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1. Announcements

Please join us in welcoming Dr. Henry Oster to CSUN March 6, 2015 at 2:30 p.m. in JR 319 when he visits Dr. Linda Overman’s class to discuss his Holocaust experience. “Even in Hell, there is hope,” writes Dr. Henry Oster who was five years old when Adolf Hitler took power in 1933. His recently published book, The Kindness of the Hangman (Higgins Bay Press, 2014), tells this gripping tale of the 2,011 Jews who were rounded up by the Gestapo and deported from Cologne, Germany. Oster is one of only two people still alive to tell their story and was recently featured in The Los Angeles Times: “On Holocaust memorial day, a survivor remembers” at http://lat.ms/1EOqqrx. For more information, please contact Dr. Overman at linda.overman@csun.edu.

The first Graduate Reading Series of the semester will take place this Friday the 13th from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. in JR 319. Please come out and join us for a night of good company and good words. We are excited to feature three readers who are all at different stages of their graduate careers, with three distinct voices that will surely entertain: Lisa Jones, Jenny Troy, and Scott Martin-Rowe.

The CSUN Composition Book Fair will be held on March 9 & 10, 2015, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., in Sierra Tower 703. Join us as our textbook publishers showcase their newest composition materials. All faculty are welcome. Free books and food.

The Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children’s Literature in the Madden Library at Fresno State is conducting a new conference on censorship. “Outlawed: The Naked Truth about Censored Literature for Young People,” held April 10-12, 2015, will feature some of children’s literature’s best and brightest stars: Jacqueline Woodson, Lesléa Newman, Matt de la Peña, Leonard Marcus, Margarita Engle, Michael Cart, plus nearly 35 panel presenters from across the United States and abroad. They will examine censorship in children’s literature from numerous angles. Sherman Alexie will kick off the conference with a presentation on April 9 at 7:30 in the Fresno State Satellite Student Union. For more information, please see their website at www.outlawed2015.com, or email jcrow@csufresno.edu or call the Center at 559-278-8116.

2. Reminders

Please be aware of upcoming grant application deadlines. The Competition for Attending Teaching Conferences grant deadline is Monday, February 16, 2015, by 4:00 p.m. The Judge Julian Beck Learning-Centered Instructional Project grant deadline is Friday, March 13, 2015, by 4:00 p.m. Make sure you plan ahead as you’ll need signatures from your chair and from your dean’s office. Check out the faculty development website for more information: http://www.csun.edu/undergraduate-studies/faculty-development/faculty-development-grants.

3. Opportunities

Jennifer C. Lee and Santosh Khadka are co-editing a special issue of Journal of Global Literacies, Technologies, and Emerging Pedagogies on “Multimodality.” For more information, see the CFP at http://jogltep.com/index.php/JOGLTEP/announcement.

The Northridge Review seeks the work of writers newly emerging on the scene as well as the work of established writers. Guidelines are as follows: fiction/creative nonfiction/drama: 5,000 words max, typed and double spaced; poetry: 5 poems max. Submit material for consideration online. Please do not include your name on the submission(s). Please do include a cover letter that includes the title(s) of the submission(s), your name, address, email, and phone number. Poets: if submitting multiple poems, be sure to include each of the titles in your cover letter. The deadline for submissions is February 20, 2015.

VI CSUN Philosophy Student Conference, a one-day student conference open to the whole CSUN community, will be held on Friday, April 17, 2015. There is no need to be a Philosophy major or minor to submit a proposal or to participate in the conference. The program will be organized around the presentation of about six student papers (which will be selected by a faculty committee in a blind-review process). Each author will have 15 minutes to present, and each presentation will be followed by a commentary by a Philosophy faculty member as well as by a general discussion open to all participants. The conference program will also include, among other things, one alumni and one faculty keynote speaker, and a session with guest speakers on the relevance of philosophy in other disciplines. The conference will end with a barbecue in a nearby park. For more information, contact Professor Abel B. Franco at abel.franco@csun.edu. Deadline for submissions: Friday, March 20, 5:00 p.m.

The Upward Bound program here at CSUN is currently looking for current CSUN students to work with our high school students during their Summer Enrichment Program. They are looking for both Residential Advisors and Tutors. Any questions regarding this position can be directed to: upwardbound@csun.edu or (818) 677-2515.

Tethered by Letters 2015 Winter Literary Contest is calling for submissions in 3 categories. Tethered by Letters publishes writers with engaging stories, vivid characters, and fresh writing styles. All winners will be published in TBL’s Fall 2015 Quarterly Literary Journal. Finalists will receive free professional edits on their submission and be considered for later publication. Multiple entries and simultaneous submissions accepted. International submissions also welcome! $800 in total prizes. Visit http://www.tetheredbyletter.com for detailed guidelines. Deadline: February 28, 2015.

4. Achievements

Itiola Stephanie Jones, one of our recent alums, has been accepted into the prestigious Cave Canem Workshop. Cave Canem is a home for the many voices of African American poetry and is committed to cultivating the artistic and professional growth of African American poets. For more information about Cave Canem, see https://www.cavecanempoets.org.

Lusine Makarosyan, one of our graduate students, has received an honorable mention for her poem “Summer Fruit” at the 5th Annual Beyond Baroque Poetry Contest. Below is a link to the announcement page:
http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/702820/c704460907/282260927/b29d939190/. Along with the winners and 4 other honorable mentions, she will be invited to read on Saturday, April 25, 2015, at the Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center in Venice, California, at 8:00 p.m.

Enchao Shi was awarded a significant grant from the US Department of Education for his project “Promoting and Expanding Access to Modern China Studies at CSUN.”

Lily Thiemens, one of our graduate students, has won the national Miller Ingenuity Challenge competition, which is dedicated to revitalizing American manufacturing. For more information on the award, see http://www.milleringenuity.com/Challenge.

Steve Wexler presented his paper “Girls vs. Game of Thrones: Mapping Fantasy, the New Reality” at the Hawaii International Conference on Arts & Humanities, January 10, 2015.