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.