This Week In English | December 11, 2023
This Week in English
December 11, 2023
Buchanan Alumni House Open to Students During Finals Week
Kathy Hill is the House Manager at Buchanan Alumni House and she wrote this morning with this invitation to students who are preparing for finals this week:
Each semester, we close Buchanan to events during finals week and open the house to students so they have a quiet place to study for finals. We offer some light snacks and beverages to them at no cost.
Like many other aspects of our lives, COVID-19 had quite the effect on this program. Before the pandemic, we had a huge following and did not need to market the finals program. However, all the students who knew and loved the program have since graduated, and we now have very low attendance.
So if you’re looking for a homey alternative to the library, walk on over, introduce yourself, and make yourself comfortable.
Looking Ahead to All-Day Workshops with Cartographer Margaret Pearce in January
This January the McGillicuddy Humanities Center will host two all-day workshops with Dr. Margaret Pearce, a Maine-based cartographer and Citizen Potawatomi tribal member.
These all-day workshops are for students curious to explore the relationship between cartography and writing: both mapping as a form of writing, and mapping as a way of drawing out the spatial relationships in linear narrative. If the idea of mixing maps and writing sounds like fun, these workshops are for you!
Wednesday, January 24: 9 am–4 pm for writers. Wednesday, January 31: 9 am–4 pm for cartography, GIS, and other geospatial students, including students who have taken courses in digital humanities or geovisualization.
Workshops will take place in the Digital and Spatial History Lab, Center Stevens Suite 305. Lunch will be provided. The workshops do not involve software. We will work on paper.
Students in both workshops are asked to bring one page of written text (poem, report, story, description) that includes a river (any kind of river). The river does not have to be the focus, but it does have to be present. The page can be taken from a longer work.
To register for a workshop or for more information, please contact Beth Wiemann at the McGillicuddy Humanities Center.
Save the Date: Plunkett Poetry Festival at UMA in April
The 22nd annual Terry Plunkett Maine Poetry Festival will take place on Saturday, April 27. This year, the festival will include live readings in the Danforth Gallery and the Jewett Hall Auditorium on the Augusta campus of the University of Maine at Augusta, and will include participation from Maine high schools, the University of Maine System campuses, and the Maine poetry community.
The keynote speaker will be Brian Turner, who is best known for his poems about serving in the Iraq War. His poems resonate today given current global conflicts. His poems are empathic and intersectional, often showing multiple points of view and the ripple effects of violence on a community.
The festival is free and open to all. Event details are in the works and organizers encourage you to check the Festival’s webpage often for details as they are finalized.
This Week in English 140 was sent to students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends of the department on December 11, 2023. If you would rather not receive these weekly bulletins, please reply with <unsubscribe> in your subject line. Earlier installments are archived on our website. If you’re on Facebook, please consider joining the English Department Group. To learn more about faculty members mentioned in this bulletin, visit our People page.
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