English department announces 2016 student awards and scholarships

The following students have won department awards and scholarships for 2015-2016 and will be honored at an awards ceremony on Study Day, May 4.

Graduating Senior Awards

  • William T. Beauchamp Literature Award: Jeremy Jackson
  • Patricia Conrad Lindsay Memorial Award: Sean Fischer
  • Calvin Israel Award in the Humanities: Britina Cheng and Harrison Hartsough
  • Joseph M. O’Brien Memorial Award: Mary Auld and Christy Leigh Agrawal
  • Outstanding Speech Buddy: Lauren Sarrantonio

Scholarships

  • Natalie Selser Freed Memorial Scholarship: John Panus
  • Rita K. Gollin Senior Year Scholarship for Excellence in American Literature: Zach Muhlbauer
  • Rita K. Gollin Junior Year Scholarship for Excellence in American Literature: Amanda Wentworth
  • Hans Gottschalk Award: Brendan Mahoney
  • Joseph M. O’Brien Transfer Scholarship: Jeffrey Curtin
  • Don Watt Memorial Scholarship: Jason Guisao
  • Bonnie C Henzel Memorial Scholarship: Gabriella Garcia, Chloe Forsell, Kiaya Rose Dilsner-Lopez, and Thomas McCarthy
  • Jesse M Rodgers Memorial Scholarship: Erik Mebust and Evan Goldstein

Writing Awards

Creative Non-Fiction

  • First place: Jeremy A. Jackson, “To Dr. C., Ph.D.”
  • Second place: Leandra Griffith, “Birthday for That Generic Someone in Your Life”
  • Third place: Lauren Sarrantonio, “The Amorphous Children”

John H. Parry Award for a Critical Essay

  • First place: Carrie Anne Potter, “Ahead of Their Time: Temporality and Spatiality in Two Keats Odes”
  • Second place: Joshua DeJoy, “The Objective, the Subjective, and the Ugly: E. P. Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class at Fifty-Two”
  • Third place: Zachary Muhlbauer, “Nietzschean Dualism in Heart of Darkness: A Structuralist Analysis”

Jérome de Romanet de Beaune Award for an Essay in Diversity Studies

  • First place: Ariana DiPreta, “Subversion of Bourgeois Masculinity in Ulysses
  • Second place: Veronica Taglia, “Construction of Black Masculine Identity in African American Drama, 1959–1969”
  • Third place (tied): Emily Ercolano, “Toulouse-Lautrec and the Female Form”
  • Third place (tied): Joshua DeJoy, “The Dialectics of Slavery: Hegel and the Contradictions in Slavery”

Agnes Rigney Award in Drama

  • Emily Warnken, “Vampires”

Irene E. Smith Award in First-Year Critical Writing: INTD 105

  • First place: Isabel Owen, “Searching for Answers in Silence: The Issue of Memory in State Violence”
  • Second place: George Goga, “The Dictionary, the Gummy Worms, and the Grotesque”

Lucy Harmon Award in Literary Fiction

  • First place: Katie Soares, “We Buy Gold”
  • Second place: Leandra Griffith, “Mary”
  • Third place: Margaret Thon, “The Ballad of Summer ’72”

Mary Thomas Award in Poetry

  • First place: Savannah Skinner, “A Guide To Recognizing Your Ghost”
  • Second place: Cassandra Schweizer, “What I Wrote For You”
  • Third place: Kallie Swyer, “Hundreds of Birds”

Research Paper

  • First place: Erik Mebust, “Shakespeare’s Rising Stars”
  • Second place: Jessica Heppler, “Civil Disobedience and the Rawlsian Non-Citizen: An Appeal to Political or Natural Rights?”
  • Third place: Veronica Taglia, “Subversion of the American Dream: An Analysis of Arthur Miller’s Leading Protagonists.”

Africana/Black Studies

  • Best Analytical Essay: Azaria Davis, “Colorblind? That Ain’t Right!”
  • Best Research Paper: Kathleen O’Brien, “Would There Be Slave Resistance without Women?: The Crucial Role Women Play”
  • Best Creative Work: Chloe Forsell, “Mother Tongue”

Nick Friedman appointed Jones Lecturer at Stanford University

Geneseo English Department alumnus Nick Friedman has been awarded the highly prestigious Jones Lectureship at Stanford University. In March 2014, Nick was appointed a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford. As a Jones Lecturer, Nick will teach courses in creative writing while also working to complete his first book of poetry. Previous Jones lecturers include Tobias Wolff, ZZ Packer, Nan Cohen, Ehud Havazelet, and Skip Horack. Two years ago this week, we reported on Nick’s selection for the Stegner Fellowship and reminded readers of his appearances in the New York Times’ T Magazine and on NPR’s Weekend Edition.

English major Meghan Barrett wins Phi Beta Kappa writing internship

This news is so fresh that the press release below isn’t yet live on the Phi Beta Kappa website (though by the time you click that link, maybe they’ll have posted it).

English major (creative writing) Meghan Barrett has won a prestigious Phi Beta Kappa writing internship. Here’s the release:

MEGHAN BARRETT SELECTED FOR PHI BETA KAPPA WRITING INTERNSHIP

WASHINGTON, DC – The Phi Beta Kappa Society is pleased to announce that Meghan Barrett of the State University of New York at Geneseo has been selected for a 2016 Phi Beta Kappa Writing Internship.

The Phi Beta Kappa chapter at SUNY Geneseo recommended Meghan to work with the Society’s national office in Washington, DC. The internship begins this month and continues through May 2016.

A native of Penfield, New York, and a graduate of Our Lady of Mercy High School, Meghan is a senior with a double major in Biology and Creative Writing. She is also part of the college’s Edgar Fellows Honors Program and was inducted into the Alpha Delta of New York chapter of Phi Beta Kappa in 2015.

Meghan is also serving as a website management intern for the Geneseo Office of Sustainability and is a writer of book four of Liber Primus Games’s Narborion Saga. She is the President of Alpha Delta Epsilon regional sorority and was named Geneseo’s 2015 Outstanding Sorority Woman. Meghan plans to earn a PhD in Biology after completing her bachelor’s this spring—while continuing to write poetry, plays, and novels in her spare time.

Phi Beta Kappa’s writing internships are for juniors and seniors majoring in the liberal arts or sciences who attend institutions where our chapters are located. Interns must make a five-month commitment to the program and prepare a minimum of six publishable articles for the Society’s publication for news and alumni relations, The Key Reporter.

The program has two deadlines annually, for internships in the fall or spring of each academic year.

No more than 15 students are selected from a national pool in each round.

2015 English department scholarships and graduating senior awards

Our previous post listed winners of the 2015 writing awards in English and Africana/Black Studies.

We’re also pleased to announce this year’s winners of the English department’s scholarships and graduating senior awards:

Scholarships

  • Natalie Selser Freed Memorial Scholarship: Meghan Barrett
  • Rita K. Gollin Senior Year Scholarship for Excellence in American Literature: Jeremy Jackson
  • Rita K. Gollin Junior Year Scholarship for Excellence in American Literature: Thomas McCarthy
  • Hans Gottschalk Award: KiayaRose Dilsner-Lopez
  • Joseph M. O’Brien Transfer Scholarship: Sarah Smith
  • Don Watt Memorial Scholarship: Kristen Druse

Graduating Senior Awards

  • William T. Beauchamp Literature Award: Christina Mortellaro
  • Patricia Conrad Lindsay Memorial Award: Sean Neill
  • Calvin Israel Award in the Humanities: Rebecca Miller and Liam Cody
  • Joseph M. O’Brien Memorial Award: Harrison Dole

We’ll be celebrating winners of scholarships, graduating senior awards, and writing awards today at 2:30 p.m. today in the Walter Harding Room, Welles 111.

Geneseo Sigma Tau Delta students take top honors at annual conference

Seventeen members of Geneseo’s chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the international English honor society, attended this year’s conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, accompanied by Prof. Caroline Woidat and adviser Prof. Gillian Paku. They were Amy Bishop, Liam Cody, Jennie Conway, Sean Fischer, Meghan Kearns, Erin Koehler, Lucia Lotempio, Ellie MacWilliam, Rebecca Miller, Christina Mortellaro, Michelle Mundt, Sean Neill, John Panus, Katie Silvestri, Ben Wach, Katie Waring, and Jo-Ann Wong.

std15-3For many of the students who attended this year’s convention, titled “Borderlands and Enchantments,” it was their first time participating in a conference where they were allowed to interact with critical and creative writing from college students around the world. The experience allowed students “to gain valuable connections throughout the conference, [and become involved in] discussion with other panelists, who brought new ideas and theories to our conversations,” said Senior Ellie MacWilliam. Students attended a variety of panels and roundtables on topics such as post-colonial literatures, Modernism, Transgender and Bisexuality in Young Adult Literature, critical theory in film and television, and XML text encoding in music and literature. std15-5For junior Michelle Mundt, being involved in panels surrounded by her college peers gave her the opportunity to learn “a lot on how to present a paper and question my motives in writing. I also enjoyed being able to listen to other students’ presentations and gleaning from their knowledge on different subjects.” Attendees also listened to presentations from acclaimed authors such as Simon Ortiz and Leslie Marmon Silko. Senior Rebecca Miller found Silko’s reading “the most memorable part about the conference. . . . The conference was educational and expansive, and overall a great way to spend spring break.”

std15-6The Geneseo students were awarded two first place honors, along with the Best Convention Paper. Senior Ben Wach won the Critical Essays in Theory category and Katie Waring won the Creative Non-Fiction category, with Katie’s essay, “Transdifferentiating Cells,” ultimately named top piece at the convention. Throughout the conference, the students supported each other at the panel presentations. Senior Lucia LoTempio said, “It was definitely enlightening to make new connections with my peers and to experience the fruits of their work at Geneseo. I was consistently (though not unexpectedly) impressed with the insightfulness and intellectual difficulty of each Geneseo student’s work, whether it was critical or creative. It made me especially proud to call myself a member of the Geneseo community!” Students in the Creative Writing and Literature tracks were able to come together: “It was an honor to be able to have presented both a critical paper and a collection of poetry at the conference an experience that I was extremely lucky to have had,” said Senior Erin Koehler.

The Geneseo English attendees at this year’s convention unanimously agreed on the value of taking advantage of the opportunity that Sigma Tau Delta offers students. This convention allows students to expand their knowledge of other work happening in both critical and creative fields across the world. As Senior Sean Fischer noted, “Hopefully more students can see how successful the group that attended this year’s conference was and begin working on their own research projects or creative writing collections to submit for next year’s conference!”

See more photos from the conference.

Peace Poetry 2014

SUNY Geneseo’s Department of English recognized the winners of the Genesee Valley Peace Poetry Contest on Mother’s Day, May 11, at 3 p.m. in Wadsworth Auditorium on campus. Prof. Rob Doggett organizes the yearly contest for kindergarten through 8th grade students from 19 area school districts in the Genesee Valley.

This year, the department received more than 1,200 poems from which 80 winners were selected.

You can watch video of the awards ceremony, at which the winners read their poems, here.

2014 English department awards and scholarships

We’re pleased to announce this year’s winners of department awards and scholarships. We’ll be celebrating these formally in the Walter Harding Lounge, Welles 111, on Wednesday, May 7 at 3:30 p.m.

Scholarships

  • Natalie Selser Freed Memorial Scholarship – Rebecca Miller and Sean Neill
  • Rita K. Gollin Senior Year Scholarship for Excellence in American Literature – Jessica Irwin
  • Rita K. Gollin Junior Year Scholarship for Excellence in American Literature – Jo-Ann Wong
  • Hans Gottschalk Award – Matthew McClure
  • Joseph M. O’Brien Memorial Scholarship – Andre Doeman and Michelle Mundt
  • Don Watt Memorial Scholarship – Christina Mortellaro and Hannah Pruch
  • Bonnie Henzel Memorial Scholarship – Julianne DeSilva, Erin Koehler, Sarah Rusnak, and Eric Wegman
  • Jesse Rodgers Scholarship – Nikki Toner and Sean Fischer

Writing Awards

African American Studies

  • 1st – Nikita Rumsey
  • 2nd – Erin Beach
  • 3rd – Megan Nolan

Critical Essay

  • 1st – Jarad Sassone-McHugh
  • 2nd – Christine O’Neill and Nikita Rumsey
  • Honorable Mention – Meghan Kearns and Gregory Palermo

First Year Writing

  • 1st – Jessica Heppler
  • 2nd – John Panus
  • 3rd – Erik Mebust

Creative Non-Fiction

  • 1st – Suraj Uttamchandani
  • 2nd – Adam Camiolo
  • 3rd – Meghan Kearns

Fiction

  • 1st – Kirstin Freiman
  • 2nd – Megan Nolan
  • 3rd – Katie Soares
  • Honorable Mention – Stephon Lawrence

Poetry

  • 1st – Lucia LoTempio
  • 2nd – Erin Koehler
  • 3rd – Bibi Lewis
  • Honorable Mention – Devon Poniatowski

Cori Winrock numbered among “Best New Poets”

For her poem “Débridement,” the online anthology Best New Poets has included Visiting Assistant Professor of English Cori Winrock on its list of 50 best new poets for 2013.

Each year, a guest editor selects 50 poems for the anthology from an open internet competition and nominations made by literary magazines and writing programs.

Correction (10-11-13): This post previously referred to Best New Poets as an “online anthology.” In fact, Best New Poets is printed on paper. (Submissions are solicited online.) You can order an individual copy from the Best New Poets website, buy it from online retails such as Amazon and Barnes and Noble, or purchase it from an independent bookseller.