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IN ENGLISH (ENGLISH DEPARTMENT NEWSLETTER) |
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Occasional
Newsletter of the Whittier College Upcoming ReadingsAs most of you no doubt already know, our own Tony Barnstone--back from sabbatical after finishing his chapbook of poems, Naked Magic and his new book of translations, The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry--is the new Faculty Master of Johnson House, now the new home of our visiting readers' series. Another local lover of language, Doreen O'Connor-Gomez, has become the new Faculty Master of Hartley House; Doreen is co-sponsoring many of the events below. As you'll see from the schedule below, these appointments are great news for English majors and fellow travellers! Tuesday, Nov. 19th, 7 p.m., The Club.: Willis Barnstone. Prolific author Willis Barnstone will read from his translation of the New Testament, titled The New Covenant. The translation follows current scholarship on the Bible to lineate as poetry the wisdom sayings of Jesus and to restore the Jewish roots of Christianity (thus, whereas most translations deracinate Jesus by translating his title rabbi as master, Barnstone translates rabbi as rabbi). Willis Barnstone is the author of more than 50 books. His publications include Modern European Poetry (Bantam, 1967), The Other Bible (HarperCollins, 1984) The Secret Reader, 501 Sonnets (New England, 1996), a memoir biography With Borges on an Ordinary Evening in Buenos Aires (Illinois, 1993), and Algebra of Night: Selected Poems 1948-1998 (Sheep Meadow, 1999). In 2003 BOA is publishing his new volume of poems, Life Watch. His literary translation of The New Covenant: The Four Gospels and Apocalypse has just appeared with Penguin Putnam, an April Book of the Month selection. A Guggenheim,fellow, he is a recipient of NEH and NEA awards. His poems have appeared in Poetry, Paris Review, APR, Atlantic Monthly, Doubletake, and New Yorker (Visiting Writer Series). Willis is also known to many at Whittier as Tony’s dad. Thursday December 5th, 7 pm Charles Johnson: Fiction Reading (Shannon Center). Charles Johnson, whose balance of philosophy and folklore has been praised since the publication of his first novel in 1974, gained prominence when his novel Middle Passage won the National Book Award in 1990. He was the first African-American man to win National Book Award since Ralph Ellison (1990). He also has won the Academy of Arts and Letters 2002 Academy Award for Literature. Middle Passage--like Johnson's other works of fiction, including the historical novel Dreamer (1998)--embodies Johnson's controversial vision of black literature, defined in his Being and Race: Black Writing Since 1970 (1988), as "a fiction of increasing artistic and intellectual growth, one that enables us as a people--as a culture--to move from narrow complaint to broad celebration." Open to the Public (co-funded by the Shannon Center, Johnson, Hartley and Garrett Houses, and the Richard Nixon fund). Mark Your Calendars For These 2003 Readings! February 12: prolific poet Robert Sward will be reading at Johnson House, 7 pm February 19: Whittier’s own Chuck Elliot, from the Media Center, will read his poetry at Johnson House at 7 pm. Chuck has written many books and chapbooks of wonderful poems. February 24: novelist and screenwriter David Benioff, whose novel The 25th Hour is the basis for Spike Lee's upcoming movie and who wrote the screenplay for Homer's The Iliad, which will come out as a major motion picture titled Troy. Benioff will present with filmmaker Ward Swan at the Club. March 11: poet Li-Young Lee returns to read at The Club. April 8: Forrest Hamer will read at Johnson House. April 15: Stephen Dobyns will read at Johnson House. April 23: Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones,long-running best-seller on the New York Times list, will read with her husband, novelist Glen David. Shannon Center. April 30: Laurel Ann Bogen and the “Nearly Fatal Women”: a theatrical poetic experience with Laurel Ann Bogen, who taught last year at Whittier. Johnson House. And--Fall 2003--get ready for Poet Laureate of the United States Billy Collins. Sept. 16, Shannon Center. Contests and Publication OpportunitiesThe Newsom Awards in Poetry and Fiction: The deadline for entries is February 15, 2003. All current students are eligible, and guidelines for submission are available in the English Department office. Please consider submitting your work! Contact Tony Barnstone or Tina Corral with questions. The Scholarly Writing in English Prizes: These prizes, first awarded in 2000, were made possible by a generous founding donation by Professor Margaret Thickstun of Hamilton College in New York. (The prizes have since be supplemented by other donations. If you'd like to donate something, please contact Department Chair Susanne Weil.) Professor Thickstun was the outside reviewer in the English Department self study that led to the creation of our new major, and she felt so strongly about wanting to help us establish a scholarly writing prize that she donated a substantial portion of her fees to make it possible. The Scholarly Writing Prizes honor the best writing about literature by our current students. See the spring edition of In English for more information, but if you write a paper you're particularly proud of this semester, save it and consider making a submission!
The Literary Review:
Each spring,
Sigma Tau Delta publishes a new edition of the Lit Review.
Save your favorite papers, poems, short stories, reviews and
have them ready to submit in hard copy and on diskette next
spring. See the next edition for details and deadlines! English 365, Hemingway and Eliot (William Geiger). Once again it’s time to read works by these important writers. Hemingway and Eliot are important because they are great writers (well, not all the time), and because their dissimilar world views provide a matrix for your own developing philosophy of life. English 390, Shakespeare in Love (Sean Morris) Shakespeare in Love was a hit at the box office and the Oscars, but is it a faithful representation of Shakespeare’s spirit, life, and times, or just Hollywood fluff? A fun way to find out would be to test the world the film offers against the world we find in the plays to which the film refers, with a little biography and history thrown in, and then compare Tom Stoppard’s other Shakespeare spin-off, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. So that’s what we’re going to do. This is a course about context: the movie in the context of its plays, and those plays in the context of still other Renaissance plays. When we’re through, we’ll hopefully understand not only what sets Shakespeare in Love apart from other films, but what sets Shakespeare apart from other writers. Interested? Sign up now and you’ll read: Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona, Twelfth Night, The Sonnets, Romeo and Juliet, and Pericles; Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and The Massacre at Paris; Ben Jonson’s Volpone; John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi; Schoenbaum’s William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life; Charles Nicholl’s Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe; Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead; and Norman and Stoppard’s screenplay for Shakespeare in Love. (Yes, we’ll watch the movie, too.) How much would you pay for all this? But wait! That’s not all! We’ll also watch four more Shakespeare plays on video: As You Like It, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet, and Much Ado About Nothing. Plus if you order now you’ll also learn about musical adaptations of Shakespeare like Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet. This offer is not available in stores! This course does not fulfill the new Shakespeare requirement for English majors, but it is a lot of fun! (Instructor’s permission required.) More Coming Attractions: Spring 2003 Classes English 302,Advanced Fiction Writing With Special Guest Faculty Member Andrea Troyer: In February, the English department welcomes Andrea Troyer, an award-winning fiction writer and teacher who is also a graduate of the distinguished University of California, Irvine MFA program in creative writing. Andrea will be teaching Advanced Fiction Writing. She has taught classes in literature, composition, and fiction writing at Irvine as well as the Art Institute of Southern California, and she has worked with the Humanities Out There (HOT) Program to teach fiction writing in the Santa Ana public schools. Andrea was also the managing editor of Faultline, the literature and arts journal of Irvine. To sign up for Advanced Fiction writing, see Susanne Weil. English 120: Introduction to Literature (dAve pAddy) This course will help you see the world through the lens of literary studies. What is literature? How does literature differ from other forms of writing? What can literature teach us? We will touch on these and other questions by examining the three primary genres—fiction, poetry, and drama—and by studying the fundamentals of literary theory and criticism. In addition to an anthology of stories and poems, I am considering Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement and Bertolt Brecht’s play The Good Woman of Setzuan. INTD 100 required. English 221 Major British and American Writers from 1660 (dAve pAddy) The historical survey continues. Beginning where ENG 220 ends, this course will examine the intellectual and literary historical contexts for Neo-Classicism, Romanticism, the Victorian era, Modernism, and Postmodernism. This class will also consider the introduction and development of American literature, read in parallel with the transformations of British literature. A requirement for the major, this course will also help put your other English classes in context. ENG 120 and 220 required. English 311: The History of the English Language (Sean Morris) This is your language 1000 years ago: “HwÊt! We gardena in geardagum <thorn>eodcyninga <thorn>rym gefraenon, hu <thorn>a Ê<thorn>"lingas ellen fremmedon.” What happened?!?! How did we get here 'rom there? And while we’re at it, we"still "ant t" kn"w wh' “police” and"“ice” "on’t "hyme" but “knight” and “bite” do. And why can you have two dogs, but not two sheeps or oxes? And why do they talk funny in "ther"sta"es,"calling a “soda” a “pop” and other crazy things? Why? I will tell you why, if first you...sojourn with me throughÖ the History of the English Language. Welcome to H-E-L! English 354 Contemporary British Literature (dAve pAddy) Note: This class is paired with Jose Orozco’s HIST 348 “US/Mexico Border Studies.” To optimize the pair experience we will require everyone enrolled to be enrolled in both courses. In this class we will look to some of the thematic and historical concerns of contemporary British literature. For the pair we will be discussing the concept of the “border” as it applies to national, gender, racial, class, and other identities. Primary attention will be given to Black British literature and Scottish literature to examine different concepts of borders in British literature. Texts most likely will include Julian Barnes’ England, England, Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus (or Wise Children), Peter Kravitz’ Vintage Book of Contemporary Scottish Fiction, James Proctor’s Writing Black Britain, Hanif Kureishi’s The Black Album, and Jackie Kay’s Trumpet. ENG 120 and co-enrolment required. English 362, American Realism and Naturalism (Susanne Weil), paired with Economics 370, Economic History (Greg Woirol). Emerson once remarked that an American looks at a tree and sees lumber. Tensions in how Americans have valued this land, this nation, and each other will be the subject of “The Gilded Age: Literary and Economic Perspectives on the American Experience.” From the end of the Civil War to the start of World War One, America survived postwar trauma, stretched itself westward to consume the frontier, saw labor and capital struggle through “the age of industrial violence,” and became the largest, most productive economy in the world. This pair will explore the complexities and contradictions of this fascinating era through the lenses of economic historians and American authors. In English 362, we will read Mark Twain—who named this era “the Gilded Age”—Horatio Alger, Rebecca Harding Davis, Henry James, William Dean Howells, Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Upton Sinclair, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Edith Wharton, Mary Austin, Willa Cather, and John Muir. Part of the course will focus on the western and particularly the Californian experience; much will address how represented the changing roles of women; and, thoughout, we will engage questions of social and economic justice. English 364, Modern American Poetry (Tony Barnstone). Tony reports that “this is the first time this class will be taught at Whittier, so its nature has yet to come clear, but I plan to focus on several wonderful figures of modern poetry. Though I will probably lean the class toward American poets, I am intrigued by the idea of opening the class to the broader spectrum of European modernity, and perhaps of opening some time on the Greek-Alexandrian poet Constantine Cavafy, the wonderful German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, as well as other figures, such as Austrian poet Georg Trakl and Serbian poet Vasko Popa. My approach to this class will probably be a combination of art historical approaches, “new historical” approaches, close reading, and some sort of interdisciplinary focus on the debates between scientists and artists about the nature of knowledge and narrative in the modernist period.”English 410, Senior Seminar: “East Meets West: Imagining Asia in Medieval England” (Sean Morris) Ripley’s Believe It or Not: There is a “Life of Buddha” in Middle English. Discovering this on a library shelf in graduate school exploded the box I had always put around medieval Europe. And now I will encourage you to play with fire, too, as we explore together the ways in which the East, near and far, influenced medieval literature both in the imagination and in fact. Alongside Barlam and Iosaphat (the Middle English Life of Buddha) we find heroic stories drawn from Buddhist parables, King Alisaunder’s descriptions of India, travelogues, Chaucer’s tale of Genghis Khan, analogues of English stories in Sanskrit, and of course the literature touched by the cultures met on crusade. Even the controlling framework of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales—a story about telling stories—owes itself ultimately to Asian models. Given England’s future obsession with eastern colonies, especially the “Jewel in the Crown” of India, these early experiments in imagining Asia are provocative. But they are valuable for their own sake as well. Film critic Roger Ebert once praised the respect that The Piano offered its rural characters: it didn’t assume they were stupid just because they didn’t have a telephone. What if medieval Europeans were likewise more cosmopolitan than their technology implies? Let’s wipe the dust from these overlooked tales and remind ourselves of the astonishing complexity of human beings in every age. ENG 420 Preceptorship (dAve pAddy; Anne Kiley) An opportunity for one to two English majors to reflect on and practice the art of teaching literature. You will come to my Intro to Lit class everyday, learn about lesson planning, discuss teaching ideas, and have the chance to practice teaching in class. If you are interested you need to fill out an application (available in the English/History office). And. . . . in classrooms, January 2004 (well, in ONE classroom): “The Lord of the Rings: J.R.R. Tolkien and His Sources” (Sean Morris): “One course to rule them all. . . .” Be there. So far, twenty enterprising individuals have already signed up! See Sean to get on the list. Our Seniors Are you planning on graduating this May? Granted, you might not be eager to leave us, but if you are planning on graduating and don't find your name below, please be sure to tell department chair Susanne Weil right away!
Megan Archer Sigma Tau Delta Our warm congratulations to those students newly inducted into our chapter (the Jessamyn West chapter) of Sigma Tau Delta, the national English honorary society: Gabe Currie, Greg Garabedian, George Gonzalez, Christina Gutierrez, Kate Knochel, Natalie Kubasek, Monique Mora, Connor Nelson, Laura Nestler, Leslie Pilo, and Erik Stegman. Our chapter of Sigma Tau Delta inducts new members each semester, and the criteria for membership are grades in English courses. One does not have to be a major to qualify. We note that there are a few students who have been invited to be inducted, but have not been able to attend the event as of yet. We hope you will consider doing so on the next occasion--you are still eligible! Some Alumni News Terrence Schenold ’00 has started his graduate work at the University of Washington and reports, “I just received an RA in the Undergraduate Research Program at UW where I will be helping to coordinate the Symposium they have in May, teaching workshops on writing abstracts, editing publications for the program, etc. . . . I wanted to let you know that as far as the Whittier Dept. of Engl is concerned, I am well prepared. If you have any student who wants to talk about the trials and tribulations of applying for graduate school, I have copious mental notes, impressions, and scars that I think might help some self-doubting students become former self-doubting students like myself. Dispense my email at will.” In addition to studying for the GREs, Ryan Fong ‘02 is presenting his paper on Milton and Ecology at November's annual meeting of the Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association, our west coast regional division of the MLA. Ryan is the fourth Whitter student to have a paper accepted to PAMLA in the last decade: the others are Shawn Fitzpatrick ‘98, Mike Garabedian ‘98, and Shellie Banga ’00. Shellie has just started graduate work in English at U.C. Davis, where, in addition to taking her own course work, she is a TA for a class on Arthurian Legend, which she reports “is fascinating, and all 72 students present quite a lot of interesting perspectives on the tale. I should know, as I am grading most of their papers this week. The students here chime in frequently in class, and often have refreshing things to say about the texts, yet their oral communication skills are far better than their writing. I don't know how many times I have written on a paper: "your thesis seems more like an observation than an argument." Another charming mistake is when they write like true members of my email generation and pick a tone far too casual for a critical essay. For example, the last paper I wrote compared Wace's plot to Disney's. . . sigh . . .” It’s always great to see a local guy make good: the English department felt this delight on Halloween, when Floyd Cheung ’92 came home to give a talk at Johnson House. Floyd is a past president of Sigma Tau Delta who went on to get his Ph.D. at Tulane University; he now teaches not only English, but American Studies at Smith College. His talk—well attended by many of the faculty whose classes he took while he was here—was entitled “From the Heathen Chinee to Mrs. Spring Fragrance: Visual and Literary Representations of Chinese Americans during the Exclusion Era.” Floyd’s research, published in such journals as CR: The New Centennial Review, Jouvert: A Journal of Postcolonial Studies, and The Southern Literary Journal, investigates “how turn-of-the-century Chinese American men negotiated normative masculinities between the stereotypical extremes of the hypermasculine yellow peril and the emasculated docile pet.” Floyd is currently researching the rituals of all-male Chinese secret societies, the autobiography of Yung Wing, and the proletarian writings of H.T.Tsiang. What Are We Reading? Tony Barnstone has been having fun recently with Ruth Stone’s new book of poems, In the New Galaxy, Andrew Winer’s novel, The Color Midnight Made, David Benioff’s novel, The Twenty-Fifth Hour, Anatole Broyard’s memoir of bohemian days in Greenwich Village, Kafka Was the Rage, and Rainer Maria Rilke’s Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God—such a good book. Anne Kiley’s been indulging in a little light reading lately—War and Peace for freshman writing and the occasional Dickens, Eliot, Austen, Hardy, and a Bronte or two for 19th Century Novel. Meanwhile, she is “hanging on till the next Harry Potter comes out.” What dAve pAddy’s been reading: After reading Martin Amis bash Joseph Stalin and Christopher Hitchens in Koba the Dread, I’m reading Christopher Hitchens’ Why Orwell Matters, a fascinating argument for the continuing importance of George Orwell’s work. I’m then hoping to read John Keegan’s biography of Winston Churchill. In the realms of fiction, this summer I read Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement, which is simply beautiful. Definitely his best book yet. More recently I finished Ben Marcus’ second novel, Notable American Women. Marcus gets my vote for best young American writer working today. His works are monstrously original; it’s as if he has reinvented language. Weird, mysterious, obscure, and comic—most startling thing I’ve read in ages. Susanne Weil reports: “Well, I finally read the first Harry Potter book! (Thanks, Anne!) Team-teaching freshman writing with Cheryl Swift has plunged me into a wide range of fascinating stuff about Los Angeles’ ecological past, present, and future: Ecology of Fear (Mike Davis), The Los Angeles River (Blake Gumprecht), and more. I’m also plunging ahead in my quest to read everything T.C. Boyle’s ever written, now delving into Riven Rock. . . . though first I should probably finish Mary Austin’s 26 Jayne Street (a lesser-known but intriguing early 20th century feminist text). I just got a copy of The Lovely Bones, anticipating Anne Sebold’s reading this spring. So many books—so little time!” What Have We Been Doing? Charles Adams has been busy serving as Whittier’s interim vice president for academic affairs and dean of faculty. Though his classes for spring are cancelled, Charles still meets with advisees—so if you are one of them, be sure to be in touch about registration or other matters. Charles also remains active in his scholarship and public service. In March, he’ll address the Popular Culture Association on "Gendering the National Pastime: Fathers, Sons, and 'Playing Catch' Reconsidered.” He also just gave a talk at the Whittier Public Library on "Reading The Grapes of Wrath in 2002," and last summer, in addition to settling into his new administrative role, he served as a grant review panelist for the National Endowment of the Humanities, reading proposals for grants in American Literature dAve pAddy reports that his “article on “avant-pulp” writer Jeff Noon for the Dictionary of Literary Biography came out this fall. Over the summer I completed work on an article on American postmodernist Curtis White that I’ve been hammering at for far too long. This article addresses White’s contribution to our understanding of the relation between aesthetics and politics. I also have a shorter piece forthcoming on Black Scottish writer Jackie Kay for the online research site, The Literary Encyclopedia.” Susanne Weil: “For me, this year will be dominated by the self-study of college writing (composition) programs that the College Writing Committee--Tony Barnstone, Chuck Hill, Dave Garland, and Paula Radisich and I—have undertaken. If you’d like to share your insights with this committee, please contact one of us! Meanwhile, though, I’m still working on Twain in the aftermath of a fascinating trip to the Twain Papers in Berkeley this summer that started me exploring his copyright activism. The women’s wilderness literature/introductory backpacking trip that I led for the Yosemite Field Seminar program last summer went so well that they invited me back to do it again next summer. I’m also working on programming for the next Friends (Quakers) in Higher Education conference to be held at Pendle Hill and Swarthmore College next June.” In the Next Edition . . . more news of 2003-04. How to E-mail Us: Some of you have asked how to get us by e-mail, so here are some addresses: Charles Adams: cadams@whittier.edu Tony Barnstone: tbarnstone@whittier.edu Tina Corral (Department Secretary): tcorral@whittier.edu Wendy Furman-Adams (Department Chair): wfurman@whittier.edu Bill Geiger: bgeiger@whittier.edu Anne Kiley: akiley@whittier.edu Gary Libman (journalism): garylibman@earthlink.net John Mitchell (journalism): john.mitchell@latimes.com Sean Morris: smorris@whittier.edu David Paddy: dpaddy@whittier.edu Susanne Weil: sweil@whittier.edu or sespewild@aol.com Katherine Will (President): president@whittier.edu
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