fisher’s films―both for Hammer as well as his earlier work―this is the ultimate “one-stop” book on Terence Fisher, both in his horror films, and his entire body of work, as well as his legacy to the British cinema.

“This book is a cinephile’s dream, as well as an exemplary work of scholarship. Wheeler Winston Dixon illuminates the movies and the career of Terence Fisher in loving detail, bringing us close to an important director whose work now gets its proper due for the first time.” – Steven Shaviro, author of The Universe of Things

The Films of Terence Fisher: Hammer Horror and Beyond will appeal especially to fans of Fisher, of Hammer horror films, and of British cinema more generally. It made me want to watch and re-watch these movies!” – Daniel Herbert, author of Videoland

“Dixon recreates Fisher’s world of filmmaking with true skill, bringing each movie to life, and highlighting the many challenges that surrounded the director’s projects. The Films of Terence Fisher: Hammer Horror and Beyond provides a valuable guide not just to Fisher, but also to the twentieth-century British Film Industry in general.” – John Wills, author of Disney Culture

Wheeler Winston Dixon has published a lengthy review of “Robert Heide: 25 Plays” in Quarterly Review of Film and Video, October 24, 2017. The review is behind a paywall, but can be viewed on campus, which subscribes to the journal digitally.

Wheeler Winston Dixon has published a new review, “The Flaherty: Decades in the Cause of Independent Cinema" by Patricia R. Zimmermann and Scott MacDonald, in Choice (December 2017): #55-1298.

Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, Willa Cather Professor of English, will open an invited, one-woman show of her work at the Museum of Future in Berlin, Germany, on Oct. 28, curated by the gallery’s director, Witold Stypa. Foster is a prolific filmmaker and film scholar with a focus on a variety of cinematic areas, including gender, race, ecofeminism and class studies. She has made many films, including the 1991 documentary Women Who Made The Movies. Her recent work has focused on a number of short films, including Self-Portrait, Desire Market, Echo and Narcissus, Film for Chantal Akerman, Have Fun / Keep Out and many others. These films, along with other of her works, will be screened at the gallery.

About her work, Foster says, “Chance is my favorite collaborator. I often allow ideas to emerge by manipulating images and sound with little or no intentional 'plan.' I create abstracts, slow films, unusual sound designs, music, and video installations that are described as hypnotic, surreal, and enigmatic. I like to explore liminal spaces between film   video, real   virtual, abstract   representational, aesthetic   philosophical; disrupting binaries whenever possible. I often make slow cinema, inviting contemplation and active meditation.”

Kristi Carter has poems forthcoming in Artemis Journal and Crab Orchard Review.

Natalie Scenters-Zapico’s poems “My Brother” and “Amerigo Vespucci Landing” appeared in Los Angeles Review of Books. Her poem, “Border Crossing Simulation” appeared in Boulevard.

Maria Nazos' poems “Fantasy With Trump in Tree,” “Looking at Women,” and “The Ghost’s Wife Speaks” were solicited by James Allen for publication in George Washington College’s journal Cherry Tree. Moreover, she is grateful to Grace Bauer and Julie Kane for editing the Nasty Women anthology and including her poem “Rock 'n' Roll Fever.” She is looking forward to reading alongside some wonderful women as part of the Nasty Women Poets Reading on Monday, October 30th at 7:00pm in the Bailey Library.

Katie Schmid has three poems in the new issue of The Mondegreen: “The Bird,” “The Past,” and “Margot in the Country of Sleep.”

Maureen Daniels has two poems, "Detonations" and “Triolet at the B Café” in the current issue of The Slag Review. Her poem “The Wrangling” was published in Danse Macabre’s daily gazette DM du Jour, and her translations of Raymond Queneau’s poems “Fable” and “So Much Human Sweat” appeared in DM #109 / NACHTMUSIK. She also a number of poems forthcoming: “The Violin Maker” in Third Wednesday (Dec. 2017); “Valerie” in The Mantle (Nov. 2017); “Eldorado,” “Nixie,” and “Penultimate Night in Siena” in Scarlet Leaf Review (Nov. 2017); “Cartography of the Body in Love” and “Long Distance Call” in The Blotter Magazine (Dec. 2017); “Opal Starstone” in Leaves of Ink (Jan. 2018); “Seth’s Pond, Martha’s Vineyard” in Poetry Pacific (May 2018); “Lips” (a.k.a. The Pussy Poem) in an upcoming issue of Rat’s Ass Review (despite the editor’s grumbling about typesetting shape poems); and “Crime Scene, New York City, 2010” in the next issue of Gyroscope Review. "Crime Scene, New York City, 2010" was written for Karen Schmeer, a film editor who was killed by a getaway car after a robbery on Manhattan’s Upper West Side on January 29, 2010. Karen was known for her work on The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, Bobby Fischer Against the World, and Fast, Cheap & Out of Control.

Rachel Azima and the Writing Center hosted the 13th annual Nebraska Writing Center Consortium meeting on September 29. The meeting brought together writing center consultants and leaders from across the state and featured Terese Thonus from the University of Baltimore as keynote speaker. Thanks to Stevie Siebert Desjarlais, Nicole Green, and Katie McWain for checking in attendees, and extra thanks to Matt Guzman and Matt Whitaker for their indispensable assistance from beginning to end.

Emily Herrick, Ann Bouma, Stacie Swinehart, Tim Janda and Crystal Bock Thiessen of Programs in English as a Second Language (PIESL) presented “New Ways to Integrate Music into the ESL Classroom” on Sept. 29 in Kansas City, Mo. at the Mid-America TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) conference.

Tom Lynch will be “launching” his new edited collection, Thinking Continental: Writing the Planet One Place at a Time, on Friday, Nov. 10 at 7:00 at Indigo Bridge bookstore. Joining Tom will be Nebraska poet laureate Twyla Hansen, as well as Elizabeth Dodd, from Kansas State University, and Harmon Maher, from UNO, all of whom are included in the volume. The event is hosted by the University of Nebraska press.

Patrick T. Randolph presented on the following at the recent 2017 MIDTESOL Conference in Kansas City, MO: (1) Using Body-Based Components to Effectively Teach Vocabulary, (2) Observation Journals: Inspiring ELLs to Embrace Life Through Writing, (3)Feeling Language Through ELL Read-a-Thons, and (4) A Guide to Creating Collaborative Mini-Professional Development Conferences.

Natalie Scenters-Zapico presented on the panel “Composition of a Tear: Latinas Writing Grief and Violence Through the Body” at Thinking Its Presence: Race, Creative Writing, Art in Tucson, Arizona.

Maureen Daniels attended the 64th Annual Midwest Conference on British Studies in St. Louis, Missouri. She presented her paper, “Shakespeare's Shylock, Shakespeare's Shylock: A Study of Repetition in The Merchant of Venice,” and chaired the panel “Literary Spaces: Place and Identity.” She is thankful for receiving a Joy Currie Travel Fellowship, which provided her with the generous support to participate in the conference. Maureen would also like to thank Dr. Stephen Behrendt, Dr. Julia Schleck, and Dr. Roland Végső for their invaluable assistance!

Maria Nazos was delighted to chair her panel, “On Speaking Terms: Forging Healthy Writer-Translator Communication and Boundaries” with Stephen Kessler and J. Kates at the 2017 American Literary Translators' Association in Minneapolis. She is in deep gratitude for the funding, which included a Joy Currie Travel Award and looks forward to chairing the same panel this spring at AWP with Aliki Barnstone, Simon Wickhamsmith, and J. Kates.

Senior English Major, Jenna Brende, presented a poster with Kelly Payne at the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA) Annual Conference. Jenna was one of few undergraduate students to be in attendance of NACADA’s annual conference and represented the Department of English to put the work of the English Student Advisory Board and English mentoring in the context of academic advising. The information shared with the poster centers on the Department of English’s mission of imaginative reasoning to mentor first-year English and Film Studies majors by encouraging them to get involved with the department and on campus. Kelly leads the English advisory board in discussions of how we can use literature to learn more about mentorship and the college experience.

Jenna served as Kelly’s undergraduate intern and the spring 2017, and her involvement as Kelly’s intern and with ESAB inspired her to study a humanistic framework of mentorship and write her thesis: “Imaginative Mentoring through Literature: Reading to Overcome Obstacles in College,” which she just finished, defended, and turned in with the help of Kelly and Ann Tschetter of the Department of History.

Undergraduate students—Sara Duke, Rachel Gordon, and Bailea Kerr, all UCARE grant recipients—and Rosamond Thalken, a graduate student, presented papers at last week’s 42nd annual European Studies Conference, which was hosted by the University of Nebraska-Omaha. Along with their advisor, Dr. Beverley Rilett, Assistant Research Professor in English, the students gave talks as part of a panel entitled “Digitizing Print Scholarship and Creating Online Archives: Lessons from the George Eliot Archive.”

Each student researched and spoke on a different aspect of the team’s digital project. Rosamond Thalken’s talk was “The Creative Commons Philosophy: When We Share, Everyone Wins”; Bailea Kerr’s was “Saving Scholarship that Matters: The George Eliot Review”; Rachel Gordon’s was “Design Considerations and Options for Website Development”; and Sara Duke’s was “Funding your Digital Project: Applying for Grants.”

Left to right: Dr. Beverley Rilett, Bailea Kerr, Sara Duke, Rachel Gordon, and Rosamund Thalken.

The European Studies Conference (ESC), an interdisciplinary and international gathering of scholars, has facilitated an active exchange of ideas, insights and reflections for forty-two years. Each year the conference offers academics a stimulating and productive series of sessions that focus upon multifaceted perspectives on the present, past and future of the European continent. This conference provides professionalization opportunities for researchers at all levels of their scholarship, and we are particularly appreciative that organizer Dr. Tatyana Novikov, who has extended an enthusiastic welcome to Rilett’s UCARE students (the only undergraduates in attendance) every year for the past four years.

Being part of the UCARE program itself is an honor for an undergraduate. Student applicants are selected through a competitive process, and granted either a 9-month or a 3-month summer stipend to carry out a research project of their choice in collaboration with a faculty mentor. Being further selected to present their research at the European Studies Conference is an outstanding accomplishment, and the presentations of Rosamond Thalken, Bailea Kerr, Rachel Gordon, and Sara Duke were excellent. If you happen to see these students, be sure to congratulate them.

Melissa Homestead’s work on Willa Cather’s relationship with her partner of nearly forty years, Edith Lewis, was featured in an article by Alex Ross in the October 2nd issue of the New Yorker. Her work was also featured in Nebraska Today.

Gabriel Houck‘s story, “The Wick,” was nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology by New Delta Review.

Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry was awarded the 2017 Jane Geske Award from the Nebraska Center for the Book “for exceptional literary contributions.” Assistant Editor Pat Emile accepted the award.

Tickets are now out for the stage adaptation of Chigozie Obioma's novel, The Fishermen. The play, scripted by Gbolahan Obiesesan and directed by Jack McNamara of New Perspectives Theatre, will premiere on July 18, 2018 in the UK.

Kristi Carter was nominated for Best of the Net 2017 for her poem in Tupelo Quarterly. She was also a finalist in Paper Nautilus’ Debut Series Contest and the 2017 Robin Becker Chapbook Series.

Maria Nazos is grateful for a Joy Currie Travel Award and to the department for providing travel funding to The American Literary Translators’ Association.