Department of English Newsletter November 2021

Upcoming Department Events

Publications & Acceptances

Cover of FLIGHT RISKJoy Castro’s novel Flight Risk, which reworks fairy-tale archetypes and subverts the modernist canon to tell the story of a Latinx artist making fertility decisions in an era of climate crisis, was published on November 1. (Many thanks to those of you who read early drafts!)

Last month, Samantha Gilmore and Matt Cohen published a review essay titled “Why Can’t the English Teach Their Children How to Speak?” in The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation 61.4 (Winter 2020): 525-531. (Yes, 2020--but what is time, really?) The essay assesses Ezra Tawil’s ambitious 2018 book, Literature, American Style: The Originality of Imitation in the Early Republic.

Cameron Steele’s essay “The Only Thing I’ve Ever Wanted” was published in the October edition of Split Lip Magazine.

Jason McCormick and Erika Luckert’s collaboratively written article, “Grading What We Value: A Conversation for Creative Writing,” was published in the Journal of Creative Writing Studies.

Erika Luckert’s poem, “Bouquet,” was published in SWWIM.

Conferences, Readings, Workshops & Presentations

Marco Abel presented (via Zoom) “(Don’t) Look Back at Sylvie: Klaus Lemke, D. A. Pennebaker, and the ‘Lightness’ of a ‘Left Politics without Leftism’” at the 45th German Studies Association conference. The presentation offered a preview of a much longer version of the essay, which he hopes to publish in his co-edited (with Jaimey Fisher) book, New German Cinema and Its Global Contexts, a work-in-progress that is contracted with Wayne State UP as a sequel to their previously published The Berlin School and Its Global Contexts.

Poster for Marco Abel's talk—text belowThe Center for Research in Film Theory and Analysis at the Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México hosted Marco Abel on October 21 to give a seminar (via Zoom) on the German filmmakers associated with the “Berlin School.”

Rachel Azima co-facilitated two workshops during the Oct. 20-23 International Writing Centers Association conference: “What We Can Do to Build a More Equitable Racial Climate in Our Centers and Gatherings,” with Kelsey Hixson-Bowles of Utah Valley University and Neil Simpkins of the University of Washington-Bothell; and “The Reluctant Supervisor: Recognizing and Rethinking Power in Supervisory Practices,” with Katie Levin and Jasmine Kar Tang of the University of Minnesota and Meredith Steck, former Associate Director of the Writing Center, currently of Case Western.

On 15 October, at the annual meeting of the International Conference on Romanticism (in Charleston, SC), Steve Behrendt participated in a Plenary Panel called “Unbinding the Canon.” The panel featured leading Romanticists in British, French, and German literature discussing the continuing implications of ongoing recovery projects in non-canonical authors (and subjects) for thinking about what’s generally understood these days by a phrase like “the literature of Romanticism.” Sadly, this was a primarily Zoom-based affair, the beauty of Charleston in October notwithstanding.

Joy Castro read with poets Elizabeth Jacobson and Allen Braden for Terrain.

Timothy J. Cook delivered a paper on October 14 during the 74th Annual Convention of the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association that was held virtually. As a part of the panel “English Literature after 1900,” Cook shared his work “Transformations of Transatlantic Epic: Yeats, Pound, and H. D.”

Charlotte Kupsh, Mark Houston, and Alex DeLuise presented their panel, “Learning From and Writing For: Listening to Literacy Sponsors for Place-Conscious Social Justice,” at the Conference on Community Writing.

Charlotte Kupsh’s short video, “Telling Stories About Place,” was featured in WriteOut 2021, a two-week event sponsored by the National Writing Project and the National Parks Service that encourages students to get outside, explore public spaces, and write.

Activities, Accolades, & Grants

Cover of THE BONES OF PARADISEJonis Agee’s novel, The Bones of Paradise, has been named by the Nebraska Center for the Book and The Nebraska Library Commission as the 2022 One Book One Nebraska selection.

Cameron Steele’s memoir No Easy Way Out: A Memoir of Interruption has been selected as a semi-finalist for Iron Horse Literary Review’s First Book Prize.

Ng’ang’a Wahu-Mũchiri received a Spring 2022 Human Rights & Humanitarian Affairs Faculty Fellowship award. This generous research support will expand his ongoing Digital Humanities project, The Ardhi Initiative.

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.