Category: News

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Erika Dreifus to read here November 12

Erika Dreifus, author of the short story collection Quiet Americans, which won the 2012 ALA Sophie Brody Medal Honor Title for outstanding Jewish literatureErika Dreifus, will read from her work at 4 p.m. on November 12 in the Walter Harding Lounge, Welles 111.

As Dreifus’ website explains, the stories in Quiet Americans “reframe familiar questions about what is right and wrong, remembered and repressed, resolved and unending. Portions of the proceeds from sales of Quiet Americans are being donated to The Blue Card, which supports survivors of Nazi persecution and their families in the United States.”

You can read a full bio of Erika Dreifus here.

Correction: Earlier versions of this post incorrectly gave the date of this event as November 4 and November 14. The actual date is November 12.

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Dennis Looney, Professor of Italian, to speak on “Freedom Readers”

Dennis O. Looney, Professor of Italian at the University of Pittsburgh, will deliver a lecture titled “”The Poetics of Lynching: Dante, Allen Tate, and other Freedom Readers” on Monday, October 15, at 4:00 p.m. in Welles 121.

Examining “The Swimmers,” a poem written amid American poet and literary critic Allen Tate’s “literal conversion to Catholicism and his move away from segregationist ideology,” Looney argues that the poet turned—as did many African American writers—to Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy in order to grapple with the legacy of white supremacy.

Professor Looney is the author of Freedom Readers: The African American Reception of Dante Alighieri and the Divine Comedy, published by the University of Notre Dame Press in its Devers Series in Dante Studies, 2011, and of Compromising the Classics: Romance Epic Narrative in the Italian (1996).

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Megan Marshall to deliver 2012 Harding Lecture September 27

Award-winning biographer Megan Marshall will deliver the 2012 Walter Harding Lecture at SUNY Geneseo on September 27 at 4 p.m. in the College Union Ballroom. The event is free and open to the public.

Marshall is the author of The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism (2005), which won the Society of American Historians’ 2006 Francis Parkman Prize. On the Society’s website, Patricia Cline Cohen, professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, observes that “Marshall brilliantly succeeds in bringing to life the complex sisters, each maneuvering to make her mark in a world just on the verge of a dawning feminism.  Marshall restores their place in the history of Transcendentalism, and, thanks to unusually rich primary sources she has uncovered, she presents a seamless, almost filmic narrative of actions, interior thoughts, even gestures and meaningful silences.  this is a rare feat in biographies, most especially biographies of antebellum women.”

Marshall’s reviews and essays have appeared in The Atlantic, Slate, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The London Review of Books, and The Boston Review. Her latest book, Margaret Fuller: A New American Life, will be published in March, 2013 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

At Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts, Marshall holds the position of Writing, Literature and Publishing Assistant Professor. In 2012, the Emerson College Graduate Student Association named her Outstanding Faculty Member.

The annual Harding Lecture at SUNY Geneseo honors the life and legacy of SUNY Distinguished University Professor Walter Harding, who taught in the Geneseo English department from 1956 to 1982 and was, in his time, the world’s foremost authority on the life and work of Henry David Thoreau.

Megan Marshall’s 2012 Harding Lecture, which will focus on Elizabeth Peabody and Margaret Fuller, is titled “Biography as Intellectual History: Two Lives of the Mind.”

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Brazilian poet Salgado Maranhão to read here October 4

Salgado Maranhão, one of Brazil’s leading contemporary poets, will read at Geneseo from his most recent collection, Sol Sangüíneo (Blood of the Sun), with his translator, Alexis Levitin, SUNY Distinguished Professor, Plattsburgh. In addition to eight books of poetry, including The Snake’s Fists, The Kiss of the Beast, and the recent Tiger’s Fur, Maranhão has written song lyrics and made recordings with some of Brazil’s leading jazz and pop musicians.MaranhãoSalgado Maranhão‘s white father was descended from a wealthy family whose plantations in the past had been worked by slaves. His mother was a black field worker who sang to him from her folk tradition. According to Maranhão, because “The Mansion” and “The Shanty” flow together in his veins, questions of race and history permeate several of the poems in his latest collection.

One of Brazil’s leading critics, Antonio Carlos Secchin, writes: “With a deeply-rooted personal diction, Salgado Maranhão, in Blood of the Sun, has reached the high point of his work (so far), in this cohesive collection of poems in which a speculative intelligence and a celebration of the corporality of the world are expressed with great metaphoric vigor.”

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Beth McCoy named SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor

The Board of Trustees of the State University of New York has awarded Geneseo English Professor Beth McCoy the title of SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor.

From the SUNY press release:

The Distinguished Professorship recognizes and honors mastery of teaching. For this prestigious tribute to be conferred, candidates must have demonstrated consistently superior mastery of teaching, outstanding service to students, and commitment to their ongoing intellectual growth, scholarship and professional growth, and adherence to rigorous academic standards and requirements. Further, a faculty member must have attained and held the rank of full professor for five years, have completed at least three years of full-time teaching on the nominating campus, 10 years of full-time teaching in the System, and must have regularly carried a full-time teaching load as defined by the campus at the undergraduate, graduate, or professional level.

About Professor McCoy herself, the press release accurately observes:

Both students and other faculty extol [Professor McCoy’s] generosity as a mentor, and note that what they learn from her stays with them long after they leave her classroom or office. Professor McCoy … is highly skilled at bringing everyone in her classroom into the conversation regardless of their background or inclination to tackle difficult questions. Professor McCoy sets a high bar and assists her students in achieving beyond their own expectations. She has been successful in adapting this model to campus-wide teach-ins, which she introduced as a method of engaging the Geneseo community in national and local issues related to race, identity and privilege.

SUNY’s distinguished ranks represent the highest system honor conferred upon SUNY instructional faculty. All distinguished faculty in active service within SUNY also become members of the SUNY Distinguished Academy.

Professor McCoy joins Professors Ron Herzman and Gene Stelzig as active English department faculty members holding the rank of Distinguished Teaching Professor.

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2012 Award, Scholarship, and Contest Winners Announced

The Department of English is proud to announce the following award, scholarship, and writing contest winners for 2012. Congratulations to all of you!

Award and Scholarship Winners

Graduating Senior Awards

William T. Beauchamp Literature Award
William Porter

Patricia Conrad Lindsay Memorial Award
Elizabeth Barber and Jesse Goldberg

Calvin Israel Award in the Humanities
Emilie O’Neill

Joseph M. O’Brien Memorial Award
Shea Frazier and Justine Rosen

Rosalind R. Fisher Memorial Award for Outstanding Student Teaching in English
Kaitlin Curcio

Scholarship awards

William Cook/Walter Herzman Memorial Scholarship
Joseph Flynn

Natalie Selser Freed Memorial Scholarship
Cailin Kowalewski

Rita K. Gollin Senior Year Scholarship for Excellence in American Literature
Emily Olmstead

Rita K. Gollin Junior Year Scholarship for Excellence in American Literature
Ava Russell

Hans Gottschalk Award
Christine O’Neill

Bonnie C. Henzel Memorial Scholarship
Gretchen Barkhuff, Connor Burgevin, Yael Massen

Joseph M. O’Brien Transfer Scholarship
Rebecca Smarcz

Jesse M. Rodgers Memorial Endowed Scholarship
Shannon Dennehy

Don Watt Memorial Scholarship
Pamela Howe

Writing Contest Winners

Jérôme de Romanet de Beaune Award in African American Studies: First Place Co-winner
Gretchen Barkhuff, “Entrusted with Conversation: Walking Through English 337”

Jérôme de Romanet de Beaune Award in African American Studies: First Place Co-winner
Stephanie Iasiello, “Her Own Pen? Authorship and (mis) Attribution in the Story of Mattie J. Jackson”

Jérôme de Romanet de Beaune Award in African American Studies: Second Place
Jesse Goldberg, “Theatre as an Avenue for ‘Re-remembering: Grappling with African American History in the Drama of Suzan-Lori Parks and August Wilson”

English Department Award in Creative Nonfiction: First Place
Christina Mortellaro, “Pretty in Blue”

English Department Award in Creative Nonfiction: Second Place
Megan Cicolello, “Shadow Play”

English Department Award in Creative Nonfiction: Third Place
Christine O’Neill, “The Patron Saint of Me”

John H. Parry Award in Literary Criticism: First Place
William Porter, “The Economy of the Merchant of Venice, or: Shylock, Antonio, and the Drama of Love and Wealth”

John H. Parry Award in Literary Criticism: Second Place
Alanna Smith, “The Friend Zone”

John H. Parry Award in Literary Criticism: Third Place
Christine O’Neill, “More Sinned Against than Sinning (Macaulayism)”

Agnes Rigney Award in Drama
Pamela Howe, “Resplendent Quetzal”

Lucy Harmon Award in Fiction: First Place
Pamela Howe, “Sloped Letters on Monday”

Lucy Harmon Award in Fiction: Second Place
Lara Elmayan, “Lungs”

Lucy Harmon Award in Fiction: Third Place
Alanna Smith, “Samson”

Irene E. Smith Award in First-Year Writing
Liam Cody, “What Christopher Boone Likes, What He Likes to Read, and What is Real”

Mary Thomas Award in Poetry: First Place
Yael Massen, “Skinned”

Mary Thomas Award in Poetry: Second Place
Megan Ross, “Babies Asleep on the Jetty”

Mary Thomas Award in Poetry: Third Place
Alicia Goodwin, “Orchard of Pressing Lips”

Mary Thomas Award in Poetry: Honorable Mention
Shannon Dennehy, “Concerning Heaven”

Mary Thomas Award in Poetry: Honorable Mention
Hannah Schmidt, “Some New York Tables”

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March 29 Poetry Reading by Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon

As part of the English department’s Literary Forum series, National Book Award finalist Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon will read from her poetry Thursday, March 29 from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in Newton 214 (book signing and light reception to follow).

Lyrae Van Clief-StefanonVan Clief-Stefanon is associate professor of English at Cornell University. She is the author of Open Interval, a 2009 National Book Award and Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist; Black Swan, winner of the 2001 Cave Canem Poetry Prize; and Poems in Conversation and a Conversation, a chapbook in collaboration with Elizabeth Alexander. Her work has appeared in such journals as African American Review, Callaloo, Crab Orchard Review, Gulf Coast, and Shenandoah, and in the anthologies Bum Rush the Page, Role Call, Common Wealth, Gathering Ground, and The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South. She is currently at work on a third collection, The Coal Tar Colors.

From the National Book Foundation: “Passionate and personal, innovative and elegant, Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon’s Open Interval marries a wildness of vision with a lens-maker’s precision. The book takes on the actual astronomical phenomenon of ‘RR Lyrae’ stars not only to form a metaphor for the self, but to reveal a constellation of lyric impulses. In exploded sonnets, taut syllabics, Dickinsonian dashes, or that new poetic invention, the bop, Van Clief-Stefanon writes of science, rock-n-roll, and the history of a heart that could be hers, but speaks to all of ours.”

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March Lecture Gives Overview of Joyce’s Masterpiece

Sigma Tau Delta’s most recent lecture in its Celebrate Literature series was given by Geneseo English professor Rob Doggett on March 22. Prof. Doggett’s goal was to live up to the title of his talk: “Ulysses in 35 Minutes.” Students gathered to watch Dr. Doggett in a literal race against the clock to cover the entire 700-plus page novel in just over a half hour.

Dr. Doggett, who believes that Ulysses is “objectively the greatest novel ever written,” focused most of the lecture on Leopold Bloom, the book’s Jewish character who is somewhat of an outsider living in Christian Ireland, as well as on Joyce’s deliberate mirroring of each chapter of Ulysses on one event from Homer’s Odyssey. The parallels between Joyce’s novel and Homer’s epic occur in every aspect of the book, from the subject matter of the chapter to how Joyce uses language. For example, the chapter “Sirens” is written out as a song, and the “Lotus Eaters” chapter is languid and slow-moving. Dr. Doggett read aloud from many of the chapters to demonstrate Joyce’s “blowing up” of the English language, making it serve a different purpose in each chapter of the novel. This idea of making English “run around” for the entire novel takes on additional meaning since Joyce, an Irish author, is conscious that he is writing in English instead of in the native tongue of his country.

Ulysses, Joyce’s masterpiece, is so popular that there is a holiday in its honor: Bloomsday occurs every June 16, the day the novel takes place. On Bloomsday—named for Leopold Bloom, the novel’s protagonist—fans travel to Dublin in order to walk the route the characters take throughout the day in Ulysses. That feat is possible because Joyce had the time it took to travel between the characters’ destinations timed with a stopwatch in order to make that aspect of the novel as accurate as possible.

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Graff and Birkenstein to talk on “Demystifying the Academic Game” March 19

On Monday, March 19,  Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein will be on campus to talk about “Demystifying the Academic Game.” Their talk will take place at 10 a.m. in the College Union Ballroom.

Gerald Graff is Professor of English and Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. A former president of the Modern Language Association of America (2008), he is one of his generation’s most influential commentators on education. His widely cited 1987 book, Professing Literature: An Institutional History, was recently reprinted in a Twentieth Anniversary Edition by the University of Chicago Press. In addition, Prof. Graff is the author of Beyond the Culture Wars: How Teaching the Conflicts Can Revitalize American Education (1992), the book that introduced the phrase “teach the conflicts” to describe a pedagogical approach that treats internecine critical dispute as an opportunity show students how theoretical disagreements help to constitute academic disciplines; Clueless in Academe: How Schooling Obscures the Life of the Mind (2003), which called on academic professionals to demystify academic culture; and, with Cathy Birkenstein, “They Say/I Say”: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing (2006), a handbook for teaching writing as a species of “conversation” that has set records for sales in colleges and high schools.

Cathy Birkenstein is Lecturer in English at the University of Illinois at Chicago and co-director of the Writing in the Disciplines program. In addition to co-authoring “They Say/I Say,” she has published essays on writing in College English, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Academe, and College Composition and Communication.

The talk is open to the general public.