English Department News

            

April 26, 2000

          

Volume 2, No. 20


April 21-27

  

Summer/Fall term telephone or web Registration open for Seniors, and Graduate Students only (note: open three days before Priority students)

April 24-27

  

Summer/Fall term telephone or web Registration open for Seniors, Graduate Students, and Priority Students (Honors, Disabilities, Co-Op, Athletes)

April 24-28

  

Summer/Fall term Advising open for Juniors

April 26

  

Graduate Studies Committee meeting, HC 9030D, 1:00 p.m.

April 26

  

Marianne Moates, "Inspiration for Genius: Truman Capote's Life in Alabama," Special Collections Department, R.B.D. Library, 3:00 p.m.

April 26

  

English Center Writing Lab: Wordy Structures and Active/Passive Voice, HC 3183, 8:00 p.m.

April 28-May 4

  

Summer/Fall term telephone or web Registration open for Juniors

April 28

  

Midterm

May 1

  

English Hour, "Listening to Culture: A Project in Research, Composition, and Web Design," HC 3196, 2:00 p.m. Please note room and time change.

May 1

  

Thomas Rabbitt, Pebble Hill, 4:00 p.m.

May 1-5

  

Summer/Fall term Advising open for Sophomores

May 3

  

Meeting for Graduate Students in English, HC 3104, 4:00 p.m.

May 3

  

English Center Writing Lab: Hyphens, Dashes, and Titles, HC 3183, 8:00 p.m.

May 5

  

Benson Lecture and Undergraduate Awards Ceremony, Susan D. Gubar, "Adoption in the Classroom: Why We Read and Write About Literature," 213 Foy Union, 3:00 p.m.

May 5-11

  

Summer/Fall term telephone or web Registration open for Sophomores

May 8-12

  

Summer/Fall term Advising open for Freshmen

May 9

  

Planning & Priorities Committee meeting, HC 9030D, 3:30 p.m.

May 9

  

English Center Workshop: Coherence in Paragraphs and Beyond, HC 3183, 5:10 p.m.

May 9

  

Michael Montgomery, "The Scotch-Irish Contribution to Alabama Cultural Life," Pebble Hill, 7:00 p.m. Cancelled.

May 10

  

Graduate Studies Committee meeting, HC 9030D, 1:00 p.m.

May 10

  

English Center Writing Lab: Modifier Placement and Subordination, Dashes, and Titles, HC 3183, 8:00 p.m.

May 15

  

English Hour, "Bridging C. P. Snow's Two Cultures," HC 3203, 3:00 p.m.

May 12-18

  

Summer/Fall term telephone or web Registration open for Freshmen

May 17

  

Graduate Studies Committee meeting, HC 9030D, 1:00 p.m.

May 17

  

English Center Writing Lab: Punctuation with Quoted Material, Dashes, and Titles, HC 3183, 8:00 p.m.

May 18

  

Littleton-Franklin Lectures, William Phillips, Auburn University Hotel and Conference Center, 4:00 p.m.

May 22

  

English Hour, "Teaching Twentieth-century Fiction in Great Books II," HC 3104, 4:00 p.m.

May 23

  

English Center Workshop: Revising and Proofreading, HC 3183, 5:10 p.m.

May 24

  

English Center Writing Lab: Mixed Menu, HC 3183, 8:00 p.m.

May 29

  

Memorial Day Holiday for students, staff, and faculty

May 30

  

Graduate Studies Committee meeting, HC 9030D, 1:00 p.m.

May 31

  

Annual Reception for English Graduate Students, Pebble Hill, 4:00-7:00 p.m.

June 1

  

Classes end

June 2

  

Dead Day

June 3, 5-8

  

Final Exams

June 10

  

Graduation


Benson Lecture to Feature Susan D. Gubar

Susan D. Gubar, a Distinguished Professor of English, who has taught at Indiana University for more than twenty years, will deliver the 2000 Carl Benson Lecture at the English Department's annual undergraduate awards ceremony beginning at 3:00 p.m. on Friday, May 5, 2000 in Foy Union 213. Gubar's topic will be "Adoption in the Classroom: Why We Read and Write About Literature." More specifically, she'll be talking about a Holocaust novel entitled Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels, approaching the larger issue of why we read and write about literature [a copy of Michaels's book will be available at the Reserve Desk at the R.B.D. Library beginning this week--listed under "Crandell" (Instructor) and Benson Lecture (course name)].
Along with Sandra M. Gilbert, she published The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the 19th-Century Literary Imagination in 1979, a runner-up for both The Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Six years later, in 1985, the collaborators received a Ms. Woman of the Year award for their compilation of the Norton Anthology of Literature by Women, a work that appeared in a revised second edition in 1996.
Gilbert and Gubar also followed up The Madwoman with a critical trilogy entitled No Man’s Land: The Place of the Woman Writer in the Twentieth Century: The War of the Words (1988), Sexchanges (1989), and Letters from the Front (1994). The authors use feminist criticism to understand the achievements of British and American literary women in modern times. Gilbert and Gubar’s most recent jointly-authored enterprises consist of a collection of poetry for and about mothers, MotherSongs (Norton, 1995) and a satire on the current state of literacy and cultural literacy Masterpiece Theatre: An Academic Melodrama (Rutgers, 1995).
The recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Guggenheim Foundation, Gubar recently published a book on the centrality of cross-racial masquerade in American fiction, photography, painting, and film: Racechanges: White Skin, Black Face in American Culture (Oxford, 1997). She has just put together a collection of her essays (published by Columbia University Press) entitled Critical Condition: Feminism at the Turn of the Century.
Professor Gubar’s lecture is sponsored by the Department of English, the Auburn University Special Lectures Program, The West-Point Pepperell-H. M. Philpott Research Fund, The College of Liberal Arts, and The Women’s Studies Program.
The lecture is free and open to the public. A reception for Professor Gubar will follow her presentation.

Proust Biographer to Speak at Pebble Hill

Bill Carter, professor of French at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, will speak about his recently published and highly acclaimed biography of Proust at Pebble Hill on Thursday, April 27th, at 4:00 p.m. Copies of Carter's Proust biography will be available for purchase and signing. A reception will follow Carter's presentation.
Carter's visit to Auburn has been arranged at the invitation of Dan Latimer for his seminar on Symbolist literature. The tentative format for Carter's presentation will differ slightly from usual Pebble Hill programs. Carter's remarks will be followed by his documentary film on the life of Proust, a reception, and a book signing.
Latimer's Symbolist literature class will then meet in the Pebble Hill parlor for continued discussions with Carter.
The public is invited. Bill Carter's visit is sponsored by the Department of English, the College of Liberal Arts Dean's Office, and the Center for Arts and Humanities.

"Listening to Culture: A Project in Research, Composition, and Web Design"

How can cultural studies pedagogy change the composition classroom? What are the virtues and limits of teaching composition as web publication? What kinds of synergies between cultural studies, hypertext, and research are possible? And finally, what's it like to co-teach a course?
To learn the answers to these questions and more, come to the English Hour, Monday, May 1, 2000 at 2:00 p.m. in HC 3196 (please note time and location change). Christian Gregory, Eric Hayot, and Jake York have all the answers.

"The Scotch-Irish Contribution to Alabama Cultural Life"

More than one historian has argued that Alabamians' enthusiasm for football can be traced to their Scotch-Irish ancestors! Here is a chance to learn about this and other Scotch-Irish contributions to Alabama culture.
Professor Michael Montgomery of the University of South Carolina, Columbia, a delightful raconteur and expert on Southern speech, will discuss the origin and history of a number of well known features of Alabama speech on Tuesday evening, May 9, at 7:00, at Pebble Hill.
Professor Montgomery's lecture on "The Scotch-Irish Contribution to Alabama Cultural Life" and the following public reception are jointly sponsored by The Auburn University Lectures Program, The College of Liberal Arts, The Secondary School/English Education's William T. Smith Distinguished Professor Fund Lectures, The Department of English, and The Pebble Hill Center for Arts and Humanities.
So whatall do y'all want to do on May 9th? I'm wanting to hear what Professor Montgomery has to say about Alabama talk! This lecture has been cancelled.

Maytag Repairman Sends Reminder

Are the strands of your webpage becoming untangled? Or, are you spinning your wheels but not spinning your website? Craig Bertolet will be serving during Spring term as web consultant for the English Department faculty in order to share the knowledge gained from the Faculty Development Consortium's mini-sabbatical program which he attended in September and which helped to produce The English Channel that you are now reading.
Craig will be in his office (HC 8068) for webmatters mornings from nine until noon.

Fish Fry-Day

Scientific research corroborates the theory that effective downtime increases workaday productivity. Translation: come on out to the Intramural Fields Fridays at 5:00 p.m. to cheer on the English Department softball team! Currently the team is undefeated [a peak of excellence?] and eagerly awaiting its annual grudge match against arch nemesis Fisheries. Afterward we celebrate the thrill of victory (or the agony of defeat) at The Boardwalk Grill. See you there!

Question of the Week

Join the on-going discussion about the semester transition. This week, we'd like to hear your responses to "How (if at all) do you expect reading assignments on the semester system to differ from ones on the quarter system?"
If you want to join the conversation but have forgotten your passwords, please contact George Crandell.
If you have a question for "Question of the Week," please send it to George Crandell.


Robin Sabino and Mary Stephens Diamond recently presented papers at the XLIII meeting of the South Eastern Conference on Linguistics (SECOL). Dr. Sabino explored the sociolinguistic context of Nassau, Bahamas at a crucial time for the formation of Bahamian English by analyzing the discourse of advertisements for escaped slaves in the Bahama Gazette. The paper by Dr. Sabino and Ms. Diamond assessed the linguistic influence of a prominent planter on the Bahamian English of contemporary residents of San Salvador, Bahamas.

Shawn Knight is playing Charlie Brown in STOP's presentation of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, May 4-7 at 7:30 p.m., May 11-13, at 7:30 p.m., and May 14 at 2:00 p.m. at the Jan Dempsey Arts Center. If people are interested in seeing the show, they can call STOP at 502-4050 for ticket information or to make reservations.
If you would like to include an item in the "Personal Notes" section of The English Channel, please submit your note to George Crandell.

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.