News about publications, lectures, and awards from English faculty.
The Institute for Advanced Study funded three interdisciplinary projects with English faculty co-leads (via Mellon grants of $10,000 each): "Immigration in the Global Midwest" with co-lead Josephine Lee; "The Global Midwest: Vulnerability and Resourcefulness" with co-lead Dan Philippon; and "Prairie Schools: Radicalisms/Modernisms/Internationalisms and the Global Midwest" with co-leads Paula Rabinowitz and Jani Scandura.
Charles Baxter published the story "Sloth" in The New England Review. The story "Charity," which appeared in McSweeney's, will be included in the next Best American Short Stories anthology, edited by Jennifer Egan.
Tim Brennan and Paula Rabinowitz are members of a CLA Committee on the Humanistic Commons whose proposed initiative for Graduate Research Groups was recognized in a Graduate School 2013-2014 Call for Innovative Ideas competition. The winners receive a modest award from the Graduate School to help launch the project. The proposed GRGs are three-year (renewable once) research collaboratives that integrate current faculty research concerns and graduate education and mentorship. The GRGs unite faculty and graduate students from diverse units working on a common project and allow for visiting scholars, conferences, and special research/creative projects to be included within the educational and research trajectories of graduate students. The new Humanistic Commons GRGs will establish entities that can offer courses and other credit-earning graduate research opportunities within CLA.
Tom Clayton gave a public lecture in May at the University of Sofia, Bulgaria, on "'Words, words, words' and the Meeting of Minds in Hamlet." He also spent time researching in London (including, he writes, attendance at "a stunning performance of Titus Andronicus at Shakespeare's Globe and a very good one of King Lear at the National Theatre"). He read names at the CLA Commencement May 18.
Ray Gonzalez has poetry forthcoming in 99 Poems for the 99 Per Cent, edited by Dean Rader (University of San Francisco). His poetry also appears in The Cutbank Poetry Anthology: Best of 50 Years (University of Montana), as well as MiPOesias, Writing Disorder, and The Bitter Oleander. His poetry and work as an anthologist is discussed in a chapter of Broken Souths: Latina/o Poetic Responses to Neoliberalism and Globalization by critic Michael Dowdy (University of Arizona Press).
Edward M. Griffin (Emeritus) presented "To Her Dear and Loving Husband: Reading the Love Letters Of Mistress Bradstreet" April 10 at Texas A&M University, Commerce, for the EGAD Society (English Graduates for Academic Development) Annual Lecture. The lecture was followed by a departmental seminar. He published "On the Poems of the Accidental Environmentalist (Eville Gorham)" in the June issue of JOIE: Journal of Opinion, Ideas & Essays.
Michael Hancher won a 2014 President's Award for Outstanding Service. Since joining the Department of English in 1972, he has served as Director of English Graduate Studies, CLA Associate Dean for Faculty and Research, Chair of English, and most recently Vice Chair of the Faculty Consultative Committee of the Faculty Senate, which serves as the consulting body to President Eric Kaler and as the executive committee of the Faculty Senate
Dan Philippon won a GPS Alliance International Travel Grant to visit Department of English Study Abroad sites in London and Norwich. The department is beginning a new student exchange with the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, which will enable our majors to study in England while paying U of M tuition rates. This savings will enable more students to gain an international perspective on literature, while enriching our own classes with students from UEA.
Peter Reed (Emeritus) wrote an essay for Kurt Vonnegut Drawings (Monacelli Press, 2014), a collection of artwork by Kurt Vonnegut. The book is edited by Vonnegut's daughter, Nanette Vonnegut, and includes 145 of Vonnegut's graphics.
Geoff Sirc was honored March 22 at the 65th Annual Convention of the Conference on College Composition and Communication in Indianapolis with a six-speaker tribute panel entitled "Never Mind Geoffrey Sirc." The Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) is the world's largest professional organization for researching and teaching composition. Panelist Victor J. Vitanza, Professor of English at Clemson University, noted: "Sirc is the most dangerous man in writing instruction."
Madelon Sprengnether will publish a new collection of prose poems titled Near Solstice next spring (2015) with Holy Cow! Press.
John Watkins was named a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow. The Guggenheim Foundation supports projects by humanities scholars, creative writers, artists, and scientists: This year, 178 fellows were chosen out of almost 3,000 applicants. Watkins will be a senior research visitor at Keble College, Oxford University, during fall 2014 and spring 2015. He also recently received an ACLS fellowship for the 2014-15 academic year. Watkins will be completing a book project on interdynastic marriage in European peacemaking from the late Middle Ages to the end of the 17th century.
John Wright was profiled in a lengthy cover article, "The Wright Legacy," in The Minnesota Daily May 28. Wright holds a joint appointment in English and African American and African Studies.
