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Header: The English Channel English Department News
March 10, 2004
Volume 6.25 		 

 

Creative/Research Forum - Today - 3:00 pm - 3104 Haley Center
Today's Creative/Research Forum showcasing faculty research will take place at 3:00 pm in 3104 Haley Center. You will find brief synopses of the faculty presentations below.

Alicia Carroll

Alicia Carroll: "Material Cultures: Dead and Alive"

At today's forum, I will reflect on lessons learned from working both in and out of my area of Victorian Studies. I will speak about intersections between my work on Victorian material culture and my work on contextualizing the upcoming Quilts of Gees Bend exhibit. Discussing both my recent research on the quilts and my new book in progress, Outdoors in the Novel: A Cultural History of the Green Space, I will explore Victorian and contemporary narratives of the aesthetic and resistances to and engagements of commodity culture in both contexts.

Jim Ryan

Jim Ryan: "Imaginary Friends: Representing Quakers in Early American Fiction”

As my title suggests, this project examines an aspect of the American religious and moral imagination, specifically, representations of Quakers in American fiction from the 18th century to the mid-20th century.

Writers like Harriet Beecher Stowe, Rebecca Harding Davis, Catherine Maria Sedgwick, Robert Montgomery Bird, Louisa May Alcott, Herman Melville, Bayard Taylor, and Theodore Dreiser are among the many writers who deployed Quakers as stock characters in their fiction. Sometimes, as in the case of the Indian-killing Quaker in Bird’s Nick of the Woods or the hard-bargaining Quakers of Melville’s Moby Dick, members of the Religious Society of Friends are criticized for their religious views. But far more frequently during this period, and in part due to their important work on behalf of progressive causes like abolitionism and women’s rights, Quakers are held up as exemplars of a profoundly admirable Christian practice. It is ironic, however, that while many American novelists admire and promote the moral world of the Quaker, they nevertheless stop well short of advocating Quakerism for themselves or their readers. For nearly 200 years, the Quaker religion and the Quaker moral life are presented as a pinnacle of American virtue, and yet—for complex reasons—it is a pinnacle never to be inhabited by “ordinary” persons.

In addition to setting out the main ideas of the essay that emerged from my study of Quakers in American fiction, I will discuss how the specific idea for this work grew out of recent experiences in teaching a 4000-level undergraduate course in the novel, as well as some of the new digital archives that I used during the research.

For those who would like to peruse a full-text digital version of my essay, published in December in Studies in American Fiction 44 (Fall 2003): pp. 191-220, it is now easily available through Infotrac (this is accessible from the AU library home page. Select “Find Articles and Databases,” search Infotrac for the name “James Emmett Ryan,” and the title will appear).
Michelle Sidler

Michelle Sidler: "Interpreting the 'Book of Life': English Studies and the Genome"

My presentation will overview recent advancements in molecular biology, explaining the vital role English studies could play in this increasingly culturally-significant field. In particular, I will present epistemological and ontological parallels between the genome and language: DNA metaphors employing terms such as text, code, and book are pervasive in scientific discourse and in the popular media, compelling fields like linguistics, rhetoric, literature, and technical communication to join the conversation. My presentation will introduce our community to current research in both the biological sciences and the humanities, then briefly describe funding opportunities available to scholars interested in this topic.
Hilary Wyss

Hilary Wyss: "Indigenous Literacies: Reading, Writing, and Education in Native Communities in Colonial New England"

I will talk briefly about the general direction my work has been taking, particularly my recent focus on Native American literacy practices in colonial New England. While Native New Englanders became adept practitioners of alphabetic writing remarkably early, they also maintained extensive indigenous literacy systems that coexisted with print culture.


Work by Isabella Wai Accepted for the RMMLA Convention
Isabella Wai's "'Homo Fecit': Richard Wilbur's 'Perfection in a Finite Task'" has been accepted for the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association (RMMLA) Convention to take place in Boulder, Colorado on September 30–October 2, 2004.

CLA Faculty Spotlight Bulletin Board
The College of Liberal Arts (CLA) Promotion of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (PETL) Committee developed and implemented a new Faculty Spotlight bulletin board outside 2046 Haley Center. English faculty currently featured on the board are Bert Hitchcock, Jim McKelly, and Hilary Wyss.

"State of the English Major" PowerPoint Presentation Now Online
The PowerPoint presentation containing data on the "state of the English major" that Tim Dykstal presented at the faculty meeting on Wednesday, February 25 has been posted in the "Information" area of the Faculty/GTA homepage on the English Department website.

Please note that the presentation is posted on the secure area of the site, so you will need to enter your password.

Annual ACETA Meeting - Friday, March 12 and Saturday, March 13 - AUM
The Association of College English Teachers of Alabama (ACETA) will hold its annual meeting on Friday, March 12 and Saturday, March 13 at Auburn University at Montgomery (AUM).

The theme of the program will be coping with the present financial crises in higher education in Alabama. Very important revisions to the Association's constitution, intended to provide for the establishment of a permanent secretary/treasurer position, will be brought up for consideration and vote. The changes to the text were included in the February issue of Light.

Other highlights include the presentation of the annual Calvert, Woodall, and McMillan awards and papers and a Friday night reception/light supper at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival (ASF), followed by the opportunity to attend a performance of the acclaimed drama, Proof, at a reduced ticket price. Macbeth will also be running that weekend; you may purchase tickets for Macbeth online or by calling (800) 841-4273.

Visit the ACETA website.

Summer Book Orders - Due Friday, March 12
If you are teaching this summer, please submit your book order by 4:40 pm on Friday, March 12, 2004.

OIT Department Announces Teaching with Technology Day - Tuesday, March 16
The Education Technology Services Department within the Office of Information Technology (OIT) and the AU Library will be sponsoring a Teaching with Technology Day on Tuesday, March 16 from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm in the AU Library. Faculty members will have the opportunity to share their special methods of enhancing the learning experience of their students and to present their accomplishments in a context that will encourage face-to-face discussion with their colleagues.

Great Flicks - Wednesday, March 17 - 7:30 pm - 1203 Haley Center
Picnic at Hanging Rock (Weir, 1975)
The first film from Peter Weir, arguably the best filmmaker ever to come out of Australia, is based on a novel by Joan Lindsay. It tells the story of a group of students who disappear in the Australian Outback in 1900—but has become famous less for its narrative than for the haunting, mysterious way in which the story is told.

View the Great Flicks Spring Schedule.

Applications for Breeden Faculty Enhancement Grants Due Friday, March 19
The Biggio Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning is pleased to announce that competitive grants for teaching enhancement projects will be available again this year from the Daniel F. Breeden Endowment for Faculty Enhancement. The Teaching Effectiveness Committee will review proposals; grants will be awarded through the Biggio Center. Awards will be made for up to $2,000 for one-year projects beginning in the summer or fall term, 2004.

Tenured/tenure-track faculty from all disciplines or faculty from the clinician title series with appointments continuing through the 2004-2005 academic year are eligible. Although graduate students or instructors may be hired to work on the projects, funds may not be used to support the writing of dissertations or theses. Funds may be used to enhance courses or programs, enrich the core curriculum, provide field experience or hands-on experience for students, pay for travel for research or presentations on teaching, purchase books, develop workshops, or underwrite almost any activity germane to teaching or the evaluation and assessment of teaching.

Applications for the Breeden grants are available online or directly from the Biggio Center, 4011 RBD Library. Completed applications must be received in this office by 4:45 p.m. on March 19, 2004. Applicants will be notified within four to five weeks, and funds will be available first day of summer term.

Spring Applications for CLA Funded Research Support Due Friday, April 2
Spring applications for research support funded by the College of Liberal Arts (CLA) are due Friday, April 2. This deadline is timed to coincide with the conclusion of the Competitive Research Grants process conducted by the Vice President for Research.

View details on the Humanities grant program.
View details on the CLA Summer Grant program.

Please note that the Humanities grant program and the CLA Summer Grant program are two separate programs, and winners are chosen by two separate committees. Eligible faculty may apply for both programs, but two distinct applications are required. In practice, most people file similar proposals for both programs, but it is important that the proposals be titled clearly to indicate the program to which you are applying.

If you have questions or would like any assistance with your proposal(s), please email Tony Carey.

AU Instructional Development Grant 2004 - 2005 Competition - Applications Due Friday, April 9
The purpose of the Instructional Development Grant - Incorporating Service Learning into the Curriculum is to encourage enhancement of teaching and community service through financial support of selected projects. Such projects should directly benefit the students, the community, and the faculty member. Instructional activities in any area can qualify for support.

Five grants of up to $1000 each for instructional development will be awarded. The application for the AU Instructional Development Grant is available online and the deadline for submitting the application is Friday, April 9, 2004. The grant period begins on Thursday, July 15, 2004 and ends on Thursday, May 12, 2005.

View more information about the AU Instructional Development Grant.

Critique Group/Creative Writing Workshop
Are you a creative writer looking for someone to critique your work? Jim Elston is and so are several others in the department. Elston and the others would like to meet you and start up a regular meeting time and place, preferably off-campus, to critique work in progress.

This is an open invitation to anyone in the department—faculty and graduate students—but we'd welcome anyone within the Auburn University community as well. We'd like to limit our field of interest to fiction and creative essay/non-fiction. Short stories, novels, and flash fiction are all welcome.

If you are interested, please email Jim Elston. The sooner we can get this underway, the better for those who need criticism!

To include an item in The English Channel, submit text items by Tuesday at 11:40 am for publication Wednesday. Submit items by email to Kelly Messerschmidt or Betsy Smith or put the information in their mailbox. Please check your submission for accuracy and completion--all calendar items and meeting announcements must include the date, time, and location of the event.

Email comments or questions about this page.
Last updated March 10, 2004


Department of English
9030 Haley Center
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Phone (334) 844-4620
FAX (334) 844-9027
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