Announcements
Welcome to spring 2023! We hope that the break was restful and restorative. We are happy to welcome back our fall sabbatical colleagues, Irene Clark, Rick Mitchell, and Colleen Tripp, and wish our spring sabbatical colleague, Jackie Stallcup, a productive time.
Reminders
1. Logistics
If you haven’t already, please be sure to send your office hours and syllabi to Vanessa Mendoza as soon as possible.
2. Class adds and add/drop schedule
Please note that students technically have through the end of week four to add and drop classes; after week one, they need instructor permission via permission number. We have a huge number of students still shopping for classes for all sorts of reasons, so please do hear them out if they come to you asking for a permission code, especially if your class is open. If you or they have any questions, please send them to Danielle Spratt as associate chair to help them, especially if they are graduating in spring 2023.
3. Department Meetings
Department meetings will take place on the following dates, and will run Hyflex: Feb 10, March 10, April 14, May 12 (Department Celebration).
4. Curriculum Redevelopment
Scott Kleinman, Santosh Khadka, and Brandy Underwood are the spring 2023 curriculum redevelopment faculty team, and they will be reaching out to committees to start the energizing and hard work of reimagining the curriculum in the department. Please reach out to them or your respective committee chairs (Lit, RC, Comp, etc.) with any ideas, and thanks to our colleagues for leading this charge!
5. If you haven’t already, please take JC Lee’s graduate student survey for faculty, which she created in collaboration with several semesters of ENGL 507 students.
Opportunities
The COH Academic Programming Fund RFP is due on February 10, for which you can request up to $350 to support a guest speaker in your courses or related academic programming.
If you or any of your graduate students are a current member of MLA and wish to run for a seat as a region 7 (southwest) delegate, please reach out to Danielle Spratt, who serves as a member of the MLA Delegate Election Committee.
Achievements
Mauro Carassai gave an invited talk at University of Padova (Italy) on Jan 11, 2023 as part of the university’s Seminar in Anglo-American Literature. The presentation, titled “Digital Models of Race: Recoding the Human Sensorium in Nalo Hopkinson’s Midnight Robber‘” is based on his article by the same title forthcoming in the special issue “Foreseeing Race: The Technology and Culture of Risk Prediction after the Datalogical Turn” published by the Journal of American Studies (Cambridge University Press).
Irene Clark was remarkably productive as usual during her sabbatical: she published Writing, Imitation, and Performance: Insights from Neuroscience Research (Routledge, 2022). Congratulations, Irene!
Danielle Spratt, with Melisa Galván (CHS) and Heidi Schumacher (GWS and English), obtained a College of Humanities Innovation Grant to fund two experiential public-facing projects through to support the work of the Center for the Public Humanities. One component of the project will place English Internship with humanities faculty to consider the value of humanities research and teaching for the broader public good; the other will support a collaboration between students, CSUN and high school faculty (alums of CSUN), and librarians at the West Valley LAPL and the University Library, who will collaborate in an ongoing archival transcription and digitization project to make accessible archives documenting the lived experiences of people of color held in the University Library’s Special Collections and Archives. Public talks and brown bags will be scheduled for later this spring, so stay tuned!
Beth Wightman obtained a College of Humanities Innovation Grant to support curricular revision and restructuring in the English Department–about time after more than 25 years! More details to come.
MLA 2023
Despite the bomb cyclone atmospheric river storm that passed through San Francisco in early January, CSUN English faculty were able to shine brightly at MLA. These included the following colleagues:
Irene Clark presented the paper “Literacy Narratives, Identity, and Critique: Insights from Neuroscience Research” on the panel “Addressing Personal and Educational Challenges through Literacy Narratives.”
Danielle Spratt presented with Dr. Rachael Scarborough King of UC Santa Barbara on the panel “Collaborative Work in Bibliography and Scholarly Editing.”
Sandra Stanley presented on the panel “Reframing the Global Border Regime.”
Colleen Tripp presented on the panel “MLA Public Humanities Incubator Showcase”
Beth Wightman presented on the panel “Contingent Faculty and the Future of English Studies.”
Congratulations, all!