From (under) the Chair's Desk

Here’s a question for the department as a whole: are we doing the best that we can in broadcasting our various and manifold merits?

I like to think that the English Department is buzzing away at good teaching and good research, all supported through good service. Isn’t that enough? If we are doing our job well, won’t news of our excellence simply ooze out from EPB and everyone will be happy? At some fundamental level I think that is true, but I also realize the naiveté of that position in an age of information overload when whole PR firms make their living on the need for organizations to publicize their achievements and spin their message. True to my academic ideals, I’m mighty suspicious both of PR firms and of spin, but as a scholar interested in the dissemination of ideas through language, I know it is not as simple as oozing. The ways we tell our story affect the way it will be heard.

These thoughts were prompted in part by discussions in the CLAS executive committee about formulating a departmental profile—a brag sheet itemizing a department’s achievements—which could be used, among other things, to educate a new university president about the glories of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Aren’t we always telling everyone how great we are, I thought to myself? Even as I thought it, I realized the honest answer is, well, not really, no.

I think our achievements do get out there in all kinds of ways. It is always good to see our strong teaching recognized through teaching awards, such as Teresa Mangum and Ed Folsom winning the President and Provost teaching award, or Kathleen Diffley and Linda Bolton receiving recent GC and CLAS mentoring and teaching awards, and we should stay active nominating faculty for those opportunities. Indirect but powerful testimony of good teaching comes when students win prestigious awards, such as the external fellowships secured this year by Everett Hamner and Ania Spyra or Mike Chasar’s selection for the Spriestersbach award for the best dissertation in the humanities. However many we win, though, such awards never comes close to acknowledging our fundamental teaching strengths. But here I assume we give different communities a taste of those teaching skills in other arenas, by lecturing and contributing to discussions locally, such as Linda Bolton being a featured Saturday Scholar next month, or Matt Brown lecturing at the Museum of Art in connection with a current exhibit there, or Barbara Eckstein contributing to the One Community, One Book: All Johnson County Reads discussion in the Iowa City Public Library. Then there is English faculty involvement in larger events around campus, such as the upcoming IWP celebrations, organized by Chris Merrill and featuring many English faculty or the NonfictioNow conference organized by Robin Hemley that highlights English faculty as moderators and facilitators.

For more national exposure, publication is the lifeblood of our profession, and surely we do well here. Our half dozen single-authored books, 24 articles, 16 nonfiction essays, and 21 published reviews speak for themselves. At least, they do to the specialist audiences that may actually read these things. Book covers on the notice board and book copies in the Zimansky library are a nice start for giving notice to our peers, who are also served by listing in Reading Matters and on the CLAS website. I think we do a pretty good job of sharing our research through faculty colloquia, both in the department (watch out for Garrett Stewart next month) and beyond (look out for Harry Stecopoulos on Friday in American Studies), through readings from our books (note the 26 public readings we gave last year and Prairie Lights readings by Jeff Porter and Kevin Kopelson next month), and presumably those 71 conference papers and guest lectures we delivered at regional, national, and international venues last year. Our research gets recognized through some impressive external grants, including, in recent years, NEH Fellowships (Cheryl Herr and Claire Sponsler), and awards by the ACLS (Judith Pascoe), the Ford Foundation (Miriam Thaggert), and the Guggenheim Foundation (Ed Folsom).

English faculty are good at bringing their work to broader audiences and we have gone a long way in responding to the recent push for more public engagement from humanities scholars. In addition to a public engagement element in the classes of Linda Bolton, Barbara Eckstein, and Teresa Mangum. Teresa is also currently organizing the second annual graduate institute on engagement and the academy (not to mention an intriguing pedagogical/community drama listed in the calendar on Oct. 25). Barbara Eckstein is crossing bridging academics and the community in organizing the conference, An Endangered River Runs through Us: Three Iowa River Journeys (more details in the calendar for October 19). Ed Folsom brings Walt Whitman to an unbelievably large audience, both academic and generalist, through the Whitman Archive, supported with a major NEH grant. Steve Kuusisto is breaking boundaries as he provides the keynote address at the conference, Art Beyond Sight: Multimodal Approaches to Learning, Creativity and Communication, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

We serve the profession in other ways, too. English faculty have always been prominent in major committees (including a member on each of the search committees for president and for provost of recent times) and in faculty governance (with Teresa Mangum on Faculty Council, and Alvin Snider having taken a turn as secretary of Faculty Assembly). Our involvement in journals, while challenged by recent budget contingencies, is impressive evidence of recognized expertise in an array of fields represented by The Iowa Review, the Journal of the M/MLA, PQ, and the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review. English faculty take lead roles in International Programs, with successful summer institutes taught in recent years by Marie Kruger, Claire Fox, and Corey Creekmur. Our presence in the interdisciplinary research world of the university is signaled by Teresa Mangum serving as co-director of the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies for the year.

I could go on, and this is already beginning to sound like a draft of the very brag sheet I expect we will soon need, but I worry that, for all this activity, word isn’t getting out as fully as it should. Perhaps I can express the anxiety better by thinking of specific audiences. I think we are doing a fairly good job at conveying our professional profile to each other, but even this is always a challenge. This is where Reading Matters is so crucial—so, please do report to myself or Carolyn Jacobson any activities and achievements that can be reported in these pages and give information for the associated calendar—as is the faculty colloquium series and sharing our books in the Zimansky library. For a broader audience, the department’s web presence is probably crucial, which is why it is so important to be attentive and update your faculty profile, to release your cv for the web every February, and to share electronic syllabuses so that we can post them there. But what of other constituencies, including the rest of the university, which perhaps risks taking a good English Department for granted, or to the good citizens of Iowa, whose taxes still make up 47% of the General Fund operating budget that we rely on, or our own alums, who are hard to build into our routines, or the larger academic world, which might be resistant to associating a midwest agricultural state with humanistic excellence in literary and cultural studies?

Any suggestions gratefully considered.

Meeting Matters and the Shape of the Year

Here is a little advance warning that you should expect a heavy meeting schedule this spring. Since we are so fortunate as to be undertaking three searches, we’re going to be facing a flow of candidates that will likely occupy many afternoons for all of us for the first five weeks of next semester. Executive committee agreed on a rational order for bringing the candidates, starting with the early modern search, then the NWP, then the director of the undergraduate creative writing track. While the details still need to be worked out, that will likely involve candidate talks every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon at 3:45 p.m. for five weeks, with meetings for discussion and vote on candidates on three Wednesday and Friday afternoons at 3:30 p.m. You should probably assume that we will be hosting and voting on early modern candidates Jan. 22-Feb. 1 (with a first talk the first teaching day of the semester), NWP candidates Feb. 4-13 or so, and undergraduate creative writing candidates Feb. 18-27 or so. As you all know, making these hiring decisions is one of the most important activities for the department as a whole, so attending all these meetings and reading the associated materials is quite crucial.

Following that busy first third of semester, we will need to hold personnel meetings to consider faculty reviews as follows:

Mar. 6: 3rd year review: Krueger, plus discussion of lecturer reviews.
Mar. 13 reserved for follow up if needed.

Then, in the second half of the semester, you should probably anticipate a series of meetings in relation to the search for a new chair, a process that will be led by Dee Morris as the senior elected member of executive committee, along with the other elected executive committee members. Look forward to a spring semester rich in meetings!

In view of that heavy load, the executive committee suggested minimizing fall meetings as far as possible. We will need the following personnel meetings:

Thurs, Nov. 29: DCG (assoc. and full): t&p Stecopoulos + J. Porter pre-tenure
Thurs, Dec. 6: DCG (full): promotion Emery.

Otherwise, I will try to avoid calling further faculty meetings this semester, after the initial two that we have already held, unless issues arise that really need our collective attention!

Meanwhile, I am following up on a number of initiatives from last year, which remain works in progress, namely: formulating the details of the undergraduate creative writing track, moving forward the practicalities of outcomes assessment, and attending to the budget and transition issues for the department’s journals. Expect more on all of these in a subsequent Reading Matters.

 

Publications, Presentations, and other Faculty Matters

Huston Diehl gave a reading of her book Dream Not of Other Worlds: Teaching in a Segregated Elementary School 1970 in Hudson, Ohio on Saturday, September 1. The reading was sponsored by the First Congregational Church of Hudson and the Learned Owl Bookstore. And on September 18 she gave an interview about the book for C-Span’s Book TV.

Ed Folsom is the featured speaker at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Library's Three-Millionth-Volume Celebration on September 27. The UNL ceremonial three-millionth book is a copy of the 1855 (first) edition of Whitman's *Leaves of Grass*.

The Des Moines Register recently carried an article about Kevin Kopelson's new book, Sedaris.

This weekend, Steve Kuusisto will be the keynote speaker for the Art Beyond Sight: Multimodal Approaches to Learning, Creativity and Communication Conference at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City (Sept. 28-30). The conference is organized by the museum and Art Education for the Blind, and explores "the challenges faced by educators, artists, museum professionals, architects and designers to create multimodal learning opportunities and environments that better serve all audiences." The full conference schedule is available online.

Jeff Porter's new book, Oppenheimer is Watching Me (UI Press), is available now in local bookstores. In this memoir, Jeff "revisit[s] America’s atomic past and our fallen heroes, in particular J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb." A UI news release is here. Jeff will be reading at Prairie Lights on Oct 18 (7:00 p.m.), and will be visiting with Ben Keifer at WSUI's Java Blend at noon on Oct 5. The events can be attended live or listened to on WSUI.

Miriam Thaggert’s essay, “Racial Etiquette: Passing and the Rhinelander Case,” has been reprinted in the Norton Critical Edition of Nella Larsen’s Passing, ed. by Carla Kaplan.

 

 

NWP Matters

Erica Bleeg is a Visiting Assistant Professor of English and Cross Disciplinary Studies at James Madison University.

Ashley Butler has work forthcoming in Ninth Letter, Gulf Coast, and The Bellevue Literary Review.

Joshua Casteel has been invited to Princeton University to do a reading on December 8th of his play, RETURNS, produced by the McCarter Theatre.  Joshua’s first book, Letters From Abu Ghraib, is being released January 1st by The Essay Press.

Tim Denevi has work coming out this fall in The Hawaii Review and Bamboo Ridge.

Tom Fleischman has an essay in the current issue of Quarterly West.

Patricia Foster has stories forthcoming in Antioch Review and Southern Humanities Review, essays forthcoming in River Styx and an anthology dedicated to The Midwest.  She received an Art & Humanities grant from the University of Iowa to complete a film profiling nonfiction writers and taught classes in fiction and memoir in Florence and Barcelona this summer.

Brian Goedde is a new Academic Advisor.

Robin Hemley’s story, “The Warehouse of Saints,” which originally appeared in Ninth Letter, was recently reprinted in Best American Fantasy and another essay, "Control Issues," just appeared in the anthology, Living Blue in the Red States, from The University of Nebraska Press. Robin will also be reading at The New School in NYC on Sept. 24th.

Jeremy Jones has an essay, "On Honduran Airwaves: Saturday," in the Summer/Fall issue of The Crab Orchard Review (Vol.12 No. 2).

Colleen Kinder has an essay, "Protagonista," in the current issue of Quarterly West, an essay, "Horns for the Revolution," in A Woman's World Again: True Stories of World Travel (Travelers' Tales), and an article in The Washington Post's Grad Guide 2007 .

Megan Knight has an essay, "Inventory," in the upcoming issue of Fugue (no. 33, Fall/Winter 2007).

Amy Kolen has an essay, “Moenkopi Dance,” in the upcoming issue of The Minnetonka Review.

Margaret MacInnes was the 2007 William Raney Scholar at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, was awarded a 2007 tuition scholarship to attend Squaw Valley Community of Poets, and has an essay forthcoming in The Massachusetts Review. Her essay "A Day in January" appeared in The Louisville Review and is listed as a Notable Essay of 2006 in Best American Essays.

Maggie McKnight has a graphic essay, "France 1993," coming out in the Fall 2007 issue of Backwards City Revie.

Cheyenne Nimes' poems about global warming are in the Fall '07 issue of Green Mountains Review (The Apocalypse Issue) and forthcoming in Runes Magazine.

Mia Nussbaum had four book reviews in the summer issue of Commonweal; she has poems in the current issues of The Beloit Poetry Journal and The New Orleans Review; and her essay, "What Falls Down" is in the fall issue of Greatcoat.

Elena Passarrello has work forthcoming in Ninth Letter and The Believer.

Dave Peters, Gabriel Houck, and Ori Fienberg all bowled 400 series for The NWP Bowling Kings in the Lone Tree Mens League at Colonial Lanes. The Kings are in third place.

Emma Rainey edited and contributed writing to the 11th edition of Introduction to Biological Anthropology, the 2nd top-selling textbook published by Wadsworth. Also, a chapter written collaboratively by Emma Rainey, Professor Carol Severino, and Matt Gilchrist entitled, "Second Language Writers Exploring and Developing Identities through Creative Work and Performance," has been accepted for the book, Inventing Identities in Second Language Writing, edited by Cox, Ortmeier-Hooper, and Schwartz.

Leslie Roberts is currently an adjunct professor in the MFA writing program at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, where she teaches the nonfiction writing workshop. Her book, The Entire Earth and Sky, will be published by The University of Nebraska Press in 2008.

Alex Sheshunoff writes a monthly humor column for the editorial page of The Anchorage Daily News.  Links to the first few can be found at his Web site: http://www.notthesharpesttool.com

Spring Ulmer's short story, "Monsters and Their Children," was published in Adbusters #72. She also reviewed the poetry anthology, Poems from Guantanamo, for The Iowa City Press-Citizen.

Ryan Van Meter has a book review in the current issue of The Iowa Review and an essay, "Lake Effect," forthcoming in the winter issue of The Indiana Review.