The Kirksville Writers’ Group is forming and holding its first summer workshop. From June to July we will engage in 6 weeks of in depth reading and peer reviewed writing. All are welcome. An informational meeting will be held on April 16 in Baldwin Hall 303 at 7 pm. Feel free to contact kirksvillewriters@gmail.com with any questions.

Award-winning author Dr. John Smelcer will visit Truman March 27-28 to visit classes and participate in a series of public events.

Smelcer is one of the last speakers on Earth familiar with the Ahtna language, an endangered Alaska Native language. He has authored 45 books in an eclectic range of interests and disciplines. Aside from Smelcer’s many novels and poetry collections, he has published works in history, mythology, anthropology, archaeology and linguistics, as well as anthologies, plays, screenplays, dictionaries, and children’s picture books. His short stories, poems, interviews and essays have appeared in more than 400 magazines and journals worldwide.

In addition to book forewords by Noam Chomsky, Stephen Pinker and Gary Snyder, Smelcer’s work has earned praise from the likes of Allen Ginsberg, Ray Bradbury, Carl Sagan, J.D. Salinger and W.P. Kinsella among others.

At 6 p.m. March 27 in Violette Hall 1010, Smelcer will present “The World Raven Made: Ahtna Athabaskan Culture, Language and Myth.”

The Truman State University Press will host an open house and book signing from 2-4 p.m. on March 28, located on the third floor of the GeneralServicesBuilding at the corner of Franklin and Patterson streets.

From 7:00-8:30 p.m. March 28 in SUB Georgian Room A, Smelcer will participate in a public reading of his poetry, followed by a book signing.

All events are free and open to the public.

More information about Smelcer and his work is available on his website, johnsmelcer.com.

The Department of English and Linguistics is co-sponsoring a talk by Marjorie Kelly at 3:30 February 28, 2013 in Violette Hall 1010.  Kelly will discuss her career trajectory from English major to prize-winning  Mizzou School of Journalism student to business writer and consultant.  Her most recent book is Owning Our Future.  There will be Q and A and a book-signing as well.  Come hear a writer who found a subject and, in so doing, found a career.

The Windfall, Truman’s student-run literary magazine, is now accepting submissions for the spring.  Windfall prints a yearly publication including art, photography, prose, poetry, and other creative work from students.  For more information or to submit, go to http://windfall.truman.edu/submissions/  SUBMISSION DEADLINE: February 15th

Husband, wife team Lee Slonimsky and Carol Goodman will be on the Truman campus  Monday, March 4^th and Tuesday March 5^th.  On Monday evening at 7 PM in the Alumni Room of the SUB, they will deliver a talk concerning their own interesting histories with the Liberal Arts. (Though Lee Slonimsky’s degrees from CCNY are in English and Creative Writing, he is the Manager of a Hedge Fund;  Hammett Award winning fiction writer Carol Goodman, in addition to her MFA in Creative Writing from The New School, has a BA in Latin from Vassar.)  On Tuesday evening at 7 in the Alumni Room Lee and Carol will give a reading from their respective works (Lee in poetry, Carol in fiction) and then share a sample from their collaborative work in urban fantasy, which they have published under the name Lee Carroll.  Both presentations are free and open to all.

Lee Slonimsky has had poems published in over three hundred literary journals and is the author of two books of poetry: Talk Between Leaf and Skin, (SRLR Press, 2002) and Pythagoras in Love, (Orchises Press, 2007).  Carol Goodman has published  eight novels of her own with Ballantine, and three in collaboration with her husband Lee Slonimsky under the name Lee Carroll with Tor Books.   Her own novels include The Lake of Dead Languages, Arcadia Falls, and The Seduction of Water, winner of The Hammett Prize for literary excellence in crime writing in 2003.

Lee and Carol will also be visiting selected classrooms in both the English (Lee and Carol) and Business (Lee) Departments.  Their visit is being sponsored by the School of Business, the School of Arts & Letters, the English/Linguistics Department and through the C.V. Huenemann Lectureship in English.

The New Nonfiction: a series of readings by students in the Advanced Nonfiction Projects class will take place at noon in the library café on

Feb 7

March 5

April 4.

Brown bags welcome.

Second-year BA English student Anna Selle recently published a short article she had written for a prompt for her English 204 class. The prompt was to write a short article about pop culture that would be suitable for an online magazine. Anna’s instructor, Jen Creer, encouraged Anna to submit her piece to Clique Clack, an online magazine that publishes television and music reviews. Her piece “Why HBO’s Girls Is the Sex and the City of Our Generation” appeared Friday December 7, 2012.

This years English and Linguistics Senior Seminar Conference information poster can be viewed here. View the full schedule here.

The Department of English and Linguistics is sponsoring a talk by author Peter Nye this Monday, November 5^th at 7:00 p.m. in the Alumni Room.

Nye’s talk is titled “Writing About What You Want to Write: From Idea to Published Book.” His topics will include the publishing process, working with agents, co-authoring books, all presented in the context of his writing career.

Nye has written nonfiction books on a range of topics including labor, automotive history, and professional cycling, served as editor for National Voter Magazine and Public Citizen Magazine, provided color commentary on network TV, recently received his MFA in nonfiction from Goucher College, and is a new resident of Kirksville.

Triple Nickel Press will release his latest book, Peak Performance Under Pressure, co-authored with Bill Driscoll, on the day of this talk.

The Truman Presidential Museum and Library is seeking interns for the summer of 2013. This is an eight week (unpaid) internship with a 5-credit hour in-state tuition scholarship. Applications are due December 7, 2012. For more information click this link.

“Reflections on Truman and Classics”
Friday, Oct. 19, 11:00-11:55 am
SUB 3203
Matthew Potter, J.D.,

Truman alumnus and member of the Truman State University Board of Governors, on how his Truman education has helped him. Join us and bring your lunch if you want: 11:00 opportunity to chat informally; presentation at 11:30.

Windfall is hosting a Faculty Prose and Poetry reading this fall! Readers will include Professor Jennifer Creer, Dr. Monica Barron, and Dr. Adam Davis.

Please join us for this exciting event at 7 o’clock on Wednesday, October 17th in the SUB Georgian Rm A.

The winner of our Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest will be announced and awarded a prize then!

Akela Cooper, a 2003 graduate of the creative writing concentration in Truman’s English program, went on to the prestigious USC film school. She then worked as a writer on the 2009 ABC series V, and subsequently got a job on the hit series Grimm (NBC). She authored the upcoming Halloween episode “La Llarona,” starring Weeds-veteran Kate del Castillo. The episode is loosely based on the traditional Mexican legend of “the weeping woman.” Akela writes: “I’m very happy to share the news that my next episode of Grimm airs October 26 on NBC! To all the faculty and staff at Truman State University, especially but not limited to Dr. Becky Becker, Dr. Adam Davis, Dr. Alanna Preussner and Bertha Thomas, thank you for your guidance, encouragement and the education I received during my time at Truman.”

ENGLING and the Global Issues Colloquium are co-sponsoring a lecture/ discussion about the development of the tea industry and the marketing of tea in 20th century India.  Phil Lutgendorf, co-chair of the South Asian Studies program at the University of Iowa, spent a Fulbright year researching the ad campaigns and strategies which turned tea from an exotic beverage grown for foreign consumption into a household necessity for ordinary Indians. Lutgendorf is an internationally recognized scholar of Indian literature, especially religious texts, epic performances, poster art, Bollywood film, and folklore.  His translation of the Tulsidas Ramayana is excerpted in the Norton Anthology of World Literature, and Oxford UP published his collection of tales about Hanuman the Monkey God in 2007.

For information and deadlines on English BA Honors please visit http://englishhonors.truman.edu/.

The Windfall Release Party to celebrate the new issue will be held at the University Club at 7:00 pm Thursday the 26th. All are welcome!

Truman alumnus and international writing talent,  Prawal Parajuly Sharma will be reading from his work on Wednesday, April 18, 2012 at 7:00 p.m. in the SUB Georgian Room. A reception will be held at the University Club at 8:30 p.m.

Jack Turner visit details.

Jack Turner studied philosophy and Chinese at the University of Colorado, Stanford University, and Cornell University, and taught philosophy at the University of Illinois. He was a Woodrow Wilson National Fellow at Cornell and has served on the Rhodes Scholarship Selection Committee. He continues to lecture, most recently at the universities of Montana, Utah, Puget Sound, and Illinois, at Carleton College and Whitman College, and for a variety of other institutions including Greenpeace, theMurieCenter, theTetonScienceSchool, and the Wharton School of Finance Leadership Program. He is a Visiting Scholar in the Environmental Humanities graduate program at the University o fUtah. In 2007, he received the prestigious Whiting Foundation Writer’s Award.

During the 1960s he climbed extensively in Colorado,Yosemite, and the Tetons. He has lead more than 40 treks, trips, and exploratory expeditions to Pakistan, India, China, Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, and Peru. He climbed inWyoming’s Teton Range for 48 years, guided there for 35 years, and is the former president of the Exum Mountain Guides and School of American Mountaineering in Grand TetonNational Park. Until he retired, he was a certified AMGA alpine guide.

The Universityof Arizona Press published his book of environmental essays, The Abstract Wild, in 1996. It is now in its fifth printing and is used by more than 50 colleges, mostly in environmental studies programs. St. Martin’s Press published his memoir of the Tetons, Teewinot: A Year in the Teton Range, in June 2000. A new book for St. Martin’s, Travels in the Greater Yellowstone, was published in 2008. He is at work on a philosophical tract dealing the concept of wildness entitled Wildness 101, a new collection of essays for St Martin’s, The Eagle’s Eye, and a trio of novellas set inJackson Hole.

Jack Turner lives in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, with his wife Dana.

April 20, 2012

  For Children in Grades 4-6 in Northeast Missouri

Pre-Registration for all festival events required.

Click here for full details.

Former faculty member, Ladelle McWhorter, who is now the James Thomas Professor in Philosophy Professor of Environmental Studies and professor of Women, Gender, and Sexualities Studies in the Department of Philosophy University of Richmond, Virginia will speak at Truman Friday, March 30, 4:30 pm in the SUB Activities Room. . Her lecture is entitled “Savages and Throwbacks: Racism and Heterosexism in 20th-Century America.”

     Mar 15, 2012, KIRKSVILLE, Mo.—Three T. S. Eliot Prize poets will visit Truman March 29 to promote poetry and highlight their prize-winning books published by Truman State University Press, now celebrating 25 years of publishing. These poets reflect a range of styles, ages, ethnicities, and locales.

     Rhina Espaillat, Mona Lisa Saloy, and Dean Rader will be on the Truman campus as guest lecturers in several creative writing classes. They will all take part in a discussion panel at 1:30 p.m. in the SUB Alumni Room to talk about the craft of poetry and getting started in publishing. The poets will read from their prize-winning books at 7 p.m. in the SUB Down Under where books will be available to purchase. The public is welcome at these events.

     Espaillat, author of the 1998 prize for Where Horizons Go, has published eight books of poetry and won numerous awards for her work. Originally from the Dominican Republic, she taught high school English in New York City and is a frequent reader and speaker at universities.

     Saloy, author of the 2005 prize for Red Beans & Ricely Yours, has had her prose and poetry published in many anthologies and magazines. Her folklore research and writing focuses on the culture of New Orleans before and after Hurricane Katrina. She teaches at Dillard University.

     Rader, author of the 2010 prize for Works & Days, has published widely in poetry, American Indian studies, and popular culture. He teaches at the University of San Francisco.

     The T. S. Eliot Prize, sponsored by the University Press, was first established in 1997 and receives national recognition for the quality of work published. Each year the Press receives about 500 manuscripts for the competition, and a well-known poet selects a final winning manuscript. The author wins $2,000 and publication.

Rhina Espaillat:

Mona Lisa Saloy:

Dean Rader:

Although we do not typically think of her as a “devotional” poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s use and defense of devotional verse appear early in her career, in the 1830s.  They also figure into one of her later poems, “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point” (1848), which reveals the effects of brutal disempowerment on the identity and psychological integrity of a slave mother.  In this text as well as in her 1838 volume The Seraphim and Other Poems, Barrett Browning seeks to create a kind of “new utterance” in devotional verse that speaks in concert with the poems of Christina Rossetti, a writer well-known for her devotional texts in the nineteenth century.  In Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862) and The Prince’s Progress and Other Poems (1866), Rossetti brings together ideas of secrecy and devotional poetics in order to reveal ways in which fallen women might regain their spiritual and social equilibrium in Victorian culture.  Through lively and passionate means, both writers invest tropes of the human soul in devotional poetics with powerful analyses of religious, gender, literary, and social conventions.  In my presentation I will discuss how Barrett Browning and Rossetti give us a new perspective through which to view Victorian women’s religious verse.

Heather Cianciola is a Lecturer in English and has taught at Truman for five years. She earned a B.A. from Grove City College and an M.A. and Ph.D in English from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.  She says that though she didn’t realize it at the time, she started to develop a love for and obsession with devotional poetry when a high school English teacher suggested that she read “Pied Beauty” by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

The evening at Wrongdaddys started out with the sweet tunes of the TruMen. Once the TruMen finished, the poets started to get warmed up. They tested the ‘water’ with a sacrificial poet. The first poet got in the audience’s faces and no topic was off-limits. The first round started out with eight poets. The judges, several randomly selected audience members, rated the poetry they heard with point cards like on popular games shows such as “Dancing with the Stars”. There were several 10s the first round, but the judges became more ruthless as the night went on. The second round narrowed the competition down to five poets. The audience booed and cheered the judges’ scoring. By the third round, only three poets had survived. They slammed their poetry and even slammed their opponents’ poetry. The competition was cut-throat and the judges could feel the heat from the audience. Low scores were booed and the judges were heckled. Finally, the winners were announced after much suspense. Peter Johnson placed third and earned $25. Kristen Wright placed second and earned $50. The first place winner was Hope Benefield who earned $75. After the conclusion of the poetry slam, the floor was cleared for a dance party. Throughout the night, there were about one hundred people that came to see the poetry slam. There was also a mention of a poetry slam team forming, so check out this budding poetry team even if you are not a English major. We are hoping to have another poetry slam in April.

Alaska’s self-proclaimed fiddling poet, Ken Waldman, painted a picture of his poetry’s setting by describing the remote and desolate snowy terrain of Alaska. He set the mood for the evening by playing his fiddle before he read his poetry. Then, he shared a  poem about a party that he threw for one of his classes in Alaska. This was no ordinary party. It was a phone party. The class celebrated the conclusion of its studies over a conference call. There was even music and refreshments. One classmate had made cookies and mailed one to each student so that they could eat them together. Even in Alaska, where the students had never been in the same classroom together, they found a way to build a community. Waldman told some jokes from his time in Alaska and explained how people in Alaska say “I jokes” when they share a joke. Waldman went on to explain that the main form of transportation in Alaska was by plane. He told the audience that he was a plane crash survivor. Then he shared a couple of poems about his plane crash experience. However this was not the only disaster he has written about. He went on to share a poem about when his friend’s house burned down. He described all the musical instruments that were destroyed in the fire by giving the audience an idea of what sounds they might have made when the flames engulfed them. He concluded his presentation by playing “Burnt Down House” on his fiddle and even sang a few verses. Waldman offered free bookmarks of some of his poetry, some personalized with a self-portrait of the talented artist. He also sold CDs that had readings of his poetry recorded over his fiddle playing.

This Thursday,  March 15^th, at 7 PM, Windfall is sponsoring a reading  open to all by three creative writing professors, Jamie D’Agostino, Ed Rogers and Joe Benevento.  The reading will take place in the SUB, Georgian Room C.

Professor of English Dr. Bob Mielke has been awarded a sabbatical for the Fall 2012-Spring 2013 school year. Congratulations, Bob!

 Here is Dr. Bob’s report on plans:

 I will be working on five projects during my sabbatical:

 1) I will finish revising Avant-Pop, a book of music criticism about Yoko Ono, Frank Zappa, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Sun Ra, James Brown and Sigmund Snopek III. Neal Delmonico’s Naciketas press will publish it. No doubt there will be a launch party!

 2 and 3) I will be writing the introductions to two books of photography by James Crnkovich: one documenting the surrounding culture and hardware involved with American nuclear weaponry; another a “greatest hits” collection with more nuke photos, plus documentary photos of Minnesota’s Iron Range, drive-in theaters, small town garages and sporting events, etc. I will give away my extensive nuclear writing tied up with the former work on an online archive to be curated by James’ son. James is a member of the Guild of Atomic Photographers.

 4) I will be writing an article about the cinema of Radha Bharadwaj, an Indian director working for Hollywood who directed Closet Land and Basil (the latter based on a Wilkie Collins novel). She has a third feature film in the works as well.

 5) I will be writing a historical play about the jazz (and beyond) musician Sun Ra.

    Any day now I will receive the galleys for Kirksville, my first book of poetry. My publisher (and NMSU alumnus) Kevin Fitzpatrick is working on the launch party and book tour beginning when the book comes out in April (hard cover and e-book). We haven’t nailed down dates and locations yet, but we know the Kirksville event(s) will be in middle – late April 2012, followed by readings in St. Louis, Jefferson City, New York City and possibly the Twin Cities. — Bob

Alumni News: Doug Reside and “Wikipedia! The Musical!”

Doug Reside grew up in St. Louis, Missouri and graduated from Truman with a BS in Computer Science and a BA in English in 2001 (double major) and MA in English in 2003. He then worked for four and a half years at the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities at the University of Maryland in College Park. He received his Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Kentucky in 2006, and he is currently the digital curator for the performing arts at the New York Public Library. As digital curator, he works to preserve the library’s collections, make them available online, and provide contextual information so users can better understand the information. He also writes a blog on the New York City Library webpage.  Doug has worked extensively with Wikipedia to broaden its entries with information from the collections of the New York Public Library, especially in the area of theater. In October 2011, the New York Library for the Performing Arts, in conjunction with the New York chapter of Wikimedia, hosted an event entitled “Wikipedia! The Musical!”

 From The New York Times:

Doug Reside, the digital curator for the performing arts at the New York Public Library, will offer participants a brief tutorial on how to edit an entry properly, as well as “a quick overview of some important collections at the library that are not well represented in Wikipedia’s current articles.” The musical theater angle, he explained, is a function of location, scholarly interest and the medium’s interdisciplinary, “multi-modal” roots, which are well served by the library’s extensive archives.

In an e-mail Mr. Reside mentioned that the event would give editors access to the library’s considerable Harold Prince and Audrey Hepburn holdings. “Audrey Hepburn is interesting in that we have materials related to her stage work, which is not as well known or documented as her film career,” he said. . . .The event is part of Wikipedia Loves Libraries, a series that encourages active users of the online encyclopedia to engage with established cultural institutions and make use of their resources. (October 20, 2011).

Doug has also studied many “born digital” materials in order to preserve them and make them available for public access, for example Jonathan Larson’s musical “Rent,” a script “born digital” through Microsoft Word. Doug has analyzed bits and bytes from 189 floppy disks which has helped him learn more about Larson’s daily life, such as letters he wrote and even the schedule for his day job at the Moondance Diner. Doug was also able to find specific changes Larson made within documents. He also discovered a document that Larson may have created a week before his death.

Doug’s blog series entitled “Musical of the Month” is on the New York Public Library’s website. In this blog he publishes librettos once a month in a format that can be read online, on a smart phone, or with most ebook readers. He also provides a short history of the production and explanatory notes about references within the productions. In this link you will find a number of Doug’s recent entries on the history of Wizard of Oz musical productions: http://www.nypl.org/blog/author/doug-reside

You are officially booed, catcalled, hissed, and whistle-beckoned to the come-back of Kirksville’s Poetry Slams!

Join us on Wednesday, February 22 at Wrongdaddy’s for a slammin good time. Doors open at 9pm.

Cover for minors: $3
Cover for 21+ $3

Cover for minors shall be taken at the door, along with your driver’s license and a lovely stamping of “M” on both hands. Covers for 21+ will be taken just inside the bar and will serve as a cash prize for the winning poet. The more people, the better the prizes, so bring a crowd!

POETS – Bring three poems and your A game.

How do these things work, you ask?

A poetry slam is a competitive poetry competition. There are three rounds, with poets being eliminated each round. Judges are chosen from the audience and rate poets on a scale of 0 (for “you made my ears bleed and not in a good way”) and 10 (for “I want to have your literary babies”). High and low scores are dropped, and all audience noises of approval or disapproval are highly encouraged!

For more information, feel free to email krp616@truman.edu or Facebook Kasey Von Queso.  We would greatly appreciate it if you sent out as many obnoxious Facebook invites as possible! This slam is meant to be the start of many more, so please come and show your support for Kirksville’s ever-present and ever-budding writing community.

Dear ESTEEMED English and Linguistics Faculty:

WINDFALL IS LOOKING FOR FACULTY WHO CAN READ AND WRITE. AND THEN WE WANT YOU TO READ WHAT YOU’VE WRITTEN. AS STUDENTS, WE LOOK UP TO YOU. AND BY SHOWING US THAT YOU CAN WRITE, WE FEEL INSPIRED TO DO THE SAME. IF YOU’RE INTERESTED OR WANT MORE INFO, CONTACT THE WINDFALL OFFICE VIA EMAIL AT WINDFALL@TRUMAN.EDU

SINCERELY, WINDFALL

Akela Cooper was born and raised in Southeastern Missouri, graduating from Truman State University with a Bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing where she published several short stories. She moved to L.A. in 2004 to attend USC’s Graduate Program in Screenwriting. She graduated with distinction in 2006 landing her first assistant job on CBS Television’s cult hit Jericho that summer. Soon thereafter she worked as a writer’s assistant on Showtime’s Dexter and was staff writer on ABC’s reboot of the 1980s cult mini-series V. Akela is presently staff writer for NBC’s Fall show “Grimm. ” For more information about the NBC show Grimm, see the following link:  http://www.nbc.com/grimm/episode-guide/

“Turning Our Attention to the Left Hand:  Understanding Fatness Through a Disability Studies Lens”

Thursday, Feb. 23, 2012, 7  p.m., Alumni Room, SUB

This talk dislodges both fat embodiments and disabled embodiments from purely biological moorings and asks  instead that they be thought of as culturally and politically constructed embodiments, outlining both why we should and how we can understand fatness as a politicized identity.

While most of what we hear about the “war on obesity” involves new scientific findings about the causes or consequences of obesity, this talk seeks to move the conversation in different directions, positing that the most important questions to ask about the obesity epidemic might not be scientific or medical.  Rather the most important questions to ask are moral and ethical questions about how those living with embodiments that fail to meet our cultural ideals are and/or should be treated.

Dr April Herndon, Feminist and Disability Studies Scholar, Assoc Professor of English, Director of the Writing Center, Winona State University

 
We, the editors, invite you to join us for a launch party to celebrate the first issue of The Wide Net. Started by Truman’s English graduate students this past year, The Wide Net is a national journal for Master’s level English and cultural studies. Our first issue entitled “Occupying Spaces” will be released online this Friday, and we encourage you to join us in celebration.
 
Where: Dukum Up
When: Friday, January 27
 
7:00 Tapas style buffet
7:30-8:30 Speeches, Toasts, and Entertainment
9:00-10:00 Smoke Signals– blues/classic rock show
10:00-10:30 Dane Riggenbach’s band
 
No need to RSVP, and feel free to bring guests.  The event is free, although donations will be accepted.  All proceeds will go to The Wide Net.
 
Please visit http://thewidenet.truman.edu to see the first issue. We hope to see you all at the launch party!

My paper for the Women’s and Gender Studies Conference was “Cooking Up the Good Life:  Julia, Goldy, and Diane.” As I told the audience, a project on foodways might seem rather weird for this conference, but research on the ways people write about cooking and eating has interesting links to regional literature. For the past several years, I’ve done a lot of work on this topic for the Popular Culture Association and am currently teaching a graduate seminar in American Studies, “Foodways and Regional Cultures.” My presentation at the WGST Conference considered three culinary mystery novels by Diane Mott Davidson, in which she develops the character of Goldy Schultz, a caterer and amateur sleuth. Davidson uses this format to create a “soft-boiled” mystery that tackles difficult issues like alcoholism and domestic violence. Cooking helps Goldy think through the clues and put them together to solve mysteries; at the same time, Davidson focuses serious attention on issues readers might not expect to see in a “whodunit.” 

–Alanna Preussner

My paper for the Women’s and Gender Studies Conference was entitled “The Downfall of Black Swan: A Feminist Critique with Regards to Mulvey” I wrote the paper for Dr. Linda Seidel’s Feminist Criticism class in the spring of 2011, shortly after the movie was first released to theaters. While reading Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” I saw a connection between many of the devices she addresses, such as the use of the male gaze, the femme fatale, and the mirror phase, and the movie I had seen on the silver screen not long before. It was thrilling to have a chance to share my ideas with my peers and to have the opportunity to invite former professors and classmates to the event. The question portion was also particularly helpful; I was asked many thought provoking questions which only make me want to strengthen my paper more.
One thing that I only recently realized about the WGST Conference is that you are allowed to present papers you have already written for a class, as long as they fit the topic. I had always wanted to do the conference before, but always felt as though I had to create an original work. Once I realized that this taboo was not true, I submitted my favorite women’s studies paper and couldn’t wait to present it to others. The WGST Conference was very rewarding.

–Jennifer Blank
Bachelor’s in English, Dec 2011
Master student in Education

Phoolan is all of us: In Memory of Phoolan Devi 

 A Play written and performed by Angelina Llongueras

Additional texts from Arundathi Roy and Phoolan Devi  

PHOOLAN IS ALL OF US: In Memory of Phoolan Devi is a one-woman show conceived as an homage to Phoolan Devi, an Indian woman of a low caste, who was a bandit, a member of Parliament and a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize who was murdered in 2001.

 Performed in both English and Catalan Phoolan is “document-theatre,” with a style close to expressionism. The two characters in the piece blend into each other in a process of grieving and liberation that brings us closer to Phoolan Devi’s spirit, and helps us recognize the obstacles and challenges of making ourselves heard.

 Phoolan is all of us was written for and  premiered in an Entepola (Encuentro de Teatro Popular Latinoamericano) in Guayaquil,  Ecuador, a country with many Native languages which it ignores. Phoolan Devi spoke her own village dialect and this is one more reason why she was discriminated against. The author of this play is a Catalan speaker, a language that has also been minoritized. She wrote a book on minoritized languages in Mexico and advocates for the right of these languages to access the stage. Her use of Catalan in  this show is a call to awareness and linguistic respect and an artistc device to involve the audience in the difficulty of understanding “the other”.

Phoolan has so far been performed in diverse theatres and Cultural Centers In Barcelona, Madrid, Las Palmas, New York, Miami and Chicago.

Angelina Llongueras is a Catalonian actor, playwright, director, professor and theatre researcher with a strong inclination for traveling and experiencing diverse cultures. She has a stage experience of over twenty years that shapes a continuous bridge between Europe and America.  She was the lead actress of Kafka’s Metamorphosis, directed by Javier Daulte and Alex Ollè and produced by La Fura dels Baus, which toured Europe and Asia between 2005-2007. Angelina Llongueras has also created her own shows, adapting and playing works by writers as diverse as Ambrose Bierce, Thomas Mann, Jean Rhys (with whom she won the award of the 1st Contest of Monologues of Spain in 1992), Sub-comandante Marcos and Gioconda Belli, among others. She has directed a company of student teenage actors from 11 countries in shows of pantomime, story telling and in plays by Dürrenmatt and Fassbinder. Her play Lo Mein and Tequila received the Raymond J. Flores award for one acts in New York in 2004 and has had ten public readings in New York Public Libraries. The Association of Critics in Spanish Language of that city awarded its actor the revelation actor prize. Angelina has also a long experience as an actor in the audiovisual field and is the author of a book about theatre in indigenous languages of Mexico. She is assistant coordinator of ELIT (Itinerating School of Latin American Theatre) and co-founder member of the Chair José Martí of Latin American Theatre. Her last play El Cobert has won the Prize 14^th April for Theatre on Historical Memory and is going to be published in Barcelona this fall. She has recently participated in Chicago Directors’ Lab.

English and Linguistics Senior Seminar Conference
Watch the Wordsmiths Soar!
1 and 2 December 2011
Alumni and Georgian Rooms, SUB
 
Truman Alumnus Extraordinaire
Alex Moseley spoke on
Thursday, 1 December at 1.30 pm
Alumni Room, SUB
“English and the Liberal Arts: Marketable Skills and the Post-Recession Economy”
And gave a
Poetry Reading
Friday, 2 December at 11.30 am
Alumni Room, SUB

 Wes Buck, a native of Kirksville, MO, after a “lifetime spent at the drag strip,” decided to make a career out of what he loved best, by co-founding Drag Illustrated, which in the five short years since its inception, has become the premier magazine about drag racing in the United States.  Editor-In-Chief Buck shared with his audience on November 16^th how he came to make his vision a reality.

Truman’s Windfall held a writing workshop on Monday, October 24th, 2011. It took place in Baldwin Hall 231 from 6-8 PM.  The event involved face-to-face interaction with the staff and included discussions about the work submitted. Students brought work directly to the workshop, or submitted it earlier. 

The Windfall Staff

Poetry Reading by Joe Benevento,
from his new chapbook of poems,
“Tough Guys Don’t Write,”
with Finishing Line Press,
book sale and signing followed

When: September 21st at 7:30 PM
Where: Georgian Room A SUB, TSU
Sponsored by: English and Linguistics

We’d like to congratulate these seniors for their work leading to departmental honors in English and Linguistics, Spring 2011:

Jared Cline
Michelle Kreter
Madison March
Monica Morrey
Lauren O’Keefe
Alexis Simmons
Kimberly Suozzi
Mary Viets
Anna Whitehead

Windfall Release Party
The University Club, 516 East Patterson Street
Thursday, April 28
7:00-11:30pm

A release party for the 2011 edition of Windfall, Truman’s literary magazine, was held. We met at the University Club on Thursday, April 28. Refreshments were provided.

Friday, April 29th ENGLISH AND LINGUISTICS DINNER

Windfall and Sigma Tau Delta sponsored a department dinner for faculty and students.

Tuesday – Thursday, April 19th – 21st   BOOK SALE

Sigma Tau Delta hosted their annual book sale in the SUB

Wednesday, April 13th              Latin American/Spanish Culture Poetry Slam and Karaoke Night
Sigma Delta Pi threw a Latin American/Spanish culture Poetry Slam/Karaoke night at the Dukum. We asked for original poems relating to Spanish or Latin American culture, readings of poems by Spanish or Latin American Authors, or any other sort of reading/performance relating to the culture.  As for karaoke, we had a multitude of Spanish/Latin American songs available for those willing to perform!

Wednesday, April 13th  STUDENT READING

Windfall hosted a Student Reading in the Library Cafe from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm .

Wednesday, April 6th  POETRY SLAM

Windfall teamed up with the Women’s Resource Center to put on a poetry slam at Pickler’s Famous on the Square. It started at 8:30 pm and ended around 11:00 pm.

The American Shakespeare Center presented:    

“As You Like It”

7 p.m.
Tuesday, Febuary 1
Baldwin Auditorium

Free Admission

English/Linguistics Senior Seminar Conference
Thursday, December 2 and Friday, December 3
9:00 am-5:00 pm
SUB Georgian Rooms A, B, C

Throughout Thursday and Friday, senior seminar students presented their work in Creative Writing, Ecocriticism, Folktales, the Great War, and Storytelling.

Shawn Joyce, a 2006 Truman Linguistics Graduate and professional translator, was the keynote speaker this year and  lectured both Thursday and Friday:

1. Foreign Languages: Linguistics in the Working World
   Dec. 2, 12:00 pm
   Georgian Room A/B

2. Translation as a Career
   Dec. 3, 9:30 am
   Georgian Room A/B

Revisiting the Great Epics of Kaabu and Mande
A Presentation by Jali Morikeba Kouyate
Thursday, November 18, 7:30-9:00pm
OP Performance Hall

Sponsored by the Departments of Classical and Modern Languages, English and Linguistics, and Music.

Faculty Poetry Reading
Monday, 18 October
7.00 – 8.30 pm
SUB Down Under

Ed Rogers, Jamie D’Agostino, and Chett Breed from ENG/LING read a selection of Creative Writing.  Sponsored by Windfall.

The Women’s and Gender Studies conference was held on the theme Composing Women at the end of October. The event featured fabulous cultural studies papers, musicology analyses, literary criticism, anthropological views, philosophical musings, and much much more.

Program Schedule

English and Linguistics Senior Seminar Conference
Shawn Joyce
Thursday and Friday,  2 – 3 December 2010

Shawn Joyce was the keynote speaker at the English & Linguistics Senior Seminar conference. Shawn graduated with a Truman linguistics degree in 2006, went on to translation school and works now as a professional translator. He spoke both about the professional/vocational side of the translation business and more theoretically about the role of linguistics in his work.

For-words: Linguistics Talk
Monday, 8 November 2010

A linguistics talk was held with well-known visiting linguist, Dr. Mary Bucholtz. (University of California, Santa Barbara)

For-words:  Anna Hirsch
Friday, 29 October 2010
4.30 pm
 VH 1000

As part of Truman’s Sixteenth Annual Women and Gender Studies Conference, author of The New PolyAnna, Anna Hirsch, spoke on “Making out with mirrors, microphones, and metaphors and other lessons in ethical sluttery”.

Linguistics Party
Wednesday, 13 October 2010
6:00 pm

The annual pizza party for Linguistics majors, minors, faculty and friends (potentially interested students) was held. Coordinated by Dr. Mary Shapiro

For-words:  Reading and Book Signing
Friday, 8 October 2010
1:30 pm
SUB Activities Room

Acclaimed author Dr. Benjamin Alire Saenz gave a reading (Department of Creative Writing, University of Texas, El Paso).  A book signing followed this event.

30 September 2010

 Launch party for the 2010 edition of Windfall.  We celebrated the publication of Truman’s literary magazine — 30 September 2010 at 7.00 pm at the University Club (516 East Patterson Street).

18 September 2010

The Installation Committee asked Dr Jamie D’Agostino, Assistant Professor of English, to compose a poem for President Paino’s Installation this month.  Here’s a copy of the text Dr D’Agostino wrote for this occasion and shared with the community on Saturday. 

In Command of Irregulars

The half of the path behind us
and half yet ahead, it’s said, met
in dark woods where the way was lost.
But you pull up one raw rutabaga
and you’re bound to get a bunch
of stuff held together by dirt. You’re
bound to get some of us. Leaf shadow
leopard-skins these buildings we’re in,
where we only know we’ve only known
the always little we knew, as per Plato.
At least we know a little bit about
the fight for this place, how it started
at the first site of the school. The Confederate
lieutenant sounds a guy who showed
too soon, drawn out easily and routed
south. We know our town, how it slopes
down and away at its western edges,
so the last of the latest Summer light hits
us flush, and the windows of the courthouse
burnish back a docketful of sunset.
Its limestone softens, lamp posts moisten.
Everything’s cast in molten cantaloupe,
a tarnished lightning striking at the speed
of geology until the first bat’s bent
on flying Q’s into the sky’s finely milled
dusk. Last call all we sing are songs
on cyclone-thrown pianos, so it’s not like
there’s any more dizzy left to get.
In the morning despite whatever we are
about to go through, the sky slides black
to slate, whitens and widens, pinks in
places and a thumbprint smudge of cirrus
turns its murk to pearl.