1. Announcements
Apologies to all whose Thursday’s Notes shows up in their inbox looking a bit funky (for example, no nice spaces between entries). This seems to be a browser issue and the woeful inelegance can’t be helped. However, please be reminded that the Notes also appear on the English Department webpage, where they can be read in their original and intended format.
The Graduate Reading Series (G.R.S.) would like to invite you, your friends, and your family to the final reading of the 2011-2012 academic year! Several excellent graduating graduate students will be performing their work. Please plan to come and show appreciation for all the hard work they, and by extension you, do in this program. Save the date: Saturday, April 28, at 7:00 p.m. in the Linda Nichols Joseph English Reading Room. For those of you who have question or comments, or want to get involved, please email Hudit Simonyan, hudit.simonyan.972@my.csun.edu; George Fekaris george.fekaris.36@my.csun.edu; Jon Beadle jon.beadle.50@my.csun.edu,; or Sean Pessin, sean.pessin.38@my.csun.edu.
Also on Saturday, April 28, the NCWC would like to invite you and all to the final undergraduate student reading of the 2011-2012 academic year! This reading will feature graduating seniors reading their work and will take place from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. in the Linda Nichols Joseph English Reading Room.
On April 27 from 10 am to 5 pm, M.A. candidates will hold a conference entitled “Looking Askew: Odd-Angle Approaches” in JR319 as part of their culminating experience. Graduating students will present their finest work covering multiple facets of literature, theory, composition and genre. Dr. Jeffrey Kahan (PhD, Shakespeare Institute of the University of Birmingham) will be the keynote speaker. Dr. Kahan’s main talk is entitled “New Shakespeare, ‘now improv’d with nobler Lustre’: A Selection of Imitations and Forgeries (1710-1820).” Afterwards, Dr. Kahan will hold an interactive workshop on how to successfully publish in the humanities based off his new book. The event is free and food would be served. All are welcome to attend.
All interested students are invited to attend an information session about the CSUN Credential Program and English Subject Matter Option on Wednesday, April 25, in JR 319, the English Reading Room. A CSUN Credential counselor will answer questions about credential procedures, possibilities, pathways in this excellent opportunity to learn about this possible pathway with your English degree. Any additional questions you might have about the English Subject Matter Option will also be addressed. Light refreshments.
Interim President Harry Hellenbrand will be giving the opening address at this year’s Faculty Retention Workshop for Chairs and Tenured Faculty, which is being held on Monday April 23, 2012, from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. in the Grand Salon of the USU. This year’s event marks the 2nd installment of the Educational Equity Committee’s new three-part approach to our annual Faculty Retention Workshop. Last year, the 1st installment, as many of you will recall, was designed for the Pre-tenured Faculty only. The Spring 2012 Faculty Retention Workshop (2nd installment) will be for Chairs and Tenured Faculty only, while the 3rd installment (Spring 2013) will be designed for Deans and Associate Deans. The goal of the Faculty Retention Workshops is to gather information and report on best practices for both retaining our diverse CSUN faculty and creating a campus climate that promotes educational equity.
Anne Kellenberger is once again imploring us to send her our best students for next year’s SI positions. This is a win/win situation for all concerned. Our students get jobs and a great learning experience, their students get terrific SI’s and a great learning experience, and Anne keeps running her truly daunting program as expertly as she has this year. Please do take a moment and send her your recommendations. Both she and your students will be grateful.
2. Reminders
If you haven’t RSVP’d for the upcoming retirement gala at Irene Clark’s home, 1314 Comstock, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. on May 28, you’re in luck, because the actual party is not May 28, as announced in the last TN, but April 28, instead, which is nearly upon us. Please do come to help thank Martha Alzamora, Pam Bourgeois, Patrick Hunter, Rei Noguchi, and Pat Watkins for all their wonderful work over all these wonderful years, and to wish them the very best at whatever in the world may be coming next.
Just a quick reminder to vote in the College’s Spring elections by going to https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HUMELEC and casting your vote. This ballot will be open until Wednesday, April 25, at 8 a.am.
And another ongoing vote is the CFA strike vote. Vote online or in person next week and make your voice heard.
English Department Award deadlines are fast approaching. All applications, nominations, and materials (five copies each) must be submitted by 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, April 25. Please support your students and our program, and consider nominating promising students, or encouraging them to apply, for the following awards. (For details or more information, please contact Pat Watkins, Chair, Awards and Amenities Committee.)
The Lesley Johnstone Memorial Award ($500) for the best written scholarly or creative work that takes some element of the natural world as a central focus. Undergraduates only.
The Annamarie Peterson Morley Award ($1000) for a currently enrolled English major planning to become a teacher at any level and possessing a minimum 3.5 grade point average. Undergraduates and graduates.
The George Morley/Annamarie Peterson Scholarship ($1,000) for a currently enrolled English major in need of financial support and possessing a minimum grade point average of 3.0. Undergraduates and graduates.
The Professor Mitchell Marcus Prize in English ($2000) for the currently enrolled classified graduate student in English whose achievements in the study of English are considered by the faculty to be the most distinguished.
The Mahlon Gaumer Award ($500) for the best close, critical analysis of a work of English or American literature, with an emphasis on the use of language, given to a classified graduate student currently enrolled in the academic year in which the award is given.
The Richard Lid & Helen Lodge Scholarship ($500) for a graduate student enrolled in English and/or Secondary Education to help pay fees for graduate work.
The Henry Van Slooten Scholarship in English ($500) for an essay written in English 258, 259, 275, or 355 which best demonstrates a “passion for the English language.” By professor nomination only.
Just in case you are looking for fun on Saturday night, Kate Haake and Mona Houghton will be reading from their new books at The Last Bookstore in downtown LA at 8:30 p.m. (And thank you to all of you who have come to listen already.) Two more readings are coming up: Friday, May 4, at 7:00 p.m. at Stories Bookstore in Echo Park; and Thursday, May 17, at 12 p.m. in the downtown Central Library.
3. Achievements
Linda Rader Overman presented “Ekphrastic Narrative: A Genre Focalizing Image and Text,” an excerpt from her dissertation, at the International Journal of Arts and Sciences Conference at University Nevada, Las Vegas on Wednesday March 14, 2012.
César Leon Soto has been awarded a Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship, which among its several benefits includes an annual stipend of $20,000 for three years of doctoral work, as well as the opportunity to be mentored by a former Ford Fellow and thereby gain access to the national Ford Fellows Liaisons network. This year there were over 1,300 applicants and only 60 fellowships awarded. Fellowships are administered by the National Research Council of the National Academies. César has also been awarded 2012’s Nathan O. Freedman Memorial Award for Outstanding Graduate Student which is a University-wide award open to all Master’s students. César will receive the award, and his name will be announced, at this year’s Honors Convocation on May 21st.
Danielle Spratt has received an NEH fellowship to participate in the summer seminar “Jane Austen and Her Contemporaries,” which will take place at the University of Missouri. At the end of March, she also presented ” ‘A large, uneven thread’: Spectacles and the Anatomy of Attention in Tristram Shandy” at the annual American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies conference held in San Antonio; she also chaired two panels at ASECS.