Charles Baxter gave a reading, participated in panels, and was honored with a tribute panel during the AWP conference in Minneapolis April 9-11. He was interviewed by The Rumpus and Tin House about his most recent story collection, There's Something I Want You to Do. On May 7, he gave a LearningLife "Headliners" lecture entitled "Contemporary Fiction and the Modern Security State" at the University's St. Paul campus.
Michael Dennis Browne (Emeritus) gave a reading of his
latest poetry collection, The Voices, April 16 for Friends of the University of
Minnesota Libraries with performances by the University Singers conducted by
Kathy Salzman Romey. He also read at the Loft on May 3, with Madelon Sprengnether
and John Hildebrand, and at Micawber's Books June 3; he'll read at Prairie
Lights, Iowa City, June 15. The first performance of "A Blessings of
Cranes," music by Abbie Betinis, took place at Carthage College, Kenosha,
WI, on May 2. The oratorio composed by the late Stephen Paulus, To Be Certain
of the Dawn, for which Browne wrote the lyrics, was performed at San Diego State
University and by Festival Chorale Oregon (Salem, OR) in April. He teaches "The
Art of the Short Poem," a weekend workshop at the Iowa Summer Writing
Festival, June 12-14.
Peter Campion's third collection of poems, El Dorado, recently
received praise in Slate, The Rumpus, and PN Review (UK) His review of
Louise Glück's Faithful and Virtuous Night appeared in The New York Times Book
Review. Translations of his poetry into Chinese have appeared in Enclave. Campion has given recent readings at Johns Hopkins University, the University of Maryland,
and Old Dominion University. He participated in a panel at the AWP Conference
in Minneapolis April 9-11, as well as giving a reading.
Thomas Clayton (Regents Emeritus) retired at the end of
spring semester after 47 years of service. Read an interview with him.
Maria Damon (Emerita) gave a reading and participated in the panel "The Past Is a Place: Former Minnesotans Remember" during the AWP Conference in Minneapolis
April 9-11.
Ray Gonzalez was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award in Latino Literature from Con Tinta, a national organization of Latino
writers. The ceremony took place during the AWP Conference in Minneapolis; he also participated in two AWP panels.
Edward M. Griffin (Emeritus) reviewed The First Great
Awakening in Colonial American Newspapers: A Shifting Story, by Lisa Smith, in American
Periodicals: A Journal of History, Criticism, and Bibliography (25:1). He
published the review essay "A Singular Man: Cotton Mather Reappraised"
in Early American Literature (50:2), which surveyed Cotton Mather, Biblia
Americana: America's First Bible Commentary: A Synoptic Commentary on the Old
and New Testaments, Vol. 3: Joshua--2 Chronicles, edited by Kenneth P. Minkema
(2013), and Cotton Mather and Biblia Americana: America's First Bible
Commentary. Essays in Reappraisal, edited by Reiner Smolinski and Jan
Stievermann (2010).
Patricia Hampl participated in two panels at the AWP
Conference in Minneapolis April 9-11 and gave a reading.
Gordon Hirsch (Emeritus) retired at the end of spring
semester after 45 years of service. Read an interview with him.
Nabil Matar published An Arab Ambassador in the
Mediterranean World: The Travels of Muhammad Ibn 'Uthmān Al-Miknāsī (Routledge).
Dan Philippon published an article entitled "How
Local is Slow Food?" in Rachel Carson Center Perspectives 2015.1
("Think Global, Eat Local: Exploring Foodways," edited by Michel
Pimbert, Rachel Shindelar, and Hanna Schösler).
He also gave two talks: "Humanities of Scale," at Indiana
University's Third Annual Sustainability Community of Practice ("Teaching
Sustainability: Partnering across Disciplines for Place-Based Learning")
on May 11, and "Writing from Plow to Plate: How Nonfiction Writing Shaped
the Sustainable Food Movement," in the "Eating, Reading & Living
Well" series organized by the Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library and
Mississippi Market Food Co-op, on May 28.
Paula Rabinowitz wrote an article, "The Serious
Business of Pulp Fiction: How Paperbacks Helped Forge Our Modern Ideas about
Sex, Race, and War,"
for the Smithsonian's "What It Means to Be American" series. The
article has since been re-published at Time.org, The Houston Chronicle,
Fortune, and SaddaHaq, a citizen journalism platform in India. She was
interviewed at length by Nomadic Press. She co-edited Lineages of the Literary Left: Essays in Honor of Alan M. Wald (Maize).
Katherine Scheil was on research leave in fall 2014, and
completed five essays for publication. Her chapter on "Anne Hathaway"
is forthcoming from Cambridge University Press, in a new collection called The
Shakespeare Circle, re-evaluating the family and friends of Shakespeare. An
essay on "The Anne Hathaway Cottage and Romantic Myth" is also
forthcoming from Cambridge University Press, in a collection on Shakespeare and
Commemoration. A third article on the history of Shakespeare biography will
appear in The Shakespearian World (Routledge). Her chapter on Shakespeare Clubs
and Commemoration between the Jubilees will be published in a collection on
Shakespeare Jubilees, and a fifth essay, entitled "Shakespeare and the
Geography of Collaboration," will be published in The Journal for Early
Modern Studies.
Julie Schumacher participated in two panels at the AWP
Conference in Minneapolis April 9-11.
Madelon Sprengnether published Great River Road: Memoir
and Memory (New Rivers Press) and Near Solstice: Prose Poems (Holy Cow! Press).
The former received a positive review in The St. Paul Pioneer Press, as well as in The
Star Tribune. She was interviewed at Examiner.com May 13 and at KFAI May 19. She gave multiple readings during the AWP conference April
9-11 in Minneapolis, as well as a panel presentation on "Flat Lands and
Open Waters: Reading Hybridity into the Midwest." She also read at Common Good
Books April 14, Magers & Quinn April 24, Open Book May 8, and SubText
Bookstore May 13. Finally, she gave the presentation "Memoir and
Memory" to the local chapter of the American Association for
Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work on April 19. Read an interview with her.
Charles Sugnet (Emeritus) retired at the end of spring semester
after 45 years of service. Read an interview with him.
Kim Todd's essay "Curious" has been selected
for Best American Science and Nature Writing 2015, and she was interviewed about Maria Sibylla Merian on National Public Radio's Science Friday.
