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“Burgeoning Explorations in Literary and Textual Analysis”

Graduate students in Dr. Erin Labbie’s ENG 6010 will be hosting a mini-conference that will take place over two days (Thursday, December 10 and Wednesday, December 16). The conference is a culmination of the student’s work this semester, and it is a chance to practice their performance locally before giving papers at National Conferences in the spring.

Burgeoning Explorations in Literary and Textual Analysis

Part 1 – Thursday, December 10, 2:30pm – 6:00 pm; East Hall, Room 306

2:30-300: Dr. Erin Labbie, “Literary and Cultural Studies Research Methods Course Review: English, Textual Power, Ideological Structures, and the University in a Global Economy”
3:00-3:30: Elizabeth Sherwood, “Faces of Evil and Fear in True Blood”
3:30-4:00: Ashlie Dabbs, “The Worst of Both Worlds”

4:00-4:30: Break (Class Evaluations)

4:30-5:00: Matt Dauphin, “Pushing Daisies Away: Community Through Isolation”
5:00-5:30: Shuqing Guo, “Power and Performance in Farewell my Concubine”
5:30-6:00: Scott Sundvall, “Cyberculture and Schizoanalysis”

Informal Reception at Reverend’s, 6:15ish-7:ish

Part 2 – Wednesday, December 16, 10:00 am – 2:00 pm; East Hall, Lounge

10:00-10:30: Tiffany Le Roi, “Conventions of Late-18th – Early 19th- Century Society: Transgressions and their Consequences in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility and Emma“
10:30-11:00: Peter Schank, “Philip, Pip, Handel, and Pip: Changing Names and Establishing Identity in Great Expectations“
11:00-11:30: Sophie Kottmayer, “Living Nostalgia: Brian Friel’s Translations”

11:30-12:15: Break (Lunch)

12:15-12:45: Xiadong Liu, “Two-way Traffic—A Study of the Collaboration of Cultural Hegemony from the Perspective of the Recipients”
12:45-1:15: Albert Bereznay, “Heresy, Canonicity, and Medieval Ideology within Contemporary Literary Studies, A Work in Progress”
1:15-1:45: Laurel Adams, “Can You Feel Me? The Transmission of Affect in Contemporary Poetry”

All faculty and students, friends and family are welcome to attend.

Fiction writer Mike Czyzniejewski named 2010 NEA grant recipient

We are very pleased to announce that fiction writer Michael Czyzniejewski, Instructor in Creative Writing and General Studies Writing and one of two Editors-in-Chief of the Mid-American Review, has been awarded one of just 42 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowships for 2010. The grant represents a significant and prestigious honor, both for Mike personally and the Department as a whole.

Congratulations Mike, from all your friends in East Hall!

Creative Writing program in the news

Wendell Mayo, Director of the Creative Writing program, passes along several pieces of good news:

Mark Berman, an alumnus of both the BA English and MFA Creative Writing programs (MFA 1976), has received a letter from the President’s Office informing him that he has been named one of the 100 most prominent BGSU alumni, as part of BGSU’s Centennial. Besides being a talented poet, Mark has gone on to distinguish himself in the fields of law and finance. Mark will be on campus on April 2010 to be recognized.

Mark Berman is founder and CEO of CompliGlobe Ltd, a firm that advises and conducts training programs for hedge funds, investment managers, issuers, regulators and multi-national banks and brokers in Europe and Asia on SEC practice outside the United States. Mark is author of An Introduction to Hedge Funds (Risk Books, 2007), A Practitioner’s Guide to SEC Regulation Outside the United States (City and Financial Publishing, 1998) and has edited and contributed to SEC Regulation Outside the United States (6th ed. Risk Books, 2007) and Hedge Funds & Prime Brokers (2nd ed. Risk Books, 2010). Mark graduated from Bowling Green University with his B.A. in English and M.F.A. in Creative Writing (1976). He is also a member of the British Softball Foundation Hall of Fame.

It is interesting to note that a few years back, February 2004 issue, the Harvard Business Review listed “The MFA is the new MBA” as one of its breakthrough ideas for the year.

In other news, the following writers and works submitted have been nominated for the 2010 Association of Writers and Writing Programs Intro Awards:

Poetry:

Courtney Jade Ramsey, “The Rain Taps the Concrete Like Piano Keys”
Rachael Sample, two poems, “Remember” and “Temperance”

Fiction:

Anne Valente, “Minivan”

Non-fiction:

Courtney Ramsey, “Things Not Seen”

Let’s keep our digits crossed for them–winners will be contacted in the spring of 2010. Each will receive an award letter, publication in a participating journal, and a $100 cash honorarium. Winning works will appear in the fall or winter issues of Hayden’s Ferry Review, Mid-American Review, Colorado Review, Puerto del Sol, Controlled Burn, Quarterly West, Tampa Review, and Artful Dodge.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Winter Wheat: The Mid-American Review Festival of Writing

Winter Wheat: The Mid-American Review Festival of Writing began last night and continues today through Sunday. For those who have never attended Winter Wheat before, each day has a different flavor. Friday and Saturday of the festival are filled with more craft-oriented sessions.This year’s sessions cover a wealth of writing-related topics with titles such as “You Don’t Have to Travel to Rome to Write a Good Story: Finding Material in the Everyday” or “Compelling Alliances: Text From Image. “

Friday’s sessions begin in the afternoon and are followed by a reading by one of our featured readers. This is followed by the annual roundtable discussion. Saturday is the big day. There is a book fair, filled with literary journals, as well as a table for presenters to sell their books. The sessions (four time slots) run all day. Click here to view the session listings for Winter Wheat 2009. There is a reading in the afternoon by one of the featured readers, followed by the gala dinner, dessert reception, the last of the featured readers reading, and then the annual Open Mic, which is always a lot of fun.

If you’re interested in attending and want to know about fees, group rates, and scholarships, contact festival coordinator Karen Craigo at (419) 372-2725, or at karenka@bgsu.edu . Everyone is invited to be a part of the fun, no matter what level of experience a writer you are. Click here to register for Winter Wheat 2009

Dr. Sheri Wells-Jensen teaches braille

Associate Professor of Linguistics, Dr. Sheri Wells-Jensen, who is on sabbatical this year but is teaching a class on braille to sighted students at Wood County District Public Library in Bowling Green, was the subject of an article in yesterday’s Toledo Blade. To read the article, click on the link.

BGSU-UIUC exchange reading tonight

Tonight (Thursday, November 5) at Prout Chapel, as part of the ongoing Creative Writing Reading Series, students in the M.F.A. program here at BGSU will take part in an exchange reading with their compatriots from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. UIUC will return the favor on December 3 when guest readers from Bowling Green will join Illinois M.F.A. students Aaron Burch (fiction) and Sara Gelston (poetry) in their program’s final VOICE Graduate Reading Series event of the semester.

As always, Prout Chapel readings begin at 7.30 p.m. and are free and open to the public.

Culture Club Presents “Fully Awake: The Black Mountain College Experience” (2007)

“Tuesdays at the Gish,” a film series sponsored by The Culture Club, in association with the Department of Theatre and Film, continues tonight (Tuesday November 3, 2009) with a screening of Cathryn Davis and Neeley House’s 2007 documentary Fully Awake: The Black Mountain College Experience.

Black Mountain College was an experimental college based in North Carolina from 1933-1957 and was the location for such events as Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome, John Cage’s first multimedia happening, and the publication of early Beat poets in the Black Mountain Review. This documentary looks at the unique educational style and long-term significance of Black Mountain College through interviews with students, teachers, historians, and current artists, which serve to illuminate this school’s emphasis on balancing academics, art, work programs, and community living.

The screening begins at 7:30 p.m. at the Gish Film Theater in Hanna Hall.

David Spiering and Anne Valente Read at Prout

MFA Candidates David Spiering and Anne Valente will read at Prout Chapel tonight (Thursday, October 29) as part of the Creative Writing Reading Series. The reading begins at 7:30 p.m.

“The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover”

Literature professor and Renaissance scholar Dr. Stephannie Gearhart, who is teaching a unit on early modern Revenge Tragedies in this semester’s ENG 4060 English Renaissance Drama course has organized, along with a few of her students, a viewing of Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover (1989). She writes:

If you don’t know it, The Cook… is a Revenge Tragedy-inspired film. So, if you’re familiar with Titus Andronicus, The Revenger’s Tragedy, The Spanish Tragedy, or even plays like The Duchess of Malfi or The White Devil, you’ll have a sense of what you’re getting yourself into here. The movie stars Helen Mirren and Michael Gambon and is a fierce indictment of, among other things, the Thatcher years in Britain. It’s full of violence, excess, greed, sex, and more violence and is certainly not a movie for the weak-hearted. It’s absolutely beautiful and absolutely horrifying at the same time. (How’s that for appealing?)

The film viewing is on Friday October 30th 6:00-8:00 p.m. (approximate running time) in East Hall 114 and Stephannie extends an open invitation to anyone who’d like to attend. Because of limited space in East Hall 114, Stephannie requests that you please send her an email if you plan on attending. She can be reached at <stephsg@bgsu.edu>.