Join Professor Lee Ann Brown for this poetry symposium on Thursday at 4:00 p.m. The Symposium is held at the Martin F. Segal Theater at the CUNY Graduate Center. Check out the details below, and we hope you can make it!
Friday, September 23, 2011
The Write Career: Career Event Th 9/29
THINKING OF A CAREER IN WRITING?
Attend THE WRITE CAREER to gain exposure to career fields that value students with strong writing skills.
Panelists will include:
Tom Walsh, Senior Editor Rolling Stone
Raymond Pun, Research Librarian NYPL
Theresa Giacopasi, Senior Publicist Hachette Book Group
Diana Castaldini, Freelance writer (and recent SJC English Dept alum)
Thursday, September 29 @ 5pm in DAC 416
Panelists will include:
Tom Walsh, Senior Editor Rolling Stone
Raymond Pun, Research Librarian NYPL
Theresa Giacopasi, Senior Publicist Hachette Book Group
Diana Castaldini, Freelance writer (and recent SJC English Dept alum)
Thursday, September 29 @ 5pm in DAC 416
Dinner will be served, rsvp via CareerLink today to save your spot!
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Save the date -- September 29
More details forthcoming, but put September 29 in your calendar!
There will be a Careers in Writing panel for undergraduate students in D'Angelo Center 416 at 5:00 p.m. The panel will consist of five writing professionals, including a writer from Rolling Stone magazine and a recent St. John's alum.
There will be a Careers in Writing panel for undergraduate students in D'Angelo Center 416 at 5:00 p.m. The panel will consist of five writing professionals, including a writer from Rolling Stone magazine and a recent St. John's alum.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
CFP: NEMLA 2012 - due 9/30!
NeMLA 2012: "Of Queen's Gardens": Victorian Ecofeminism
This panel invites ecofeminist readings of Victorian literature (novels, poetry, prose), wherein women are frequently given “natural” traits or are associated with the earth. Ecofeminist interpretations may highlight the damaging consequences of this link, or celebrate women’s potential to reform cultural/environmental attitudes because of it. In what ways does the woman/nature link function in Victorian literature? What do these interpretations reveal about Victorian
attitudes about gender and the environment, and the treatment of each?
contact: Margaret S. Kennedy
contact email: Margaret.Kennedy@stonybrook.
Call for Papers: “Of Queen’s Gardens”: Victorian Ecofeminism
This panel invites ecofeminist readings of Victorian literature (novels, poetry, prose), wherein women are frequently given “natural” traits or are associated with the earth. Ecofeminist interpretations may highlight the damaging consequences of this link, or celebrate women’s potential to reform cultural/environmental attitudes because of it. In what ways does the woman/nature link function in Victorian literature? What do these interpretations reveal about Victorian
attitudes about gender and the environment, and the treatment of each?
Deadline: September 30, 2011
Please include with your abstract:
- Name and Affiliation
- Email address
- Postal address
- Telephone number
- A/V requirements (if any; $10 handling fee with registration)
This will be the 43nd Annual Convention, Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) and will be held March 15-18, 2012, in Rochester, New York at the Hyatt Rochester. The Host Instituation is St. John Fisher College, and the keynote speaker is Jennifer Egan, 2011 Pulitzer Prize winner, (A Visit from the Goon Squad). For more information, please visit http://www.nemla.org/
CFP: NEWCA 2012
Here is the full call for proposals for the 2012 NEWCA (that's Northeast Writing Centers Association) Conference, which will be hosted by St. John's University in April. Proposals are due by December 31! If you're interested in submitting as part of a panel, come by the Writing Center and chat with some of the consultants. Last year, several students from St. John's traveled to New Hampshire to present.
Keynote Speaker: Deborah Brandt
Deborah Brandt is Professor of English Emerita at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she taught undergraduate writing, administered a writing program for fifteen years, and taught graduate courses in literacy and contemporary writing theory. Her research focuses on the changing social and economic conditions for literacy and literacy learning in the United States as they are felt in the lives of everyday people. Author of the award-winning Literacy in American Lives, she is at work on a new book called Writing Now: New Directions in Mass Literacy. She is a recent recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship and a Guggenheim fellowship.
Call for Proposals
Since the tragedy of 9/11, the nation and the world have been transformed, and writing centers have mirrored those shifts and convulsions. From reflection and debate as well as conflict and consensus, smoking rubble has dissipated. In its place, a new city center is emerging on the skyline, forcing a population to critically examine and come to terms with the use of space and the function of public memory, of never forgetting and moving forward. Writing centers, in New York City and beyond, have faced a decade of similar tumult, of always contending with the tangible and local consequences of larger social and economic currents and of being focal points of dynamic and passionate attention. Writers come to our spaces working through both trauma and the everyday of academic life, tutors and faculty negotiate the multimodal as it transforms learning and teaching, and administration pushes our centers to do more, often with limited resources and greater accountability for efficacy and outcomes.
Call for Proposals - NEWCA 2012
Building from 9/11: Writing Centers ReImagine, ReInvent
St. John’s University, Queens Campus
8000 Utopia Parkway
Queens, NY 11439
April 13 - April 15, 2011
Friday, April 13 - Open Mic Night
Saturday, April 14 - Conference Sessions and Keynote Speaker
Sunday, April 15 - Special Interest Groups and NEWACC
Proposals due by December 31, 2011
Deborah Brandt is Professor of English Emerita at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she taught undergraduate writing, administered a writing program for fifteen years, and taught graduate courses in literacy and contemporary writing theory. Her research focuses on the changing social and economic conditions for literacy and literacy learning in the United States as they are felt in the lives of everyday people. Author of the award-winning Literacy in American Lives, she is at work on a new book called Writing Now: New Directions in Mass Literacy. She is a recent recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship and a Guggenheim fellowship.
Call for Proposals
Since the tragedy of 9/11, the nation and the world have been transformed, and writing centers have mirrored those shifts and convulsions. From reflection and debate as well as conflict and consensus, smoking rubble has dissipated. In its place, a new city center is emerging on the skyline, forcing a population to critically examine and come to terms with the use of space and the function of public memory, of never forgetting and moving forward. Writing centers, in New York City and beyond, have faced a decade of similar tumult, of always contending with the tangible and local consequences of larger social and economic currents and of being focal points of dynamic and passionate attention. Writers come to our spaces working through both trauma and the everyday of academic life, tutors and faculty negotiate the multimodal as it transforms learning and teaching, and administration pushes our centers to do more, often with limited resources and greater accountability for efficacy and outcomes.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
The Infamous Call for Papers
In my whole single year of experience as a graduate student, there's one thing I'm glad that I found out early on in the process: how to track down conferences and articles and who wants them from you. There's a solid expectation to be taking part in the scholarly discussion, and publishing an article or speaking at a conference are among the best ways to do that.
If you are a graduate student or are thinking about becoming one, then this is a website you want to save in your bookmarks bar. This site is run through the University of Pennsylvania, and it is an absolute treasure trove. Calls for papers are divided up by fields of interest, and they include announcements for conference papers, articles in scholarly journals, or book-length collections. You can set up (depending on your browser) an RSS feed, which will then automatically send you updates on just the subdivisions in which you are interested.
Many of the calls for papers are for conferences, which are a great place to get your proverbial feet wet. You can submit individually or as part of a panel, and most conferences welcome scholars at various levels in their academic career. So don't be intimidated if you are an undergraduate or a first-year graduate student. There are conferences specifically organized for graduate students -- the St. John's English Department hosts one every spring for its graduate students.
Read over the fine print in the postings to make you know how long an abstract should be, to whom it should be submitted, and what your deadlines are. And don't forget you can always share an abstract with a professor or come to the Writing Center before you submit it.
Check out the addition to our "Pages" section: I have added a brand new page dedicated just to Calls for Papers. This page will be updated weekly, and it will contain links to specific blog posts here at STJ English as well as to calls for paper linked from UPenn's site.
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| Just the first 9 categories! |
Many of the calls for papers are for conferences, which are a great place to get your proverbial feet wet. You can submit individually or as part of a panel, and most conferences welcome scholars at various levels in their academic career. So don't be intimidated if you are an undergraduate or a first-year graduate student. There are conferences specifically organized for graduate students -- the St. John's English Department hosts one every spring for its graduate students.
Read over the fine print in the postings to make you know how long an abstract should be, to whom it should be submitted, and what your deadlines are. And don't forget you can always share an abstract with a professor or come to the Writing Center before you submit it.
Check out the addition to our "Pages" section: I have added a brand new page dedicated just to Calls for Papers. This page will be updated weekly, and it will contain links to specific blog posts here at STJ English as well as to calls for paper linked from UPenn's site.
Friday, September 16, 2011
On Seeing the Big Picture: Graduate Student Musings
As professional academics, present and future, we trade in ideas. And, sometimes, it’s enough just to be surrounded by those ideas and not necessarily knee deep in them. Sometimes, ok a lot of times, it is easy to get lost in the minutia. Reading Bayard's "How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read" for our Intro to the Profession course, I'm reminded over and over just how many types and levels of interactions we have with not only books and ideas, but also the interactions with a spectrum of other folks who too have their very own personalized interactions with books and ideas. Whilst I may talk to a colleague about the critical lens through which I'm examining a text, I might discuss with a friend the plot of that same book, or with the writer, the context and import of the work.
In class this past week, Professor Mentz asked us to choose just one thought from Semenza or Bayard that would, hypothetically, act as our primary guide through this grad school experience. (See Kathleen's post from earlier this week, which is a fantastic break down of both texts.) Personally, the decision to go with Bayard wasn't even a decision. Whilst I genuinely appreciate Semenza's methodically pragmatic grad school game plan, I was never one for such a concrete thought process. I am drawn, rather, to Bayard's more abstract approach to the study of books. The bit I identified with most in the Bayard was the image of the library - the very systematic organizing of ideas. In a library, books, and subsequently ideas, are mapped in not only contextual spaces, but also in physical locations. The librarian, in Bayard's example, is only too happy just to be situated within that map, surrounded by the books, noting that to read all the books would disrupt the relationship he has created with the books. He genuinely understands his position. The You Are Here arrow on the map of ideas? He knows where that is. As grad students, then, mightn't we need to very truthfully understand our own relationship with the ideas we read? Since we ultimately claim to have the authority to discuss these ideas, shouldn't we genuinely be able to locate ourselves on the map?
Kerouac writes, “I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another 'till I drop... I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.” I do sometimes feel that way about Academia, with a capital A. We may, at times, have nothing to offer except our own madness and confusion. The goal, there’s the rub, however, is to be able to situate that confusion and locate it in the system of larger ideas. It’s particularly important to remember that we, like the books, are a part of a structured system – an organized web of thought, both potential and manifested musings. We need to be able to orient and locate ourselves in the system of knowledge so as to relevantly and meaningfully participate in the dialogue. Just as the librarian knows he is the tour guide, perhaps our own role is to be that of a discoverer or a creator or an instructor. Or a combination of it all.
In order to make accurate maps, to plot location and orient oneself, cartographers need elevation. They need to be able to see things from above - the larger picture, if you will. I take from Bayard his reminder to look at the larger scope of this enterprise in trading ideas. We will all specialize and be drawn to beautifully nuanced nooks and crannies of language and literature, but we must not lose sight of the library, the map. Organization, focus and precision are necessary, but so is remembering to find the joy in being surrounded by the books and being surrounded by the ideas. It is important to know that I am somewhere on this map - the weeds sometimes, I fear. That is what will make this (ad)venture sustainable, for myself at least. Soon enough we’ll be knee deep in the minutia and sorting out the madness, and talking plenty about books we may or may not have read. So, uh, who's ready for Comps?
In order to make accurate maps, to plot location and orient oneself, cartographers need elevation. They need to be able to see things from above - the larger picture, if you will. I take from Bayard his reminder to look at the larger scope of this enterprise in trading ideas. We will all specialize and be drawn to beautifully nuanced nooks and crannies of language and literature, but we must not lose sight of the library, the map. Organization, focus and precision are necessary, but so is remembering to find the joy in being surrounded by the books and being surrounded by the ideas. It is important to know that I am somewhere on this map - the weeds sometimes, I fear. That is what will make this (ad)venture sustainable, for myself at least. Soon enough we’ll be knee deep in the minutia and sorting out the madness, and talking plenty about books we may or may not have read. So, uh, who's ready for Comps?
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