Reading Matters, Vol. 12, Issue 12, March 1, 2007

From (under) the Chair's Desk

As the month of deadlines slouches to its end, I think the English Department can feel well-served by strategic assessments of the Ph.D. and MFA programs that lay out both their virtues and their needs; by discussion of our Ph.D. processes that led to some elegantly straightforward improvements as well as giving us all food for thought (thanks, Barbara, for orchestrating those); by requests for new lines that would surely convince even the most hardened cynic; by a curricular process that remains on track for all of our huge range of teaching (thanks above all to Sharry for keeping that immensely complex operation on track); by admissions processes reaching their climax (thanks Garrett and Robin for overseeing those). Things to look forward to in the next month or two include description and discussion of the gateway course, now named 008:005 Introduction to the English Major: The Theory and Practice of Literary Studies and ready to be taught for the first time by Laura Rigal in Fall 2007; renewed discussion of enacting our Outcomes Assessment plan for the English major; a report, discussion, and, perhaps, some resolution on a Creative Writing Track within the English Major to be overseen by the department in cooperation with the Writers’ Workshop (thanks, Ed, for chairing that committee); the visit of the external reviewers to report on the departmental journals; not to mention the regular excitement of advising (thanks to Doug Trevor and Anne Stapleton for their great work organizing that); courting the new graduate class (please be as accommodating as possible if a visiting potential graduate student wants to meet with you or attend one of your classes); midterms and teaching; and the ongoing pleasures of our research, with the exciting intellectual engagement of colloquia, visitors, and publications. Happy approaching midterm!

Publications, Presentations, and other Faculty Matters

Mary Lou Emery's book, Modernism, the Visual, and Caribbean Literature, has just appeared from Cambridge University Press. A description and excerpt can be found here.

Loren Glass was one of three newly tenured associate professors to be named Dean's Scholars by Dean Maxson of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Dean's Scholars receive a $5,000 discretionary fund for each of two years to support teaching and research initiatives. A UI news release about the awards is available here.

John Harper recently directed a City Circle Acting Company production, a one-woman show called Catchin' the Babies. The show was written and performed by Susan Short Gilbert, who based her character on an ancestor of hers who was a Missouri midwife in the late 18th century. The DI reviewed the play here.

Mark Isham gave a "Business Writing Workshop Designed for Engineering Professionals" on February 8, 2007 at Rockwell in Cedar Rapids. The seminar is one of a series of Rockwell workplace seminars he is giving in 2006 and 2007.

Obscenity Matters

Obscenity: An Interdisciplinary Discussion, the 2007 Obermann Center for Advanced Studies Humanities Symposium, will take place March 1-4 on the UI campus. The symposium gets underway on Thursday evening in the Old Capitol with a keynote address by John D. Peters (Univ. of Iowa), followed by a reception. Friday and Saturday are packed with sessions at the IMU, a plenary panel featuring Lamia Karim (Univ. of Oregon) and Jyoti Puri (Simmons Coll.), film screenings, and keynote addresses by David Levi Strauss (Bard Coll.), Michael Taussig (Columbia Univ.), Linda Williams (Univ. of California Berkeley), Laura Kipnis (Northwestern Univ.), and Nadine Strossen (New York Law School). Performance artist Tim Miller, one of four artists stripped of their NEA grants in 1990, will be featured on Friday evening. The symposium closes on Sunday with an "Obscenity Institute" on Ana Mendieta. An art exhibit is ongoing at the Art Building East. Registration for the symposium is free.

Many members of the department are giving presentations or moderating panels. And no one is more involved than organizer Loren Glass. The symposium's topic is of ongoing interest to Loren, who is currently working on a book titled "The End of Obscenity: Vulgar Modernism and Literary Value" (forthcoming, Duke UP).

An overview of the symposium is here, and the complete schedule is here. The March 1 DI story, with interviews with Loren, Obermann Center Director Jay Semel, and Tim Miller, is here, and here is an accompanying story on David Levi Strauss.

Graduate Matters

Thanks to Garrett Stewart’s persuasive letters and the stellar records of some applicants to the doctoral program, the Graduate College has awarded us five Presidential Fellows—the max. Word soon on Dean’s Fellows. The admissions committee met Wednesday, March 1, to decide on those accepted. Now we need to recruit, recruit, recruit. Barbara

NWP Matters

The University Theatres Gallery series presented Joshua Casteel's Returns, based on his own experiences as an Abu Ghraib interrogator, Feb. 15-18. The production was directed by David Gothard, associate director of the Abbey Theatre, Ireland's national theater. The UI news release about the production is here. An article about Casteel's play recently appeared in the Ontario Hamilton Spectator. In other news, Joshua Casteel was one of 11 people arrested on Feb. 26 in front of Charles Grassley's Cedar Rapids office while protesting the senator's support for the war in Iraq. The DI article about the arrests can be found here.

Amy Kolen (NWP 2000) will have an essay titled “Moose” appearing in the upcoming issue of Marginalia (Vol. #3, Issue #1).

Amy Leach is currently the featured author on identitytheory.com.

Acclaimed poet and essayist Mary Ruefle will join the NWP as a Visiting Faculty member for fall and spring semesters this coming academic year. Mary has received both Guggenheim and NEA grants, and she was a recent visiting Writers' Workshop faculty member. Her most recent book of poetry is A Little White Shadow (Wave Books, 2006). She'll be teaching graduate and undergraduate nonfiction workshops in the spring and fall.

 


Writing Matters

"Iowa Writes," the web project that presents work by Iowa writers, is soliciting poems, essays, stories, and book excerpts to include in the "Daily Palette," a site featuring art and writing, which can be linked to from the bottom of the main page of the University of Iowa website. Submissions should be 700 words or less and can be sent to iowa-writes@uiowa.edu along with up to 50 words of biographical information. The editors of The Iowa Review choose the selections that are posted. A UI news release is here.

Department Calendar

Mar. 1-4 (Thr.-Sun.)—Obermann Symposium "Obscenity," organized by Loren Glass. The UI news release on the symposium is here.

Mar. 1 (Thr.), 3:30 p.m., Lucas Dodge Room in the IMU—Valerie Smith, Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature and director of the Center in African American Studies at Princeton University, will present "The Futures of African American Studies." The lecture is free and open to the public, and will be preceded by a reception at 3 p.m. in the same location. The UI news release for the event is here.

Mar. 2 (Fri.), 9:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m.—The "Restoring Wildness" symposium will explore the human relationship with the wild. The symposium is part of the Iowa Project on Place Studies. A UI news release on the event is here.

Mar. 2 (Fri.), 2:30-4:00 p.m., 331 EBP—The Early Modern Reading Group will meet to discuss " 'Onely Fit Me to Heare, and Keepe': Authorship, Agency, and the Publication of Mary Wroth's Urania" by Stacy Erickson.

Mar. 2 (Fri.), 4:00 p.m., Conroy Reading Room, Dey House—James Galvin of the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop will present a free public lecture on William Faulkner's writing. This event has been moved to March 23.

Mar. 2 (Fri.), 5:00 p.m., 116 Art Building West—Robert Minsky will present "Material as Metaphor," the 2007 Mitchell Lecture in the Art of the Book. A reception will follow. Richard Minsky's book art has been exhibited in major art galleries and museums around the world. He bought his first letterpress in 1960, and was trained in traditional craft bookbinding. He was the founder of the Center for Book Arts in New York City and still serves at Chairman. In this illustrated talk he will show how his work evolved and changed the way we see books. Learn more about Richard's work at http://www.minsky.com. The UI news release for Minsky's visit is here.

Mar. 7 (Wed.), 3:30-5:00 p.m., International Programs Commons Room, 1117 University Capitol Centre—Talk by Julia Cuervo Hewitt, Dept. of Spanish, Italian & Portuguese, The Pennsylvania State University, “Ñañas, Jungle, Monte: An Afro-Caribbean Discourse.” This talk is part of the Caribbean, Diaspora and Atlantic Studies Program’s Spring Lecture and Performance Series: Caribbean Discourses and Contrapuntal Modernity and is co-sponsored with UI Dept. of Spanish & Portuguese.

Mar. 7 (Wed.), 7:00 p.m., Prairie Lights Bookstore: Essayist Ander Monson, a guest of the NWP, will read from Neck Deep and Other Predicaments: Essays. Listen to the reading live on the Internet at http://writinguniversity.uiowa.edu, or visit to find when the reading will be broadcast on NPR. A UI news release about the reading is here. The publisher's page for Neck Deep, which includes an excerpt, is here.

The free reading will be recorded for broadcast on the “Live from Prairie Lights” series originating on University of Iowa radio station WSUI, AM 910. Hour-long “Live from Prairie Lights” productions, hosted by Julie Englander, air at 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. Saturdays, and 7 p.m. Sundays on AM 910 WSUI in Iowa City, AM 640 WOI in Ames and AM 1010 KRNI in Cedar Falls. A program is also broadcast at 5 p.m. Sundays on 91.7 FM KSUI in Iowa City.

Mar. 8 (Thr.), 3:45 p.m., Gerber Lounge—Department Meeting: report on the Gateway Course and (if time) continued discussion of Outcomes Assessment

March 15 (Thr.)—Submission deadline for the 7th annual Craft Critique Culture Conference. Details available here.

Mar. 23 (Fri.), 4:00 p.m., Conroy Reading Room, Dey House—James Galvin of the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop will present a free public lecture on William Faulkner's writing. A UI new release about this talk is here.

Mar. 26 (Mon.), 3:30-5:00 p.m., International Programs Commons Room, 1117 University Capitol Centre—Talk by Mary Lou Emery, “Arts of Seeing: Transatlantic Modernism and Anglophone Caribbean Literature.” This talk is part of the Caribbean, Diaspora and Atlantic Studies Program’s Spring Lecture and Performance Series: Caribbean Discourses and Contrapuntal Modernity.

Mar. 29 (Thr.), 4:00 p.m., Univ. of Iowa Museum of Art—Nick Yablon will give a talk titled "Trouble in Eden: Fantasies of Ruin on the American Urban Frontier, 1825-37." The respondents to his talk will be Joni Kinsey, School of Art and Art History, and Susan Scheckel, Department of English, State University of New York at Stony Brook and Visiting Scholar at the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies. Assistant Professor Yablon is in the Department of American Studies. His talk is a collaboration of International Programs, Interdisciplinary 18th and 19th Century Colloquium, and the UIMA. This talk is a part of a series presented in connection with the UIMA exhibition Picturing Eden (Feb. 4-May 13). The UI news release about this event is here.

Apr. 2 (Mon.)—Deadline for proposals for Fall 2007 CLAS First-Year Seminars

Apr. 5-7 (Thr.-Sat.)—Poetries Symposium, organized by Dee Morris and Mike Chasar with a keynote lecture by Cary Nelson and featured appearances by Maria Damon, James Sullivan, and Robert von Hallberg. The complete schedule for the symposium is here.

Apr. 5 (Thr.), 7:30 p.m., Gerber Lounge—Cary Nelson (Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), will give the keynote address for the Poetries Symposium. His talk is titled “When Context Is All: The Specificity of Popular Poetry.”

Apr. 6 (Fri.), 10:00 a.m., Gerber Lounge—The Poetries Symposium continues with a panel titled “The Futures of Poetry Studies,” featuring Melissa Girard (Univ. of Illinois) speaking on “Backward Glances: The Sentimental Poetess at the Height of Modernism,” Stephan Healey (Univ. of Minnesota) speaking on “Notes on the Value of Poetry, or, What's the Difference Between an MFA Candidate and a Prisoner,” and Matthias Regan (Univ. of Chicago) on “Embodied Politics, or, the Poet as Perceiver and Improviser.”

Apr. 6 (Fri.), 1:30-2:30 p.m., Room 2032, Main Library—James Sullivan (Illinois Central Coll.) will give a talk titled “Poetry Broadsides: Looking at the Printed Poem, Holding It in Your Hands” as part of the Poetries Symposium.

Apr. 6 (Fri.), 2:45-3:45 p.m., Gerber Lounge—Maria Damon (Univ. of Minnesota) will give a talk titled “Poetry and Cultural Studies: (im)Plausible Pre-histories and Futures” as part of the Poetries Symposium.

Apr. 6 (Fri.), 4:00-5:00 p.m., Gerber Lounge—Robert von Hallberg (Univ. of Chicago) will give a talk titled “The Recovery of Sentiment in Popular U.S. Poetry of the 1940s and 1950s: Sinatra; Doo Wop” as part of the Poetries Symposium.

Apr. 6 (Fri.), 4:00 p.m., 40 Schaeffer Hall—Talk by Sidney Mintz, Dept. of Anthropology, Johns Hopkins University, "Emerging Creole: Creolization and the Construction of Culture." This talk is part of the Caribbean, Diaspora and Atlantic Studies Program’s Spring Lecture and Performance Series: Caribbean Discourses and Contrapuntal Modernity and is co-sponsored with the Dept. of Anthropology.

Apr. 9 (Mon.)—Deadline for proposals to design and direct the Obermann Summer 2008 Research Seminar

Apr. 10 (Tue.), 7:00 p.m., Prairie Lights Bookstore—Huston Diehl will read from her new book, Dream Not of Other Worlds: Teaching in a Segregated Elementary School, 1970.

Apr. 11 (Wed.), 7:00 p.m., Prairie Lights Bookstore—Robin Hemley will read from Invented Eden.

Apr. 12 (Thr.), 3:45 p.m., Gerber Lounge—Department Meeting: discussion of the possible new Creative Writing Track within the English Major

Apr. 13-15 (Fri.-Sun.)—7th annual Craft Critique Culture Conference.

Apr. 13 (Fri.), 2:30-4:00 p.m., 331 EPB—The Early Modern Reading Group will meet to discuss an article by Jailyn Moreland. A copy will be available for photocopying in the Zimansky Reading Room. Please contact Stacy Erickson (stacy-erickson@uiowa.edu) for more details.

Apr. 19 (Thr.), 3:45-5:15 p.m., Ritchey Ballroom, IMU—The Graduate Awards Ceremony

Apr. 19 (Thr.), 7:30 p.m., UI Museum of Art—Riley Hanick, writer-in-residence at the UI Museum of Art and a student in the Nonfiction Writing Program, will giving a reading with Robin Hemley and Patricia Foster.

Apr. 27 (Fri.), 3:30-5:00 p.m., the Museum of Art's Lasansky Print Room and Willis Atrium—Undergraduate Honors Award Ceremony. Thesis advisors: Please note this date on your calendars and that this year the event is scheduled on a Friday rather than a Thursday as has been the tradition in the past.

May 2 (Wed.), 3:30 p.m., Harper Hall, Voxman Music Building—Steeldrum workshop and presentation by Ray Holman, composer and performer from Trinidad. This event is part of the Caribbean, Diaspora and Atlantic Studies Program’s Spring Lecture and Performance Series: Caribbean Discourses and Contrapuntal Modernity and is co-sponsored with the School of Music.

May 4 (Fri.), 2:30-4:00 p.m., 331 EPB—The Early Modern Reading Group will meet to discuss a paper about King Lear by Doug Trevor. Please contact Stacy Erickson (stacy-erickson@uiowa.edu) for more details.

May 5 (Sat.), 3:00 p.m., Clapp Recital Hall, Voxman Music Building—World Percussion Concert with Ray Holman. This event is part of the Caribbean, Diaspora and Atlantic Studies Program’s Spring Lecture and Performance Series: Caribbean Discourses and Contrapuntal Modernity.

Nov. 1-3 (Thr.-Sat.)—NonfictioNOW Conference

Other Calendars

UI Master Calendar of Events | UI Academic Calendar | The Writers Workshop Reading Schedule | POROI Calendar

Future Issues

Please send any items for Reading Matters or the departmental calendar to Carolyn Jacobson at carolyn-jacobson@uiowa.edu. Reading Matters will appear every other Thursday during the semester, and submissions should be received by 5 p.m. the day before. Please send submissions for the next issue by 5 p.m. on Wed., Mar. 14. Thanks very much.