Newspaper Internships!

An opportunity to gain professional experience by working for our human-interest oriented group of newspapers. The Long Island Jewish World/Manhattan Jewish Sentinel/Rockland Jewish Tribune group has immediate openings for student interns who are aspiring editors and/or reporters. Based in the Far Rockaway/Five Towns area, our newspapers have covered Long Island and the metropolitan New York area for 30 years.

     Practically speaking, our Interns will work for five hours or more per week and will benefit from the direct supervision of our professional staff. Interns will cover real stories, published with their bylines. As weekly publications our emphasis is on analysis and news features, including politics, culture, religion and profiles of people who make a difference. We are offering a small stipend.

      While our newspapers are geared toward Jewish audiences, it is not necessary for interns to be Jewish. However, an interest in Jewish affairs and a willingness to learn are important.  Our office is conveniently located two blocks from the A train, making us accessible by public transit from anywhere in New York City, as well as two blocks from the LIRR Far Rockaway station.

      We have lots of story ideas waiting for ambitious interns to begin immediately. Please encourage your students to send a resume and, if applicable, a writing sample to lijewworld@aol.com, with “Intern” in the subject.

      We look forward to hearing from your students.  If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me directly.

Best regards,

Sharyn Perlman, Editor

Long Island Jewish World

1525 Central Avenue

Far Rockaway, NY  11691

516.594.4000

Call for Papers - MCLLM

Midwestern Conference on Literature, Language, and Media
“The Power of Humanities”
April 1-2, 2011
Department of English, Northern Illinois University
Keynote Speaker: Emily Auerbach, professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

The Department of English at Northern Illinois University is proud to announce the 19th annual Midwestern Conference on Literature, Language, and Media (MCLLM) to be held April 1-2, 2011 on our campus in DeKalb, Illinois.

This year’s theme is The Power of the Humanities. We encourage research examining the influences of language and literature that have significantly altered the humanities and people’s lives. We invite proposals for fifteen-minute papers from scholars at all stages of their career. Individual or panel (three to four people) proposals are welcome.

Topics related to this year’s theme may include, but are not limited to:
- The construction of gender and ethnicity,
- Writing across the curriculum,
- The influence of individual authors or works on the discipline and/or canon,
- The power of literature to change lives,
- Using language and literature to exercise power,
- Literature and its influence on people from underprivileged areas,
- Efforts in the humanities to enact social and political change,
- The effects of college programs in any discipline designed to encourage the success of underprivileged students.

In previous years, MCLLM has hosted professors, graduate students, and independent scholars from all over the United States and around the globe. Last year, we had the honor of hosting George Lakoff, professor of Linguistics at UC Berkeley, as the keynote speaker.

Our keynote speaker this year is Emily Auerbach, professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, author of Maestros, Dilettantes, and Philistines (1989) and Searching for Jane Austen (2004); Director of the UW Odyssey Project; and Project Director of the “Courage to Write” radio series.

Proposals should be submitted electronically as attachments to mcllm@niu.edu<mailto:mcllm@niu.edu> by January 20, 2011. Abstracts should not exceed 500 words and should include a cover page with your name, affiliation, mailing address, and e-mail address.

For additional information, please e-mail us or visit our website:
 http://www.engl.niu.edu/mcllm/index.html.

New York American Studies Association Conference this Saturday

St. John's is hosting this year's New York American Studies Association's annual conference this coming Saturday, December 4.  We're hoping to find an interested grad student or three to help with logistics, registration, etc, as well as seeing up-close what an academic conference looks like.

Please contact Dr. Robert Fanuzzi, fanuzzr@stjohns.edu, to volunteer or for more information.

Undergraduate Conference Opportunity!!

Dear Colleagues,

English Studies at Large
An Undergraduate Conference at Illinois State University Sponsored by the English Department and Sigma Tau Delta

Tales from the Conference.

Regina Corallo, DA student in the department and an adjunct instructor, was kind enough to share her experience at the Annual Medieval Guild Conference earlier this fall.  Enjoy!

Last month I was invited to participate in the 21^st Annual Medieval Guild Conference at Columbia University entitled What is better than gold? Economies and Values in the Middle Ages. I presented a paper that I had written the prior semester for a medieval seminar with Dr. Nicole Rice.  I am not a medievalist although I have taken several graduate and undergraduate courses on medieval studies, and have thoroughly enjoyed working on a variety of subjects such as hagiography and medieval drama. I’m writing about this experience for two reasons.  First, I wanted to discuss the experience of participating in an academic conference and share ideas about the process and its benefits.  Second, similar to what conferences aim for, I wanted to share my work with the readers of this blog in the hopes of encouraging other graduate and undergraduate students to talk about the type of work they are doing, and what they are passionate about.    

Theology Core course for English Majors:

Via Dr. Lubey, here's a link to a sample syllabus for Dr. Chris Denny's Theology 3270: Theology and Literature, a course that satisfies the 3000-level Theology requirement for the college core, and might be especially interesting for English majors. 

Here's the course's catalog list for spring 2011. 

THE 3270

THEOLOGY IN LITERATURE

0

3

14860

46

LEC

W

1030-1320

Christopher Denny PREREQ-THE 1000C

Throne of Blood

I read Christopher Isherwood’s review in the Times after taking my class to see the stage-play of “Throne of Blood” at BAM last Thursday.   What a deeply lazy, inattentive review.  I love Kurosawa’s film too, and of course the play couldn’t work with Mifune’s “bat-wing eyebrows,” but surely we can say something about the play itself, rather than wishing we were at home with our Critereon Colletion edition of Kurosawa?
There can be something liberating about foreign language films of Shakespeare, which don’t run the risk of suffocating beneath the hyper-famous soliloquies or too-familiar performances.  What my students saw in this play, which retranslates the action and the words back into English, with a few lines in Japanese for flavor, is that it helped make the narrative strange again, in some ways even stranger than the all-Japanese film with subtitles.   It asks us what’s left of Shakespeare when the words all change.
As Isherwood offhandedly notes, there were a couple of Shakespearean lines in the play.  Asaji, the Lady Macbeth character, said that after they murder the king and assume the throne, “all’s well that ends well.”  Another character — Macbeth, I think? — insists that he will have his “pound of flesh.”  These  may be laugh lines, or reminders of the strangeness of the semi-Shakespearean performance.  But I also think they connect to a specific genre in Shakespeare, the “problem comedy” or unresolvable comedy, in which not even the comic miracle of marriage can fully salvage the forces that have erupted onto the stage.  That’s true of The Merchant of Venice (as another Times review recently noted) and also of All’s Well. One insight of this flawed but intriguing production of “Throne of Blood” was to remind the audience that it’s true of Macbeth also.

CFP The Rhetoric of Violence- The Renaissance Society of America

Cahiers n°5 - The Rhetoric of Violence in the Early Modern Era

We invite submissions for the 2011 issue of Cahiers Shakespeare en devenir-Shakespearean Afterlives. These might include essays (6000-7000 words including notes) for the issue proper, and review-essays (2-3000 words) or reviews of plays or exhibitions (1000-1500 words) for the issue’s supplement L’Oeil du spectateur. 

Professor Lawrence Joseph - Poetry Reading

Professor Lawrence Joseph, the Reverend Joseph T. Tinnelly, C.M., Professor of Law at St. John's and author of five books of poems, will be reading selections from his work and discussing his writing in Dr. Lowney's Contemporary Poetry class.

The reading will be this Friday, 11/19 from 10:30-11:50 a.m. in Marillac 132.  Please contact Dr. Lowney if you're interested in attending so he can make sure there are enough seats!

Reminder - M.A. Meeting on Tuesday!

Don't forget the informational meeting for M.A. Portfolio requirements is scheduled for this Tuesday, November 16 at 4:00 p.m. in the English Department Lounge.  Although this meeting is geared specifically towards M.A. students, all are welcome to attend for more information.

Science and Magic Grad Conference at Princeton (April 2011)

The deadline for this CFP (at the bottom) is Jan 15, 2011.

Science and Magic: Ways of Knowing in the Renaissance

Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey

29 – 30 April 2011

Keynote Speaker: Bruce Moran, Department of History, University of
Nevada, Reno

In his Oration on the Dignity of Man, Pico della Mirandola described
two forms of magic. There was that branch of sorcery consisting
“wholly in the operations and powers of demons,” as well as a more
benign craft pertaining to none other than “the highest realization of
natural philosophy.” To many Renaissance thinkers, magic was thus at
once a legitimate field of study, as well as a potential threat to
established orthodoxies. Inspired by this influential formulation,
this interdisciplinary graduate student conference invites papers
related to diverse ways of magical and scientific knowing in the
Renaissance.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

•       Distinctions between magic, science and/or “pseudo-science” in
theory and practice.
•       Forms of scientific literature and magical artifacts; depictions or
imitations of natural phenomena.
•       The transmission of licit and illicit magic; the role of natural
philosophy and magic in education.
•       The attitudes and policies of secular and ecclesiastical authorities.
•       The early modern European witch-hunts.
•       Alchemical theory and practice.
•       The articulation and reception of prophecies.
•       The commerce of magic; the financial circumstances of men of science
or magicians.
•       Assessments of truth and falsehood; the role of charlatans.
•       Encyclopedic texts, indexing schemes and the organization of knowledge.
•       Gender and Magic.
•       Magic in the New World and beyond; extra-European influences on
Renaissance magic and science.

This conference is conducted under the auspices of the Renaissance
Studies Program at Princeton University. Interested graduate students
should submit abstracts of no more than 350 words to Scott Francis
(smfranci@princeton.edu) by January
15, 2011. All applicants will be notified by January 30, 2011. Papers
should be no longer than 20 minutes.

Reminder!!

Registration for Spring 2011 Graduate courses begins tomorrow, November 10th!

If you have not already done so, please see Gina or Lana in the English department to get your Priority Number and/or set up an appointmnet for advisement.

Senior Seminar for Spring 2011: The Humanities and Public Life

The description of this spring Distance Learning senior seminar seems to have been missing from our earlier post.  Please contact Dr. Melissa Mowry (mowrym@stjohns.edu) for more information or if you have questions.


E. 4994 (14516)

Senior Seminar—The Humanities and Public Life—Everyone, from students, to faculty, to university and college administrators, to the general public knows that US institutions of higher education are under extraordinary stress.  Costs are escalating, funding is declining, and this deadly combination is pushing all but the most elite institutions further and further down in worldwide rankings.  At the center of this disheartening turn of events is an abandonment of what some scholars have described as the “social contract” between higher education and the students/citizens we serve, a loss of what it means to imagine the “common good.”  For many of us this loss of vision correlates with a dramatic defunding of the humanities over the last forty years.  In this class, we are going to read widely across a variety of disciplines, religion, literature, philosophy, history, and politics to examine the ways in which the relationship between the humanities and higher education was conceived and then reconceived over a hundred and more years of tumultuous social change.  We will also examine the ways technology has rewritten the possibilities of that interface through a variety of programs like “Storycorps” and others.  By the end of the semester, students will have develop a proposal and rational for reenergizing the social contract between higher education and the citizens with whom we collaborate.

NYMASA Conference: DIRT!

St John's will be hosting this year's New York Metro American Studies Association (NYMASA) conference at our Manhattan campus on December 4th, 2010.  We are seeking graduate student volunteers who would be interested in working with Dr. Robert Fanuzzi in hosting the conference.  Please let Dr. Fanuzzi know if you are interested and willing to do so.

       The New York Metro American Studies Association (NYMASA) is delighted to announce our annual conference

       DIRT

       8:30am-6pm
       December 4th, 2010
       St. John's University in Lower Manhattan
       41 Murray Street

       Dirt is among the most material but also the most metaphorical and expressive of substances.  This conference will explore how people imagine, define, and employ the various concepts and realities of dirt.   What does it mean to call something dirty?  How do we understand dirt and its supposed opposite, cleanliness?  How do we explain the points at which we draw the line between clean and dirty, what we embrace and what we refuse to touch? Drawing on multiple disciplines we will uncover and foreground the (often unconscious) centrality of the metaphors and actualities of dirt to U.S. cultures, values, and lived experiences.

       Registration forms can be found at www.nymasa.org <http://www.nymasa.org/> .  Registration is $20, $10 for students/unwaged.  For more information contact nymasadirt@gmail.com.


       Sarah E. Chinn
       English Department
       Hunter College, CUNY
       695 Park Avenue
       New York, NY 10065

       (212)772-5178
       sarah.chinn@hunter.cuny.edu

Bookmarks T 11/9: Stephen Paul Miller

Come join the St. John's English Department tomorrow afternoon, 11/9, at 3 pm in the Institute for Writing Studies, to celebrate and discuss the latest book by Stephen Paul Miller, Radical Poetics and Secular Jewish Culture.  We'll be talking about how poetic creation and cultural criticism can speak to and for each other, as well as talking about how a multi-author book like this one comes into being. 

There will also be refreshments.  Hope to see you there tomorrow!

Throne of Blood next Thursday 11/11

I'm taking my Elizabethan Shakespeare students (E. 3140) to the Brooklyn Academy of Music next week to see a play with a strange relationship to Elizabethan England.  Akira Kurosawa, the great post-war Japanese film-maker, made the film "Throne of Blood" in 1957, by transposing Shakespeare's plot to medieval Japan.  It's a brilliant, stark, beautiful , haunting film, supposedly a favorite of T. S. Eliot's.

Link to IMDB entry on Throne of Blood (the film)

The stage play we'll see next week has a more recent history: it's based on the film, not directly on Shakespeare's play, and debuted last summer at the Oregon Shakespeare festival in Ashland (which is a great West-Coast Shakespeare festival).  It's traveling to Brooklyn for next weekend only.

Link to BAM entry on Throne of Blood (the play)


If anyone wants to join us, let me know & I'll see if I have an extra ticket.  Or I think there are some seats still available!

Junot Diaz at NYU

Via English major Brittni Kanhai, here's a link to a reading at NYU featuring Junot Diaz, whose work has featured in a few recent classes.  Next Thursday, Nov 11th, at 7 pm.  (My Shakespeare students will be seeing a samurai-themed Macbeth in Brooklyn that night, so won't be able to go...)

http://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2010/10/06/nyus-creative-writing-program-to-feature-pulitzer-prize-winners-junot-diaz-and-charles-wrightand-othersin-november-and-december-.html

M.A. Graduate Assistantships

The English Department has a limited number of M.A. graduate assistantships available each year.  All full-time M.A. students currently in the graduate program and incoming students are eligible to apply for this funding.  The assistantships cover tuition for full-time course work and provide a modest stipend.  Recipients are expected to work approximately 15 hours a week for the department and/or the Institute for Writing Studies.

The application deadline is March 1.  If you currently have an assistantship, you do not need to apply again. Let the English Department and Institute for Writing Studies know if you would like your assistantship renewed for next year.  For M.A. Students currently enrolled in the program, let the English Department know that would like to be considered for an assistantship prior to March 1.  Your application file will be recalled from Admissions. You may request additional letters of recommendation from English Department faculty, which should be addressed and sent directly to the English Department.

M.A. Students - Meeting November 16

There will be an informational meeting for all English M.A. students regarding the M.A. portfolio requirements on Tuesday, November 16 at 4:00 p.m. in the English Department Lounge.  M.A. students are required to submit a portfolio of selected work with an introductory essay about their progress as an English graduate student, which will be due shortly after spring break in March.  Requirements for the portfolio may be found here.

This meeting is intended for M.A. students planning to graduate next spring, but all are welcome!

Text and Event in Early Modern Europe -- Doctoral Fellowships from EU

Here's a link to a newly-funded doctoral program sponsored by the European Union.  At least 5 of what my friend Bernhard Klein at the University of Kent terms "fat fellowships" have to go to non-UK students...  Can somebody make sure John Nance reads this blog?

http://www.teemeurope.eu/index.html

Student Writing Contest from The Atlantic

Via Anne Geller, here's a link to a student writing contest sponsored by The Atlantic magazine --

http://assets.theatlantic.com/static/front/docs/studentWritingContest/2010.pdf

Community Bookshelf

Happy November!!

I know we are all very busy with projects and research and possibly even having a small dose of panic right about now, but I thought it would be fun to take a small break (very small) and talk about the books we are reading or have read before school started that others may find interesting. On the left-hand side of the page underneath "Home" you will find a link called the "The Bookshelf." We would like to hear what books you guys found thought-provoking, humorous, or maybe even nonsensical. These can be books for this semester's projects, or for pleasure (yes, I know, who has the time?!?).

Write us with the title, genre, and one or two words describing your thoughts and we will put your book on "the shelf."

Now, get back to work!