Graduate Students Honored

Congratulations to our many talented graduate students in English, a number of whom took top honors for University-level awards at last Friday’s Shanklin Ceremony and throughout the year:

Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award:

• Tom Schaefer, Creative Writing

Also nominated for this award were Rocco Lungariello and Tristan Palmgren

Distinguished Thesis Award:

• Beth Kaufka, Creative Writing

Outstanding Graduate Student:

• Erin Dietel-McLaughlin, Rhetoric and Writing

Also nominated for this award were Toby Coley and Jeremy Schneider

Outstanding International Graduate Student:

• Ruijie Zhao, Rhetoric and Writing

Also nominated for this award was Florence Bacabac

Shanklin Awards for Research Excellence:

• Top Prize: Heather Pristash, Rhetoric and Writing
• First Runner Up: Ruijie Zhao, Rhetoric and Writing

Katzner Bookstore Award:

• Spring 2008: Erin Dietel-McLaughlin, Rhetoric and Writing
• Fall 2007: Elizabeth Fleitz, Rhetoric and Writing

Devine Fellowship Awards in Poetry and Fiction

• Kate Lane (Fiction)
• Megan Ayers-Vidmar (Fiction)
• Angela Gentry (Poetry)
• Rocco Lungariello (Poetry)

Non-Service Fellowships (Rhetoric and Writing)

• Elizabeth Fleitz
• Robert Graves
• Bethany Snyder-Morse

We should all be very proud of our students across programs!

Department Graduate Student Finalists for the Shanklin Award

Both finalists for the 2008 Shanklin Award for Excellence in Graduate Research in the Arts and Humanities are students in the Department’s Rhetoric & Writing PhD Program. Heather Pristash‘s submission “Craftivism and Protest Knitting” originated as a seminar paper in Sue Carter Wood‘s seminar on Women’s Rhetorical Practices (ENG 780). Ruijie Zhao’s “Feminist Readings of Curse of the Golden Flower” was written in Jolie Sheffer‘s Theory and Criticism course (ENG 607). Ruijie and Heather delivered short versions of their papers for the Shanklin Judges on April 15. The award will be announced at the Shanklin Awards Ceremony on April 25.

This is the third consecutive year that the Arts and Humanities Shanklin Award was won by a student in the Rhetoric & Writing PhD Program–and the second year that both finalists were from the program. In 2007, Elizabeth Fleitz won with “The Grammar of Abortion: A Pentadic Analysis of Pro-Choice Rhetoric,” which she wrote in John Makay’s graduate seminar on Rhetorical Criticism (COMS 601). And the runner-up was Angela Zimmann, who wrote “A Feminist Alternative to Abandoning the Rhetorical Space of the Pulpit In the Christian Church” in Sue Carter Wood’s seminar in Rhetoric of Written Discourse (ENG 724). In the spring of 2006, Christine Denecker (now a faculty member at the University of Findlay) received the Arts and Humanities Shanklin Award.

At the same ceremony, the 2006 BGSU Outstanding Dissertation Award went to another Rhetoric & Writing PhD Program student, Inez Schaechterle (now an assistant professor at Buena Vista University in Iowa) for her dissertation Speaking of Sex: The Rhetorical Strategies of Frances Willard, Victoria Woodhull, and Ida Craddock, directed by Sue Carter Wood. A year earlier, Inez Schaechterle was a finalist for the 2005 Shanklin Award for Arts and Humanities.

Visual Design for Technical Writers

On Thursday, April 24 at 7:30 pm in East Hall 115, the Society for Technical Communications will be hosting a presentation on visual design techniques for technical writers. Free pizza and pop will be provided.

BGSU Celebrates its Virtual Campus Birth/Earth Day

The BGSU virtual campus in Second Life is celebrating its first birthday in conjunction with an Earth Day celebration in the virtual world on Tuesday, April 22 at 6:30 – 8:30pm EST.

The festivities will include poetry readings, art exhibition openings, live music by BGSU student DJs, with the evening culminating with a “Save the Virtual Island” scavenger hunt. The event will take place on the Bowling Green State virtual campus in Second Life and simultaneously presented in the lobby of the Bowen Thompson Student Union.

The Birth/Earth day celebration will begin with an Open Mic poetry reading at the BGSU Writing Center in Second Life. Students, faculty and staff are invited to “step up to the mic” at the Bowen-Thompson Student Union, where their words will be broadcast into Second Life. The BGSU Virtual Campus is also proud to host an amazing art installation by Jeff Lovett from Ohio University. His work explores the concept of observation and surveillance through photography and virtual immersion. Artworks produced by members of the Computer Art Club and Digital Arts students will also be displayed in the Vertical Gallery and avatars are invited to “fly” through the gallery. Live music by BGSU student DJs, What the Bleep and DJ PsysiX, will be streamed into the Performance Center in Second Life from the BGSU Student Union. Avatars are invited to socialize and dance to the sounds of Ragga-Jungle and Psytrance music.

A special Earth Day scavenger hunt on the BGSU Virtual Campus will also accompany the festivities, beginning promptly at 7:30pm EST. Avatars will compete in a quest to find information on how to help combat global climate change. The first three avatars to find all the clues will be awarded prizes in Linden dollars. Participants will face simulated elements of climate change and environmental disaster that will be both challenging and thought provoking.

The BGSU virtual campus in Second Life was founded in April, 2007. Since its inception, the island has provided classrooms for online classes, offices for faculty and staff, and educational exhibits open to the public. The virtual island has also hosted numerous art exhibitions, live music events, visiting guest lecturers, and film screenings. One of the most popular feature on the island is its “Sandbox.” Avatars from around the world come to the BGSU Virtual Campus to design, build, and script virtual objects. Visiting the sandbox has been a valuable learning experience for BGSU students, faculty and staff as they interact and converse in various languages with these visitors.

Second Life is a ‘multi-user virtual environment’ (MUVE) in which users of an online 3d space can interact through avatars using voice and text chat. Also called ‘Residents’, users can explore, meet other Residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, as well as create and trade virtual items and services. Second Life offers educators and students an online environment to meet face to face, dramatically changing the dynamic of online meetings and education. Since Second Life is used by people all over the world, it presents an opportunity to engage in cross-cultural networking and research within a global community. The Second Life virtual world is a dynamic 3d space and immersive learning environment that can be created and experienced by student or teacher.

Undergraduate Literature Student Senior Thesis Presentations

Literature majors from Dr. Bill Albertini’s English 499 Senior Thesis Workshop will each be giving a brief presentation based on her/his thesis research on Wednesday or Friday of this week.

All presentations will take place in East Hall 117.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008, 12:30 PM-1:20 PM:

• Vanessa Garlock, “The 1950s, Social Change, and Identity”
• Betsy Eggers, “Trauma and Narrative in Relation to the Holocaust Memoir”
• Susan Lavalley, “Generations of Women Across the Twentieth Century: An Analysis of The Hours and Mrs. Dalloway“
• Kristen Bryson, “The Lenses of Shakespeare: Adaptation, Feminist and Historical Theories”
• Ryan Sawyer, “The Ironic Problem of Transvestite Theater in Renaissance England”
• Ashley Cooper, “Determining Masculinity: Homosocial Spaces in Fight Club“
• Meredith Dixon, “Speak Up: Embracing Controversial Issues in Adolescent Literature”
• Katy Tschuor, “The World of CSI: Miami“
• Jayme Wilfong, “The Power of Generating Dialogue: Short Fiction as Possible Trauma Narrative”
• Becky Wilson, “The Changing Meanings of Motherhood”

Friday, April 25, 2006, 12:30 PM-1:20 PM:

• Kenny Rogers, Jr., Title TBA
• Brendan Aucoin, “A Drive to Die For: How the Bond Cars Affect James Bond”
• Nick Dever, “Shakespeare: A Renaissance Feminist?”
• Lucas Groh, “The Greater Thematic Elements of Collapse and Destruction in T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood, and Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises“
• Tim Cable, “Measured ‘Confessions’: The Poetry of Maxine Kumin”
• Diana Waugh, “Southern Modernism and Female Sexuality: Imagery and Voice in The Sound and the Fury and Their Eyes Were Watching God“
• Megan Honingford, “The Effect of Setting on Trauma in Literature”
• Dana Pable, “Knee Deep in Nietzsche’s Lies”

Hope to see you all there!

English Majors Honored

Three majors in the Department were honored on Tuesday evening at the 2007-08 College of Arts and Sciences Scholarships and Awards banquet.

Christie Collins, who is a junior in Literature, a member of the Honors Program, and a double minor in Spanish and Ethnic Studies, was awarded the Paul D. Emery Book Award and an English Faculty Scholarship. Christie invited a favorite faculty member, Dr. Allan Emery, to the banquet. Jeff Battiste, a graduating senior in Literature, Honors Program member, and a double major in English and Mathematics, received an English Major Book Award and the Lowell P. Leland Book Award. And last but not least, Cara Hanson, senior in Literature, Honors Program member, and double major in English and Education with a specialization in Integrated Language Arts, was the recipient of the Frank Baldanza Scolarship and the Gloria Swihart English Award. She invited favorite faculty member Dr. Stephannie Gearhart to the banquet. The Department was especially gratified that three members of the Baldanza family were on hand to see Cara receive her award.

Congratulations to Christie, Jeff, and Cara from everyone here in East Hall!

Department Teachers Win Awards

Two members of the Department have been recognized for their achievements in the classroom. MFA-candidate Tom Schaefer has won one of this year’s Outstanding Teaching Assistant Awards from the Graduate College/Graduate Student Senate, and Dr. Phil Dickinson, Lecturer and Associate Chair, has been named recipient of the 2007-08 Distinguished Lecturer/Instructor Award from the College of Arts and Sciences.

Tom will be formally recognized at the Shanklin Awards Banquet to be held at 5:30 p.m. on April 25th in the Grand Ballroom of the Union. Tom is one of only three graduate students from across campus to receive this recognition, a great honor for General Studies Writing, Creative Writing, and English. Phil will receive special recognition at the College’s Opening Day meeting in August 2008.

Establishing New Traditions in Art History for Undergraduate and Graduate Research at Bowling Green State University

On April 12th 2008 young scholars from Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Florida will gather in Bowling Green to present original research on topics concerning the history of art. New Perspectives in Visual Culture: The 2nd Annual BGSU Art History Symposium will include lectures by B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. candidates with topics arranged thematically into panels. The purpose of this symposium is to recognize young students for their excellence in scholarly research and foster professional development for those intending to pursue a career in art history. The call for papers allowed for any topic in art history to be addressed but specifically asked students to focus on contemporary theory and audience reception. This year’s selected panelists will present papers under the categories of “Visualizing Gender,” “Signs of Unification and Nationalism,” “Manipulation of the Medium,” and “Typecasting and Consumerism.”

Dr. Andrew Hershberger, Associate Professor of Art History, will be giving closing remarks and facilitating a round table discussion on prevalent themes amongst the panels.

In conjunction with the BGSU Art History Association, Dr. Allie Terry’s Art History Capstone class is hosting the event this year. The Capstone course was designed by Dr. Terry to include students from every department in the School of Art, thus creating an interdisciplinary approach to staging an academic conference. Each student in the course contributes to his or her area of specialization, which provides an opportunity for professional hands-on familiarity to be gained while in an educational environment.

Students in the class were exposed to their first hands-on conference experience during the planning and staging of the international conference, Beholding Violence: A Conference on Medieval and Early Modern Culture, organized by Dr. Terry and held at BGSU at the end of February. The students were organized into teams that managed critical aspects of the conference, from hospitality to event planning to program design. They used the knowledge gained from their experience of the “Beholding Violence” conference to independently make the decisions concerning the student conference. Every aspect of the student conference, from abstract selection to panel formation, budgeting, design, publicity, and hospitality, was jointly decided by the students under Dr. Terry’s direction.

For questions please contact Dr. Allie Terry at alterry@bgsu.edu or 419-372-8533.

Black Swamp Literary Society Meeting Tonight

The Black Swamp Literary Society will convene tonight (April 7) at 9:00 p.m. in East Hall 219 (Library Lounge) for an informal discussion. Society members will be giving awards to their favorite literary characters for categories such as “Best  Villain” or “Best Romantic Hero”  as well as discussing officer positions for the Fall 2008 semester.

All are welcome!

A Message from the Black Swamp Literary Society

A message from Melissa Faybik (Literature ’07):

Black Swamp Literary Society is looking for enthusiastic and committed members to help keep the Society going through next year. The Society has been on campus for two years now and we hope to keep it going. It’s open to anyone interested in discussing all things literary related! Anyone interested in being a part of it, or wanting to know more please contact Melissa Faybik at mfaybik@bgsu.edu. Or attend our next meeting Monday at 9 pm in the East Hall Lounge.