English Department News

            

September 29, 1999

          

Volume 2, No. 1


September 29

  

Alabama Women Speak, Pebble Hill, 4:00 p.m.

October 1

  

Medieval Latin Response Due, 4:00 p.m.

October 2

  

English Department Picnic, Chewacla State Park, 4:00 p.m. until dusk

October 6

  

Rhetoric & Composition Discussion Group, HC 3222, 2:00 p.m.

October 6

  

Session on the Americans with Disabilities Act and on Sexual Harassment, Foy 208, 3:00-5:00 p.m.

October 22

  

Harper Lee Award Nominations Due

October 25

  

Mid-Quarter

October 25

  

John Richetti, [location to be announced], 3:00 p.m.

October 30

  

Toni Morrison, Alys Stephens Center (UAB), 8:00 p.m.

November 22-26

  

Thanksgiving Holiday

December 2

  

Classes End

December 3

  

Dead Day

December 4-9

  

Final Exams for Quarter

December 11

  

Graduation


The English Channel Makes Web Debut

The English Channel is divided into six main sections, four of which are active in the first issue: Calendar, News, Professional Notes, and Professional Notes. After this week, you can locate previous issues of this year's English Channel in the Archive section, which can be accessed from The English Channel main page. In the future, I hope that you'll contribute to the "Forum," a place to share teaching ideas, ask questions, and offer answers. This section is currently being developed.
Craig Bertolet deserves special thanks for devoting many extra hours (beyond his participation in the Faculty Development Consortium's WebPage Seminar) to solving technical problems and to constructing and polishing the image of the webpage design. Betsy Smith and Wiebke Kuhn also deserve thanks for their suggestions and for helping to launch the webpage. We are all grateful to the Faculty Development Consortium for its assistance in the development of this project.

Ordinary and Sacred as Blood: Alabama Women Speak

The Auburn University Center for Arts and Humanities will host a reading and reception at Pebble Hill on Wednesday, September 29th, at 4:00 p.m. for the recently published Ordinary and Sacred as Blood: Alabama Women Speak.
Among the local authors who contributed to this collection of short fiction and poetry who will be present at the reception are Alison Wright Franks, Charlotte Miller, Bonnie Roberts, Dianna Murphree, Natasha Trethewey, Virginia Gilbert, Frances Clearly Wittmeier and the editor of the volume, Mary Carol Moran.
Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing.
Pebble Hill programs are free and open to the general public. Pebble Hill is located at 101 Debardeleben Street, Auburn, AL. For further information, call (334)844-4946.

Annual Picnic at Chewacla State Park

Everyone should make plans now to attend the annual English Department picnic on Saturday, October 2nd from 4:00 p.m. until dusk at the Upper Picnic Area in Chewacla State Park. (See map)
Friends of the English Department have reserved the pavilion and will provide chicken, beverages, ice, and paper & plastic goods. Guests are asked to bring a salad, a vegetable, or a dessert to share.
Arrive at any time, but plan to eat around 5:00 p.m. Picnic tables are available under the pavilion and scattered throughout the park.
There is a $1 entrance fee for adults, fifty cents for children ages 6-11. Kids under six years of age are admitted free.

Sharyn Pulling Wins Burkhardt Award

Congratulations to Sharyn Pulling, second-year M.A. sutdent, who is the winner of the Varian Carpenter Burkhardt Award, given each year in recognition of an outstanding first year's performance in the M.A. program. Take a look at the plaque in the main office on which her name is inscribed along with previous year's winners.

While You Were Away . . .

Leah Catherine Collins was born on July 20th to Frances and Mike Collins. She weighed nine pounds and measured 23 inches.

Welcome New Faculty Members

Carol Acree Cavalier: I am originally from Florida and graduated from Auburn in 1984. I eventually went on to graduate school in English at Northeastern in Boston and at Cornell, where I am finishing my dissertation on reading literature as a devotional practice in the eighteenth century (John Wesley and Samuel Johnson as readers of Milton and Bunyan, for instance). I have also studied theology at Harvard Divinity School. I am very much enjoying being back in the South.
Brooks Appelbaum: I grew up in Kansas and my doctorate is from Cornell. Throughout my academic life, I've also pursued theatre, and that is what I am doing here: by day, I enjoy the pleasures of teaching, and by night I perform, teach acting, and direct at STOP, our local theatre. It is lovely to be back in Auburn and in the department; thank you, all, who have welcomed me so warmly.
Tristanne Connolly: I'm from Hamilton, Ontario. I did my B.A. and M.A. in English at McMaster University, also taking a lot of courses in French, Drama, and most of all Religious Studies (both western and eastern). My M.A. thesis was on Old and Middle English dream poems. I did my Ph.D. at Cambridge, on William Blake. I wrote about his images of the human body, concentrating on Jerusalem. The parts of my dissertation that really took off were a comparison of Blake's graphic bodies with anatomical art; a discussion of Blake's vision of the eternal body; and an examination of birth imagery in Blake, including birth-giving by males and images of miscarriage. I'm continuing to work on these last three topics in Blake and other Romantics (especially Shelley). My next big project is exploring connections between medieval and romantic dream poetry. I enjoy teaching virtually everything in English and World Literature. I'm excited to teach some non-Western texts in Great Books, especially ones with a mystical tinge. I also like teaching writing. I write poetry, and it's important to me to see all kinds of writing as creative work. For fun I enjoy listening to jazz and rock-and-roll, and watching movies (anything from classics to shlock) especially anything with Bogart in it.
Christian Gregory: I earned my Ph.D. from the University of Florida in May 1999. My research interests include Cultural Studies, Contemporary American Literature, and Film. My current research project is globalization and American Culture.
Eric Hayot: I moved to the U.S. from France at the age of 13 and went to high school in Columbus, Ohio. I received a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. I do comparative literature with an emphasis on East/West topics and European modernism.
Kevin Hicks: I am originally from San Diego, California, but I have spent the last five years in Lafayette, Indiana, where I earned my Ph.D. from Purdue University. My area of specialization is 19th-century American literature, with an emphasis on antebellum literature. My research and teaching interest focuses on the connections among history, politics, and literary production.
Jack Jacobs: I'm from Miami, Florida. My most recent degree is a Ph.D. from Auburn. I specialize in Romanticism and Critical Theory. I'm interested in philosophical approaches to literature.
Nan Jiang received his Ph.D. in second language acquisition and teaching at the University of Arizona in 1998. He was employed as a postdoctoral research associate at The Pennsylvania State University from 1998-1999. Before he came to the USA, he taught English and Applied Linguistics at Nanjing Normal University, China. His teaching and research interests include second language acquisition, English teaching methodology, ESL writing, and psycholinguistics.
Chris Keirstead: I received my Ph.D. earlier this year from the University of Delaware. My area of specialization is Victorian Poetry, particularly the influence of continental tourism and politics on works by Arthur Hugh Clough, the Brownings, and others. This fall, I'm teaching Victorian Literature, 1830-1890 and Great Books 2. Originally I'm from Waltham, Massachusetts.
Marta Kvande Keirstead: I am currently finishing work on my Ph.D. at the University of Delaware. My dissertation examined narrative authority in the works of eighteenth-century British women novelists, specifically in relation to contemporary constructions of political authority. I'll begin teaching at Auburn in Winter Quarter.
Ryan Lankford: I finished my Ph.D. in 1997, at the University of Georgia. Primarily, my work focuses on British Romanticism, specifically on William Blake, but my interests are heavily influenced/informed by the theory of Deleuse and Guattati (and their study of "minor literatures"). I came to Auburn by way of recent appointments/instructorships at North Georgia College (1996-99) and Georgia Tech (1993-1996).
Elizabeth A. Latshaw: I earned a Ph.D. from the University of South Florida in August 1999 with a specialization in 18th-century British Literature and Early American Literature (through 1800). I do work in travel narratives, journals, and diaries. I am interested in issues of identity, social politics, and the debate between personal freedom and public responsibility as it plays out on both sides of the Atlantic. On a personal note, I have a black lab named Samantha who keeps me on my toes.
Jamie Marchant: I received my Ph.D. in January of 1998 from the Claremont Graduate University. My dissertain focused on late 19th and early 20th-century Anglo-American women novelists. I specifically address the manner in which the Woman's Movement influenced the type of endings these novelists imagine for their female protagonists. Since completing my dissertation, I have been working on expanding my study to do a comparative analysis of African-American women of the same time period.
Waits Raulerson: I am currently working on my dissertation, provisionally titled, "Wrestling with Death: Queen Victoria, Mourning, and Nineteenth-century Narratives" under the direction of Elizabeth Langland of the University of Florida. My research interests include nineteenth-century British literature and culture, mourning as a cultural phenomenon, and gender and sexuality studies. Originally from Stockbridge, Georgia (a suburb of Atlanta), I have studied at Vanderbilt University (B.A.) and the University of Alabama (M.A.).
Angel Rodgers-Webb: I am currently finishing my dissertation; I completed my course work for my Ph.D. at the University of Southern Mississippi (Hattiesburg). My areas of interest are 19th-century American literature (especially 1860-1914) and my dissertation focuses on regionalist women writers. My interests include Interdisciplinary Studies, Feminist and New Historicist Criticism, and Cultural Studies. My B.A. and M.A. are both from the University of Central Arkansas.
Ann Marie Mann Simpkins received her Ph.D. from Purdue University and specializes in rhetoric and composition, with additional interests in cultural studies and postcolonial theory. Her current project is entitled The Professional Writing Practices and Dialogic Rhetoric of Two Black Women Publishers: Discourse as Social Action in the Nineteenth Century.
Joseph Walker: I was born and raised in Peoria, Illinois, and I've spent almost all my life in the Midwest. I've spent the last six years at Purdue University, where I earned my Ph.D. in contemporary American fiction. I also do quite a bit of work in film and cultural studies.
Jake York: I am originally from Gadsden, Alabama, and I received my undergraduate degree in English from Auburn (1994), so I'm returning home. After graduating from Auburn, I went to Cornell where I've earned an M.F.A. in Creative Writing (poetry), as well as the degrees of M.A. and Ph.D. in English, the latter of which I have just completed (early September). My areas of interest stick close my writing: poetry and poetics, particularly literary history, poetic genealogy, rhythm and meter, but particularly in American literature, which is the rubric under which my major studies fall: my major field was American Literature 1865-present, and my minor fields were American Studies and English Poetry (Poetry in English). My dissertation was on the monument in American poetry. My current research and writing projects include finishing a slew of poems I've begun in the last year as well as completing articles on Whitman and on syntax and poetic rhythm.

Employment Prospects Improve for Auburn Graduates, Instructors

Many of our graduate students and Instructors found full-time or tenure-track positions at the end of Spring Quarter. We send our congratulations to Chris Beyers (Assumption), Dan Ennis (Coastal Carolina), Jerry Findley (Louisville), Armida Gilbert (East Georgia), Julia Guernsey (Northeastern Louisiana), Laura Merryman (Southern Union), Mary Olson (Tuskegee), David Payne (Georgia State), Tony Perrello (Lenoir Rhyne), Susan Roberson (Alabama State), and Elizabeth Russell (Western Georgia).

Job Search Advisors Offer Help

Graduate students and instructors planning to undertake an academic job search this year--it's time to be sure you have all your ducks in a row! We, as the job search advisors, want to help you with your search in whatever way we can. Soon we will hold a meeting about the search process as a whole and later in the fall we will run mock interviews for those who want them.
Right now, we're happy to offer advice about your dossier, to review drafts of application letters and vitae, and to talk with you about your search. If you haven't already obtained updated letters from your recommenders, get them as soon as possible. Please let us know your email address so we can add you to our growing distribution list, which we use to circulate announcements of meetings, useful addresses, and job ads that come our way.
Other things you should do for the search at this point: polish up your short and long writing samples; pull together other materials you might need (teaching philosophy statement, portfolio of teaching materials, etc.); consult the resources for job seekers in HC 8043; start figuring out how you will pay for on-campus visits to schools that expect you to pay up front and be reimbursed for expenses; lay in a supply of chocolate and other comfort foods; prepare your friends for the amount of whining they'll have to listen to in the months ahead.
Right now, because of the MLA's schedule, we're focusing on the academic job search, but we're also happy to help with non-academic searches.
Jon Bolton & Constance Relihan

Session on the Americans with Disabilities Act and on Sexual Harassment

Each year we arrange for a special session on the Americans with Disabilities Act and on sexual harassment to be given for the English Department. This year's session is scheduled for 3:00 to 5:00 p.m., Wednesday, October 6th, in Foy 208. The presenters will be Kelly Haynes (Director, Program for Students with Disabilities) and Kelly Taylor (AA/EEO Compliance Administrator, Affirmative Action-Equal Opportunity Office). The session is mandatory for new faculty members, new GTAs, and department members who were not able to attend a previous session. Of course others are also welcome to attend.

Update of Department Web Directory

Help us update the Department Web Directory.  Fill in this survey now if you are new or have new information (e.g. a new web site).  If nothing has changed over the last year, please disregard this survey.
If you do not want certain information on the web, leave the according space blank. The only space that has to be filled is your email space. If you do not want your email address activated in the directory, mark the appropriate box. If you give us your web address, we assume that you want an active link.
We would also like to remind all faculty that we are about to update biographical information.  Please start thinking about your bio, so that you can give it to us on disk as soon as possible.
If you have any questions, please contact Betsy Smith or Wiebke Kuhn.

Medieval Latin Reading Group Forming

Auburn's first faculty-graduate student reading group in Medieval Latin is about to form! The group plans to meet once a week, translating passages from Keith Sidwell, Reading Medieval Latin (Cambridge University Press, 1995), time and place to be arranged.
If you have had the equivalent of two years of Classical Latin and are interested in participating or know of someone who might be, please let one of us (James Goldstein or Craig Bertolet) know by 4:00 p.m. on Friday, October 1st so that we can submit an order for the textbook from the bookstore.

Rhetoric and Composition Discussion Group Set to Begin

If you would like to take part in a reading and discussion group in rhetoric and composition, there will be a start-up meeting on Wednesday, October 6, at 2:00 p.m. in HC 3222. The purpose of the meeting will be to make plans for the rest of the academic year: what texts participants would be interested in reading, where and when we'll meet, and so on.
We could also use the meeting to explore possible themes, to guide our reading, and to make sure we cover the interests of various interest groups (graduate students preparing for exams, people whose interest is primarily in pedagogy, or theory, or the history of rhetoric, or whatever).
If you have any questions or suggestions, or can't make the meeting, please see Frank Walters or Pierre Cyr.

Speakers Needed for English Hour Programs

The English Hour is a forum for presenting papers (including works in progress) as well as panels on topics of interest to students and faculty in English and related disciplines.
If you are interested in presenting a paper or organizing a panel, please contact George Crandell. I am now scheduling programs for Fall, Winter, and Spring quarters.

An Evening with Toni Morrison

As you may know, the Alabama Humanities Foundation, in collaboration with the Alys Stephens Center, will host "An Evening with Toni Morrison" on October 30th at 8:00 p.m. at the Alys Stephens Center at UAB. This will be the Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize-winning author's first public appearance in Alabama. We are pleased to announce that there will be 200 student tickets available for $20 each.
Tickets are on sale now through the Alys Stephens Center Box Office on a first-come, first-served basis. Please call (205) 975-ARTS or toll-free (877) ART-TIKS to make your reservations by check, credit card (Mastercard, Visa or Discover) or purchase order. If you prefer to fax your order, the number is (205) 975-8389. Box office hours are Monday through Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Please note that in order to obtain tickets at the $20 price, students must present a valid student I.D. on the evening of the event.
The Alabama Humanities Foundation and the Alys Stephens Center are proud to present Toni Morrison. We hope you and your students will join us for this highly anticipated evening.

Kristin M. Martin, Director of Development and P.R.

Call for Nominations for Harper Lee Award

The Alabama Writers' Forum invites nominations for the Harper Lee Award for the Distinguished Alabama Writer of 2000.
The award will be made to a living, nationally recognized Alabama writer who has made a significant, lifetime contribution to Alabama letters. The award carries a $5,000 stipend and a bronze sculpture of the Monroeville Courthouse clock tower by Frank Fleming. The Harper Lee Award will be presented along with its sister award, the Eugene Current-Garcia Award for the Distinguished Alabama Scholar for 2000, at the "Writers Symposium" in Monroeville on May 5, 2000.
To nominate, write a letter telling briefly why the writers should be considered for the award. List his or her books, awards, and other credentials as a published writer. (This is not an award for scholarly work, teaching, or service.) A brief resume of the writer (one-two pages maximum) is helpful but not required. Do not send books or Xeroxes of works, reviews, etc. The awards committee may require more material. Be sure to list the nominator's daytime phone number. Do not fax or email letters of nomination, please.
Nominations must be received by October 22, 1999. The awards committee will meet in late fall 1999; the nominee's name will be presented to the Alabama Writers' Forum Board of Directors for final approval at the Winter 1999 Board meeting and will be announced shortly thereafter. All nominations and all deliberations of the awards committee are confidential. Call the Forum office at (334) 242-4076, ext. 233, for further information about the nomination process.
Mail letters of nomination to:

The Harper Lee Award Selection Committee
c/o The Alabama Writers' Forum
The Alabama State Council on the Arts
201 Monroe Street
Montgomery, AL 36130-1800


Paula Backscheider has a short contribution on the essay form in the October 1999 Lingua Franca, in the "Breakthrough Books" section.

Tim Dykstal's book, The Luxury of Skepticism: Politics, Philosophy, and Dialogue in the English Public Sphere, 1660-1740, has been accepted for publication by the University Press of Virginia.

James Goldstein delivered the opening plenary address to the 9th International Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Scottish Language and Literature, held at St. Andrews University in August. The talk was titled "Translatio and the Work of Mourning in Sir David Lindsay's Squyre Meldrum." His essay "'Why calle ye hym crist, sithen Jewes called hym Jesus?': The Disavowal of Jewish Identification in Piers Plowman B-Text" has been accepted for publication by Exemplaria: A Journal of Theory in Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

Antipodes, a North American Journal of Australian Literature, has been publishing for fifteen years. The Editors have asked several of the international contributors for brief evaluative estimations. Pat Morrow was one of the contributors so selected. Pat has also published two encyclopedia entries this past year, both on Bret Harte. The first is for the Oxford University Press new edition of American National Biography, and the second is for the Continuum Press volume called Encyclopedia of American Literature.

Natasha Trethewey's first book manuscript, Domestic Work, was chosen by Rita Dove for the 1999 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. It will be published in the Fall of 2000 by Graywolf Press.

Craig Bertolet, George Crandell, Robin Sabino , Isabelle Thompson have participated in the Faculty Development Consortium's 3-Day WebPage Seminar.


Margaret Schwindler had a bone marrow transplant on September 3rd and was discharged from the hospital last week. She's staying with her parents at 5105 Kenley Way, Birmingham, AL 35242. She goes into the hospital every day for treatment, and, although she's making the expected progress, she's not well enough to talk on the phone.
Please submit items and direct all questions or comments about The English Channel, to George Crandell, who currently maintains this site.
To include an item in The English Channel, submit text items by Tuesday at 11:40 a.m. for publication the following Wednesday. Graphic images are due by the preceding Friday at 11:40 a.m. Submit items by using my email link or by putting a note or disk in my mailbox (disks will be returned). If you submit an image on disk, please make sure that it can be edited to fit and be read clearly on the page. Items over fifty words in length should be submitted on disk or sent by email. Please check your submission for accuracy and completion--all calendar items and meeting announcements must include the date, time, and location of the event. Please omit all unusual formatting.