1. Announcements
Spring is upon us, and with it, a host of new retirements. We are happy for them in their new life adventure, but, sadly, we will miss: Martha Alzamora, Pam Bourgeois, Patrick Hunter, Rei Noguchi, Sharon Smartt, Pat Watkins. Please mark your calendars for Saturday, April 28, from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m., when we will be gathering to celebrate them at a potluck at Irene Clark’s home. The retirement committee will gratefully accept all donations for gifts and offers of assistance with the set-up and clean-up. Please RSVP to Frank De La Santo in the main office, ST 706. Frank will also collect the contributions.
The National Endowment for the Humanities has just announced its competition for Awards for Faculty at Hispanic-Serving Institutions. This program supports research of value to humanities scholars, students, or general audiences. Designed to be flexible to suit your needs, the guidelines allow you to define your audience, type of research, award period, and full- or part-time research preference. The award provides a stipend of $4,200 per full-time month, maximum of 12 full-time months ($50,400). Part-time stipend may be taken for up to 24 months. Proposals must request a minimum of two months’ full-time stipend. The full announcement can be found at http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/AF_HSI.html. And the deadline for submission is April 17, 2012
Martin Pousson will be a featured reader at The Last Bookstore in downtown L.A. at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, February 24. The event will celebrate the release of the new issue of The Rattling Wall and is sponsored by PEN Center USA. Martin will read poems and a short story published in that new issue . One of CSUN’s most distinguished alumni, Kim Young, also will be a featured reader with him. Kim is the author of Night Radio, winner of the 2011 Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize, and the chapbook Divided Highway (dancing girl press, 2008). Night Radio will be released by The University of Utah Press in September, 2012. Her poems have appeared in Los Angeles Review, MiPOesias, No Tell Motel, POOL and elsewhere. Founder and editor of Chaparral, an online poetry journal featuring Southern California writers, she holds an MA at Cal State University Northridge and an MFA at Bennington College, where she received a Jane Kenyon Scholarship in poetry.
Dorothy Barresi will be giving a reading for the Valley Contemporary Poets on March 18, right here in the Valley. Mark your calendars. Details to follow.
The dean’s office would like to help us promote our events! Please send event information to Noreen Galvin (noreen.galvin@csun.edu), with (please) at least forty-eight hours advance notice. When you do, please include (Noreen wants to know): title, date, description of event and image (if you have one), website, contact information, email, sponsor, cost, location, and anything other pertinent information. You can also request that the event be shared with such other lists as College of Business & Economics, College of Humanities, Institute for Sustainability, Library, Matador Involvement Center, Michael D. Eisner College of Education, Mike Curb College of Arts Media & Communications, NCOD Events, Office of the Provost, University Events Calendar, Valley Performing Arts Center, and other CSUN groups, departments, or programs. This is good news–thanks, Noreen!
Another way to thank them might be for us to “like” them on the new COH Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/CSUN-College-of-Humanities/224957820883813 . Here, they will be posting information about College events, lectures and other activities taking place on campus! What’s not to like?
All CSUN students are now eligible to apply for a $700 Hazing Awareness Scholarship. If you know students who might be interested, please encourage them to contact the scholarship office and request an application or apply online at www.collegegreekbooks.org/cashaward.html. These are rolling scholarships; the next deadline is March 6.
Everyone is invited to read One Amazing Thing by Chitra Divakaruni as part of a Faculty-Staff Book Group this spring. This book will be CSUN’s new Freshman Common Reading for 2012-2013. Each group meets one time, so you get your choice: March 13 (Tuesday) from 2-3:15 p.m. in CIELO (SH 439); OR March 21 (Wednesday) from 12:30-1:45 p.m. in CIELO (SH 439). Light refreshments and free copy of the book to all participants. Please RSVP to x6535 (Academic First Year Experiences) to reserve your seat. Don’t forget to ask for a copy of the book. More information: http://www.csun.edu/afye/One-Amazing-Thing-Book-Groups.html. And if you can’t make these, don’t worry–more groups will meet after spring break.
Nate Mills is looking for examples of successful abstracts/proposals submitted to conference and panel organizers for his English 630 graduate students. If you have one (ideally of the 250-500 word variety) that you wouldn’t mind sharing (anonymously, of course) with his class, both Nate and his students would really appreciate it.
Patricia Kalayjian and Emily Magruder will be hosting the spring meeting of the Southern California Society for the Study of American Women Writers at CSU Dominguez Hills on March 11. They are reading Clarence: A Tale of Our Times (1830), by Catharine Maria Sedgwick, edited by Melissa Homestead and Ellen Foster and newly reissued by Broadview. The meeting will be from 11:30 until 3, and lunch will be provided. All are invited. For more information, please contact Beth Wightman.
The Northridge Writers’ Circle will be holding their first members’ reading on Friday, in JR 319, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.. Come out and hear them–they will be great!
2. Reminders
Don’t forget Rick Mitchell’s Highways debut. Highways, in Santa Monica, will be presenting his new, multimedia play, Ventriloquist Adrift; or Porno for Dummies (in which, lo and behold, the author is performing) on Friday & Saturday, February 24th and 25th, at 8:30 p.m. A theatrical exploration of race, identity, and performance in late 19th century America, the dark comedy is informed not only by vaudeville “humor,” but also by relevant historical conflicts (and, of course, by conflicts of today). The Saturday, February 25th show will be followed by an audience talk-back moderated by Anthony Dawahare, and featuring the play’s director, Roger Q. Mason, and the dramatist. To reserve tickets, please call Highways at (310) 315-1459. For further information, please go to the following webpage: http://highwaysperformance.org/highways/performance/rick-mitchell-ventriloquist-adrift-or-porno-for-dummies/.
3. Opportunities
This just in: Graduate Studies has announced two exciting awards open to our outstanding graduate students:
- The Association of Retired Faculty Memorial Award: The purpose of the award is to recognize and provide financial support to graduate students for excellent scholarship and creative activity. The award will support a project that is part of a master’s program. Award criteria include a project description, two faculty letters of recommendation, and willingness to provide a brief presentation of the project at the ARF annual brunch on Saturday May 12, 2012.
- The Nathan O. Freedman Memorial Award For Outstanding Graduate Student: This annual award is presented to an outstanding graduate student who has completed or will be completing degree requirements by June 2012. The determining factors for the award are based on a record of distinguished scholarship, a minimum GPA of 3.5, and contributions to the field. The award recipient will be announced at the Honors Convocation.
The deadline for both awards is March 26. Please spread the word to our students and encourage them to apply.
And for our undergraduate students, Thoreau’s Rooster, A Journal of Undergraduate Creative Nonfiction, is calling for submissions of “personal essays with a narrative touch” for an Editor’s Prize of $200. Please let students know that if they are interested they should email attached entries to rooster@assumption.com, and include in the body of the email a paragraph of biographical information, name of academic institution (CSUN), teacher and teacher’s email, and the writer’s email and snail mail addresses for summer. They can be see on the web at http://www.assumption.edu/rooster.
Also, the FictionBrigade, a digital publisher of flash fiction, is currently soliciting stories that are 50-1500 words, short graphics or art, and videos under two minutes. Starting this year they will be publishing ebooks on a monthly basis, and all topics and themes for each ebook can be found on our website. All contributors whose stories accepted will have their work available through all the major digital channels: Amazon, Apple, Google, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, etc. Submissions guidelines can be found at www.fictionbrigade.com.
4. Achievements
The last issue of EOTN featured Cesar Soto’s exciting news about his acceptance into at least two PhD programs. Since then, we’ve had good news from other students too, and it strikes that, in this season of decision and as more of our students celebrate good fortune and achievement, it would be a good idea to start keeping a list. Please let me know as soon as you do when your students share their own successes with you, and I will feature them all in the final issue of EOTN and celebrate them together.
Kristin Cornelius has received both a Digital Humanities Summer Institute Tuition Scholarship and a competitive travel bursary from the Association for Computers and the Humanities (ACH) to attend the Digital Humanities Summer Institute this summer in Victoria, British Columbia.
Nicole Warwick published an article, “Poetry Is Not a Luxury: Why We Should Include Poetry in the Writing Classroom,” in the Winter 2011-2012 edition of JAEPL (The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning).