News & Events
Events and Announcements
Experience Southern Africa with the English Department!
An exciting opportunity to discover South Africa and Namibia: The English department will send two classes block 3 of 2010-2011. Interested students should speak with their advisors during registration.
· Professor Reed's English 374, Southern African Art, Literature, and Culture in Context, will focus on the literature of Southern African, examining the role of the arts in developing nations.
· Professor Entel's English 381, Advanced Topics in Creative Writing, will teach students to respond in multiple genres to the culture and landscape of these countries.
Visiting Writer Sarah Prineas
Acclaimed fantasy writer Sarah Prineas will read from and discuss her work. Prineas is the author of two award-winning novels: The Magic Thief and The Magic Thief: Lost. The third in the trilogy is in the works. During block 3 Prineas will be teaching a Distinguished Visiting Fiction Writer Seminar entitled "The Protagonist Must Protag: The Intersection of Plot and Character in Children's Literature."
Wednesday, Nov. 4
7:30 PM, Hedges Conference Room, the Commons
English Department Write-Up
The Department of English is featured in the winter 2009 edition of the Cornell Report.
Previously Listed Events
Shun-Lien Bynum
Visiting Fiction writer Sarah Shun-lien Bynum will read from and discuss her work. Bynum, a graduate of the University of Iowa Workshop, teaches writing and literature at UC San Diego. She is the author of "Madeleine is Sleeping," was a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize. Her new novel, "Ms. Hempel Chronicles," was published in September, 2008 and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award in 2009.
Thursday, October 15
7:30, Shaw Conference Room, the Commons
"The Real Dirt on Farmer John"
As part of the English Department's Visiting Writers Series, "Farmer John" John Peterson, organic farmer, writer, and the subject of the documentary "The Real Dirt on Farmer John" will attend a screening of the film, to be followed by a public discussion with John. He is the founder and runs Angelic Organics, the country's largest Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm. Information on the documentary and images can be found at http://www.angelicorganics.com/ao/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=148&Itemid=182.
Friday, Sept. 11
7:00, 100 West Science Building
Global Voices
At the fourth annual "Global Voices" event, two writers will present their work. Maxine CASE is a senior writer for the non-profit Cape Town Partnership. She contributes to a number newspapers and magazines, including Real Simple, Reader's Digest and O Magazine. Her short story "Homing Pigeons" was included in African Compass: New Writing from Southern Africa 2005. In 2007, her debut novel All We Have Left Unsaid won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book in Africa, and, jointly, the Herman Charles Bosman Award. Miloš DJURDJEVIĆ (poet, essayist, translator; Croatia) has published three volumes of poetry, with the fourth forthcoming in 2010. His work has been included in anthologies of contemporary Croatian poetry, and translated into English, Hungarian and German. The editor of the Croatian domain at Poetry International Web, a recipient of fellowships at the Ledig House in New York and the Civitiella Ranieri Center in Italy, Djurdjević is also the translator of a wide range of contemporary American poetry and prose. There is information and images of the writers at http://iwp.uiowa.edu/writers/index.html
Tuesday, Sept. 15
7:00, Hedges, the Commons
An evening with poet Robert Dana
Cornell College celebrates Robert Dana, Professor of English and Poet-in-Residence Emeritus, author of 10 collections of poetry and two works of literary nonfiction, winner of numerous literary awards and founding editor of the revived North American Review. Dana taught at Cornell for 40 years and served as distinguished visiting writer at five American universities and Stockholm University. He has remained prolific in retirement, serving two terms as Poet Laureate of Iowa and publishing four books of poetry, most recently The Other (2008). Please join the college and the English Department in celebrating his distinguished literary career.
Tuesday, April 28
Reading: 7:30 p.m., Kimmel Theatre
Reception and book signing: 8:30 p.m., Berry Lobby
Stavreva and Reed invited to NEH summer seminars
English professors Katy Stavreva and Shannon Reed have been invited to participate in prestigious National Endowment for the Humanities summer seminars for 2009. Only 15 participants are invited to any given seminar.
Stavreva will travel to Prato, Italy to participate in the seminar “Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’ and the Medieval World: Literature, History, Art,” which is designed to encourage new readings of Dante’s “Divine Comedy” using interdisciplinary perspectives. Reed is slated to attend “Anglo-Irish Identities,” hosted by The Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies at the University of Notre Dame. The seminar is designed to explore cultural, political and ideological identities of the Anglo-Irish over five weeks in June-July.
Reading by poet Ross Gay
Ross Gay, A former Cave Canem Fellow, teaches poetry at Indiana University and in the low-residency program at New England College. His poetry has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, Atlanta Review, Columbia: A Journal of Poetry and Art, and North American Review, among others. His debut collection, Against Which, was published by Cavankerry Press in 2006.
Thursday, May 7
7:30 pm, Shaw Lounge, the Commons
Reading by environmental writer Scott Russell Sanders
Sanders is the distinguished author of more than twenty novels, collections of stories, and works of personal nonfiction, including Staying Put, Writing from the Center, and Hunting for Hope. His latest book, A Private History of Awe, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. A Conservationist Manifesto, his vision of a shift to a sustainable society, will be published in 2009.
Among his many literary awards, Russell was named one of five inaugural winners of the Indiana Humanities Award in 2006, and The Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature recently named him the 2009 winner of the Mark Twain Award.
Wednesday, February 18
7:30 pm, Hedges, the Commons
Dr. Jill Ehnenn lectures on Darwin
Visiting Speaker, Dr. Jill Ehnenn (Appalachian State University), will present "Darwin's Body," examining the potential contributions of Darwin’s biography and work to Disability Studies and Queer Studies. The talk will also provide an overview of these subfields in the Humanities. Dr. Ehnenn is an Associate Professor of English and Women’s Studies at Appalachian State University. The visit is sponsored by the English department, with funding by Dimensions and LACE, and is part of a campus-wide series commemorating Darwin’s 200th anniversary and the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of the Species.
Monday, February 9
12:00-12:50, Hedges, the Commons
Tangled Tongues - An OC Event
Campus groups devoted to creative writing, literacy, and literature—Q.Ink, Lyrically Inclined, Wordsmiths, The Literary Society, and Open Field—will come together on the OC over lunch, providing exciting and interactive opportunities to learn more about each group. The events will culminate in an Open Mic reading Friday evening on the OC. English Dept. faculty will also be on hand to answer questions about the English major. Contact organizer Erin Casey for more information.
Wednesday, January 14 and Friday, January 16
The OC, Commons
Reading by Kathleen Halme
Visiting poet Kathleen Halme will read from and discuss her most recent collection Drift and Pulse In Drift and Pulse, her third book of poems, Halme is fascinated with the domain where matter is experienced as mind. Drawing upon brain science, anthropology, and biology, these poems take aim at the big questions of form and death. The visit is sponsored by the Department of English, as part of the ongoing Visiting Writer Series.
Thursday, January 15
7:30-8:30 PM, Shaw Lounge, Commons.
Workshop on Internet Privacy by Alan Cordle
Internet editor and librarian Alan Cordle will lead a small, hands-on workshop about internet security and privacy issues. Mr. Cordle has worked as a reference librarian in public, university and community college libraries for over a decade. In 2004 he founded Foetry.com, the American Poetry Watchdog, and has appeared on the covers of both the Chronicle of Higher Education and the Los Angeles Times, and he's been interviewed on Talk of the Nation and the CBC's As It Happens. The visit is co-sponsored by the Department of English and Cole Library.
Thursday, January 15
11:30-12:45, Cole Library Computer Lab.
Lecture on Internet Privacy by Alan Cordle
Internet editor and librarian Alan Cordle will lecture on issues of internet privacy and security and his experiences editing Foetry.com. Mr. Cordle has worked as a reference librarian in public, university and community college libraries for over a decade. In 2004 he founded Foetry.com, the American Poetry Watchdog, and he has appeared on the covers of both the Chronicle of Higher Education and the Los Angeles Times, and he's been interviewed on Talk of the Nation and the CBC's As It Happens. The visit is co-sponsored by the Department of English and Cole Library.
Thursday, January 15
3:30-4:30, Cole Library 108
Rick Campbell Poetry Reading
Poet Rick Campbell will read and discuss his work on Oct. 28, 7:30 PM in the Shaw Lounge. Campbell is the author of three collections of poems, Dixmont (2007), The Traveler's Companion (2004), and Setting the World in Order (2001) and edited Isle of Flowers (1995) and Snakebird:Thirty Years of Anhinga Poets (2004). His poems and essays have appeared in The Georgia Review, The Missouri Review, The Tampa Review, and other journals. Campbell is the managing editor of Anihinga Press in Tallahassee Florida.
Students Complete Public Humanities Projects
Students in senior seminar, Block 1 2008, created public humanities projects. Public humanities attempt to make scholarly work intelligible to broad audiences and encourage scholars' responsiveness to interests and concerns of communities outside higher education. See the seniors' Wikipedia page on Guy Endore's novel, Babouk, and their book club web site on J. M. Coetzee's novel Foe, which includes a Facebook page.
