English Department Newsletter, Spring 2008

Faculty News
Tech/Ped corner

   Faculty News

 

SUZANNE BLUM-MALLEY 

Suzanne will be presenting a paper at the International Writing Research Across Borders conference, Feb 21-24, in Santa Barbara, CA. Says Suzanne, “John Ruiters, our Sharing Cultures colleague from Stellenbosch University -  South Africa, and I will share our perspectives on  ‘Intellectual and technological hospitality in an online, international, collaborative teaching and research project.’ "

Suzanne is also presenting ‘Reflexivity, Representation, and Responsibility in Ethnographic Writing’ at CCCC's in New Orleans in early April, on a panel examining ‘The Ethics of Writing Realities.’"

ARIELLE BYWATER

Arielle writes, “My co-edited anthology, with Rachel Zucker, WOMEN POETS ON MENTORSHIP: EFFORTS AND AFFECTIONS, will be out from the University of Iowa press later this spring. And a selection from a manuscript-in-progress, Home/Birth: a Lyric Essay, co-written with Rachel, is forthcoming in the literary magazine /nor.  Rachel and I will be reading from it at Prairie Lights in Iowa City in April, and these readings are broadcast on the radio as part of the Live from Prairie Lights series, and can be heard on the web (I think).

I have also just heard that a German press, Luxbooks, is planning to publish a volume of my selected work in translation.”

 

PETER CHRISTENSEN

Peter writes, “The translation of Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" which Yasen Peyankov and I did for the European Repertory Company several years ago is being revived later this year by the TUTA Theatre Chicago.  The run will be from March 13 to April 13.  It won't mean any money for us, but even so it's pleasant to have it happen.”

 
GARNETT KILBERG-COHEN

Garnet writes, “My paper on the role of the linked story in the short story genre has been accepted for the International Short Story Conference in Cork, Ireland, in June 2008. Also, I was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.”

 

SAMUEL PARK

Sam and the English department received a grant from the Multicultural Affairs Office to put together a program geared toward recruiting and retaining minority students. Sam worked with Sheila Baldwin on the proposal.

 

PEGEEN REICHERT POWELL

Pegeen will be presenting at the Conference on College Composition and Communication in New Orleans in April. Her panel is about retention, and her talk is titled “Access to What? Complicating a Composition Commonplace.”

BRENDAN RILEY

Brendan gave two presentations at the Midwest Popular Culture Association meeting in Kansas City last October.  His talks were titled “All Your Base Are Numa Numa Star Wars Kids: Viral Media and Distributed Thinking” and “Operating Under Different Rules: Automatic Kafka's Experiment in Critical Comics”.  

JONN SALOVAARA

Lecturer Jonn Salovaara presented an introduction through sculpting and writing to the 2005 BBC book and DVD, "How Art made the World," to seventeen selective enrollment teachers from Chicago public high schools, at their professional development day on January 25, 2008 at King High School. He will present "The Ethnographic Approach to First-Year Writing" at the annual meeting of the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters, on March 7 at Western Michigan University.

 

TONY TRIGILIO

Tony Trigilio's new book, VISIONS AND DIVISIONS: AMERICAN IMMIGRATION LITERATURE, 1870-1930 (an anthology co-edited with Tim Prchal), was published in February by Rutgers University Press.

He published poems this fall in Cream City Review and Pebble Lake Review. The latter poem, "Robert Oswald," is one of the featured audio selections on the magazine's web site (http://www.pebblelakereview.com/poetry/RobertOswald.htm).

Tony was added in January to Anny Ballardini's extensive Poet's Corner web site (http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content).

His review of Mark Yakich's poetry collection, The Making of Collateral Beauty, was published in Milk magazine, Vol. 9 (http://www.milkmag.org/poetryvolume9.html). 

Between fall and spring semesters, he was interviewed by novelist Greg Herriges for a documentary film on T.C. Boyle's short story "Chicxulub."

In December, Tony presented a paper at the MLA Conference titled, "Allen Ginsberg's 1966 United States Senate Testimony: Language, Confession, and the Limit of Romanticism."

Tony's recent book, ALLEN GINSBERG’S BUDDHIST POETICS, was the featured book reviewed in the Winter 2007 issue of Buddhadharma, where it was described as a "pioneering" study of the poet's work.

DAVID TRINIDAD

An interview and two poems appear in the Poetry Foundation’s online journal.

Poems appear in the new issues of Painted Bride Quarterly and Electronic Poetry Review.

Says David, “My poem ‘Movin’ With Nancy’ appears in an anthology of Frank Sinatra Poems: Sinatra . . . but buddy, I’m a kind of poem, edited by Gilbert L. Gigliotti (Entasis Press).  I was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Since my book THE LATE SHOW came out, I’ve given readings in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, and will be reading in Miami next month.  My book’s been reviewed in Publisher’s Weekly, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times (and selected as an Editors’ Choice the following week), The Gay & Lesbian Review, Time Out Chicago, Rattle, St. Mark’s Poetry Project Newsletter, and Lambda Book Report.

On February 29th, I will be the keynote speaker at a conference at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.  The conference is called ‘Talking Trash: Abandoned, Disappeared, Devalued.’  I’ve been asked to speak about Jacqueline Susann and Valley of the Dolls, my relationship to the novel and how it’s informed my own writing, and my experience as the Susann archivist in the ‘90s.”

TONY DEL VALLE

Tony presented two papers at the Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities in January. One was on a soon to be published article entitled, “Subversive Acts: Crossing Interior Borderlands,” the other was entitled “Popular U.S. Latino and Latina Music.”

Compiled by Samuel Park