Reading Matters, Vol. 14, Issue 8, March 5, 2009
We’re at that déjà vu moment where Sally Mason is starting to sound like Jimmy Carter and we’ll all soon be wearing fusty cardigans and speaking in drawls as we turn down our thermostats and power off our computers. All of which is to say that energy saving is the most recent stage in the university’s response to the expected budget crunch. Fortunately, energy-saving offers not only an easy but also a desirable way for us to reduce expenses and so is one form of budget-cutting we can all love. President Mason's recent letter to the university community advises us to “power down” our offices over Spring Break, by closing windows and outside doors, turning off or unplugging computers and other equipment, and dialing down our thermostats. For more information on UI energy conservation efforts, energy-saving tips, and the eye-popping annual costs of operating equipment, President Mason invites us to visit: http://energy.uiowa.edu/.
As the New York Times tells us that “In Tough Times, Humanities Must Justify Their Worth,” and Inside Higher Education charts “Harvard’s ‘Finance Meltdown,’” plans for the UI’s 2009-10 budget and beyond keep moving forward. Much of the cutting by departments and the College is completed and we await word of the further steps that will be recommended by the Provost and President. Although nothing will be known with any certainty until April, when the Legislature reveals its budget, it looks increasingly likely that there will be no salary raises next year for faculty and for that reason I am not convening our salary committee this spring; if, come April, the stimulus package has given Iowa’s economy a jolt and raises become possible, I’ll call the salary committee to action so as to make recommendations about raises to the dean. It also appears that the College will have no funds for visiting assistant professor appointments. That will be hard on our recent Ph.D.s who already face a tough job market, and so I am exploring other sources of post-doc funding for them. As for our graduate students, because our TA budget has been cut, it is proving difficult to find funding for all of our current Ph.D. students who are still eligible for aid, but through one dodge or another, we will fund them. (The picture is a shade rosier for MFA students, although their support has also been reduced.) As usual, Ph.D. students who are out of aid will go on a wait-list and will receive funding as it becomes available throughout the spring and summer. In past years we have been able by August to fund all students on the wait-list, but that might not be possible this year. Looking ahead to what will probably be three or more years of reduced resources, it is becoming clear that the department needs to redouble its commitment to helping students finish their Ph.D.s within the outer limit of six years, and I’m sure you’ll be hearing more about efforts towards that goal. Finally, with reduced funding available for recruitment of new students, since we are using available resources first to support students already in the program and still eligible for aid, the incoming class of Ph.D. students will be somewhat smaller than it has been in recent years.
So that this message isn’t all doom and gloom, I want to end with some very good news, which is that we will be joined next year by two Early Modernist Colleagues, Adam Hooks and Blaine Greteman. Adam specializes in Shakespeare and Book Studies, while Blaine is a Miltonist whose work follows a cultural studies bent. Together they bring an exciting range of expertise and will make a wonderful and much needed contribution to our undergraduate and graduate curricula.
Patricia Foster has an essay "Sick of Smart" forthcoming in the Florida Review and two essays in the forthcoming anthology Enacting Pleasure (Seagull Books, London), edited by Peggy Davis, NYU Law School.
In February Mark Isham became a Board member of Sackter House Media Productions: “an advocate for persons with disabilities by telling their stories through media productions”.
Bonnie Sunstein is involved in the Oct 20, 2009 National Day on Writing, announced Monday Feb 23 at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. For it, she serves on the National Council of Teachers of English Task Force on the NDOW, and, along with Anne Ruggles Gere of Michigan, will present an assessment of its first year at MLA. The project includes The National Gallery of Writing, a public digital archive of American writing, inviting submissions (in multiple genres and languages) from US citizens. Check details here. In conjunction with the National Day on Writing, Professor Sunstein was nominated and selected to serve as one of three people on the steering committee of the Norman Mailer Foundation’s first annual writing awards for nonfiction writing, $10,000 for a college undergraduate, $5000 for a high school student, and other generous amounts for runners-up, along with a fellowship at the Norman Mailer Writer’s Colony in Provincetown, MA. They will be awarded at a ceremony in New York City in October. Final judges include editors Tina Brown and David Remnick, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, and writers Gay Talese and Joan Didion. The deadline for this year’s submissions, for high school students is May 1, for college students is May 15. You and your students can find more information about the awards here. Bonnie’s work with POROI’s “SCRIPTA” project, a local writing resource, soon to be launched through the UI Writing University website, has been timely and influential for these national projects.
At the College of Liberal Arts and Science's 9th Annual Staff Recognition Reception on March 3rd, the English Department Support Staff received a richly deserved IOWA Team Award for above-and-beyond efforts to keep the department functioning during last summer's flood. Not only did the staff move all of the essential departmental material out of EPB on very short notice and then endure a cramped and chilly summer squeezed into Schaeffer Hall, but they then moved everything swiftly back into EPB just in time to have the office up and running at the start of Fall semester. Mission Impossible meets Genesis 7, with an ending straight out of A Midsummer's Night's Dream. Congratulations to Gayle Sand, Elizabeth Curl, Erin Hackathorn, Cherie Hansen-Rieskamp, Sharry Lenhart, Lynne Nugent, and Linda Stahle!
Our own Dianne Jones was also honored with an IOWA Team Award for her work with the CLAS IT Group. Congratulations, Dianne.
The 18th- and 19th-Century British Women Writers Conference, co-hosted by the English Department, is coming up April 3-5. Our graduate student organizers have put together an exciting, innovative program. You’ll be hearing more about the conference soon, and you can find the schedule of panels, workshops, and performances here. For now, I wanted to share the news that the conference is bringing many of our alumni back to Iowa. In case you would like to make plans to see former friends and students (or to invite alumni to visit a class), here is a list of returning “Iowa” participants (a few of whom are working here in Iowa City):
Gary Arms, Anna Barker, Nancy Cervetti, Jessica DeSpain, Megan Alter Early, Stacy Erikson, Marty Gould, Carter Hanson, Joel Haefner, Kate Henderson, Cynthia Huff, Joyce Kelley, Dee McMahon, Mary Moran, Patricia Murphy, Donna Parsons, Ann Stapleton (our own wonderful colleague), and Kris Swenson.
Andy Douglas (MFA 2005) has an essay in the forthcoming issue of The Pisgah Review. He recently participated in a three-week residency at the Prairie Center of the Arts, and has also joined the Press-Citizen Writers' Group.
Sue Futrell (MFA 2004) has an essay, “Winter Apples,” in the winter 2009 issue of Vermont’s Local Banquet.
Aviya Kushner (MFA 2005) has an essay on bicultural writers and works in translation in the winter issue of The Wilson Quarterly.
Kirsten Giebutowski (MFA 2007) has a piece, "Life in Russian," in the March issue of Lost magazine.
Amy Leach (MFA 2005) has an essay in the current issue of A Public Space, called "Sail On, My Little Honeybee."
Mia Nussbaum (MFA 2006) has two poems in the current issue of the National Poetry Review, and three in the current issue of Thermos.
Jessie (Harriman) van Eerden (MFA 2007) has an essay, "Contemplation, action and writing: Literature in a hungry world," in the current issue of Geez magazine (Winter 2008, Issue 12). Her essay "Among Women" has been selected for the 10th Anniversary Issue of River Teeth, available at University of Nebraska Press.
UI Special Collections seeks transcribers for 19th century manuscript letters.
Over the past year, a grant from the Delmas Foundation has enabled us to make great progress in digitizing the 1,600 letters from the Brewer-Hunt collection relating to 19th century British writer Leigh Hunt. Located at http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/leighhunt, this digital collection aims to make both facsimile images and word-searchable transcripts available to scholars and the interested public.
Our grant period draws to a close in just a few months, and although we currently have 1,200 digital images of letters online, our primary source of scholarly transcripts, created by Iowa PhD David Cheney, has proven less extensive than expected. In some cases, we expect to draw transcripts from other sources; however, there are at least a couple hundred letters with no extant transcript. Without these transcripts, the scholarly benefits of having these letters online will be reduced, as search capabilities will be reduced and users will not be able to rely on a transcript to assist in deciphering images of handwriting.
We are seeking volunteers to devote a few hours of their time to writing just one or two transcripts. Since the letters are online, volunteers will be able to write transcripts in the office or at home and email them to us. We will credit transcribers in the metadata "Transcript by" field for each letter. If you are able to devote an hour or two to helping us, and in the meantime recovering (or acquiring) those source document reading skills, please email Project Manager Juli McLoone at juli-williams@uiowa.edu.
Emeritus Professor Fred McDowell died March 4th at the age of 93. Fred was a beloved teacher and scholar of modern British literature, who taught in the department from 1949 until his retirement in 1985. Those of us who didn’t know him (and those who did) can get a glimpse of his energy and charm from the portrait of Fred that hangs on the English Department Wall of Fame in EPB 331, second row, second from the right.
Memorials may be sent to the Frederick P.W. McDowell Graduate Scholarship Fund. This fund provides support for graduate students who are working in the area of Fred’s specialization. If you would like to donate to the fund in Fred’s memory, you can make your check out to “The University of Iowa Foundation” and note on the memo line of the check that your gift is in memory of Frederick McDowell.
Our thoughts are with Fred’s family and we join them in lamenting the loss of a wonderful emeritus colleague. Memorial services will be held at the Lensing Funeral Home in Iowa City on Tuesday, March 10 at 10:00 a.m.
The calendar is now housed on its own page, and both the calendar and Reading Matters are now available via links from the main English Department webpage, making them easier to access. You can find a full listing of upcoming events at the English Department Calendar.
UI Master Calendar | UI Academic Calendar | NonFiction Writing Program Calendar | The Writers Workshop Calendar | The International Writing Program Calendar
The English Honors Program Calendar
The next issue of Reading Matters will be on Thursday, April 2. Please send submissions for the next issue by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, April 1 to erin-hackathorn@uiowa.edu.