The Infamous Master's Portfolio

I'm starting to take a look down the semester, thinking about putting together my Master's Portfolio, and I realized this would be a great post to share. I know I'm not alone in needing to do my homework to get this portfolio turned in on time and what is required to go into it. So, my friends, I give you a handy-dandy source on the greatest hits of the Master's Portfolio requirements.

What You Need:

1. A revised and expanded seminar paper (or final project) and the earlier draft of this paper, which includes your professor's comments. (So now is a good time to track down those final papers from the fall semester!)
2. Two additional seminar papers or final projects
3. A ten-page critical preface (more on this below)

How It's Evaluated:

1. Graduate level research and writing skills
2. Thoughtful response to your professor's comments on your revised essay
3. Critical awareness of your writing's value in a context outside of the classroom
4. Your portfolio is read on a Pass/Fall basis

Check out the English Department page for more information on the requirements, the evaluation process, and some advice for putting your portfolio together.

Here's a few tid-bits to get you started. First things first, you've got to pick those papers. How to choose? It's a good idea to meet with one of your professors to help you decide. Don't just choose the papers you've gotten the best grades on; look for papers that have really meant something to you. Which are the most central to your research interests?

Second, the revision process. Remember, you're only revising one of the papers in your portfolio. This revision, however, should be substantial. Start with the comments from your professor, though of course you are not limited to these. Think about your paper in a context beyond that of the class for which you wrote it. Is this a paper you would be proud to submit to a conference or a journal? Do not just fix your typos and a source or two. How does your paper engage in a professional, critical conversation?

Finally, the critical preface. This is your opportunity to evaluation your development as a graduate student and budding professional scholar. You'll need to reference the samples in your portfolio, but do not just summarize these papers. Discuss your intellectual development using the samples as reference points. The Department website offers the following questions to think about as you write:

• What intellectual advances have you made?
• What critics or critical schools do you tend to use and why?
• How has your relationship to interpretation or reading changed?
• How has your teaching changed?
• How have your writing practices changed?
• How has your sense of audience changed?

There's also a link to a sample critical preface, which you can view here.

Portfolios are due April 15, 2012. If you have questions, feel free to email Dr. Mentz or stop by during his office hours this semester.

Undergraduate Summer Research Opportunity

Here is another tidbit from In The Middle. Any undergraduates who taken classes in early modern and medieval studies, you may be particularly interested in this summer research program!

The University of Michigan's Summer Research Opportunity Program brings talented underrepresented students to Ann Arbor to work with faculty mentors on research projects during two months in the summer. Applications from rising juniors and seniors interested graduate study are welcome. The program offers housing, food, a stipend, and seminars to prepare students for graduate study in addition to research experience.

This year a number of projects in Classics and in English and French medieval and early modern studies led by Michigan faculty members (Gina Brandolino, Elaine Gazda, Peggy McCracken, Laura Miles, Cathy Sanok, Patricia Simons, Theresa Tinkle, Doug Trevor, Arthur Verhoogt) who are eager to recruit excellent students.

The program and eligibility are described here: http://www.rackham.umich.edu/prospective_students/srop/

The deadline is coming up fast:  February 13, 2012.

Questions/more information:  peggymcc@umich.edu.

Michael Camille Essay Prize

This morning In The Middle posted an announcement for the biennial Michael Camille Essay Prize. This essay competition is open to students currently in Master's or Doctoral programs as well as to early career scholars who are within 5 years of receiving their Ph.D. Essays may be submitted from any discipline.

Eileen Joy, of In The Middle, writes "The prize will be for the best short essay (4,000-6,000 words), on a variable theme, that brings the medieval and the modern into productive critical relation." The theme for this year's competition is Medievalism and the Monsters of Modernity.

For more information on the prize, please visit In The Middle's full post. The deadline for submission is June 30, 2012. The winner will be announced at the 2nd Biennial Meeting of the BABEL Working Group in September. Submissions may be sent as a Word document in Chicago format to postmedievaljournal@gmail.com.

CFP: Works In Progress

Works in Progress

An Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference

May 31, 2012
University of Cincinnati
Department of English & Comparative Literature
Cincinnati, OH

The English Department at the University of Cincinnati invites you to submit proposals for an interdisciplinary academic conference focusing on the value of sharing works in progress as a means to increase experimentation, build community, and test new ideas. Rather than soliciting finished products from participants, we seek work that shows its seams, represents thinking in action, invites revision, and resists closure. In other words, don’t hide your process; advertise it.

Changing concepts of materiality, influencing everything from mediums to social communication, have highlighted the importance of process to all forms of production. In this spirit, we encourage projects that take process seriously, that understand process—how things are made, how ideas cohere, how writing happens—as a legitimate and compelling object of study. Projects could include but aren’t limited to explorations of the academic and the technical; pedagogical, artistic and scholarly experiments and practices; and reflective, theoretical, rhetorical, creative, or critical works.

We encourage presenters to experiment with the genre of their presentations. Presenters should feel welcome to take advantage of multimodal delivery. Presentations might take the form of a PowerPoint project, a short film, an interactive discussion or workshop, some combination of these, or other possibilities.


Proposals for individual and panel presentations might address any of the following:

·               Non-linear narratives

·               Multi-author works

·               Reconsidering ownership

·               Law in the digital age

·               Piracy and plagiarism

·               Digital technology

·               Transcending conventional mediums

·               (Re)use/mediation/mix/vision

·               Mash-ups and multi-modalities

·               Text-in-progress

·               Work that is self-conscious about process

·               Restructuring spaces

·               Collaborative art

·               Questioning “the finished project”

·               Re-envisioning embodiment and materiality

·               Persona and social networking

Panel proposals should include a coversheet containing panel title, each presenter’s name, the name of a moderator, presentation titles, university affiliation, mailing address, e-mail address, phone number, requests for technology, and anticipated format of presentation (papers, multimodal, interactive, workshop, etc.); the second page should include abstracts of 250-words for each presentation (3 to 4) and a 250-word abstract for the panel as a whole.

Individual proposals should consist of two pages. On the first page, include name, presentation title, university affiliation, mailing address, e-mail address, phone number, and details of any technology you may require, and the anticipated format of presentation (paper, multimodal, interactive, etc.); the second page should contain a 250-word abstract. Please do not include identifying information on second page (abstracts).

The deadline for submission of proposals is March 30th, 2012.


Send proposals and queries to zlabekkm@mail.uc.edu.


Individual presentations should not exceed twenty minutes; panel presentations should plan for 80 minutes total (including Q&A time).

Mindful of the financial pressures we all face, there will be no fee to attend or present at this graduate conference.

Study Shakespeare at the Globe Theater in London

Here's a great opportunity to spend most of June 2012 in London, studying at the New Globe Theater on the South Bank.  It's fully funded by AIFS, including air fare, lodging, and classes.  You must have at least two years to go in your undergraduate education, so this is for first- and second-year students only.

Here's the link for more information and the application.

Anyone who's interested in this might also contact me (Dr. Mentz), and I'll help explain why this is such a great opportunity.

CFP: Thomas R. Watson Conference

Thomas R. Watson Conference on

Rhetoric and Composition

Oct. 18-20, 2012 - Louisville, KY

“ECONOMIES OF WRITING”

Organized by the University of Louisville

English department and its

Ph.D. program in Rhetoric and Composition

The ninth biennial Thomas R. Watson Conference in Rhetoric and Composition solicits proposals that examine the relations between diverse notions of “economy” and “writing” for rhetoric and composition. Avenues for exploration might include:

• Writing instruction as a site and medium for the production of racialized, sexualized bodies, desires, consciousness, emotions 
• Institutional and disciplinary economies within higher education
• Rhetorics of the economy of writing: notions of efficiency, profit, competence, clarity, precision, efficacy, etc.
• Problematics of the transnational exchange of composition expertise
• Notions of labor and management in composition research and pedagogy
• Relations of economic, cultural, social, biological, and language ecologies
• Relations between linguistic, physical, intellectual, and emotional labor
• Relations of power and authority within specific modes of writing production
• Shifts and continuities in notions of authorship, intellectual property, and the commodification of language, writing, and composition skills
• Questions of translation in economies of writing
• Dominant and alternative economies for the production and distribution of scholarship in rhetoric and composition
• Writing and the (re)production of class, professional identities

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: Mar 1, 2012

For more information, visit our website: http://louisville.edu/conference/watson

See a list of Keynote, Featured Speakers, and Moderators, and the full CFP here.

Email Min-Zhan Lu, conference director: watson@louisville.edu

GATZ at the Public Theater

This is one of those times where I am really glad to live in NYC. I just heard about this fascinating production from one of the other DA students, Laura. Thank you, Laura! This production by the Elevator Repair Service is a staging of the entire text of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. And it's not just a staged reading ... well, I supposed it is technically, but this a fully staged production. Here's the description from the Public Theater's website:

One morning in the office of a mysterious small business, an employee finds a copy of The Great Gatsby in the clutter of his desk. He starts to read it out loud and doesn’t stop. At first his coworkers hardly notice. But after a series of strange coincidences, it’s no longer clear whether he’s reading the book or the book is transforming him. Gatz is a theatrical and literary tour de force, not a retelling of the Gatsby story but an enactment of the novel itself. Over the course of 6 1/2 hours, the cast of 13 delivers Fitzgerald’s American masterpiece word for word, startlingly brought to life by a low-rent office staff in the midst of their inscrutable business operations.


Is it just me, or does this sound amazingly cool and a perfect outing? If you're as jazzed (sorry, couldn't resist) about this as I am, here are the details.

ELEVATOR REPAIR SERVICE
GATZ
Text: THE GREAT GATSBY by F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
Directed by JOHN COLLINS

March 14 - May 6, 2012

Tickets can be purchased online at the Public Theater's website, or by calling 212.967.7555. you can also find out more information on the Elevator Repair Service here. What does everyone think? Should we try to organize a group to go together?

Welcome Back for Spring 2012!

It has been great to see everyone over the last few days as we trickle in from the winter break. There are smiles, hugs, and some hilarious stories being shared across campus. Welcome back.

For some, this is the final semester before a long-awaited graduation. For others, spring 2012 marks the end of an exhausting but rewarding first semester in a graduate program. As I glance over the calendar, this semester seems like it will be awfully short, broken up by both spring and Easter breaks. I think May will be here before we know it.

But before spring, warm weather, and the end of the academic year arrives, we have a lot going on at St. John's this semester! So for your entertainment and edification, here's a little housekeeping post to keep you in the loop.

First, I'd like to give a warm welcome to Dr. Steve Mentz (a familiar face around here at the STJ English blog) who is taking over the position of Director of Graduate Studies this semester. If you have questions about your coursework, academic requirements, the upcoming Graduate conference, or Shakespeare, stop by to visit with him. You can find Dr. Mentz in his office (B40-4, basement of St. John Hall) on Tuesdays and Fridays for morning office hours (8:00 am - 10:00 am).

While we're on the subject of coursework and requirements ... don't forget that the last day to add a class is this coming Tuesday, January 24. Don't forget to turn in your forms for independent studies and directed research!

Looking down the road to further in the spring, keep in mind that the English Department hosts a Graduate Conference in April. Start percolating those ideas now for papers and panel discussions. There will be a more formal call for papers coming soon.

April is going to be a busy month! Not only do we have our own Graduate Conference, but St. John's is also hosting this year's Northeast Writing Centers Association (NEWCA) Conference April 13-15. If you are interested in helping out with hosting this conference, please drop by the Writing Center and chat with Dr. Harry Denny. I know several St. John's students have also applied to present papers at the conference. Good luck during the selection process!

Finally, I'd like to end with a little shameless plug of self-promotion. Some of you may know that in addition to my studies I am also the Artistic Director and Co-Founder of the Adirondack Shakespeare Company. This semester, I am incredibly excited to be working with Dr. Mentz in his undergraduate Shakespeare, Law, and Theater course. ADK Shakespeare is producing two full productions of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice and Measure for Measure in association with the Law School next month. The students in Dr. Mentz's class will be attending rehearsals and performances, and I'm looking forward to sharing with them (and with you!) all the insane work that we do producing full-on, professional theatrical productions of Shakespeare with only 12 hours of rehearsal. Yes, you read that correctly. 12 hours of rehearsal for each show.

So I know that caught your interest! Follow this link to the ADK Shakes website for more information on The Justice Project. We will perform on February 10 and 11 at the Saval Auditorium at the Manhattan Campus, and on February 17 and 18 in the Moot Court at the Law School on the Queens Campus. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free for St. John's students with STORMCard. We will also host a seminar at the Law School during the day on February 17, presenting scenes from each play and offering a panel discussion on the law and justice in Shakespeare's work.

Shakespeare Commons: A St Johns Shakespeare Blog

Partly for my Shakespeare courses and also for the entire St John's community, I've started (another) new blog, Shakespeare Commons.  Once I finish building up all the pages, it'll be a resource for productions in and around NYC, other things that we like to do with Shakespeare at St. Johns, and also information about past, present, and future courses and assignments.  Please visit!

CFP: SUNY Council on Writing

The Fashion Institute of Technology's Writing Studio and Department of English and Speech invite proposals for this year's SUNY Council on Writing (COW). This year's theme is "Sustainability and Writing." The conference will be held on Friday, March 30 and Saturday, March 31, 2012.

For more information on key note speakers, the full call for papers, and to submit your proposal please visit the following link: www.fitnyc.edu/sunycow

Proposals are due February 1, 2012.

You may direct questions to Brian Fallon at brian_fallon@fitnyc.edu.

Dr. Ganter's Report from MLA

Our own Dr Granville Ganter provides this report from the Delegate Assembling of the Modern Language Association, with interesting news on the changing shapes of the profession, the dissertation, and the job market:

Granville Ganter here reporting as a New York region Delegate Assembly member to the MLA (2011-2014). Appropriate for the Seattle home of Microsoft, there were over 30 panels on the digital revolution and its consequences for the content and methods of academy.  Four items of assembly news, and a brief summary of two discipline-related panels:

Internships in Publishing

Courtesy of Professor Brownstein and the website bookjobs.com, here's a great, long list of potential internships in the publishing business.  As the website says, "Publishing is an apprenticeship business," which means if you want a paying job you often need to get experience through an internship.  The list includes positions at many different publishers, from Atlantic Media to Columbia University Press to Penguin Group USA and W.W. Norton.

UNICEF USA Interships

The department has just received information about two internships with UNICEF USA.  Below the fold is the letter from Dorothy Kuhn, a UNICEF employee. The descriptions of the two internship are pdfs, which this blog can't post, but one is for Volunteer & Community Partnerships Department, at the NYC World Headquarters (3 positions available, starting in June) and the other for the Office of Strategic Partnerships (starting immediately).  Both are unpaid internships, requiring roughly 15-20 hours per week.

Grad Seminar on the Humanities and Public Careers

If you're interested in exploring some possible non-traditional futures for English graduate students, I would like to  suggest Dr. Melissa Mowry's new seminar, "Humanities, Careers, and Public Life."  It's listed in the catalog as Eng 885: Topics in Cultural Studies, and the CRN # is 14785.

Here's Dr. Mowry's description of the course:

This course considers the relationship between the various ways knowledge is produced in the humanities and the ways that knowledge contributes to public life.  It is designed to help students think about the ways advanced training in the humanities facilitates and encourages our movement as both humanists and intellectuals beyond the confines of the academy and into our communities.  We will read a wide variety of writers on this subject including Christopher Newfield, Martha Nussbaum, and Cornell West, among others, and we will undertake the process of writing and submitting at least one grant for a public humanities project on behalf a small, non-profit, organization, like a local history group. 

Library Workshops for Spring 2012 Term

Below the fold, courtesy of Caroline Fuchs in the library, is a list of the workshops being offered for students this coming semester.  Take advantage of these if you can -- one of the keys to being a happy English major or graduate student is having a good relationship with the library!  If you have any questions, please contact me or go directly to Caroline Fuchs, the English department liaison with the library: fuchsc@stjohns.edu

CFP: IWCA Conference

The SoCal Writing Centers Association is hosting the 2012 IWCA Conference in San Diego, CA from October 25-27, 2012. Proposals are currently being accepted.

Like lines drawn in the sand, Writing Center work is continuously recast by ever-changing policies in higher education, innovations in technology, outsourced alternatives to student services, increased diversity of student populations, and progressions in writing center praxis. With the tides, we must be willing to shift within our philosophies and our policies in order to best support the communities with whom we work.


For our 2012 International Writing Centers Association conference in San Diego, we invite you to consider the centers where you work and write: What lines do you draw? How do those lines shift? How do shifting lines provide a chance for new definitions of yourselves and your work? How do the disappearing lines of work that you thought finished reappear as issues you must revisit and re-vision? How can the writing center community adapt to the tide so that it is second nature for us to live with the shifting sands? And how do we encourage others within our institutions to shore up student writing for/in the 21st century?

The deadline for proposal submission is April 23, 2012. For more information, please visit: www.socalwritingcenters.org/iwca2012/index.html.

Language Study at CUNY

For DA students who might need a little help preparing for their language exam, I'm going to pass on this notice from the CUNY Grad Center.  They also offer a wider range of intensive language programs in the summer. 

The CUNY Graduate Center Language Reading Program will offer intensive, non-credit courses in four languages in the fall term designed to assist graduate students in meeting the language requirements for their degrees.  These courses last for twelve weeks and aim at developing a reading knowledge of the languages.

Separate tuition by check, cash, or money order only ($275 per course for currently matriculated CUNY students, $795 for others) must be paid for offerings of the Program. Registration forms are available in the office of the Language Reading Program, Room 4415 , on the fourth floor of the CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue (between 34^th and 35^th Streets) and in the lobby.  Registration can be handled either in person or by mail; it is not handled by the registrar’s office, nor do these courses appear on the student’s transcript.  However, official documentation of each student’s  performance will be supplied by the office of the Language Reading Program upon request.  Registration closes on January 19^th, but some classes will be closed before then.  For further information, please call (212) 817-2081 or see our website (http://web.gc.cuny.edu/lrp).

Level One courses in French, German, Latin, and Spanish which assume no knowledge of the language, meet twice  a week, Mondays and Thursdays from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., beginning February 6th and ending May 10th.

Level Two courses in French and German assume an ability to read scholarly articles and meet Mondays and Thursdays from 4:15 to 6:15 p.m., beginning February 6th and ending May 10th.