April 2020, No. 1

Thursday, April 9, 2020

Dear Colleagues,

For this April Missive, I am starting with the Kudos first. As you will see, there is much good news to share, and I think we could all use a big dose of that.  Announcements follow, so please make sure you read to the end.  April is becoming a busy month and the end of the semester is not far behind. Thank you for your continued hard work and for your generosity in working with students and with each other during this challenging time. I am happy to report that classes, advising, registration, recruiting of students for undergraduate and graduate programs, and general departmental functioning continue to go smoothly.  Without a doubt, we have the best faculty and staff anywhere, and it is such a privilege for me to work with each of you.  Thank you for all that you are doing week after week. 

KUDOS

Three of our graduate students have been accepted in Ph.D. programs with full funding: Jordan Costanza (literature) will be attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Paul Hunter (technical/professional writing) will be attending Purdue University, and Sophie Yates (literature) will be attending the University of British Columbia. 

JuliAnna Avila has been offered an advance contract from Brill/Sense for her edited volume, Critical Digital Literacies: Boundary-Crossing Practices. This will include a chapter whose first author is undergraduate major/Honors student and soon-to-be M.A. student Amy Crew.  Amy will be first author and JuliAnna will be second.

JuliAnna Avila and Meghan Barnes co-edited a special issue of English Teaching: Practice and Critique. The issue has just been published and is titled Critical Literacies in Community Contexts. You can access it here: https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/1175-8708/vol/19/iss/1

Meghan Barnes published a co-authored article titled “The Importance of the ‘Comfort Zone’ in Preservice Teachers’ Evaluation of Video Analysis Sessions as a Tool for Enhanced Reflection” in Teacher Education Quarterly.

Dina Massachi created an online reading of L. Frank Baum’s Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Each chapter is read by a different person with a connection to Oz, including scholar Sally Roesch Wagner, author Gregory Maguire, and celebrity Shanice Williams. This project is currently exhibited on Facebook and YouTube by the International Wizard of Oz Club and on the Oz Museum’s website (https://ozmuseum.com/blogs/news/a-daily-dose-of-oz). The project will be used by the Gage Foundation in May to celebrate L. Frank Baum’s birthday. 

Here is a link to chapter one: Gita Morena reads chapter one of Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Juan Meneses recently published a blog post on the University of Minnesota Press website titled “Reading Closely but Carefully: Literature, The ‘Real’ World, and The Political Imagination.” You can access the post here: https://uminnpressblog.com/2020/03/30/reading-closely-but-carefully-literature-the-real-world-and-the-political-imagination/

Ralf Thiede was scheduled to present a paper titled “An Analysis of Michael Montgomery’s How Come Collection” at the Southeastern Conference on Linguistics (SECOL) at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi. Ralf is the president of SECOL.

Lara Vetter has signed an advance contract with the University Press of Florida for a scholarly edition of H.D.’s short fiction entitled The Moment, and Other Stories.