Wednesday, 3 April 2002
READING
MATTERS Vol. VII, No 1
The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without
work. -Emile Zola
READING
MATTERS Vol. VII, No 1
The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work. -Emile Zola
A note from the former editor
The English Department needs Reading Matters. But Reading Matters needs to be the department's newsletter, not the chair's. Not this chair's, at any rate. So, I've asked Amanda to take over the editing responsibilities, giving her the chance to rethink the kinds of information that best fit a weekly departmental newsletter. Well, for the rest of this year, let's make that a bi-weekly newsletter, as Amanda tinkers with format and submission procedures. And here's where we need your help. Please tell Amanda the kinds of things you've missed having in Reading Matters and the kinds of new things you'd like to see there. I'll get to Amanda notices about deadlines and opportunities for faculty and will try to use Reading Matters as a convenient and relatively permanent bulletin board for the discussion of big departmental issues and the posting of important departmental documents, whether in draft or final form. I'm also asking Amanda to set up a password protected area of the Reading Matters website where we can post information that we feel should be limited to the immediate audience of the department. With your help, Amanda can make Reading Matters an important part of the way the English Department does business (and sometimes less-than-business); without your help it will probably go silent again. -Brooks
A note from the new editor
So, we're back. And I'm in charge now, which means ... well, I'm not quite sure what that means. Though there will obviously have to be the necessary items included in Reading Matters, I would really like this to be a fun publication. So when the next deadline rolls around (April 15), I'm up for anything -- quotes, links to useful or informational Web sites, even recipes. It's all up to you. The password-protected part of this site will debut in the next issue (April 17), and I also hope to have an actual bulletin board where we can all communicate with each other. Additionally, any format changes (additional categories, text changes, etc.) you'd like to see implemented to this site can be recommended to me and are more than welcome, because I'm just getting started ... -Amanda
Congratulations to Kathy Lavezzo and Harry Stecopolous on the birth of their first daughter, Nina, born March 25 at 7:23 p.m. Nina weighed in at 8 lbs. 10 oz.
Congratulations to Doris Witt and Bluford Adams on the adoption of their second child.
TIR WEB IS BACK! Publishing electronic literature since 1999, The Iowa Review Web is well-known for its commitment to new writing. Starting in 2002, TIR Web is expanding under the direction of a new editor, Thomas Swiss, and a new national editorial board. It will now include -- along with electronic literature -- other varieties of experimental writing and art. It will also feature interviews with innovative writers and New Media artists, as well as critical articles and essays. Each issue of TIR Web includes work from both The Iowa Review and 91¡ Meridian, published by the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. For more information, visit the site: http://www.uiowa.edu/~iareview/.
Wireless laptops are now available for use in the Main Library. You can also check out a wireless card to use for your own computer in the library. Laptops and cards can be checked out in the Information Arcade. For more information, visit http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/arcade/wireless.htm, e-mail info-arcade@uiowa.edu, or call 335-6465.
Publishing Matters
Farrar, Strauss, Giroux/Northpoint has agreed to publish Tom Lutz's Doing Nothing: A History of Slackers, Bums, Loafers, Loungers, and Other Enemies of the Work Ethic in 2004.
Three new articles of Tom's have also appeared in the last year or so, ãMale Weepies and the Roles of Melodrama,ä in When Boys Do Cry: Rethinking Masculinity and Emotion in America, ed. Jennifer Travis and Millette Shamir (Columbia University Press); ãVarieties of Medical Experience: Doctors and Patients, Psyche and Soma in America,ä in Cultures of Neurasthenia From Beard to the First World War, ed. Roy Porter and Marijke Gijswijt (Wellcome Institute/Rodolpi); and ãClaude McKay: Music, Sexualities, and Literary Cosmopolitanism,ä essay invited for Saadi A. Simawe, ed., Black Orpheus: Music in African American Fiction from the Harlem Renaissance to Toni Morrison (Garland).
This past winter, Florence Boos published a critical and annotated edition of The Earthly Paradise by William Morris (2 vols., Routledge). Additionally, a special issue of Victorian Poetry which Florence edited, "The Poetics of the Working Classes," appeared as 39.2 (summer 2001).
Marilyn Abildskov has published new poetry and essays in Alaska Quarterly Review, Quarterly West, and Puerto del Sol, and has pieces forthcoming in Northwest Review, Fourth Genre, The Postmodern Short Story, and High Country News. Also, her work has been anthologized in recent months in several publications, including "Andre Dubus: A Tribute" (Xavier Review Press).
A collaborative New Media poem, "The Narrative You Anticipate," by Thomas Swiss is featured in the current issue of the journal Postmodern Culture, from Johns Hopkins. Another collaborative piece, "Genius," is featured in the current issue of the journal Leonardo, from MIT Press, as part of an art exhibit at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
Rob Latham's book, Consuming Youth: Vampires, Cyborgs, and the Culture of Consumption, has just been released by the University of Chicago Press. Rob also has an article, "VR Noir: Kim Newman's The Night Mayor," in the new "Dark Alleys of Noir" issue of the journal Para*Doxa: Studies in World Literary Genres.
Kathy Lavezzo published an essay on the Clerk's Tale in Studies in the Age of Chaucer.
David Hamilton's book, Deep River, was published last fall, with readings since in Omaha, Sedalia, Columbia, Kansas City, on WSUI, and at Prairie Lights. Readings are also scheduled for Cedar Rapids.
Kevin Kopelson will be at Harvard next year, having been awarded a fellowship for 2002-2003 at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (otherwise known as a "Bunting" Fellowship). While there, he plans to finish his book project, Neatness Counts.
Kathy Lavezzo was offered a year-long Mellon Fellowship at Notre Dame, which she declined to take a Solmsen Fellowship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Rebecca Clouse has been studying part-time all year at Wartburg Seminary in Dubuque and has been endorsed for the ministry by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, with which she expects to serve as an intern during much of the next academic year.
On March 15, David Hamilton participated in "Making a Place for Literature: A Conference on Literary Publishing and Communities of Print," in Ann Arbor. David is also the new director of our MFA program in Nonfiction Writing.
International Programs Summer Research Fellowships of $3,000 each have been awarded to Mary Lou Emery, Claire Fox, and Priya Kumar.
Teresa Mangum and Corey Creekmur have been elected to the Faculty Senate.
Election results from the Spring 2002 election can be viewed at http://www.clas.uiowa.edu/faculty/governance/elections/results. Congratulations to Doug Trevor and Ed Folsom!
Other Matters
Tom Lutz has been doing print and radio interviews for the Mexican and Spanish editions of Crying, and Italian and Japanese translations of the book are underway. Tom is also putting the final touches on two projects, Cryin', a new CD recorded this fall with the Blue Tunas, and Cosmopolitan Vistas: Regionalism and Literary Value in America.
Five of Thom Swiss's students -- Rebekah Farrugia, Sarah Townsend, Kevin Shut, Danielle Wiese, and Michelle Simmons -- all from his Digital Rhetoric class this term, will be giving papers at the Craft, Critique, Culture Conference in April.
On April 12, Rob Latham will appear on the local radio program, "Iowa Talks," to discuss his work.
A new design is coming for The Iowa Review in April , due to the hard work and artistry of Amber Withycombe, Managing Editor.
The faculty exchange with the Department of English at the Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier, will be taking place next year. Professor Pascal Robert (pascal.robert@univ-montp3.fr) will be visiting our department for Fall 2002. A specialist in semiotic approaches to 19th and 20th Century American literature, he will be teaching: 8:56 American Literary Classics: Romance in U.S. Fiction, 1830-1930; 8:74, section 4: Selected American Authors: Hawthorne and Melville. We will be sending Professor Patricia Foster as our visitor to Montpellier in Spring 2003. Her selection arose by consensus among the half dozen colleagues who expressed an initial interest in the exchange. Provided that faculty from Montpellier continue wanting to come to Iowa, we will be in a position to send another colleague there in Spring 2004. Any such position will be announced by Jon Wilcox as coordinator for the exchange in Fall 2002.
If you're happy and you know it ... an article from the Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/weekly/v48/i28/28b02001.htm.
Graduate Matters
Thanks to the good work of Kathleen Diffley and the Graduate Admissions committee, the department has been awarded by the Graduate College this year four Graduate Merit Fellowships and six Presidential Graduate Fellowships for incoming Ph.D. students. Kathleen will be coordinating efforts to encourage these exceptionally strong candidates to choose Iowa. Please help out if you can with telephoning or talking with any of these candidates.
The English Department stole the show in Humanities section of the GSS Jakobsen Forum 2002. Bidisha Banerjee took second place, Jennifer Ryan took third place and Anthony Enns and Jeff Charis-Carlson took honorable mention. While a student from musicology sadly walked off with the first place, we, as a department, managed to claim four out of the five Humanities slots (as well as claim $700 of the $1,000 prize money). The only thing left for next year is to sweep the Humanities category altogether.
All of Tom Lutz's graduate students who were on the market this year received tenure-track jobs: Lyn Elliot at Penn State, Josh Kotzin at Marist College, and Eleanor Hersey at Fresno Pacific University. Tom's former student Carol Spaulding was tenured this year at Drake University.
Surplus computer equipment, retired from ITC, is made available for use by Graduate Research Assistants and Teaching Assistants. These computers are explicitly intended for use by and only by graduate students in their departmental offices to further their education, teaching, and research skills. This equipment is available at NO CHARGE. The application can be found at: http://www.uiowa.edu/~gss/requestform.html. Please apply on-line or submit paper application to Graduate Student Senate Computer Committee, 205 Gilmore Hall, no later than Monday, April 15, 2002.
For Our Students
The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute invites applications for its Short-term Training for Minority Students Program. The program is a National Research Service Award (NRSA) designed to provide short-term research support to underrepresented minority undergraduate and graduate students and students in health professional schools to provide them with career opportunities in cardiovascular, pulmonary, hematologic and sleep disorders research. The grant provides two to three consecutive months of research training with experienced investigators and exposes talented students to experiences that will help them pursue a biomedical or behavioral research career. In addition to the research experience, institutions provide enrichment activities such as research forums, guest lectures, student presentations, special courses, and social activities. Each health professional school within an institution may submit only one application for this program per receipt deadline. Letters of intent are requested by May 20, with full applications due June 19. The complete announcement is available through the NIH web site listed below. Questions may be directed to the Division of Sponsored Programs at (33)5-2123. http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-HL-02-025.html.
For students who are parents: information on the Undergraduate Student Parent/Pell Grant can be viewed at http://www.clas.uiowa.edu/deomailing/2002/03/27/parents.pdf.
Readings, Lectures, Workshops, and Conferences
The Craft, Critique, and Culture Conference is being held April 12-14. For more information and details, visit http://www.uiowa.edu/~c3conf/ or email Anthony Enns at anthony-enns@uiowa.edu.
Deadlines