English Department Electronic Newsletter
Volume 7, Issue 1
October 2007
Welcome to the Fall 2007 semester at Northern Michigan University! Whether you are a first time student or returning for your final Marquette fall, I hope that you are enjoying a rewarding and successful start to the school year.
This newsletter is based on activities by the English department and its members. Please send me any professional or educational accomplishments or announcements that you would like to see in the next edition of EDEN, and we will share them with the rest of the department. Enjoy the fall weather!
Rachel Hovel
EDEN Editor
Someone Said It:
To me, the greatest
pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music the words
make. ~Truman Capote
Announcements:
eThe
Lois and Willard Cohodas Literary Prize
This prize was established by Rabbi Samuel and Lynn Stahl and Nancy and Paul Oberman, in honor of the 65th wedding anniversary of their parents, Lois and Willard Cohodas. The goal of the competition is to provoke serious thought about one or more of the following topics:
--Enhancing religious, racial and cultural understanding
--Eliminating hatred and racism
--Promoting awareness of the Holocaust
Awards: First Place: $500 Second Place: $250 Third Place: $100
Eligibility: The contest is open to all NMU undergraduates.
Deadline: January 25, 2008. The winning entries will be announced in April 2008. Entry forms are available in the English Department office, Gries 228.
Guidelines:
--This is a prose non-fiction contest. Entries should be approximately 1,500-2,500 words. The winning entries each year will be posted, with permission, on the English Department’s web site and perhaps in the Marquette Monthly as well.
-- The judges are looking for well-written, well-developed, deeply thoughtful essays relevant to the one of the topics below (these topics will change each year). The winning essays should have a strong, ethically informed thesis. Entrants may use correctly documented research, though they are not required to do so; essays with research must be much more than mere reports. The research should be marshaled to support the author’s original thesis.
The Topics for 2007-08:
--What can you as students do to
combat and prevent prejudice, discrimination, and violence against anyone who
is different in our world today?
--Write an essay about someone you
know or have read about who is a model of moral character, conviction, and
courage—someone who heroically stood up against injustice.
--Examine a few instances of the
role of religion in fostering tolerance and/or intolerance in the world today.
eThe English Department is pleased to announce the establishment of an annual undergraduate fiction award in honor of John M. VandeZande, an esteemed former professor at NMU who died in 2006. The first competition will take place during the 2007-08 academic year, with the winner announced in April 2008. The prize amount is $200. For more details, check out the Awards section on the English department web site at http://www.nmu.edu/english/awards.htm.
eProfessor John Smolens will be teaching a new course winter semester 2008, entitled: “Genres in Writing: Travel Writing (EN 410/505).” This course, which is available to undergraduates and graduate students, will focus on the Italian culture and include an excursion to Italy during Spring Break 2008. For specific information regarding the itinerary and the cost of this excursion, please contact Professor Smolens
eThe North Wind, Northern Michigan University's student newspaper, is always in search of good writers. While the pay is modest, the opportunity to be published is extremely valuable, especially for young writers. Interested? Contact North Wind faculty adviser Cate Terwilliger (cterwill@nmu.edu) or the paper's editor, Curt Kemp (editor@thenorthwind.org).
Upcoming Events:
e On November 1, 2007, Bulgarian artist Stoyan Tchoukanov (Tchouki) and Beverly Matherne will celebrate poetry by Stanley Kunitz at Peter White Library’s art gallery. Tchouki did the lithographs for The Artist / l’Artiste, a portfolio edition of Kunitz’s work, and Beverly, with Nicole J. M. Kennedy, translated the poems into French. Beverly will read in English and French, and Tchouki will be on hand to answer questions about his work. The portfolio was released in 2006 at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, during a memorial service for Kunitz, who died at age 100.
New English Department Faculty and Staff:
eAnthony
Adah, Instructor of English, is replacing Jaspal Singh
this year while she is on sabbatical. He
has just completed his Ph.D. at the Graduate Drama Centre, University of
Toronto. His dissertation concentrates on body and identity in Aboriginal cinemas
from Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. His teaching and research interests
are comparative postcolonial cinemas and literatures. He has taught world
literatures and media arts at the college level in Nigeria, South Africa, Papua
New Guinea, and Canada. An accomplished actor/director for the
stage, Anthony has also published articles on postcolonial drama and film.
eAssistant
Professor Rebecca Johns’s first novel, Icebergs,
was a finalist for the 2007 PEN/Hemingway Award. She received her MFA from the
Iowa Writers’ Workshop and her undergraduate degrees from the University of
Missouri. She has been an editor at Highlights for Children and Woman’s
Day magazines and a copywriter at Penguin Putnam. Her writing has been
widely published in such magazines as Brides, Chicago Tribune, Cosmopolitan,
Fitness, LIFE, Mademoiselle, Self and Seventeen, and she is
currently at work on a second novel and a book of short stories.
eJamie Logsdon Kuehnl, Instructor of English, earned her Bachelor’s Degree in English/Native American Studies from Northern Michigan University in 2002, and her Master’s Degree in Literature from NMU in 2004. Her main areas of emphasis throughout her graduate studies have been in postcolonial and Native American Literatures. Currently, Jamie is a doctoral student of Women’s Literature and Spirituality from the California Institute of Integral Studies (C.I.I.S.) in San Francisco, where her focus is the sacred dimensions of ancient oral and written traditions. She has presented research at several national academic conferences and is set to be published this year. Jamie’s personal interests revolve around her two children: Jessee David and Jasmine Victoria, and her academic interests include archetypal mythology, eco-feminism, and comparative literature.
eElizabeth A. Monske, Assistant Professor of English, holds a Ph.D. in English with a specialization in Rhetoric and Writing and cognate in Technical Communication from Bowling Green State University. For three years she taught technical writing courses for Louisiana Tech University and acted as Technical Writing Coordinator. With research interests in on-line education and faculty training, she has published in Computers and Composition and the Journal of Educational Technology and Society. Dr. Monske has also presented and given workshops on various aspects of computers and composition and technical communication, i.e. digital identity, eportfolios, and pedagogy at conferences and faculty seminars.
eBronwyn Mills,
Assistant Professor of English, received her doctorate in Comparative
Literature from New York University in New York City, and comes to NMU from an
academic appointment in Istanbul, Turkey. At NYU, she specialized in Caribbean
and African Diasporic Literatures and Performance and
wrote her dissertation, Maps, Cosmograms, and the Caribbean Imagination, under the
direction of Kamau Brathwaite
and Ngugi wa
Thiong'o. Bronwyn's Master of Fine Arts degree was
awarded in poetry under James Tate; and she is current revising a novel, Beastly, for publication
in London. Her chapter on Simone de Beauvoir, "Second Sex; 'Third World'
Female; Simone de Beauvoir and the Postcolonial Woman," has been
translated into Turkish and will appear in the forthcoming book about Beauvoir
edited by Dr. Gonul Bakay. Bronwyn writes regularly for Talisman, A Journal
of Contemporary Poetry and Poetics in New York City. Her latest article, a review article of
Guthrie's Race Music, will be in The Journal of American Studies in Turkey's
forthcoming issue. She has been Senior Editor for Frigate, an online literary journal coming out of New York City and
she has also published work on the work of Eduardo Galeano,
on the Mexican American war (La Guerra Defensa), and
writers in exile. For many years she was a dance and drama critic for a New England arts weekly.
eDavid Wood, Assistant Professor of English, is a specialist in English Renaissance literature, with particular emphasis on the sixteenth century. He completed his Ph.D. in 2004 at Purdue University, and earned his M.A. and B.A. degrees from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and Skidmore College, respectively. His book manuscript, derived from his dissertation, is tentatively entitled "Very Now: Timing the Subject in English Renaissance Literature," and he has published related essays on Shakespeare, Sidney, and the Italian baroque painter, Caravaggio. He comes to Northern after three years at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, where the English Department Honor Society granted him its Most Enthusiastic Professor and Best Open Door Policy awards. David and his wife, Vicki, along with children Madeleine and Henry, are happily settling into life in Marquette with their dog, Shep.
eLori Rintala is the new Principal Secretary in the English Department. She has been with the university for 12 years and with the department as Senior Secretary for five. Lori lives in Marquette with her husband and two teenage boys. She enjoys being outdoors and gardening when she is not at the office.
eAngela Zorza is the new Senior Secretary in the English Department. She is originally from Canton, Minnesota, and moved to the Upper Peninsula to attend NMU, from which she graduated in 2001. She started working at NMU in June of 2006 and has been in the English Department since July 2007. She lives in Marquette with her three-year-old son and one-year-old daughter and enjoys spending her free time with them.
Faculty Accomplishments:
e Stephen Burn’s essay "The Collapse of Everything: William Gaddis and the Encyclopedic Novel" appeared in Paper Empire: William Gaddis and the World System. Eds. Joseph Tabbi and Rone Shavers. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 2007. He also had a review of three David Markson novels appear in the Times Literary Supplement, and he was appointed to the editorial board of the electronic book review.
eKatie Hanson, Associate Professor and
Editor-in-Chief of Passages North, has recently been awarded The Editors Prize
in Nonfiction at the Florida Review.
Excerpts from her memoir There's a
Child Living in This House will be published in the review this fall. She was invited to be a contributor in the
Random House anthology, Naming the World:
And Other Exercises for the Creative Writer, out
in January 2008. Her fiction is
forthcoming in the Chattahoochie Review and the South Carolina Review.
eAmber Kinonen and Adam Cocco completed the 2007 Summer
Institute of the Upper Peninsula Writing Project during this summer. They are now recognized as Teacher
Consultants of the National Writing Project.
eBeverly Matherne was invited to read free-verse poetry and perform blues poetry at the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea, Wales, and at the Boat House, in Laugharne, where Thomas wrote his best work, including “Fern Hill.” The events, organized by Welsh poet Peter Thabit Jones and Seventh Quarry Magazine, were sponsored by the Dylan Thomas Foundation.
Beverly also has three poems in French Connections: A Gathering of Franco-American Poets, from Louisiana Literature Press. Among the 32 poets in the anthology are Mark Strand and Bin Ramke. Did you know that Mark’s first language was French and that Bin is half Cajun?
eThis
summer Kia Jane Richmond was one of
one hundred national educators to attend a leadership and policy summit
sponsored by the Conference on English Education "Shaping English
Education in the 21st Century." She
also has a book chapter included in Closing the Gap: English Educators
Address the Tensions Between Teacher Preparation and
Teaching Writing in Secondary Schools (Information Age Publishing, 2007).
Dr. Richmond is the recipient of a nearly $6000 grant to connect her English
110 (Good Books) class to youth at Teaching Family Homes. This Brighter Futures
grant, a part of the Investing in College Futures: Learn and Serve Grant Program, will invite NMU students to write reviews of a
variety of books; copies of the books will be donated to Teaching Family Homes.
During a culminating activity, TFH youth and NMU students will discuss the
books, share experiences with reading, and talk about college life.
Richmond's newest publication is a co-authored essay in a
special issue of The Writing Instructor (September 2007). The article, "Composition
Studies/English Education Connections" was written with English Education
professors from CMU, EMU, and WMU. Http://www.writinginstructor.com/cseeconnections
(9/20/07).
Lastly, Dr. Richmond was recently named new editor (with Doug Baker) of MCTE's Language
Arts Journal of Michigan. The Fall 2007 issue of LAJM
will be distributed before the October MCTE annual convention, at which
Richmond and Baker will host a panel for interested writers.
eJohn Smolens's article on
writing historical fiction ("Build a Bridge to the Past") appeared in
the August issue of The Writer.
e Robert Whalen's 2002 monograph, The Poetry of Immanence, has been selected by University of Toronto Press for publication in a digital format. The 2007 Peter White Scholar, Whalen is working on a critical documentary edition of George Herbert's English verse, under contract with University of Virginia Press. He also has an article forthcoming in Festschrift for Ian Lancashire: New Paths for Computing Humanists (U of Toronto P).
News of Former Students:
William Bradley is now an Assistant Professor at Florida Atlantic University. After receiving his M.A. in English from NNU, he earned his Ph.D. at the University of Missouri.
Todd Dodson (M.F.A.) is now an Assistant Professor at Kutztown State University in Pennsylvania.
Phil Dansdill (M.F.A.) is now an Assistant Professor of English at Lake Superior State University.
Jason Redmon (M.A.) is now teaching at Elizabethtown Community College.
Leo Huisman (M.A.) is finishing up his Ph.D. at Ball State University while working as the Assistant to the Director of the Writing Program.
Daniel Lawson (M.A.) is starting a Ph.D. in English at Virginia Tech University.
Rick Hunter (M.A.) is finishing up his Ph.D. in Rhetoric at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Rehema Clarken (M.A.) has just begun work in the graduate program in technical writing at Michigan Technological University.
Heidi Stevenson (M.A., and currently an adjunct at NMU) is in the very last stages of her Ph.D. in composition at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
Abigail Keller (M.A.) is in her first year of the M.F.A. in creative writing program at the University of Montana.
Marco Dominguez (M.A.) is completing his Ph.D. at Texas Tech University.
Eric Smith (M.A.) is in his first year of the M.F.A. program in creative writing at University of Florida.
Elizabeth Raisanen (B.A.) is working on her Ph.D. in English at UCLA.
Secondary English teachers who got jobs during the last year:
Margaret (Eppinga)
Fierstine - Marquette Senior High School,
Michigan
Scott Shepeck
- Escanaba High School, Michigan
Jessica (Moniz) Flood - Irmo Middle School, South Carolina
Kelly Ward - Armada High School,
Michigan
Lucinda Feller - Beulah High School,
Alabama
Nora Taylor - North Star Academy,
Marquette, Michigan
Catherine Yezak
- North Star Academy, Marquette, Michigan
Cason Harris - Lake Placid High
School, Florida
Annie Sutter - Chesterfield Middle
School, Virginia
Carly Koivisto -
Anderson is now in management for Ann Taylor.
Kim Parlato (M.A.) is now teaching at Bothwell Middle School in Marquette.
If you have news of other recent graduates, please let us know!
Feedback:
*What did you
think of this issue of EDEN?
*What do you want
to see in the next issue?
*Email rhovel@nmu.edu
with any comments, questions or concerns.
Faculty and students are asked to
send announcements of courses and events, as well as news of your
accomplishments. Undergraduate and graduate
students are also encouraged to submit poems for possible publication.
Thank you!
Rachel Hovel
EDEN Editor