Alumni Update: Eric Gardner

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Eric Gardner (89) received a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for the 2012-2012 academic year.  Eric will use the prestigious fellowship, which includes a $50,400 award, to write a book on the Christian Recorder, a periodical of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.  The Recorder rose to prominence during the Civil War era and was an important outlet for African-American voices.

Eric is a professor of English at Saginaw Valley State University, where he teaches American literature, in particular 19th Century African American literature.  His book Unexpected Places: Relocating Nineteenth Century African American Literature, was named a 2010 Choice Outstanding Academic Title and won the 2010 EBSCOhost/Research Society for American Periodicals Book Prize.

 

Faculty Update: Jim Plath

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After a busy sabbatical, Professor James Plath has four new publications either out or on their way.

His article “Shaping Graces: John Updike, Middleness, and the American Experience” appears in Critical Insights: John Updike, edited by Bernard F. Rodgers, Jr. (Salem Press, 2011), while his “Barking at Death: Hemingway, Africa, and the Stages of Dying” has come out in Hemingway and Africa, edited by Miriam Mandel (Camden House, 2011).  Still another article, “Photos and Portraits,” will be published later this year in Hemingway in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2012).  Meanwhile, his poem “Plattdeutsch” has appeared in City of the Big Shoulders: An Anthology of Chicago Poetry, edited by Ryan G. Van Cleave (University of Iowa Press, 2012).

Congratulations, Jim, on an exceptionally productive year!

 

Welcome to our new Office Coordinator

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The English Department has a new office coordinator this year. Kathie Bradley, previously the office coordinator for Student Activities and Fraternity and Sorority Life, joined the English Department in October. “I wasn’t really looking to switch jobs on campus,” says Kathie. “When the opportunity arose to work in the English Department, I jumped at the chance to work with the creative students and faculty.” Although she was concerned that she wouldn’t be able to interact with students and see them grow as much as she had in Student Affairs, she quickly found that would not be a problem: “There is a constant flow of students in the building,” she notes. “I’ve already seen the mutual respect between faculty and staff. There is an easiness to the department that leads to a sharing of ideas and opinions.” A writer herself (her license plate reads “WRITE 25″), she finds creative sustenance in joining a community for whom writing is central. “I’ve always tried to do something creative on a daily basis. I truly believe I have found a place that is welcoming, nurturing, and safe to help rediscover my muses.”

Welcome to the department, Kathie!

Alumni Update: Ashley Lauren Samsa

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An op-ed piece by Ashley Lauren Samsa (06) was published on the Huffington Post on November 3, and remains as of this writing the lead story on the  Women’s page.  In her piece, Ashley discusses the pressure to have children that she and other women face.  ”The bottom line is that when we pressure women to have children, even if we are just innocently asking ‘when’ it will happen, what we are really saying is that women aren’t worth much without them,” she writes. “Men aren’t asked this question incessantly.” Noting that the human population has reached seven billion, Ashley continues, “I’d venture to say that the pressure is off.  Humankind will not end because you did not give birth.”

Writing to Professor Kathleen O’Gorman about her accomplishment, Ashley thanked her for being supportive.  ”Knowing you believed I could do whatever I wanted…was invaluable.  Undergrad is such a tumultuous time,..and if you don’t have someone to back you up, you may never realize your full potential.”

Ashley teaches high school in the Chicago suburbs.  She has published in blogs such as The Mamafesto and the Ms. Magazine Blog and is a regular contributor to Gender Across Borders.

Sainsbury to give Faculty Colloquium talk

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Professor Alison Sainsbury’s will present her Faculty Colloquium talk, titled “Women’s Domestic Humor and ‘The Problem That Has No Name,’ or, How My Aunt Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Home,” this Friday, November 4, at 4 PM in CNS 101.

In her talk, Dr. Sainsbury will speak about her aunt, Kay Nelson, a writer of domestic humor who was a regular contributor to magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Look, and Good Housekeeping in the same era in which Betty Friedan published her groundbreaking feminist book The Feminine Mystique.  A piece by her aunt appeared, in fact, in the same issue of Good Housekeeping in which Friedan published the first excerpt of The Feminine Mystique.

“Even had my aunt’s work not so neatly overlapped in that issue of Good Housekeeping with Friedan’s challenge to assumptions about women’s so-called natural role and place in the home,” says Dr. Sainsbury, “my aunt’s time as a working writing and the subject and genre of her writing–the foibles of life in just such middle-class suburban households as Friedan anatomizes in her book–would still place her and her work squarely into this gathering energy of second-wave feminism….My contention is that looking at my aunt’s work and her correspondence with her editor leads us to a more nuanced and complex reading of both the literary genre of women’s domestic humor and the issues at play in Friedan’s book.”

The event is free and open to the public.  Please come join us for what promises to be a fascinating talk.

Amanda Williams wins Aphra Behn Poetry Contest

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Amanda Williams has won the Caffeine Theatre’s fourth poetry contest. The contest, titled “Golden-Pointed Darts, Or, a Contest in Poesy to Honour the Incomparable Astraea and Other Adventuresses, Spies, Writers, and Thespians,” considered poems inspired by or in conversation with the life or work of Aphra Behn. Amanda’s poem “Sometimes I Acted Backstage Too” was chosen unanimously by the judging committee and will be performed at the Aphra Behn Coffeehouse in November.

Come hear Tim Stafford perform October 6

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Lyrical Graffiti is bringing Chicago poet Tim Stafford to perform at Illinois Wesleyan on Thursday, October 6, at 7 PM in CNS 102.  Tim’s performance will be preceded by a student open mic and followed by a student slam.

“Tim Stafford is one of the funniest writers in the business,” write the Lyrical Graffiti organizers. “He’s worked with Mental Graffiti, the Encyclopedia Show, and the Green Mill in Chicago and was one half of the hilarious Death From Below poetry duo. His most recent project, Learn then Burn, is a compilation of some of the best contemporary and slam poetry that is content- and language-appropriate for elementary and high school classrooms.”

Come to the MUSE conference on October 1

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“We are here to discuss literature,” the program for the 2011 MUSE Undergraduate Literature Conference announces.  ”Within literature lies the complexity of human nature, the breadth of human intellect, and the depth of human experience.”

Come join the conversation on Saturday, October 1.  This year’s conference, sponsored as always by the Alpha Eta Pi chapter of the English honors society Sigma Tau Delta, will feature a wide range of outstanding undergraduate papers on topics from Shakespeare to Culture and Ethnic Identity, panels on graduate schools and the library, and keynote speaker Susan Phillips, who will speak on “Learning to Talk Shop: Gossip, Merchants, and Medieval Language Lessons.”  The event is free and open to the public.

A program with a full listing of events and papers is available here. (Mac users should be forewarned that Preview may not display the document correctly; please use Adobe Reader instead.)

Alumni update: Molly McLay

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Molly McLay (06) has accepted a position as Case Manager with the Targeted Intensive Pre-Natal Service program at Aunt Martha’s Youth Service/Health Service Center in Danville.  A resident of Urbana, Molly received her MSW from the School of Social Work at the University of Illinois in early August, where she pursued a concentration in mental health. Women’s issues were a particular focus for her during her Career at the U of I; she took a graduate assistantship as a campus sexual health educator and completed a field practicum as counselor and advocate for survivors of sexual assault.  She writes, “this position is related to my previous work but somewhat different, and that excites me….Another interesting part–the other people with the same job as me are RNs.  Statewide, social workers are TIP case managers, but at this particular center I’ll be the first.  I’m not sure the people who work in the program really know all that much about the breadth of what a social worker can do, and I am eager to show them. I call myself an ambassador for social workers.”

Come to the Lyrical Graffiti meeting on September 1

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Lyrical Graffiti, a registered student organization promoting slam poetry and spoken word performances, is holding an informational meeting on Thursday, September 1, at 7 PM in the Underground.  ”We work to bring performers to campus and organize poetry slams for the students of Illinois Wesleyan,” write Lyrical Graffiti organizers Natalie Lalagos and Stephen Whitfield.  ”Poetry is loud, powerful, exciting, hilarious, serious, mysterious, and welcoming.  Spoken word is a medium that invites people to enjoy and to explore.  There are student slams and we also bring professionals to campus.”

This semester’s lineup of performers includes Robbie Q. Telfer (September 22), Tim Stafford (October 6), and Dennis Florine (December 1).  At the September 1 meeting the group will begin preparations for these events and student poetry slams.  ”If you are not a slam poet,” Natalie and Mike write, “that’s fine!  Most of us are not.  We just enjoy seeing our fellow English members getting out there and trying their hand at performance poetry.”