Department of English Newsletter October 2015
Upcoming Department Events
Publications & Acceptances
Wheeler Winston Dixon has published a feature article entitled "Being Elizabeth Bishop: Barbara Hammer’s New Documentary on an American Poet,” in the journal Senses of Cinema 76 (September 2015) .
Wheeler Winston Dixon has published a new book, Black and White Cinema: A Short History from Rutgers University Press. Black and White Cinema is the first study to consider the use of black-and-white as an art form in its own right, providing a comprehensive and global overview of the era when it flourished, from the 1900s to the 1960s. This short history introduces us to the masters of this art, discussing the signature styles and technical innovations of award-winning cinematographers like James Wong Howe, Gregg Toland, Freddie Francis, and Sven Nykvist.
“Dixon covers the entire history of black and white movies in one volume, and talks about the films and cinematographers who created these films, and often got little credit for their work. Fascinating and compelling, this is essential reading for anyone who loves movies.”—Robert Downey Sr., director, Putney Swope
Jaime Brunton's article “Biopolitical Masochism in Marina Abramović’s The Artist Is Present" has been accepted for publication in Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies
Yeojin Kim's book review of Walden’s Shore: Henry David Thoreau and Nineteenth-Century Science by Robert M. Thorson (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2014) is forthcoming in the Australasian Journal of Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology.
Joy Castro's book of short stories, How Winter Began, appeared on October 1 from the University of Nebraska Press.
Maria Nazos' poem "Noah's Endangered Species" is forthcoming in the anthology entitled Circe's Lament: An Anthology of Wild Women, scheduled for release in November by Accents Publishing.
Patrick T. Randolph, a new faculty member of PIESL, has four poems accepted in the 2015 Goose River Anthology (in press): Wisconsin Winter Woods, 7th Grade Crush: Modern Orpheus, Halloween in Turkish Village, and Minnesota Lighthouse Man. He also published, ELL Read-a-Thons: Feeling the Language and Performing the Written Word, in the fall edition of The CATESOL Quarterly. This is a co-authored article with Joseph I. Ruppert (Western Michigan University) and Laura Ramm (Michigan State University) that looks at how English language learners can better understand and interpret poetry and fiction through drama performances. In addition, his co-authored book with Paul McPherron, Cat Got Your Tongue?: Teaching Idioms to English Learners has been on TESOL Press’s best seller list since June.
Conferences, Readings, Workshops & Presentations
An article about Wheeler Winston Dixon's new book, Black & White Cinema: A Short History, with an interview by Peter Monaghan, entitled "Black-and-White is Dead. Long Live Black-and-White," appeared in the August 31, 2015 issue of Moving Image Archive News.
Melissa Homestead appears as a talking head in the Nebraska Education Television documentary "Yours, Willa Cather" about Cather's letters, which debuted on September 21st. Check the NET website for additional broadcast times, or you can stream the documentary on the PBS website or through the PBS app for the iPad.
The English Student Advisory Board (ESAB) works with Kelly Payne and Angela Jockers in the English Advising Office to promote the department through organized recruitment and retention events. Additionally, the ESAB members mentor first year English & Film Studies majors through the Freshmen Peer Mentoring Program.
This year’s ESAB members include:
Khoi Tran—a senior English major with a minor in Humanities in Medicine. Khoi’s passion is mentoring, and he plans to pursue a career in Student Relations and Academic Advising. He is a fitness buff and enjoys cooking healthy recipes. Khoi is also the Undergraduate English Advising intern for Fall 2015.
Katie Gurtis—a junior English and French major who enjoys studying language as it relates to literature and speech. Katie plans to pursue a career as a Literary Agent or Talent Agent. She also loves to share her passion for the arts and languages and crafts.
Mariah Reicks—a senior studying English, Spanish, and Editing & Publishing. Mariah is pursuing a career as a literary agent or as an editor at a publishing company. She is an unapologetic coffee addict, a travel enthusiast, and an avid reader.
Janette Avelar—a third-year English and Spanish major with a minor in Ethnic Studies. She likes to bike and run and when not in school, she is most likely to be found around the Haymarket or on her couch watching Harry Potter.
Lori Nevole—a sophomore English major focusing on Creative Writing with minors in Business and Digital Humanities. She is an editor for Laurus and works in the Women’s Center as a Resource Assistant.
Roz Thalken—a junior English and Film Studies major with a minor in Spanish. Roz volunteers at the Writing Project at the Malone Center where she works with elementary students on their literacy skills. She also loves to read, watch movies, and stay involved on campus.
Natalie Wibelhaus—a junior English and Global Studies major with minors in Arabic, Human Rights & Humanitarian Affairs, and National Security Studies. Natalie is interested in global literatures and is working on a UCARE project this year about Egyptian literature surrounding the Arab Uprisings with Professor Basuli Deb.
Lucy Koch—a junior English and Ethnic Studies major with minors in Business, Digital Humanities, History, and African American Studies. Lucy is a Student Ambassador for the College of Arts and Sciences and works as an office assistant at the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film.
Ellie Wilke—a junior English major and communication studies minor with a concentration in editing and publishing. She loves rock climbing and is an active member in the campus ministry CRU. Ellie will be presenting a three-month UCARE project about death, distance, sexual violation, and other traumatic triggers in Virginia Woolf’s childhood with Dr. Beverley Rilett at the European Studies Conferences in Omaha, NE on October 8-10.
Elayna Gonzalez—a senior English major and minor in Education and Latina/Latino American Studies. Elayna would like to teach English in a Spanish speaking country. She also enjoys reading and volunteering at the YMCA.
This semester, the ESAB had a successful Ice Cream Social where the freshman cohort met with their mentors and worked together to create stunning vision boards. Coming up on October 27th, the ESAB will be assisting at the department’s Freshman Advising Event during which members will meet again with the freshman cohort. Please encourage the freshman English and Film Studies majors in your classes to join us for this event.
Activities, Accolades, & Grants
Rachel Azima and Writing Center consultants Amanda Hovseth, Wyn Andrews Richards, and James A. Russell facilitated a session titled “More than a Mushroom: Strategies for Cross-Cultural Consulting in Nebraska Writing Centers” at the Nebraska Writing Centers Consortium at UNO in September.
Jaime Brunton was invited to read from her poetry chapbook The Future Is a Faint Song at the Pygmalion Music, Literature, & Art Festival in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, on September 23.
In June, Tom Lynch attended the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) conference in Moscow, Idaho, where he co-organized a pre-conference workshop with Paul Lindholdt titled "Bioregionalism: Theory, Practice, Pedagogy." You can read a summary of the workshop materials and presentations on his Braided Channels blog. In September Tom attended the ASLE-United Kingdom and Ireland conference in Cambridge, England, where he presented a paper titled "Extending the Senses: Loren Eiseley's 'Flow of the River' and the Platte Basin Timelapse Project.
Three of Beverley Rilett’s undergraduate research assistants (UCARE grant recipients) will be presenting papers on October 9-10, 2015 at the 40th annual European Studies Conference, hosted by the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Ellie Feis will present “Victorian Married Women's Rights, Feminism, and George Eliot's Middlemarch;” Brittany Bell will present “Silence=Death: Gender Rights, Wuthering Heights, and the Outspoken Emily Brontë;” and Elliot Wilke will present “Distance, Death, Sexual Violation, and other Traumatic Triggers in Virginia Woolf’s Childhood.” Rilett will chair two panels at this year’s European Studies Conference: Perspectives on Shakespeare and British Feminist History Revisited.
The European Studies Conference (ESC), an interdisciplinary and international gathering of scholars, has facilitated an active exchange of ideas, insights and reflections for forty years. We are now looking forward to another stimulating and productive series of sessions that will focus upon multifaceted perspectives on the present, past and future of the European continent. This conference has been providing professionalization opportunities for researchers at all levels of their scholarship, and we are particularly appreciative that organizer Dr. Tatyana Novikov has extended this welcome to Rilett’s UCARE students; at last year’s conference, ESC 2014, Hailey Hemenway and Emily Grammes presented papers co-authored with Rilett.
Being part of the UCARE program itself is an honor for an undergraduate. Student applicants are selected through a competitive process, and granted either a 9-month (Feis and Bell) or a 3-month summer stipend (Wilke) to carry out a research project of their choice in collaboration with a faculty mentor of their choice. Being further selected to present their research at the European Studies Conference is an outstanding accomplishment. If you happen to see Ellie Feis, Brittany Bell, and Elliot Wilke, be sure to congratulate them.
Have news or noteworthy happenings to share?
The Department of English encourages our faculty and current students to submit stories about their activities and publications of note by filling out the Department Newsletter Submission Form.