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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>.

Calling All Readers . . .

Please come to the Fourth Annual Halloween Reading hosted by Sigma Tau Delta, the International English Honor Society, BGSU chapter. Questions? Contact Dr. Erin Labbie, <labbie@bgsu.edu>, or Amanda Taylor, <Amandst@bgsu.edu>.

B!G on Respect Writing Contest!

The BGSU Human Relations Commission Is pleased to announce the First Annual B!G on Respect Writing Contest! Submissions are being accepted through to December 19, 2009. Winners will be announced at the start of Spring semester. Any BGSU student, staff or faculty member can participate.

Essays, poems, short stories, raps—all genres are accepted. Writing must address the topic of respect. You can begin your submission with: “This I believe about respect . . .” There are no length requirements.

Submissions will be judged on the basis of relevance and strength of statement, creativity, and appeal to a BGSU audience. Submissions can be made online. You can also email submissions to Barbara Toth at btoth@bgsu.edu in a Word document with your name and contact information. Of course, submissions must meet standards of academic honesty.

Prizes of $300, $200, and $100 BGSU Bookstore Certificates will be awarded.

Ray Browne, 1922-2009

Dr. Raymond B. Browne, who was instrumental in establishing the first full-fledged department of popular culture in the United States at BGSU in 1973, died Oct. 22 at home in Bowling Green. He was 87.

Internationally recognized as a publisher and expert in popular culture, Browne is often credited with coining the term and as being among the first to propose its serious study.

Please click on the link for the complete obituary.

Ohio Medieval Colloquium

This Saturday (October 24), BGSU will host the Ohio Medieval Colloquium which is sponsored by the Departments of English and History. Literature professor and medievalist Dr. Erin Labbie, one of the organizers of the colloqium, writes:

I hope you are able to come to one of the panels, even if you are not able to attend the full day. Many of our undergraduates and graduate students will be present, and we will hear papers from scholars around the state and the region. This is a wonderful opportunity for our students and faculty to gain a sense of the concerns that other scholars from the state of Ohio and its adjacencies are engaging.

Attendance at the colloquium is free and open to the public. All papers will be held in Room 315 of the Bowen-Thompson Student Union. If you have any questions, please contact Dr. Labbie, at labbie@bgsu.edu.

You can download the program (a Word file) here: The Ohio Medieval Colloquium

Poet Rachel Zucker reads at Prout

Poet Rachel Zucker will read at Prout Chapel tomorrow night (Thursday, October 22) as part of the Creative Writing Reading Series. She is the author of The Bad Wife Handbook, The Last Clear Narrative, and Eating in the Underworld. Zucker is the winner of the Salt Hill Poetry Award and the Barrow Street Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared in many journals, including 3rd Bed, American Poetry Review, Barrow Street, Colorado Review, Epoch, Fence, Iowa Review, Pleiades, and Prairie Schooner as well as in the Best American Poetry 2001 anthology.

Zucker has taught at Yale, NYU and Makor. From 2005-2007 she was the poet-in-residence at Fordham University. She is currently working on her fourth collection of poems, Museum of Accidents, which will be published by Wave Books in 2009.

The reading begins at 7:30 p.m.