Department Chair Kris Blair has been recognized for her leadership and accomplishments in two venues recently. Last Friday evening at the annual Graduate College/Graduate Student Senate awards ceremony, Kris received the Outstanding Contributor to Graduate Education award. This is a particular honor in that candidates must be nominated by one’s own graduate students. Kris also received this award in 2004.
Additionally, Kris has been elected to the position of Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect for Faculty Senate. Given her leadership in Senate and other areas on creating a career ladder for Lecturers and Instructors, her election to this position of leadership is a great recognition both for Kris and the Department. Congratulations from everyone in East Hall Kris!
Prairie Margins, the undergraduate literary magazine, extends an open invitation to attend their biggest party of the year. Come celebrate the 2009 issue with Prairie Margins staff, contributors, and the wider writing comunity this Friday, May 1, beginning at 4:30 p.m. in the atrium of East Hall. Events include “Magnetic” poetry, readings by 2009 contributors, and the return of “Writing Idol,” Paririe Margins‘ spontaneous writing competition. More fun than you could throw a book at!
Throughout the 2008-2009 academic year, our talented graduate students/alumni either have been nominated for or have received top honors for a variety of departmental and campus awards, as indicated below:
Devine Summer Fellowship Awards in Creative Writing (Fiction) Brandon Jennings Aimee Pogson
Devine Summer Fellowship Awards in Creative Writing (Poetry) Angela Gentry
Stokely Klasovsky
Non-Service Ph.D. Fellowships in Rhetoric and Writing Erin Dietel-McLaughlin
Meredith Graupner
Jeremy Schnieder
Distinguished Thesis Award
Recipient: Kate Lane, Creative Writing
Nominee: Jessica Alexander, Literature
Shanklin Award for Research Excellence Erin Dietel-McLaughlin, Rhetoric and Writing (first prize)
Katzner Bookstore Award Ruijie Zhao, Rhetoric and Writing Jeremy Schnieder, Rhetoric and Writing
Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award Nominees Megan Ayers, Creative Writing Emily J. Beard, Rhetoric and Writing Callista Buchen, Creative Writing Joe Erickson, Rhetoric and Writing Christine Garbett, Rhetoric and Writing Eden Leone, Rhetoric and Writing
Arts and Sciences Outstanding Graduate Tony Doerr, MFA 1999
Please join us in congratulating our outstanding students across programs.
BGSU Alumna Kayla Williams, former U.S. Army soldier who served in the Middle East as an Arabic interpreter, and author of the memoir, Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army, will be hosted by the Department of English tomorrow. She earned her BA in English Literature from BGSU in 1997 and has been interviewed in venues that include the BBC, NPR and CNN. She currently blogs for The Huffington Post.
Ms. Williams will be featured speaker at a 2:00-3:30 p.m. event tomorrow, Tuesday April 14. A reception will follow (3:30-4:30 p.m.) in 207 Bowen Thompson Student Union. An evening forum with Kayla is also scheduled at Grounds for Thought Bookstore and Coffeeshop in downtown Bowling Green, at 7 p.m.
The Department of English is very proud to offer congratulations to the following Creative Writing and Literature majors recently inducted into the Xi of Ohio Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.
This year’s initiates include:
Literature: Jacquelyn Dolezal; Cara Hanson (double major with Integrated Language Arts); Christie Collins; Claire McBroom; Kelley Mohr.
Creative Writing: Rachael Sample; Terry Streetman.
Founded at the College of William and Mary on December 5, 1776, Phi Beta Kappa is the nation’s oldest academic honor society. As the Phi Beta Kappa webpage notes: “The ideal Phi Beta Kappan has demonstrated intellectual integrity, tolerance for other views, and a broad range of academic interests. Each year, about one college senior in a hundred, nationwide, is invited to join Phi Beta Kappa.”
Congratulations to Jacquelyn, Cara, Rachael, Terry, Christie, Claire, and Kelley on this prestigious accomplishment!
On Thursday April 9, from 2:30-3:20 p.m. in 404 Moseley Hall, the Writing Center will be hosting a reading of literature from many cultures. If you would like to read poems, excerpts from longer texts, either in English or in their native language, contact Dr. Barbara Toth, Writing Center Director, at btoth@bgsu.edu. This event is free and open to the public.
Our recent post on the death of locally-connected novelist James Purdy has elicited the following from Michael Snyder, a doctoral candidate in the University of Oklahoma’s Department of English, who is finishing a dissertation on Purdy.
To offer a few of points of clarity: Purdy was born not in Findlay but in Hicksville, Ohio, in Defiance County, on July 17, 1914. He was largely raised in Findlay. Also, he died in a nursing home in Englewood, NJ. His home for fifty years was his apartment on Henry Street in Brooklyn Heights, NY. Finally, The Nephew was published in 1960, not 1961. He graduated from BGSU in 1935 with a teaching degree in French, and a second degree in another subject, probably English. Paul Miller’s entry on Purdy for the Dictionary of Midwestern Literature is a good source of relevant biographical information, and I have corroborated all his information. BGSU English professor Frank Baldanza published three articles on Purdy and Baldanza’s correspondence with Purdy can be found in the BGSU Special Collections. The BGSU library has a great collection of Purdy’s books. I hope to hear from people with stories about Purdy and his impact on the community. mkesnyder@yahoo.com
“Tuesdays at the Gish,” a film series sponsored by The Culture Club, in association with the Department of Theatre and Film, continues April 7, 2009 with a screening of James Landis’s 1963 film, The Sadist. Ten years before director Terrance Malick adapted the story of spree killer Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, into his lyrical film Badlands, B-director James Landis adapted the Starkweather story in The Sadist. If Malick’s Badlands is poetry, The Sadist is, by contrast, hardboiled, dime-store prose: when their car breaks down on a trip to Los Angeles, a group of suburban school teachers are terrorized at gunpoint by Starkweather-stand-in, Charlie Tibbs (Arch Hall, Jr.), and his childish girlfriend, Judy (Marilyn Manning). The hostages will have to become as brutal as their tormentors if they want to survive.
The screening begins at 7:30 p.m. at the Gish Film Theater in Hanna Hall.
Founded in 2007 by Mark S. Bernard and Colin Helb, the “Tuesdays at the Gish” film series is dedicated to bringing public domain, obscure, and independent films to northwest Ohio. The films are shown free of charge and are open to the public. The film series is a collaboration between The Culture Club: Cultural Studies Scholars’ Association and the Department of Theatre and Film. The 2008-2009 film series are curated by Mark S. Bernard and Colin Helb with Dr. Cynthia Baron.
To contact the curators for the Tuesdays at the Gish Film Series, please send an e-mail to battlegroundstates@gmail.com to the attention of “Tuesdays at the Gish.”
The Society for Technical Communication is pleased to announce a presentation by Susan Young, Assistant Director of the BGSU Career Center, titled “Scientific & Technical Communication: A Recession-Proof Profession?” Ms. Young will discuss tips for finding internships and jobs in the Technical Communication field. The talk takes place on Wednesday, April 8 at 7:30 p.m. in East Hall 115. Refreshments will be provided.
BGSU Alumna Kayla Williams, former U.S. Army soldier who served in the Middle East as an Arabic interpreter, and author of the memoir, Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army, will be hosted by the Department of English tomorrow. She earned her BA in English Literature from BGSU in 1997 and has been interviewed in venues that include the 