This Week in English | February 3 – 9, 2020
I hope the third week of classes finds you settling into a productive rhythm, everyone. A quick reminder about two deadlines: today is the last day to drop a class without having it appear on your transcript, and we’ve also extended the deadline for submissions to the Grady Awards for Creative Writing until the end of day today (check your in-box for a recent e-mail from Ellen Manzo laying out the details). And now, onto the bulletin:
New Book by Ryan Dippre
Ryan Dippre’s book Talk, Tools, and Texts: A Logic-in-Use for Studying Lifespan Literate Action Development has been published as part of the Practices and Possibilities Series at the WAC Clearinghouse / University Press of Colorado. It traces the literate action of eleven writers from ages twelve to eighty to establish a foundational infrastructure for understanding the ways in which literate action develops through the lifespan.
Dippre joined the department in the fall of 2015 and has served as the director of our award-winning First Year Composition Program since 2017. He has published in Literacy in Composition Studies and Networks: An On-line Journal for Teacher Research as well as in edited collections. He serves as the co-chair of the Writing through the Lifespan Collaboration, a group of international scholars interested in developing a multi-site, multi-method, multi-generational study of writing through the lifespan. This spring he is teaching sections of English 101 and English 315: Research Writing in the Disciplines.
Career Day This Wednesday
We strongly encourage English majors and minors to attend the UMaine Career Fair on Wednesday, February 5, between 10am and 3pm in the Student Recreation Center. Whether you’re seeking a full-time position after graduation or an interesting summer internship opportunity, the Fair provides students first-hand contact with more than 150 employers—many of whom require the excellent writing, communication, and interpretive skills that you have cultivated in the English curriculum. If you have questions about the Fair, drop by the department, speak with your advisor, or request an appointment with Katie Swacha, our new faculty member in Professional and Technical Writing, or Naomi Jacobs, who is teaching a one-credit course this spring focused on post-graduation opportunities for English majors.
Pre-Performance Lectures on The Color Purple and All My Sons
William S. Yellow Robe, Jr. will give the pre-performance lecture on The Color Purple in the Bodwell Lounge of the Collins Center for the Arts tonight at 6pm. Curtain is at 7pm.
On Friday at 6pm, Dick Brucher will give the pre-performance lecture on Arthur Miller’s All My Sons in advance of the broadcast of the National Theatre Live production at 7pm.
EGSA Haiku Contest Results
The English Graduate Student Association (EGSA) is proud to announce the winners of the haiku T-shirt contest.
In first place is first-year Master’s candidate Keaton Studebaker with the haiku that will appear on the T-shirt:
Language is non-standard
So don’t count my syllables
I’m still a haiku
The runner up is first-year Master’s candidate Lydia Balestra with the haiku:
English Department,
When am I supposed to write
with all this reading?
Congratulations to both poets! If you are interested in buying a T-shirt emblazoned with Studebaker’s winning haiku, they will go on sale in the English Department at the end of February or beginning of March. Proceeds will help support the annual Symposium organized and hosted by EGSA members. Please look for more information in a future bulletin.
Fresh Check Event on February 10
The University of Maine will host Fresh Check Day from 11am to 2pm on February 10 in the Atrium outside of the Bookstore in the Memorial Union. The Jordan Porco Foundation created Fresh Check Day to bring the whole campus community together to “check in” on the mental health and wellness of college students. More information about the event can be found here.
Next Up in the New Writing Series: Fiction Writer Deborah Willis
The New Writing Series is on hiatus this week, but next Thursday, February 13, we will welcome the Canadian writer Deborah Willis, whose first collection of short fiction, Vanishing and Other Stories, was named one of The Globe and Mail’s Best Books of 2009, was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award, and was praised by Alice Munro: “The emotional range and depth of these stories, their clarity and deftness, is astonishing.” Her second collection, The Dark and Other Love Stories, was long-listed for the 2017 Giller Prize, won the Georges Bugnet Award, and was named one of the best books of the year by The Globe and Mail, the CBC, NPR, and Chatelaine Magazine. Her fiction and non-fiction have appeared in The Walrus, The Virginia Quarterly, The Iowa Review, Lucky Peach, The Wall Street Journal, and Zoetrope. The event takes place at 4:30pm in the Allen and Sally Fernald APPE Space (Stewart Commons 104) and is free and open to the public. Hollie Adams will host and introduce.
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This Week in English 75 was sent to faculty, students, and friends of the department on Monday, February 3, 2020. If you would rather not receive these weekly bulletins, please reply with <unsubscribe> in your subject line. Earlier installments are archived on our website.
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