Harold Bloom at CUNY in March

Via Dr. Ganter --


Harold Bloom is scheduled to give two Monday night talks at 6:30pm at the CUNY Graduate Center (34th st and 5th Ave).

They are billed as self-reflexive events where he will discuss his development as a critic in relation to two literary figures: Whitman and Shakespeare. Bloom is known for his Oedipal theory of influence, where he interprets the work of younger poets writing in relation to their literary "parents." Presumably, Bloom will discuss the anxieties produced by his own influences.

The first talk is on Whitman on Mar 19.
The second is on Shakespeare on Mar 26.

Reservations are required: 212-817-8215.

Complimentary Student Tickets to Yosemite

St. John's students and staff are offered complimentary tickets to Rattlestick Playwrights Theater's world premiere production of Yosemite by Daniel Talbott. For details on how to reserve your ticket, read the full posting below. Be sure to mention that you are a St. John's student or staff member!  Thank you to Rattlestick Playwrights Theater for your dedication to student outreach.

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater is pleased to invite you to the world premiere of Yosemite by Daniel Talbott!  This Off-Broadway production features phenomenal actors who have appeared on Broadway and in major television shows.

We are offering COMPLIMENTARY/PAY WHAT YOU CAN tickets for the following performances ONLY:

-Weds. 2/29 at 8pm
-Thurs. 3/1 at 8pm
-Fri. 3/2 at 8pm
-Sat. 3/3 at 8pm

To reserve your COMPLIMENTARY/PAY WHAT YOU CAN tickets, e-mailLisa Anderson at LAnderson.Rattlestick@gmail.com with your name, the performance date/time, and the number of seats that you would like to reserve. We hope to see you at the theater!


YosemiteWritten by Daniel Talbott
Directed by Pedro Pascal

Featuring:
Kathryn Erbe (The Speed of Darkness-Tony nom, Detective Eames on "Law and Order: Criminal Intent")
Noah Galvin (The Burnt Part Boys, Ace)
Seth Numrich (War Horse, Blind, Slipping)
Libby Woodbridge (Jerusalem, Gabriel)

Yosemite tells the story of three siblings who are sent out into the snow-silent woods in the Sierra Nevada foothills to dig a hole that will be deep enough to bury a family secret. As they dig, they search for a way to escape or be rescued from their lives as the snow continues to fall and the world sinks in around them.

Location:
Rattlestick Playwrights Theater 
224 Waverly Place-New York, NY 10014

Fall 2012 Undergraduate Course Listings

And here are the Undergraduate Course Offerings for this fall:

FALL 2012

UNDERGRADUATE FLYER

Eng. 2200 (76412)/ Hon. 2250 (76413): Introduction to English Studies

MR 9:05-10:30 a.m.

Dr. Steven Mentz

This course introduces students to the “toolkit” of skills and practices necessary for every English major.  All the major elements of the course point toward a single goal, teaching students to write informed, imaginative, analytical essays responding to works of English literature.  We’ll read works in a variety of genres and historical periods, with a concentration on poetry.  Students will write different kinds of papers, including a short “close reading” analysis, a contextualizing essay, and a performance review.  Authors covered include Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson, John Keats, T.S. Eliot, and Anne Carson.  The class involves weekly student postings on the course website and one trip to see a play.

Eng. 2200: Introduction to English Studies (76043)           

M. 3:25-4:50 p.m.; Thursday, on-line

Dr. John Lowney

This course introduces the critical reading and writing practices that constitute the English major.  Through the reading, interpretation, and criticism of primarily modern and contemporary prose fiction, poetry, drama, and literary nonfiction, it will foster an understanding of the methodologies of literary and cultural studies.  While the course will introduce important theoretical problems and terms, it will emphasize the practical experience of writing within the English major, from the composition of brief essays to the development of a more extensive research paper.  Writing assignments will include informal creative exercises as well as formal papers.

[See more after the jump]

Fall 2012 Graduate Course Listings

Below please find the Graduate Course Offerings for Fall 2012. Don't forget that on Thursday, March 15 there will be a roundtable event in the IWS at 3:30. Many of the English faculty will be there to discuss their seminar offerings, so you can a clear sense of the variety of classes this fall.

GRADUATE COURSE FLYER

FALL 2012

Eng. 100: Modern Critical Theories (76104)
M. 5:00-7:00 p.m.
Dr. Elda Tsou
This is an intensive introduction to "critical theory," with a focus on poststructuralism. We will be covering the key thinkers and intellectual movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This will be a reading heavy course. Recommended: English 2300.
[See more after the jump]

CFP: St. John's Graduate Conference

St. John’s University English Graduate Conference Call for Papers

Discourses of Power: Subjugation, Struggle and Sacrifice in Literary and Political Cultures

Saturday, April 21, 2012

St. John’s University

8000 Utopia Parkway

Jamaica, NY 11439

“The oppressors do not perceive their monopoly on having more as a privilege which dehumanizes others and themselves.” - Paulo Freire

What motivates humanity’s desire to gain and retain power? Competition for control has permeated society through struggles of class, race, gender, sexuality and ability, in both the public and domestic spheres. Subjugated classes fight for empowerment, while dominant classes struggle to maintain the status quo. Literary, cultural, and political studies have attempted to challenge dominant discourse and shatter hegemony. During the St. John’s University Graduate Conference we will explore issues of power in the private and public spheres. We are seeking submissions considering the discourses of power.

Individual papers may be submitted, but panel submissions are encouraged. Multimedia will be available for Power Point presentations, music, or video. Abstracts (150 words or less) are due by March 15 to stjgradconference@gmail.com. Include abstracts in email as a PDF or MS Word attachment. If submitting as a panel, please include an abstract for each individual paper. The names and contact information for each panelist should be included in the email submission but NOT on the abstract attachments.

You may direct any questions to stjgradconference@gmail.com. Serving on the St. John’s English Graduate Conference Committee are Dr. Steve Mentz, Tara Bradway, Regina Duthely, and Elizabeth Walsh. Please feel free to forward this to any other possibly interested parties.

Paper topics might include, but are certainly not limited to:

• Class relations in literature
• Writing Pedagogy and Compositional Theory
• Power relationships in drama
• Political discourse
• African-American rhetoric
• Trauma Studies
• Disability Studies
• New Media and the Digital Culture
• Queer Studies
• Post-colonialism
• Feminism
• Law and Literature
• Topics related to history or social sciences

Recap: Networking Event by the Career Center

Last Thursday, I attended a meeting held by the Career Center for English majors. Career Counselor Laura Smith had some great advice for English majors and grad students as we undertake our job searches. Laura is the Career Counselor for all of St. John's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, so she is definitely the person you want to be in touch with at Career Services.

You can follow St. John's Career Center on Facebook and on Twitter @GetHiredSTJ. Or call to make an appointment with Laura at 718-990-6375. The Career Center is located at the University Center (next to Bent Hall) on the First Floor, Room 124.

Laura talked with the students who came to the session about networking, internship opportunities, and ways of connecting with St. John's alumni. She modeled ways of conducting oneself professionally in various situations from job fairs, conferences, and interviews.

The best takeaways that I have from this session are:

• The Career Center is not just for undergraduate students. There are valuable tools here for graduate students as well. And the Career Center is open to alumni as well!
• You can make an appointment to do a mock interview. The career counselor will tape the session and review it with you.
• Find internships listed on CareerLink (through St. John's Central)
• The COACH Program

Let me tell you a little more about the COACH Program. COACH stands for "Count on Alumni for Career Help." This program connects current students with St. John's alumni. You can set up an informational meeting with individual alumni to find out about more about their career to determine your interest in it, if your skills match, if you need advice on building your resume, or learning more about what your career options are.

You'll need to receive access to the network through the Career Center first. So contact your Career Counselor to get access. When you log onto CareerLink, click on the COACH tab. You can then narrow your search by industry or major, etc. Then click the "interested" button at the bottom of a particular mentor's profile. You'll write a personalized message to introduce yourself and request an informational meeting. Another piece of good advice from this session? Write a thank-you note!

Food, Politics, and Pedagogy on Feb 23

Food for Thought: Eating, Politics, and Pedagogy

(Or, Is the way to a student’s mind through her/his stomach?)   

Just back from the Popular Culture Association’s Southwest Conference, which focused on food and culture, Sean Murray (Assistant Professor of English Composition in the Institute for Writing Studies) had the opportunity to present and attend panels related to the politics of food. These sessions offered numerous practical ideas for using debates centered on food (factory farming, GMOs, the high price of healthy eating, etc.) to stimulate critical thinking and interesting writing.  Snacks—healthy ones, of course—will be provided.

Date: Thursday, February 23

Time: 1:50à2:50 PM

Place: Writing Center Back Lounge

RSVP: murrays@stjohns.edu

Victorian Conference at Columbia in April

Students interested in Victorian Studies might want to travel across town from April 13-15 to catch the annual meeting of the Northeast Victoria Studies Association (NVSA).  The Conference theme is “Victorian Cliches and Orthodoxies.”
The link below is to a pdf of the program, and here is the conference website.
NVSA program[1]

Bamboozled this Thursday

Professor Ganter invites you to a screening and discussion of Spike Lee's film, Bamboozed, this Thursday, February 23 during common hour (1:45 PM - 3:30 PM) in Marillac 235. Professor Ganter will briefly introduce Lee's intention to criticize to the minstrel stereotyping that continues to circulate in our own day. The film will then be shown, followed by a discussion afterward.

This is a bizarre and provocative film that in many ways exceeds Lee's attempt to control its message. The relation of art and propaganda -- a perennial concern for black artistis after the Civil War -- is a good subject to discuss for Black History Month.

Summer Graduate Studies Fellowship at Rutgers

Undergraduate students who are considering going on to graduate study in English might be interested in the Rutgers English Diversity Institute summer fellowship.  Designed for students " from diverse cultural, economic, and ethnic backgrounds," it supports a week-long stay on the Rutgers campus this summer, while paying for travel and a $500 stipend.  You need to provide two letters of support, one from a professor here at St John's, and you need to indicate an interest in pursuing graduate studies in English for a career.

The deadline is March 1.  A copy of the application is on their website, or also here after the jump.

Some Spring Dates to Remember

Before we all scatter during spring break, I want you to note a couple of upcoming dates on your calendars.  


The first is Th March 15, when we'll have a round-table event in the IWS at 3:30 in the afternoon featuring most, if not all, of the English faculty who will be offering graduate seminars next fall.  It's timed to be nearthe middle of registration, and it'll give everyone a chance to get a better sense of the variety of classes that we'll offer in the fall.  Details to follow -- but please come, and don't be surprise if you end up wanting to take a course you'd never thought was your sort of thing before!


Second, the annual Graduate Student Conference in English will be held on Saturday April 21.  The two graduate co-chairs and organizers will be Liz Walsch and Tara Bradway, and there's room for a third if anyone else would like to volunteer.  We'll issue a formal CFP right after spring break, but you should plan on getting together either a panel of 2-4 speakers or a title and abstract for your own paper by March 15.  Once again, I'm quite interested in alternative formats beyond the "three papers on a panel" mode.  It's up to you to propose something, though of course all faculty members are available for advice.


More information will come soon about both of these events, but since the dates are set I wanted you to get them down on your calendars.  

One more weekend of The Justice Project in Queens

Thank you to friends, students, and faculty who came out this past weekend to see the Manhattan performances of The Justice Project. It was wonderful to see all your faces in the audience!

Many of you have been holding out for our closing weekend on the Queens campus, which is now upon us. Don't forget that you are all invited to attend an academic roundtable on Friday, February 17 at 12:00 p.m. on the concept of justice, law, and equity in Measure for Measure and The Merchant of Venice. The discussion will be framed by scenes from each of the shows, and will feature Dr. Steve Mentz as one of our speakers. Held in the Moot Courtroom on the 2nd Floor of the Law School, Belson Hall.

The performances are free for St. John's students and faculty, but don't forget to bring your STORM Card to show our box office volunteers. Also if anyone would like to volunteer on Saturday, we are short on help -- send me an email at tara@adkshakes.org!

Our closing weekend schedule is as follows:

Friday, February 17 - 7:30 p.m.
Measure for Measure


Saturday, February 18 - 7:30 p.m.
The Merchant of Venice


Both performances take place in the Moot Courtroom at the Law School, Belson Hall. Take the elevators at the front entrance to the second floor. The Moot Courtroom will be directly across from the elevators as you exit. Seating is general admission. Arrive early to sit in the Jury Box! Doors open at 7:00 p.m.

I hope to see you there!

Lawrence Joseph, Poet from STJ Law School

 Here's a link to the online journal Jacket 2, which has a special feature on Lawrence Joseph, a poet who also teaches at St. John's School of Law.

http://jacket2.org/feature/poet-steady-job

18th Century Feminisms Lecture at NYPL

Ever wondered what your professors do when they are not sitting at the head of the seminar table? When they're not downing coffee in their office and chatting with their students? When they're not hunched over their computers typing away at article drafts? Here's an opportunity to find out!

Join Department favorite, Dr. Lubey, for a talk she is giving at the New York Public Library on Friday, March 9. The lecture will be held in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building's South Court Auditorium from 1:15 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. Find out the full details here. The talk is free and open to the public.

The NYPL describes the lecture in more detail:

Kathleen Lubey, a researcher at the Library’s Wertheim Study and Assistant Professor of English at St. John’s University, will contextualize Mary Wollstonecraft’s radical calls for gender equality within the intellectual traditions of English women writers in the decades preceding her feminist treatise A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1791).

Wollstonecraft’s most visible legacies—her daughter Mary Shelley, and modern feminism itself—make her recognizable in our time as a harbinger of democratic and egalitarian ideals.  But in her own time, Wollstonecraft’s calls for total equality for women, as well as her sympathies with French republicanism, alienated her from her female contemporaries and immediate predecessors, who envisioned more subdued programs for women’s improvement and social action.  Frances Burney, Hester Chapone, Anna Barbauld, and the women intellectuals known as the Bluestockings, while recognized as part of a proto-feminist lineage, recoil from the polemical tactics undertaken by Wollstonecraft, offering instead a varied spectrum of strategies for women’s social advancement, such as marriage, publication, private learning, and self-improvement.

Professor Lubey is author of articles on sexuality, pornography, and eighteenth-century culture in Eighteenth-Century Studies, Eighteenth-Century Fiction, anddifferences. Her book Excitable Imaginations: Eroticism and Reading in Britain, 1660-1760 is forthcoming from Bucknell University Press.  “Late Eighteenth-Century Feminisms” is part of a new book project she is writing in the Wertheim Study, examining the relationship between private manuscript and published writing in eighteenth-century literary culture.

News from the Future: English Dept Alums

A recurring feature on this blog is News from the Future, which includes posts from recent St. John's English alums, with their news from the wide world after grad school.  This one just came in from Jaclyn Sanders, who finished up her MA here a few years back and has struck out for the hard-to-navigate waters of screenwriting and film-making:

"After I graduated from St. John's, I attended the University of Reading in England and completed my MA in Printing and Book Design History. You could say I'm a bibliophile. The rare book industry is quite small, but I fully intended to put my degree to use by appraising books for Sotheby's.

Between a failing economy and a need to pay my rent, I took a management job that was completely unrelated to my English/Rare Book background. I don't necessarily love my job, but it allows me plenty of spare time to follow my second passion: screenwriting. I've written a couple of historical dramas that I'm proud of. I've also had some success getting my scripts into the hands of Hollywood producers.

What I've discovered, however, is the tremendous importance of writing scripts that have "commercial potential." If you have any interest in writing screenplays, novels, etc,  I can promise you that you will hear that phrase uttered innumerable times.

My conversations with producers usually begin with: "Jaclyn, we like your writing. The dialogue is witty, your scenes are well-constructed, and there's a great narrative.....But we're concerned about the script's commercial potential." That's Hollywood speak for, "the all-important 16-24 year-old male demographic won't see this movie."

Are they asking me to write Transformers 4? Are they asking me to sell out? Aren't historical dramas popular?

One of the big secrets I've learned from dealing with Hollywood producers and agents is that you must learn to compromise. I can be as idealistic as I want, but my historical dramas will sit on the shelf until I've paid my dues and proven that I can write something that appeals to a very wide audience. After all, the majority of Hollywood producers aren't in the business to make small art films for a handful of people; they want to produce movies that will sell a ton of tickets.

Currently, I'm dedicating my spare time to writing scripts that have a wider commercial appeal. I'm not writing Transformers 4, but I'm focusing on contemporary pieces that tell a good story. Once I get a few of these projects under my belt, I'll have more freedom to write the stories that truly matter to me. Yes, it's a sacrifice, but it's a small one in the overall scheme of things. Someday, I want to see my historical dramas on the big screen."

Early Modern Historicism Event at CUNY Grad Center

Anyone interested early modern literature should head over to the CUNY Grad Center this Friday to hear a trio of brilliant early modernists talk about the current status of "historicism" in early modern literary studies.  I know these are great folks because I was in grad school with all three of them!  Here's the announcement --

Please join us for a colloquium sponsored by the CUNY Early Modern Interdisciplinary Group (EMIG):

Historical Futures: New Directions in Early Modern Historicism
Molly Murray (Columbia), Chair and Respondent
Thomas Fulton (Rutgers): "History and Historicism, Past and Present."
John Staines (John Jay, CUNY): "Some Challenges for a Historicist Practice: Presentism, Formalism, and Historicism Itself."

Friday, February 17
2 pm
Martin E. Segal Theatre

The CUNY Graduate Center, 1st Floor
365 Fifth Avenue (btw 34th-35th Streets)
New York, NY 10016

Coffee and refreshments will be served during the colloquium and there will be a reception after the event.

All are welcome.