News about publications, lectures, and awards from English faculty.
Charles Baxter is judging the National Book Awards for Fiction this year. His essay, "What Happens in Hell," first published in an issue of Ploughshares edited by Patricia Hampl, will appear in Best American Essays 2013, edited by BA alumna Cheryl Strayed. The essay also won a 2013 Pushcart Prize. His short story "Loyalty" appeared in the May issue of Harper's, and his story "Charity" appeared in McSweeney's. Elizabeth Strout chose his story, "Bravery," originally published in Tin House, to appear in the 2013 volume of The Best American Short Stories. See our interview here.
Tony C. Brown published the book The Primitive, the Aesthetic, and the Savage: An Enlightenment Problematic (University of Minnesota Press, 2012). He was promoted to Associate Professor of English.
Michael Dennis Browne (Emeritus) had his choral piece "We Are," co-written with Craig Hella Johnson, broadcast on MPR (KSJN: 99.5) February 27. It was performed by the Minnesota All-State Men's Chorus.
Peter Campion publishes his third poetry collection, El Dorado, in October 2013, with the University of Chicago Press. He was promoted to Associate Professor of English. He began a three-year term as Creative Writing Program Director this fall.
Andrew Elfenbein won an ACLS (American Council of Learned Societies) Fellowship for 2013-14 for the project "The Gist of Reading." He also won a spring 2013 Grant-in-Aid of Research, Artistry & Scholarship for his project "Adult Comprehension of Literary Perspective" from the Office of the Vice President for Research. See our interview here.
Ray Gonzalez published poetry in the summer issues of American Poetry Review and Great River Review. His work appears in A Poet's Craft: A Comprehensive Guide to Making and Sharing Your Poetry (University of Michigan Press), edited by Annie Finch. He has poems forthcoming in 5 Trope, Drunken Boat, anti, Bitter Oleander, Caliban, Malpais Review, and Short: An International Anthology of Five Centuries of Short Short Stories, Prose Poems, Brief Essays, and Other Short Prose Forms (Persea Books). His two forthcoming books of poetry are Soul Over Lightning (University of Arizona Press, 2014) and Beautiful Wall (BOA Editions, 2015).
Ed Griffin (Emeritus) published the essay "A Loyalist Guarded, Re-guarded, and Disregarded: The Two Trials of Mather Byles the Elder" in the summer issue of American Antiquarian Society's online journal, Common-Place: The Interactive Journal of Early American Life, vol. 13, no. 4. It's a companion piece to another Griffin Common-Place article in vol. 7, no. 4: "Stubborn Loyalists: Calling on the Daughters of Doctor Byles."
Patricia Hampl was honored with the Dr. Matthew Stark Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Faculty Award April 17 at the College of Liberal Arts' Celebrate Faculty Excellence ceremony. The award recognizes Professor Hampl's distinguished writing, teaching, and service in this area, including her work establishing the Scribe for Human Rights Fellowship, which supports an MFA creative writing student working with the Human Rights Program as a writer-in-residence. Dr. Matthew "Matt" Stark is a former professor at the University and former executive director of the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union. Professor Hampl is the second English professor to be so honored since the Stark awards begin in 2009. She also taught a "master class" in nonfiction at Columbia University in April 2013 and recently joined the Board of Directors of the Jerome Foundation. Read our interview here.
Madelon Sprengnether published "Freud as Memoirist: A Reading of 'Screen Memories'" in American Imago: Psychoanalysis and the Human Sciences, vol. 69, no. 2, summer 2012. She gave the keynote presentation "Ghosts and Ancestors: Reflections on Melancholia and Mourning" at a conference on "The Paradox of Melancholia: Paralysis and Agency," Flinders University, Australia, June 2012. She published a review of Dora: A Head Case by Lidia Yuknavitch in Rain Taxi Review of Books, vol. 17, no. 4, winter 2012-13. She was a co-discussion leader of the History of Psychoanalysis Discussion Group at the annual meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association, New York, NY, January 2013, and gave the lecture "Freud's Responses to the Figure of the Mother" for the "Interdisciplinary Studies in Psychoanalysis: The Mother" seminar sponsored by the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute, April 2013. Her review of Are You My Mother: A Comic Drama, by Alison Bechdel is forthcoming in International Journal of Psychoanalysis.
Julie Schumacher sold a novel, Dear Committee Members, to Doubleday.
John Watkins was asked by Foreign Policy magazine to contribute an article on Richard III's foreign policy and its significance for the Obama administration. "What Richard III Can Teach Us Today" was linked to by CNN and NPR, the latter of which interviewed Professor Watkins live on its news show.
