Wednesday, 23 August, 2000
READING MATTERS Vol
VI, No 1
Fall 2000 Welcome Back and
Useful Info Edition
Congratulations to. . . .
Dee
Morris, who has been named the first
John C. Gerber Professor of English. We will more formally honor
both Dee and John Gerber at the Fall English Department Party on
Sunday, September 24.
and to
Bonnie
Sunstein, who has just been awarded
a Woodrow
Wilson National Fellowship Foundation's
"Imagining America" grant for her project, "FieldWorking Online: A
Web-Community Archive for Cultural Conservation."
FWOnline is a partnership between
the U ofIowa and the National Task Force for Folk Arts in
Education to develop avirtual community where K-12 students,
college students, their teachers,and community members can share
one another's projects in ethnographicfieldwork, archival
research, and oral history. The projects will enablestudents and
teachers to share works in-progress as well as finishedprojects.
FieldWorking Online will provide tools, support, and assistanceto
enable local communities to document their diverse
traditions,conserving culture across America.
and to
The Nonfiction Writing
Program, which had a pretty good
summer!
Faith
Adiele won the $2,000 Millennium
Essay Award from Creative Nonfiction for her essay "Lessons
in Killing for the Black Buddhist Nun";
Cecile
Goding received the Magazine
Association of Georgia Competition 2000 Gold Award for Best Essay
for "Six Degrees of Fluency," published in The Georgia
Review (Fall 1999);
Brian
Lennon received the Associated
Writing Programs Prize for Nonfiction for his book City, to
be published by the University of Georgia Press in 2001; and
Leslie
Roberts' nonfiction piece "The
Entire Earth and Sky" was selected for inclusion in Experiencing
Nature, an anthology of creative nonfiction by Jeremy P.
Tarcher/Putnam, to be published in 2001.
Search News
We have three and a quarter searches to
conduct this fall. The department has been authorized to search
for two assistant professor positions, one in Early Modern
British, the other in Literature of the Americas. As an
unexpected, but most welcome bonus, we have also been authorized
to search jointly with the Center for the Book for an assistant
professor in book studies, with English Specialty open. And we
have also been asked by the Dean to join with Journalism in an
interdisciplinary search for a writer/public intellectual. We've
been offered 25% of this line and will provide two members of the
search committee.
This Year's Departmental
Review
Here again are the questions that will be
used to focus the review:
1. In answering the questions on quality and
focus, provide information on how the Department is currently
perceived or ranks in comparison to English departments in CIC
institutions and other large public institutions in the
University's peer group. How can the Department define its areas
of scholarly focus in ways that would further increase the
visibility and national recognition of its scholarly and teaching
programs? How effectively do the current departmental governance
system and committee structure contribute to the faculty's ability
to carry out their scholarly, teaching, and service
responsibilities?
2. In answering the questions on
undergraduate teaching and advising, address the following
questions: How have changes in methods of course scheduling and
delivery since the last review affected the Department's teaching
and scholarly missions? What changes in advising and registration
procedures, cross-listing of courses, and/or the structure of
requirements for the major could help relieve enrollment pressure
on courses offered in the English Department?
3. As an appendix to the self-study, all
units under review must include a report on the assessment of
student achievement in the undergraduate major since the last
review. The appendix should concisely address the following
questions: What are the goals of each of the undergraduate major
programs in the department? How does the department evaluate
students' achievement of these goals. How has the department
modified its curriculum and major programs in response to
assessments since the last review?
4. In answering the questions on graduate
programs, address the following questions: How do graduate student
recruitment and placement compare with English departments in CIC
institutions and other large public institutions in the
University's peer group? Are the graduate programs at an
appropriate size, given conditions in the job market and the
quality of current placements of graduate students?
5. The Program in Creative Writing is a
functionally autonomous unit within the English Department. What
are the advantages of this arrangement for both the Department and
the Program? How might this relationship be better structured?
What is the current relationship between the Creative Writing
graduate program and the Department's Non-fiction Writing graduate
program? What should the relationship be?
6. The Department's longstanding practice
has been to collect student evaluations of teaching on forms that
are not machine-readable. The College's concern is that asking
departmental and collegiate committees to process many pages of
unsummarized handwritten evaluations creates a large burden for
the committees and makes effective response more difficult. What
is the practice for collecting teaching evaluations in English
departments at other institutions? What changes in the
Department's practice might be acceptable and beneficial to all
concerned?
Faculty Development
Opportunities
The University of Iowa's development
programs for faculty Arts and Humanities during the 2001-2002
academic year are the Faculty Scholars, Global Scholars, and
Semester Assignments. (This is a year for the Natural Sciences Van
Allen Fellowship so there is no Brodbeck Humanities Fellowship).
Old
Gold Summer Fellowships are
available for untenured assistant professors during the first four
yearsof their appointments at Iowa. All except the Semester
Assignment program will continue to be administered through the
Provost's Office, and additional information can be found on the
Provost's webpage at
http://www.uiowa.edu/~provost/facdev/#fellow
Complete criteria for these awards and
information about application procedures can be found at the above
URL. You can also download application materials directly from the
Provost's website, although you will first need to download the
Adobe Acrobat Player, since these materials are in PDF format. If
you haven't already downloaded this player, just click on the
yellow "Get Acrobat Reader" button on the Provost's page.
(Many, if not
most forms on the web require a PDF player for you to download
them, so it's a good idea
to
download
and install Acrobat
Reader
now even if
you do not need these particular materials. Jeff or Dianne or I
can help with these downloads if you have any trouble.)
Amy will also have information packets on
each of these fellowships for you to check out. The College of
Liberal Arts, finally, will provide application materials to
prospective applicants for all of these awards (but expect to meet
some exasperration if the material you request can be gotten from
the web. Please call Lora Irlbeck at 5-2625 for application forms
if you are unable to secure them from the web.
New Faces In 308
EPB
The English Department's two new office
assistants write to introduce themselves. . .
.
My name is
Amanda
Mittlestadt. I am originally from the town of
Jewell, Iowa, population 1,500. I'm a sophomore at the U of I,
majoring in English with a minor in Political Science. Some day
I'm hoping to be an editor, but if that fails, my interest in
politics may lead me to be a political speech writer.
In my rare spare time, I enjoy reading (I can't be more
specific…so much interests me), going to the Java House,
feeding ducks, and spending time with my wonderful friends and
roommates. If I had my way, I'd also spend ample time with a
canine, but apartment living prohibits it. However, I am fortunate
enough to have two German Shorthairs waiting for me whenever I
return to Jewell. I will be working Tuesday and Thursday mornings
in the English office, as well as most late afternoons.
Hello, my name is
Catherine
Heberling-Marentez. I'll make it easy, you can call
me Cat or Catherine. I'm 25, a second year student and live with
my fiance, Eric, and my son, Caleb, in Coralville. I am originally
from Orlando, Fl, but have lived in the Iowa City/Coralville area
for the past 4 yrs. My major is currently open, but I am thinking
of pursuing English Lit. and Religion. I enjoy reading, yoga,
listening to music and playing outside with my son (better phrased
as: acting no older than 10).
Stop by to introduce yourselves! And you all remember
Dale--he's
still with us! He graduated in May, but is still enrolled at the U
to obtain his teaching certificate. We're very happy to have him
back, and to have our promising new employees.
John Kasson Ida Beam
Visit
Plans are firming up for
John
Kasson's Ida Beam presentations in
October. And, we will also be fortunate to have Joy Kasson give a
talk on Buffalo Bill during the visit.
John Kasson's lecture, "Strongmen and Escape
Artists: The Male Body and the Crisis of Modernity in American
Culture, 1893-1917" is set for for Thurs. Oct. 5 at 4 p.m. in the
Gerber Lounge
On Friday, October 6, Kasson will deliver
another talk, "Houdini's Body, Magic, Masculinity, and Modernity"
at noon in American Studies, 204 JB. Brown bag lunches will be
served.
Also on Friday, October 6, at 4:00 PM
Joy
Kasson will speak in American
Studies 204 JB on Buffalo Bill -- no title yet.
Freedman Lecture
Garrett writes. . .
As most of you are well aware, the Freedman
Lecture series has reached a decisive stage in its evolution.
Just think back. Diawara on African film and the American black
bourgeoisie (coming again this year as an Ida Beam lecturer);
Suleri on subaltern image study; Jameson on Heidegger and
Syberberg; Sedgwick on the subtext of the American slave trade in
the gender economies of Dickens's middle period; Fried on
Renaissance self-portraiture and Conrad's materialism; Maslan on
the failures of queer theory in apprehending the exact homoerotic
valence of Whitman's tropology; Trumpener on the colonialist
rhetoric of eighteenth-century nursing as well as on post-Wall
German cinema; and then our most recent close conjunction of
"neofolormalist" issues last spring with Ferguson, Gallagher, and
Michaels (corporal pedagogy in Benthamite schoolrooms; the
temporality of lyric form; and the traumas of the signifier in
deep-ecological Mars sci fi). So it has gone, building by steady
increments.
Given the gathering and driven coherence of
this lineup over the last few years, there was only one logical
next step: straightforward period coverage, to seal up any
conceivable remaining gaps. So two visits this fall have been
scrupulously designed to canvass and exhaust the latest thinking
on the long (and lengthening) eighteenth century. We'll be coming
at it from opposite ends. Early-novel scholar
Deidre
Lynch from SUNY Buffalo, winner of
last year's MLA First Book Prize for The Economy of Character,
will be here Thurs.
and Fri., Sept. 21st and 22nd, with
lecture and open seminar respectively, followed by distinguished
Victorianist Herbert
Tucker (of Tennyson and the Doom of
Romanticism fame) from the University of Virginia on
Oct.
12th-13th, same format. Each will
be joining us, I discover, from their separate fellowship tenures
at the National Humanities Center. Exact topics for all
presentations will be announced soon. But given the advance word
I'm getting, you can count on everything from Locke, Cowper, and
Austen through Thackeray to William Morris and Conan Doyle. And
you can bet on engaging, witty lectures as well. These are
scholars who should be great fun to hear and have
around.
More details soon.
Opportunities 'R'
Us
A new issue of the University of Iowa Grant
Bulletin--a listing of funding opportunities for UI faculty,
staff, and students--is available on the Web at:
http://www.uiowa.edu/~vpr/research/gb1.htm
If you can't access the UI Grant Bulletin
via the Web, please contact Linda Meyer in the Division of
Sponsored Programs, phone (33)5-2129 or linda-k-meyer@uiowa.edu
And, before you conclude that all the grant opportunities
are for doctors and scientists, check out the Arts and Humanities
gleanings at
http://www.uiowa.edu/~vpr/cgi/gb/process1.cgi?category=art
For other research resources --
administrative/academic contacts, electronic forms, funding
statistics, on-line funding searches, regulations/procedures, etc.
-- visit the main UI research page at
http://www.uiowa.edu/~vpr/
NEH Summer Stipend
Program
The National Endowment for the Humanities
awards $4,000 stipends to enable humanities scholarsto undertake
two consecutive months of full-time independent study and
research, usually during the summer months. The stipends support a
variety of projects to advance scholarly knowledge, teaching, and
public understanding of the humanities. The work might eventually
lead to a scholarlyarticle, a monograph on a specialized subject,
a book-length treatment of a broad topic, anarchaeological site
report, a translation, an edition, or some other scholarly tool in
traditional or electronic format.
For information concerning NEH Summer
Stipends see
http://www.uiowa.edu/~vpr/prepro/nehsup.html
University Catalogue Now
Online
The 2000-02 University of Iowa General
Catalog is now on the Web at:
http://www.uiowa.edu/registrar/catalog
Saturday Scholars Series
This free lecture and discussion series
competes heroically with tailgaiting on home football game
Saturday mornings and with leaf raking on away game days. The
presentations--all at 10:00 am in Room 40 in Schaeffer Hall--are
pitched to a broad audience, are made by some of the College's
best and best-known professors, and are very enjoyable. Check out
the full schedule and more details here.
This fall, at least three of the lectures should be of particular
interest to us:
On September
9,
Miriam
Gilbert
will present "Shakespeare: Side
by Side" (Miriam may also be on Iowa Talks" on WSUI-AM (910) at
10:00am on the Friday before her presentation)
On October
7,
Lauren
Rabinovitz
will present "Yesteryear's
Wonderlands: How Amusement Parks Introduced Modernism to
America"
On October
14,
Horace
Porter
will present "All that Jazz:
Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington"
Want to See Chaos During
Finals?
Then, don't pay any attention to this
correction to the Final Exam schedule just sent out by the
Registrar's Office:
Error in Fall Final
Exam Schedule Affecting Classes Meeting Monday, 9:30
a.m.
There is an error in the "Time Period for
Single Sectioned Courses" on p. 64 of the Fall 2000 Schedule of
Courses. Classes meeting at 9:30 a.m. Monday, Wednesday, Friday
test in exam period 25 as indicated. However, in the "Time" field,
the testing time for exam period 25 is listed as 7:30 p.m.,
Friday, December 15. It should be 7:30 a.m., Friday, December 15.
The grid above the time listings is correct.
Iowa Arts Council Folklife
Program
Iowa Arts Council Folklife Program Presents
Traditional Arts Programs in Public Libraries Across Iowa. A
series of programs featuring refugee and immigrant folk artists
will take place at public libraries across the state. The Iowa
Traditions in Transition project features folk artists originally
from Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Bosnia,
Somalia, Iraq, and the Sudan. Public libraries as well as two art
center will be host to eighteen performances and demonstrations in
Sioux City, Storm Lake, Des Moines, Marshalltown, Waterloo, Cedar
Rapids, West Liberty, Davenport, and Muscatine.
Iowa has long been home to peoples of
diverse backgrounds. Each successive wave of immigrants has
brought new cultures to Iowa, where they have adapted to a new
environment. The traditions of newcomers have also changed the
tastes and practices of longtime residents. To record such
transitions, folklorists, anthropologists, historians and
community scholars spent time in each community to document a
sampling of the traditional music, dance, stories, crafts,
occupations, food, games, rituals, celebrations of Iowa's newest
residents. Because such cultural traditions are integral to the
identity of each group, their documentation and public recognition
enables newcomers to value their own cultures and make them
accessible to a broader public.
The Iowa Traditions in Transition series
features Iraqi oud making and playing, Guatemalan pupusa making
& eating, Bosnian weaving and lace crocheting, Vietnamese
dragon dancers, Nuer hair braiding, Mexican matachines dancers,
Lao storytelling and much, much more. These programs are free and
open to the public.
These events are supported by the Iowa Arts
Council Folklife Program, the National Endowment for the Arts, and
the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Community Folklife Program,
administered by the Fund for Folk Culture and underwritten by the
Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund. The Lila Wallace-Reader's
Digest Fund invests in programs nationwide that enhance the
cultural life of communities and encourage people to make the arts
and culture an active part of their everyday lives. It supports
efforts to build audiences for the performing, visual, literary
and folk arts, and supports programs to improve literacy
instruction for adults and the creation and improvement of urban
parks. The Fund for Folk Culture is a publicly supported
foundation dedicated to the preservations, appreciation,
dissemination and study of the rich variety of folk cultures in
the United States and abroad. The organization was established in
1991 to help answer the growing call for increased private sector
support for this major sphere of cultural activity.
IOWA TRADITIONS IN TRANSITION PROGRAM
SCHEDULE
August
Wednesday
23rd: West Liberty Public Library
6:30pm - 8pm
Latino program featuring La Danza
de Las Matachines dance demonstration [part of the Our Lady
of Guadalupe celebration] and quinceanera
discussion
Saturday
26th: Waterloo Public Library 1pm -
3pm
Latino program featuring
piñata demonstration, food demonstration, and children's
dance troupe
Saturday
26th: Sioux City Art Center with
Sioux City Public Library 2pm - 4pm
Latino program featuring
traditional Mexican music, quinceañera discussion
September
Wednesday 6th:
Des Moines Public Library, Franklin
Library, 7pm -8:30pm
Rites of Passage in different
cultures: Lao Buddhist, Tai Dam, Nuer, Mexican Catholic,
Bosnian Muslim
Saturday
9th: Cedar Rapids Public Library
10am - 12pm
Iraqi program featuring oud
[lute-like stringed instrument] construction and
performance and flat bread demonstration
Sunday
10th: Davenport Public Library 2pm -
4pm
Bosnian program featuring food
demonstration, dance performance
Saturday
16th: Marshalltown Public Library
2:30pm - 4:30pm
Latino Fiesta, featuring music,
food, games, holiday decorations
Saturday
16th: Des Moines Public Library,
Forest Ave. Branch 12pm - 12:45pm
Nuer drummers, dancers, and
singers
Sunday 17th:
Muscatine Art Center with Musser
Public Library 1:30pm - 3:30pm
Latino program featuring music,
food demonstration, panel discussion on folklife fieldwork by
Muscatine High School ESL students
Saturday 23rd:
West Liberty Public Library 1:30 -
3:30pm
Southeast Asian program featuring
panel discussion of the refugee experience: fleeing home, camp
life, coming to Iowa, re-unification with family
Saturday 23rd:
Des Moines Public Library, Franklin
Ave. Branch 2pm - 3:30pm
Bosnian Open House featuring ciliim
[rug] weaving, lace crocheting, pita making, Bosnian
Croatian guitar
Saturday 23rd:
Des Moines Public Library, East
Branch 10:30am - 11:30am
Lao story telling
Sunday 24th:
Davenport Public Library 2pm -
4pm
Vietnamese program featuring Dragon
Dance performance, court dances, food demonstration
Monday
25: Des Moines Public Library,
Southside Branch 7pm - 9pm
"Fiesta Latina!" featuring
traditional music, food demonstrations and sales, craft
demonstrations, quinceañera exhibit,
storytelling
Tuesday
26th: Des Moines Public Library,
East Branch 7pm - 8pm
Mexican ballads, guitar,
vocals
Saturday
30th: Waterloo Public Library 1pm -
3pm
Bosnian program featuring food
demonstration and children's dance performance
October
Saturday
7th: Marshalltown Public Library
2:30pm - 4:30pm
Nuer program featuring discussion
of culture, tradition, and hairbraiding
Changes in Reading
Matters
With this issue, Reading Matters
begins its sixth year of publication--give or take the fact that I
only managed to get out one edition last spring. This year I
promise publication will be much more regular--if not
dependable.
And this year, publication will only be
on the web.
This year, it will be even more important to
check the web for Reading Matters, since hotlinks are now even
more widespread and almost indispensable for University
information and forms.
READINGS, LECTURES, WORKSHOPS, AND
CONFERENCES
(Oops! Maybe next week. . .)
DEADLINES TO KEEP YOU FROM
ATTENDING READINGS, LECTURES, & ETC.
(Definitely next week. . .)