March 2021, No.2
Thursday, March 18, 2021
Dear Colleagues,
It was good to see everyone at the English Department meeting last Friday. Thank you for attending and for all the hard work you do on behalf of the department and our students.
I’ve provided a few reminders at the end of this email. But first, I’d like to start with recent good news about faculty and student accomplishments.
KUDOS
Paula Connolly published an essay titled”Counterpointing the Cozy: Louise Penny’s Three Pines” in Reading the Cozy Mystery: Critical Essays on an Underappreciated Subgenre.
Katie Hogan presented a paper titled “Beyond the Urban/Rural Divide in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home” as part of a 2021 NeMLA conference panel titled “Beyond This Town Lies a Life Much Sadder: Thinking Queer Rural Resistance.”
Janaka Lewis has been selected as the English Department’s nominee for the Shaw Humanities Award for 2021.
Paula Martinac gave a reading from her novel Testimony and participated on a panel called “There’s No Place Like Home” at the 18th annual Saints + Sinners Literary Festival, which is part of the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival. Recordings for both online festivals are available at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5uC12nsZ7C6xPB6Xgq-Thw.
Kirk Melnikoff signed a contract with Manchester University Press for the book Playbook Wills, 1529-1690. His coeditors are Aaron Pratt and Breanne Weber. The book is scheduled to be published in 2022 or 2023.
Nathan Nicolau, an M.A. students in creative writing, has just published his story “Who Isn’t Jesus in Texas?” in Unstamatic: A Micro Lit Magazine https://www.unstamatic.info/who-isnt-jesus-in-texas. He also has two forthcoming publications: his flash fiction “Branding” will be in the South Florida Poetry Journal, and his poem “Mindfulness” will appear in the North Carolina Bards Anthology.
Ralf Thiede presented a paper titled “Linguistic Skill and German Heritage in Dr. Seuss’s Children’s Books”at the Southeastern Association of Cultural Studies Conference.
Aaron Toscano presented a paper titled “Appealing to the Base: Rhetorical Strategies for Entrenched Constituencies at the Southeastern Association of Cultural Studies Conference. He also presented a paper titled ““Her Qualified Right: The Rhetoric of Patriarchy and Women’s Reproductive Freedom”at the Southeastern Women’s Studies Association Conference.
Cody Ward, an M.A. student in literature, was awarded a $1200 research travel award from Texas State University, where he will be working with the Cormac McCarthy papers.
Reminders
March 19 (tomorrow)–Book Orders Due
March 24–Speaker Event with Luisa Rebull, “The University in the Infrared: Spitzer’s Final Voyage” (Alan Rauch, organizer)
March 25–Speaker Event with Greg Fortner, “Capital and Precarity, Temporality and Race: On Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West” (Juan Meneses, organizer)
March 26–English Department Zoom “Coffee Break” (11:00-12:00)
If you haven’t completed the Coache Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey, I hope you will take the time to do so. You may have to search your inbox for the unique link you were sent.
The past year has been challenging for everyone and in such diverse ways, If you need to discuss anything with me, please don’t hesitate to reach out. I want to make sure that you receive the support you need to be successful with your work. Please know I am happy to talk about “All [Matters] Great and Small” (to borrow from James Herriot).
Finally, I hope your classes are going well and that you’ve been able to secure at least your first dose of the vaccine. Things are improving each week, it seems. We’ll have much to celebrate when we can safely return to campus.
Best always and take care,
Paula