News and Events

Features

MFA Program in Creative Writing Hosts Young Writers in Residence at OSU(11-12-2009)

The summer of 2009, for the first time, twenty-eight gifted young writers from Columbus City Schools--rising juniors and seniors--moved into a dorm and settled in for a week of writing, studying, and "workshopping" fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction on the OSU campus. Working with faculty, MFA alumni, and current MFA students who served as mentors and instructors in morning classes, these young people were given the chance to concentrate exclusively on the art and craft of writing.
Read more.

Harlot of the Arts
...a revealing look at the arts of persuasion(11-10-2009)

Harlot is a digital magazine and web forum developed and published by members of the OSU Rhetoric, Composition and Literacy Program -- a digital meeting place for everyone interested in playful yet serious conversations about rhetoric in everyday life. Join us in the fun: Create, critique, collaborate.

Call for submissions for Issue 4 – Rhetoric at Work.

Submissions due December 1st 2009.

Click here to be taken to its YouTube address.
Read more.

Professor Brenda Brueggemann Featured in The Lantern(10-30-2009)

English Department professor Brenda Brueggemann was selected this month to be the featured professor in The Lantern's "Campus" section. The article profiles the senior capstone course Brueggemann is teaching this quarter on disability in relationships. In the article, Lantern staff writer Chantel Moody focuses on Brueggemann's use of assistive technology in her classes, discussing how such technologies function as part of her multimodal teaching strategy to be inclusive of all students, disabled or not.
Read more.

New Faculty in the Department of English(10-28-2009)

The Ohio State English Department is pleased and proud to welcome this year’s new and visiting faculty. New full professor Robyn Warhol-Down and new assistant professors Lynn Itagaki, Rebecca Wanzo, and David Ruderman will be joining the department. Margaret Goscilo also signed on this year as a senior lecturer and Niamh O’Leary will be with us this year as a visiting Committee on Institutional Cooperation Fellow. We are glad to have them on board and wish them all a prosperous and enjoyable experience here at OSU.
Click here to read a bio of each new English department faculty member.

Welcome, New Rhetoric Composition and Literacy Graduate Students!(10-12-2009)

This year, Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy Studies is welcoming three new M.A. students and six new Ph.D. students to the program. The new graduate students come from across the country and represent a wide range of interests. Keep reading to learn more about them!
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Ohio State Well-Represented at 2009 Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference(10-12-2009)

This year Ohio State faculty and graduate students will be well-represented at the 7th Biennial Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference at Michigan State University on October 7 -10, 2009. OSU is sending 21 presenters, who will participate in 14 different panels. Conference attendees will get to hear OSU scholars present on a wide range of intersecting topics including gender and race, disability, and digital spaces.
Read more.

English Department Faculty Remembers Alan K. Brown(10-07-2009)

Alan K. Brown, Emeritus Professor of Old English and Medieval Literature, passed away on September 17, 2009, at Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus.

Alan was a productive scholar of Old English over his very long career. In addition to Beowulf-studies, he had a longstanding interest in medieval glossaries and lexicography. He served for many years as a bibliographer-reviewer for the Old English Newsletter, and in that capacity his generosity to the field has helped all of us do our work more effectively.
- Drew Jones

He recited Beowulf (in Old English of course and dressed in period costume) at the annual Renaissance Festival held at OSU.
— Les Tannebaum

I didn't really know Alan, but I recall that encounters that I had with him showed him to have a gentle disposition and manner. He struck me as the picture of the retiring scholar. One image that remains in my mind: he had a tall monk's desk, at which he stood. I recall passing his office and seeing him standing there working.
— Jon Erickson

The greatness of [Alan’s] learning, however, never tainted him with pride; he was a modest and gentle man in his dealings with those less learned than he. … Alan was an inspiration to those of us who hope to continue our serious work even after we are released from the pedagogical duties that define our daily lives.
— Lisa Kiser
Read Professor Lisa Kiser's memorial essay on Professor Alan K. Brown and his work.

Narrative, Science, Performance Symposium(09-30-2009)

Hosted by Project Narrative
October 1-3, 2009

Featuring talks by several members of the English Department:

• Keynote Address by Professor Jim Phelan
• "What Is Science Fiction Good For?" by Professor Brian McHale
• "Beyond the Two Cultures: Persons, Minds, and Stories" by Professor David Herman

The symposium will also include papers presented by faculty from universities across the country.

For more information, check out the symposium's Web site.
Read more about the symposium

Welcome to OSU, New Graduate Students!(09-28-2009)

This year, the English Department is excited to welcome new students from across the country and around the world (as well as some of our own graduates!) into the MA, MFA, and PhD programs. Meet the new members of the department who have volunteered to introduce themselves to the community on the department Web site...
Read more about the students

A Matter of Degree(08-20-2009)

Every quarter, the Department of English features the experiences of a soon-to-graduate Ohio State University English Major or English Minor. Our Autumn Quarter 2009 interviewee is James Talbert
Read more about James Talbert.

Grad Students and Faculty in Children’s Literacy Panel at Berkeley(08-11-2009)

On July 11, Dr. Harvey Graff chaired a roundtable discussion with graduate students from the Department of English and LiteracyStudies@OSU at the Society for the History of Children and Youth Biennial Conference at the University of California, Berkeley. The roundtable addressed the conference theme, Children and Youth at Risk and Taking Risks: Historical Inquiries in International Perspective, by exploring "children at risk for literacy or illiteracy." Karin Hooks and Shawn Casey from the English Department and Caitlin Ryan for Education: Teaching and Learning all presented research-in-progress.
Read more about the panel.

Annual English Department Newsletter Now Available(08-04-2009)

We are proud to announce the publication of the latest issue of our annual newsletter, english@osu. The main theme of this year’s issue is Storytelling, and it includes:

• Professor and Chair Valerie Lee’s story of her career at OSU and her tale of the discovery of a valuable English Department archive, with some enticing samples
• Professor Elizabeth Renker’s narrative of the dramatic changes that have taken place in college teaching
• Professor Karen A. Winstead’s eye-opening examination of medieval saints’ lives
• Professor Brenda Jo Brueggeman’s chronicle of the life of Mabel Hubbard Bell, wife of Alexander Graham Bell
• Professor Ray Cashman’s article on students collecting stories from the University District
• Professors Louie Ulman and Cindy Selfe’s unveiling of a newly-created and ongoing digital archive of literacy stories
• Professor Michelle Herman’s essay on the creative writer’s commitment to truth in storytelling.
• Student stories of the newly-founded English honor society, by Jacqueline Hicks, and adventures in studying abroad, by Sara Krueger, Jacqueline Hicks, and Amy Hillard
• Professor Susan Delagrange’s tribute to the memory of beloved teacher and colleague, Professor Jim Buckley

We hope you enjoy reading english@osu and welcome your comments, which you may address to Les Tannenbaum.
Read the Newsletter [PDF].

Professor Debra Moddelmog Wins 2009 OSU Distinguished Diversity Enhancement Award(06-30-2009)

Congratulations to Professor Debra Moddelmog for winning one of five Distinguished Diversity Enhancement Awards given this year by OSU's Office of Human Resources and the University Senate Committee on Diversity .
Read more about the accomplishments that won Dr. Moddelmog this award

OSU English Major Wins Fulbright Grant, Heads for Hong Kong(06-25-2009)

As the winner of one of this year's prestigious Fulbright Program teaching grants, graduating OSU English major Ladaea Melton will spend the next year in Hong Kong working with an English education program and meeting local people.
Read complete article

LiteracyStudies@OSU Spring Lecture: Ira Shor Asks, (06-25-2009)

At the May Literacy Studies lecture, noted critical literacy scholar Ira Shor put literacy in the context of the Culture Wars of the 1970s and 80s. He described critical literacy as related to the democratizing social changes that dramatically altered American society during the 1960s and 70s.
Read complete article.

Narrative Theory Meets Disability Studies: Representing Autism and Mania in Fiction and Memoir(06-25-2009)

On April 22, Project Narrative and the OSU Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities sponsored a graduate student panel titled "Writing the Self, Writing the Other: Author and Audience in Popular Disability Narrative." This panel featured English Ph.D. students Nick Hetrick and Melanie Yergeau as well as Comparative Studies Ph.D. student Krista Paradiso.
Read complete article.

Brueggemann named new RCL Vice Chair(06-02-2009)

Beginning Summer Quarter 2009, Brenda Brueggemann will serve as the Vice-Chair of Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy Studies. Brueggemann takes over from Kay Halasek who has held the position for the past four years. Brueggemann is the author of Lend Me Your Ear: Rhetorical Constructions of Deafness and Deaf Subjects: Between Identities and Places and of personal essays and articles on pedagogy, qualitative research, literacy, rhetoric, deaf and disability studies. She is the co-editor of and contributor to Disability Studies: Enabling the Humanities; Women and Deafness: Double Visions; Disability and/in Prose; Disability and the Teaching of Writing: A Critical Sourcebook, and the editor of and contributor to Literacy and Deaf People: Cultural and Contextual Perspectives. She joined the OSU faculty in 1992, and along with her appointment in English she serves as Associate Faculty for Women's Studies and Comparative Studies; Coordinator for the Interdisciplinary Program in Disability Studies; and Faculty Leader of the American Sign Language Program.

Harker wins 2009 Kitty O. Locker Prize for Business Communications(06-02-2009)

Michael Harker is this year’s recipient of the Kitty O. Locker Prize. Michael’s project comprises an integral part of the First Year Writing curriculum, Commonplace. The chapter he submitted for this prize delineates specifically classroom practices that make Commonplace’s peer-review system possible. Designed to teach students how to perform peer-review anonymously, respectfully, and professionally, this chapter includes sample review letters in the genre of memos. These sample memos emphasize composing skills, professional and intellectual dispositions, and maxims of professionalism that have functioned as cornerstones of technical and business communication for decades. As such, this pedagogical move beckons teachers and students to think more systematically about the writing process and the role of peer review in it. In doing so, it also marks an attempt at building some continuity among Composition Studies, Business Communication, and Rhetoric. The $1000 prize is awarded for an outstanding graduate student conference presentation, publication, or dissertation in business communication. The prize is made possible by donations to the Kitty O. Locker Memorial Fund.

Behan receives 2009 University Distinguished Staff Award(06-02-2009)

Linda received word this week that she has been awarded the 2009 University Distinguished Staff Award. Lynda has been directing for many years Marion's Academic Enrichment Center, which houses the campus writing center and is an integral component of the RCL program there. Lynda has led this program with great creativity and commitment and has lent those qualities to all of her work at Marion. An active member of the Marion English Department in many other pedagogical initiatives over the years, Lynda also collaborated with Marcia Dickson to establish the first computer classroom at Marion in 1989 and collaborated most recently with staff on the Columbus campus on a Board of Regents Grant on assessment of first-year writing.

Creative Writing Program's May Student/Faculty Reading(05-20-2009)

At the final Student/Faculty reading of the year, Creative Nonfiction writer Elizabeth Ansfield and Fiction writer Cami Freeman, both second year MFA students, and poet-cum-professor Kathy Fagan read selections from their work to an enthralled crowd.

Special thanks to soon-to-be MFA poetry alum Catie Crabtree for guest-writing this story!
Read more about the event.

New Faculty Member Jonathan Buehl Wins National Dissertation Award(05-20-2009)

Jonathan Buehl--the most recent addition to the RCL faculty on the Columbus campus--won the 2009 Outstanding Dissertation Award in Technical Communication, jointly awarded by the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing and the Conference on College Composition and Communication.
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Inaugural Expanding Literacy Studies Conference Hits a Home Run!(05-19-2009)

Graduate students from across Ohio State hosted graduate students from around the country and across the world at The Expanding Literacy Studies International, Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference, the first literacy studies conference of its scale and scope. More than 250 attendees—including graduate student presenters, faculty chairs, and interested guests from the university and local community—enjoyed a weekend of scholarly exchange, intellectual camaraderie, good food and good cheer.
Read more.

Fiction MFA Student Donald Ray Pollock Named 2008 PEN/Robert Bingham Fellow(05-15-2009)

Pollock, who will graduate from the MFA program this Spring, was selected as the 2008 PEN/Robert Bingham Fellow based on his short story collection Knockemstiff.
Read more.

'The Two-Way Mirror: African American Films and the Transition to Sound'(05-11-2009)

At this year's Wexner Center Lecture, English Department professor Ryan Friedman Friedman presented a chapter from his forthcoming book on 1920s and 30s African American cinema. Friedman's use of the mirror metaphor comes from white film critics and historians' concept of the movie screen as a "mirror screen" reflecting back to the viewer their imagined, utopian version of reality, predicated on early 20th century America's unequal relations of race and class. However, Friedman argues against the idea that film functions as an improving mirror screen for the nation or that African Americans appearing under any circumstances in movies during this period necessarily represented racial progress. Through an analysis of the 1933 film The Emperor Jones, Friedman suggests that the way African Americans were portrayed movies did not encourage an imagination of racial uplift.




Read more about Friedman's lecture.

Lucille Clifton at the Wexner Center(04-29-2009)

As part of the The President and Provost's 2008-09 Diversity Lecture and Cultural Arts Series, acclaimed African American poet Lucille Clifton read from her extensive body of work at the Wexner Center on April 21. Clifton's reading, during which the poet captured the audience's attention with evocative reading from several of her published collections interspersed with anecdotes and her thoughts about the role poets play in society, was co-sponsored by the Creative Writing Program, Department of English.
Read more.

April Student/Faculty Reading Mixes It Up with MFAs Past and Present(04-17-2009)

April Student/Faculty Reading Mixes It Up with MFAs Past and Present

The Creative Writing Program's April Student/Faculty Reading featured readings by fiction alumnus Kyle Minor, as well as current students Andrew Brogdon from the poetry program and Annie McGreevey from the fiction program.
Read more about the April Student/Faculty Reading.

Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives (04-17-2009)

The Ohio State University proudly announces the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives (DALN), a publicly available repository of literacy narratives in a variety of formats (print, audio, video) that, collectively, provide a contemporary and historical record of the literacy practices and values of diverse contributors. Since its debut in October 2008, the DALN, with more than 1,200 visits by more than 930 people from various countries across the globe, including India, Malaysia, Egypt, Brazil, Spain, Mexico, Iran, and the Czech Republic, has quickly become an international phenomenon.
Read more.

Ellen Riggle and Sharon Rostosky(04-17-2009)

The Impact of Marriage Restriction Amendments on Minority Stress and Well-Being in the LGBT Community

On Thursday, April 9, Professors Ellen Riggle and Sharon Rostosky of the University of Kentucky gave a talk on "The Impact of Marriage Restriction Amendments on Minority Stress and Well-Being in the LGBT Community." They shared the results of their research on the effect that public debate about marriage legislation affects lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals has on their well-being. Their work applies the concept of "minority stress" to the gay community, measures the effects the negative rhetoric of gay-marriage ban political campaigns has on the Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/ Transgender (LGBT) community, and offers suggestions for coping strategies that both counteract minority stress and work to destigmatize homosexual identities in society.
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OSU Press/The Journal Announce Wheeler Poetry Prize (03-06-2009)

The Ohio State University Press and The Journal are delighted to announce that Kary Wayson has been selected this year's winner of The Charles B. Wheeler Prize for her poetry collection, American Husband. OSU Press will publish American Husband in Autumn 2009.

In addition to publication, the award carries with it a cash prize of $3000, thanks to the generosity of the family of the late Charles B. Wheeler, Professor Emeritus of the English Department.
Read more.

New and Noteworthy Courses for Spring Quarter(02-19-2009)

It sometimes feels as if spring will never come, but our faculty members know better, as they are preparing to offer some interesting spring quarter classes, one of which satisfies the University's GEC requirements and all of which are still available. You can acquire skills in creating professional documents and skills in photography, web design, and movie making. You can also find out why we are a nation of hybrids, how poetry and concepts of literacy evolve over time, why the Tudors are always a "hot topic," and how and why we talk to each other.
Click here to learn more.

Eyes on Media, Technology, and Love at the Winter Graduate Student Colloquium(02-17-2009)

The English Department’s Winter Graduate Student Colloquium featured papers focusing on the influence of media on art and society, and on the institution of slavery’s influence on familial love. The Colloquium started with an examination of the influence of film on literary representation techniques, transitioning to the arguments that techno-enthusiasts make for the possibility of a techno-utopia, and concluding with an interrogation of how the institution of slavery leads to the loss of boundaries between self and other.
The Winter Colloquium featured presentations by Paul McCormick, Lauren Clark, and Emily Hooper.
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Guest Speaker Lesley Bartlett Presents Her Research on the Cultural Politics of Literacy in Brazil(02-16-2009)

On Thursday, January 29, Lesley Bartlett of Columbia University spoke about how non-governmental organization educators in Brazil understand educational philosopher Paolo Freire's ideas about literacy and social change. She discussed how these ideas get translated into classroom practice and spoke to how the adult students' perceptions of the meaning, purpose, and effect of literacy programs impact the learning process. Bartlett's talk was presented by The Ohio State University Lecture on Literacy Studies.
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Winter Student/Faculty Reading: All You Need Is Love, or Something Like It(02-04-2009)

This year's Winter Student/Faculty Reading, sponsored by the Creative Writing Program, bravely took place January 29. In spite of the blizzard that shut OSU down the day before, MFA students Maria Caruso and Gina Ventre and Professor Erin McGraw read selections from their work to an admiring audience of OSU students, staff, faculty, and community members.
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English Department Rings in the Obama Administration(02-03-2009)

On January 20, the English department gathered in Denney 311 to observe Barack Obama's historic inauguration. Despite some technical difficulties owing to the number of people streaming the live web broadcast of the event, the gathering watched the opening prayers, the performance of the inaugural quarter, and finally Obama's anticipated inauguration speech and the closing prayer in rapt attention. Over 80 people attended the event, packing Denney 311 to the extent that there was standing room only.
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"Remembering Sarah": Crafting and Reading Nonfiction with Ohio Author Joe Mackall (01-29-2009)

On January 12, Joe Mackall of Ashland University gave an invited reading from his latest book Plain Secrets: an Outsider among the Amish.
In addition to reading his chapter entitled "Remembering Sarah," Mackall also gave a brief talk on the craft and ethics of writing creative nonfiction.
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Center for Folklore Studies Lecture by Professor Emeritus Pat Mullen(01-29-2009)

On January 12, Professor Emeritus Pat Mullen of the English Department gave a lecture entitled "'They All Go Native On a Saturday Night:' Race and American Vernacular Music, 1947-1957." This was the first in a series of lectures on Race and Memory in American Vernacular Music, sponsored by the Center for Folklore Studies and the School of Music.
The other lectures in this series will be Robert Cantwell's (UNC-Chapel Hill) "Twang: Striking the Southern Note," and Nicholas Spitzer's (Tulane University) "Roots to Routes: Conservation and Creolization in American Vernacular Music," scheduled for May and October of this year.
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Writer's Harvest 2008 a Smash Hit!(01-15-2009)

This year's Writer's Harvest, held November 20 at Ruby Tuesday's Bar, was a huge success. The event raised over $600 with its raffle and date auction, an all-time record. The Writer's Harvest canned food drive also collected 315 pounds of food.

Thanks to Writer's Guild members Annie McGreevey, Cammie Freeman, K.C. Wolfe, Christina LaRose and Andrew Brogdon for organizing the event!

Thanks to MFA Nonfiction graduate Angel Surdin for contributing her many gorgeous photos to this slideshow!
See a Photo Slideshow of the Event!

Why—and Whether—The Humanities Matter(11-14-2008)

A Symposium Hosted by Project Narrative and the Narrative and Cognition Working Group

Keynote speaker Jonathan Gottschall, author of Literature, Science, and a New Humanities, explained the new research paradigm he hopes to add to the arsenal of methods English scholars use to conduct their research. He argued that the humanities' slide toward irrelevance and institutional marginality can be offset by changes in the work of English scholars.

The symposium also included responses by OSU faculty members Frank Donaghue, Frederick Aldama, Sebastian Knowles, Nina Berman, and Paul Reitter, responding both to Gottschall's science-influenced thesis and to the symposium’s topic, "Why the Humanities Matter."

For details on the symposium, click here to read the full article!

Questioning Politics at the Fall Graduate Symposium on Postcolonial Women's Writing(11-14-2008)

This fall, the US Ethnic/Postcolonial Studies Area Group hosted its first Graduate Student Symposium on Postcolonial Women's Writing. The papers presented came from Pranav Jani's "Postcolonial Literature of Women Authors" class last spring, which focused on novels written by African and Indian women in the last fifty years.

OSU graduate students Gina Gemmel, Dylan Canter, Candice Pipes, and Jen Herman presented papers at the symposium. Their work raised issues of narration, characterization, colonization, and globalization in Kamila Shamsie's Kartography, Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things, and Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions and The Book of Not.

To read more, click here.

Harvey Graff's Latest Book: Roping in The Dallas Myth(11-13-2008)

English professor and Ohio Eminent Scholar in Literacy Studies Harvey Graff's new book The Dallas Myth looks at the untold story of Dallas, a city which proclaims that it has no history. In demonstrating how corporate interests have continually trumped Dallas' human, social, and environmental needs, Graff also offers a new and insightful method for "reading" a city through its governmental policy, architecture, and demographics.
Read more about the book

Welcome to OSU, New Graduate Students!(10-23-2008)

This year, the English Department is excited to welcome 56 new students from across the country and around the world (as well as some of our own graduates!) into the MA, MFA, and PhD programs. Triumphing over power outages and first-day-of-school jitters, a number of new members of the department have volunteered to introduce themselves to the community here, on the department website.
Click here to meet these brave souls

New Faculty in the Department of English(10-22-2008)

New English Faculty (left to right) Tammy Eckard, Marcia Farr, Noah Comet, Ashley Byock, Thomas Davis, Jonathan Buehl, and Cassandra Parente

The Ohio State English Department is pleased and proud to welcome this year’s new and visiting faculty. The new Assistant Professors in the Department this year are Thomas Davis, Noah Comet, Jonathan Buehl, and Cassandra Parente, and Full Professor Marica Farr will be joining the English department from the School of Education. Tammy Eckard also signed on this year as a Senior Lecturer and Mary Rose will be with us this year as a visiting faculty member. Last but not least is Ashley Byock, our Committee on Institutional Cooperation Fellow. We are glad to have them on board and wish them all a prosperous and enjoyable experience here at OSU.

Click here for a short bio of each new English department faculty member

Workshop for First-Year Writing Instructors(09-18-2008)

The Pre-Quarter Workshop for Professional Development (PQW) is currently taking place in Denney Hall. With the help of the staff of the First-Year Writing Program, GTAs who are new to teaching at Ohio State prepare for their first experiences in the classroom through eleven days of workshops, conversation, reading, writing, and interaction with faculty and invited guests. The PQW continues through September 18 in anticipation of the start of classes on September 24.
Read more about the workshop

2007-2008 English Department Awards(07-25-2008)

On May 21, 2008 the Ohio State English Department held their annual Awards Ceremony, an end-of-the-year tradition that brings faculty, staff, grad students, and undergrads together to celebrate the year's successes.
Read more about the Ceremony

Fall Lineup: New and Noteworthy Courses(07-21-2008)

Autumn Quarter may still seem far away, but our faculty are already gearing up to offer a number of interesting and exciting courses, most of which still have some openings.

One course—English 405: Writing about Science—is being offered for the first time this Fall by Jonathan Buehl, our newest Professor of Rhetoric, Composition and Literacy Studies. This course will teach students how to perform professional writing tasks that involve scientific discourses, such as accommodating science to non-specialists and editing technical scientific prose. Knowledge of or proficiency in science is not required (Call # 09081-2).

A course in Asian American Literature and Culture, English 587, taught by Professor Pranav Jani, will offer a timely analysis of South Asian-American literary and cinematic texts. It will engage with such questions as, “How have ideas about the ‘exotic’ or ‘spiritual’ East and the ‘materialist’ West shaped the image (and self-image) of Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Bangladeshi and Nepali communities in the U.S.?” and “What does it mean that Bollywood, mehndi, bhangra, and, for that matter, software engineers and call-center workers, are now in vogue?” (Call # 09111-6).
Read more about this story.

Denman Undergraduate Research Forum, May 14, 2008(06-12-2008)

The Denman Undergraduate Research Forum on May 14th featured research from hundreds of students from every discipline, including ten English majors, one of whom, Graduating Senior Stefanie Peters, won second place in the Humanities division.
Read more about this event.

A Matter of Degree(06-05-2008)

Every quarter, the Department of English features on its website the experiences of a soon-to-graduate Ohio State University English Major. Our Summer Quarter 2008 interviewee is Eddie Worbis.
Read more about this quarter's graduate

Professor Frederick Aldama Wins Distinguished Diversity Enhancement Award(05-29-2008)

Professor Frederick Aldama's commitment to a diverse English Department and his exemplary work in recruitment, scholarship, and teaching recently won him the university-wide Distinguished Diversity Enhancement Award. The award, for individuals or groups who have demonstrated a significant commitment to enhancing diversity at Ohio State, comes with a plaque and a $1200 honorarium.
Read more about the award...

English Department Faculty and Students Participate in International Day for Sharing Life Stories(05-29-2008)

Faculty and students in the English Department participated in the recent International Day for Sharing Life Stories held at the Wexner Center and sponsored in part by Project Narrative. The Ohio State University was one of 80 different sites in 17 countries taking part in the event which provided participants a platform to tell life stories or discuss the role of narratives in their research and teaching.
Read more about the event...

Professor James Fredal’s Taurascatic Study Group Examines Rhetoric in Unusual Way(05-29-2008)

Professor James Fredal used a contemporary slang term—"bullshit"—to hook his 591 Senior Honors Seminar students on the study of rhetoric. His tactics were so successful the class continued after the course was over.

Read more about the group...

LiteracyStudies@OSU Encourages Interdisciplinary Scholarship (05-20-2008)

The story of LiteracyStudies@OSU encompasses a university’s worth of people and disciplines. It begins with the hiring of Professor Harvey J. Graff as the Ohio Eminent Scholar in Literacy Studies by the Ohio State English Department, extends to the creation of an Interdisciplinary Specialization minor, and continues with the ongoing involvement of students and established scholars across campus and across the globe.
Read more about Interdisciplinary Scholarship

Two English Grad Students Receive Graduate Associate Teaching Award(05-12-2008)

Ohio State English Department graduate students Kelly Bradbury and Thomas Pruiksma were recently awarded the 2008 Graduate Associate Teaching Award (GATA). The university-wide award recognizes exceptional teaching by graduate students at OSU and is accompanied by a $1500 honorarium.
Read more about this article...

Emeritus Professor and Former Chair Lectures on “Iconic and Filmic Joyce”(04-30-2008)

In the Third Annual English Department Emerti Lecture, Professor Morris Beja gave a multimedia presentation that concentrated on James Joyce's role in popular culture, specifically film. The plethora of Joyce allusions found in modern and contemporary film is indicative of Joyce's iconic status or, as Professor Beja put it, his status as "the single most prestigious writer of all in Modern Western literature." Joyce appears in a variety of ways in films ranging from Carol Reed's The Third Man to Rodney Dangerfield's Back to School.
Read about Dr. Beja's lecture.

Professor Karen Professor Winstead Presents “What’s So Good (or Bad) about Saints?”(04-30-2008)

Dr. Karen Winstead recently lectured on “What’s So Good (or Bad) about Saints” in the College of Humanities 2007-2008 Inaugural Lecture Series. Professor Winstead was recently promoted to the position of full professor in Ohio State’s English Department.
Read more about Dr. Winstead's lecture.

International Visiting Scholars Colloquium Looks at Issues of Narrative (04-30-2008)

Two international visiting scholars recently discussed their research with a group of Ohio State English faculty and students at a Project Narrative colloquium. Marina Grishakova, from Estonia, discussed her work "Literariness, Fictionality, and the Theory of Possible Worlds," while Jan Alber, from Germany, discussed "Toward the Limits of Human Cognition: 'Unnatural' Elements in Postmodernist Storyworlds."
Read more about the Project Narrative colloquium.

Associate Professor of English balances Film, Pop Culture, American Literature, and More(04-30-2008)

One of the things associate professor Jared Gardner loves about teaching and writing in the Ohio State English Department is the ways in which the Department allows him to be a man of many hats. "[The Department's] size and diversity have allowed me the space and time to see how my disparate interests fit together," said Gardner. "The book I'm working on now is about the kinds of literature in film and popular culture that I love but it's also a love letter to the Department that lets me figure that out."
Read more about Dr. Gardner's work.

Ohio State-Newark Students Dazzle at CEA Conference(04-15-2008)

Undergraduate students wowed attendees of the College English Association (CEA) annual conference in St. Louis on Friday, March 28. Ohio State Newark students Sarah Boulard and Michael Morrison and their former classmate Mason Nojonen, now attending classes in Columbus, presented to the conference. This was the first undergraduate panel ever selected to present during the 39 years of an annual conference held by the 69-year old association.
Read more about this article.

Excellence in English: Student Profile of Karla Kmetz(04-14-2008)

When Karla Kmetz signed up for a disability studies course with Professor Brenda Brueggemann in the winter of 2006, she didn’t know it would change her academic direction. A Psychology major at the time, the class made her aware of the particular focus of her interest in Disabilities Studies. Therefore, when Professor Brueggemann asked for volunteers for a summer research project, involving the creation of a multimedia web site on the history of Disability and Disability Studies at OSU, Kmetz was the first to respond. To view the site Kmetz and Brueggemann built, visit this link.
Read more about this article.

Theory Face-off: Two Professors Debate Critical Approaches(04-07-2008)

They called it "The Great Debate." In mid-February, two Ohio State English Department heavy-weights came together to defend their theoretical stances toward literature, with Dr. James Phelan in the corner of rhetorical criticism and Dr. Aman Garcha in the corner of a historicist approach. For weeks after, the debate had repercussions in the hallways of Denney Hall, on the English Department listserv, and in the new Project Narrative blog.
Read more about this article...

New Digital Archives to Feature Unique Literacy Narratives(04-04-2008)

Three of our English Department faculty members have collaborated to initiate an online archive of literacy narratives that will be a valuable resource for scholars, teachers and the public.

What brought professors Cindy Selfe, Lewis Ulman, and Brenda Brueggemann together was a confluence of interests—in literacy, digital media, and disability studies—and a $40,000 Arts and Humanites Innovation Grant. As part of their larger digital literacy archives project, Ulman and Selfe enlisted the help of Brueggeman to create deaf and hard-of-hearing literacy narratives. The resulting video interviews will ultimately become part of the archives—which, Selfe and Ulman hope, will contain a variety of narratives from around the world.
More about this article...

Ohio State English Department has Strong Presence in Recent PMLA(04-03-2008)

Ohio State faculty and alumni contributed three articles to the most recent issue of PMLA (January 2008, Vol 123, No. 1), making the Ohio State English Department the most well-represented department in the issue. The three publications continue the trend of the department’s work being well-received by what is arguably the profession’s most prestigious journal. PMLA, produced by the Modern Language Association of America, publishes scholarly essays and is sent to over 2,300 libraries around the world, as well as about 30,000 professors and instructors at the college level.
Read more about this article.

Excellence in English: Student Profile of Sarah Boulard(04-03-2008)

English courses at Ohio State encompass and foster all kinds of research. Graduating English major Sarah Boulard signed up for a community rhetoric class in the spring of 2006 with Ohio State Newark Assistant Professor Elizabeth Weiser, and ended up working with Dr. Weiser on a case study to persuade the community that the Newark Earthworks, an Ancient Native American site, should be a World Heritage Site.
Read more about this article.

English Professor Elizabeth Renker Wins Prestigious Teaching Award(04-02-2008)

During a surprise visit from President Gee, Dean Roberts and Dean Royster at an English Department Council meeting, Professor Elizabeth Renker, Associate Professor of American Literature, was awarded the prestigious, university-wide Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching. Recipients are selected from hundreds of nominations proposed by students and colleagues. Winners receive a cash award of $3,000, as well as a base salary increase of $1,200, and are inducted into the University's Academy of Teaching
More about: English Professor Elizabeth Renker Wins Prestigious Teaching Award

Excellence in English Undergraduate Research: Student Profile(03-12-2008)

Erica Haugtvedt, a third-year English and Psychology major, recently learned her first academic article has been accepted for publication in the journal Melas, published by the Society of Multi-ethnic Literature in the United States. The article, "Abandoned in America: Identity Dissonance and Ethnic Presentationism in O.E Rølvaag's Giants in the Earth," has been in the works for a year now, and grew out of two independent studies with Professor Frederick Aldama.
Read more about Erica's article

Team-Taught English Class Takes on Community Project(03-06-2008)

This winter quarter Professors Galey Modan and Ray Cashman asked students in their team-taught English class—367.05 (The U.S. Folk Experience) and 571S (Studies in English Language)—to step off-campus and into the community to interview long-term residents and business owners around Ohio State’s campus. The class, with support from both the Ohio State Center for Folklore Studies and the surrounding neighborhoods’ University Community Association, was thus able to expand our knowledge of the complexity of communities outside the university.
Read more about Team-Taught English Classes

English Faculty Henri Cole Featured in Dispatch(03-03-2008)

Henri Cole, poet and professor of Creative Writing at Ohio State, was recently featured in the Columbus Dispatch. The article includes three of Cole’s poems, as well as audio of the poet reading from his work.

To view the article, visit the Dispatch Web site.

English Alumna’s Book wins Rhetoric Society of America Award(02-26-2008)

Krista Ratcliffe’s third book, Rhetorical Listening: Identification, Gender, Whiteness, won the 2007 Rhetoric Society of America Book Award, which is given for the best work in rhetorical study for that year. This is award follows on the heels of her winning the 2007 Conference on College Composition and Communication Outstanding Book Award.
An alumna of Ohio State’s Rhetoric and Composition Ph.D. program, Kris received her degree in 1988 and now teaches Rhetoric and Composition, Feminist Theory, and Women’s Studies at Marquette University, where she directs their first-year English program.
Read more about Krista Ratcliffe’s work...

Harlot: a Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion(02-19-2008)

It’s a word that might raise some eyebrows: harlot. For the editorial board of Harlot: a Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion, that word has become representative of the philosophy behind their project, a digital magazine and web forum that seeks to bring the art of rhetoric into the public sphere—to make rhetoric as fun, interesting, and provocative as the magazine’s name suggests. In academic circles, rhetoric has been commonly referred to as “the harlot of the arts” for quite some time, because, as Professor Jim Fredal explains, “rhetoric mimics and thereby subverts otherwise reliable language.”
See complete story

Richard D. Altick (1915-2008)(02-18-2008)

Richard D. Altick, long-time prominent Professor in the Department of English, died February 7 in his home in Columbus.

Professor Altick, who was the only faculty member in the Department to be honored with the title of Regents Professor, published a number of books of wide interest and of great influence, including The Scholar Adventurers (1950), The Art of Literary Research (1963), and A Preface to Critical Reading (1949 and 1969). He was an eminent scholar of Victorian studies: among his many other books, to mention only a few, were The English Common Reader: A Social History of the Mass Reading Public 1800-1900 (1957), Browning's Roman Murder Story: A Reading of The Ring & The Book (1968; with James Loucks), Lives and Letters: A History of Literary Biography in England and America (1969), Victorian Studies in Scarlet: Murders and Manners in the Age of Victoria (1970), The Shows of London: A Panoramic History of Exhibitions, 1699-1862 (1978), Victorian People and Ideas: A Companion for the Modern Reader of Victorian Literature (1980), and Paintings from Books: Art and Literature in Britain 1760-1900 (1985). He also frequently wrote essay-reviews for the Times Literary Supplement and the London Review of Books.

Professor Altick was a faculty member at Ohio State from 1945 until his retirement in 1982.

English Department Offers Experimental Courses(02-07-2008)

What's the difference between a rock and a tree? Can we ever care about a cockroach as we might a panda? How is gambling a metaphor for the human condition? The Ohio State English Department offers some unusual courses for spring 2008 quarter: Professor Frank Donoghue's course on Gambling on Film (English 378), Professor Marlene Longenecker's course on Animal Studies (English 576.03), and Professor Sandra MacPherson’s course on The Meaning of Life, According to 18th-Century Philosophy and Literature (English H598).
Read more about the experimental courses being offered in Spring '08

Faculty Win Two National Endowment for the Humanities Research Awards(02-07-2008)

The high caliber of Ohio State English faculty was showcased yet again when it was announced that English Department Professors Richard Dutton and Karen Winstead won coveted National Endowment for the Humanities Research Awards. The awards will allow both professors to take a year’s paid sabbatical to research and write books in their respective fields.
Read More about Richard Dutton's & Karen Winstead's research

Commonplace: “Timely, Relevant, and Compelling” Student Writing(01-28-2008)

When graduate students Michael Harker and Aaron McKain asked Scott DeWitt to lunch to discuss an interesting idea, DeWitt saw an opportunity to raise the stakes on student writing. The resulting project, an online journal of peer-reviewed student work called Commonplace, has become a staple of the new First-Year Writing Program curriculum.
Read More About Commonplace

Literacy Studies @ Ohio State presents “Achieving Scientific Literacy”(01-24-2008)

Thursday, January 31, 2008 4-5 p.m. Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities George Wells Knight House 104 East 15th Ave. Space is limited: RSVP to literacystudies@osu.edu
Read more about Achieving Scientific Literacy...

Undergraduates: Want to Get Published?(01-16-2008)

The Mosaic Literary Magazine is still collecting undergraduate submissions for its 2008 issue. Be sure to send in your works of poetry, art, and prose before Friday January 25. Check out the magazine's Web site for more information and details!

Ohio State English Faculty Weigh in on Landmark Book(01-16-2008)

Professors Francis J. Donoghue and Elizabeth M. Renker received notice in the January 11, 2008 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education for their participation in an MLA Convention panel marking the 20th anniversary of Gerald Graff's Professing Literature. The article by Jennifer Ruark, entitled "The MLA on Academic Freedom, Faculty Status, and the Value of Argument," noted Professor Donoghue and Renker's contributions to the ongoing debate about the work and evaluation of professors that was instigated by Graff's book.
Read more about Professors Francis J. Donoghue and Elizabeth M. Renker.

Center for Folklore Studies Archives Find New Home(01-08-2008)

The Ohio State Center for Folklore Studies' Archives has spent the last forty years on the move. Previously housed in boxes in the basement of Denney Hall, its next move was out to West Campus, in a too-small room far from the people who wanted to consult it. Thanks to the efforts of John Roberts, Dean of the College of Humanities, and members of the Folklore faculty and staff, the archives have found a more permanent and accessible home at last, in the heart of the Ohio Stadium.
Read more about the Center for Folklore Studies Archives

Workshop Considers Conversational Narrative and Interaction (12-04-2007)

Everyone was asked to bring a story to the recent hands-on, five-day workshop on conversational narrative. A total of fifty-six people over the course of the week shared stories and discussed the ways in which narratives are used in the production of meaningful interactions. The workshop, led by Dr. Joann Bromberg, an independent scholar who earned her Ph.D. in Folklore and Folklife from the University of Pennsylvania, was held at the Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities at the George Wells Knight House.
Read more about Joanne Bromberg

Henri Cole Wins United States Artists Fellowship(12-04-2007)

Henri Cole, poet and professor of creative writing in the Ohio State Creative Writing Program, was awarded the United States Artists (USA) Hildreth/Williams Fellow. The award, one of fifty for 2007, is designed to recognize past artistic accomplishments and support new ones, and comes with a $50,000 monetary award.
Read more about Henri Cole

College of Humanities Announces Two English Faculty Awards(12-04-2007)

The English Department has a reputation for faculty who are great teachers and distinguished scholars and creative writers. Recently, two English professors illustrated this yet again by winning college-wide awards. The College of Humanities awarded Lee K. Abbott the Humanities Distinguished Professor Award, and Amy Shuman the Humanities Exemplary Faculty Award. Both awards include a monetary prize and a one-course release from teaching.
Read more about Abbot and Shuman

R.C. Harvey is Guest Speaker at Cartoon Symposium(11-06-2007)

Well-known cartoonist R.C. Harvey visited Ohio State University on Friday, October 28, 2007, as the keynote speaker of "Graphic Storytelling: Academic Perspectives," an academic pre-conference sponsored by the Department of English, Project Narrative, and the Cartoon Research Library.
Read more about R.C. Harvey.

New Faculty in the Department of English(11-05-2007)

The Ohio State English Department is pleased and proud to welcome this year’s new and visiting faculty. Our new full-time faculty are Henri Cole, Hannibal Hamlin, Sandra Macpherson, Maria Teresa (Mabel) Agozzino, Jennifer Higginbotham, Dan Keller, Carolyn Skinner, and Nathan Wallace. Visiting us for all or part of the academic year are Anita Albertsen, Jan Alber , Gary Bays, and Susan Burch. And last but not least is Megan Casey, our Committee on Institutional Cooperation Fellow. We are glad to have them on board and wish them all a prosperous and enjoyable experience here at OSU.
Please click here for a brief bio of each.

DMAC Summer Institute Funds Grad Fellowship and Undergrad Prize(11-05-2007)

Ohio State's English Department leads the pack in its commitment to and support of Digital Media Studies. That support became even more robust recently with two new initiatives funded by the annual Digital Media and Composition (DMAC) Summer Institute, part of the Digital Media Project, and now going into its third year. The new initiatives provide for a year-long Digital Media Fellowship in 2008-2009, and prizes for undergraduates who produce outstanding digital texts.
Read more about DMAC

Ohio State English Alumna Wins Walter Rumsey Marvin Award(11-05-2007)

Ohio State English alumna Nicole McClelland recently won the Walter Rumsey Marvin Award for writers under thirty from the Ohioana Library Association. McClelland, who earned a B.A. in English and Psychology at Ohio State, wrote her honors thesis under the direction of Creative Writing professor Michelle Herman.
Read more about Nicole McClelland.

What is the What Brings Plight of “Lost Boys” to Ohio State First-Year Students(10-25-2007)

When First-Year Mia Brown introduced Dave Eggers and Valentino Achak Deng, she admitted she hadn't known what to expect when assigned to read Egger's book What is the What as part of the Buckeye Book Community (BBC) required of all first-year students. But after finishing the book, she called it a novel of "strange power." "I was majestically maneuvered through visions of the past," she said. On Wednesday, October 17th, Eggers and Deng brought their vision to a full house of more than 1500 in the Wexner Center's Mershon Auditorium.
Read more about What is the What.

Fiction Writer Lore Segal Gives Reading to Packed Audience(10-25-2007)

Lore Segal, author of numerous books for adults and children, returned to Ohio State on October 2nd, 2007, and read from her work in front of a full audience.

Segal, who taught at Ohio State from 1991 to 1996, was introduced by her friend and former colleague, Michelle Herman, who called Segal "the only true mentor I've ever had."
Read more about Lore Segal.

DMP Welcomes New Assistant Director Amy Spears(10-15-2007)

The Digital Media Project welcomed new Assistant Director, Amy Spears, on October 1. Spears replaces former Assistant Director Chad Schone. Spears' main tasks include managing the mission, goals, and operations of the DMP.

Scott Dewitt, director of the DMP, and his staff, are excited to have the opportunity to work with Spears. "It was clear to me, and to the rest of the search committee, I think, that Amy was right for the job because her interview was so energized," Dewitt said. "She brings strong technical and administrative skills to the position that complement her creative abilities. She's a great fit for the DMP. We'll learn a lot from her."
Read More About the New Assistant Director of The DMP

Now a Major Motion Picture(10-10-2007)

On Sunday, September 30^th, 2007, nationally recognized film director H. Lewis Ulman treated the English Department council to the world premiere of the epic film Softball Report, narrated by three-time Oscar winner Sir Sebastian Knowles.
View this astounding film in its entirety.

Bagel Tuesday Kick-Off(10-03-2007)

It was a familiar and welcome sight: three brown paper grocery bags full of bagels, plastic containers of cream cheese, a cluster of people around a table in the graduate student lounge. Not to mention the smell of toasted and (occasionally) burnt bagels that so permeates the fourth floor of Denney Hall on Tuesdays during the school year.
Enjoy free bagels? Read on!

Ohio State MFA in Creative Writing is one of "Five Up-and-Coming" Programs(10-03-2007)

The Ohio State MFA program in Creative Writing was honored in the September/October Fiction Issue of The Atlantic Monthly as one of five "up-and-coming" graduate writing programs in the country.

The article, "Where Great Writers are Made," by Edward J. Delaney, assessed America's top graduate writing programs, and examined how that assessment is determined. Ohio State's program was listed among the programs at Brooklyn College, University of Mississippi, Rutgers University of Newark, and the University of Wisconsin, out of about 300 possible programs in the country.
Read more about the MFA Program

A Matter of Degree(09-27-2007)

An Interview with Keenan Sourelis.

Every quarter, the Department of English features on its Web site the experiences of a soon-to-graduate Ohio State University English Major. Our Autumn Quarter 2007 interviewee is:

Keenan Sourelis
Hometown: Columbus, Ohio
B.A., Autumn, 2007

Why did you choose your major? What have been some obstacles?
See the answers to these questions and more.

Alumna Holly Goddard Jones Wins 2007 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award(09-17-2007)

Holly Goddard Jones, who graduated with her MFA in fiction from Ohio State in 2006, won the 2007 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award. Jones will accept her award, which includes a cash prize of $25,000, on September 27th in New York City.
Read More About Holly Goddard.

While You Were Out: Network Migration(09-14-2007)

Photo by Charliemac1, Flickr

The College of Humanities has successfully completed the migration of all network files to the new server infrastructure. This move has made it necessary to re-set the security settings for all computers in Denney Hall and for everyone on the Columbus campus to change their passwords. English Department members on the Columbus campus who have been in town have probably already made this transition.
Read More About Migration.

New Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in Literacy Studies(07-26-2007)

Professor Harvey Graff has worked tirelessly to spearhead the move for a graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in Literacy Studies. At its June 20, 2007 meeting, the Council on Academic Affairs approved the proposal to establish the specialization.
Read more about the graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in Literacy Studies

New M.A.s and Ph.D.'s on Why They Chose Graduate Studies in English at OSU(06-28-2007)

Acceptance letters have gone out, contracts have come back, and the incoming class of M.A.s and Ph.D.s are looking forward to the new school year. Clare Simmons, Director of Graduate Studies, said that the program received, for the second year in a row, an increase in qualified applicants. In total, forty-four students accepted offers into the English MA and Ph.D. programs.
Read more about new M.A. and Ph.D. students in the department.

Fall Lineup—New and Noteworthy Courses(06-28-2007)

Autumn Quarter may still seem far away, but our faculty are already gearing up to offer a number of interesting and exciting courses, some of which satisfy the University's GEC requirements and are still available.

Two courses are being offered for the first time this Fall: Composing Digital Media (English 269) and Asian-American Literature (English 587).

English 269, taught by Professor Les Tannenbaum, will give students the opportunity to create and analyze digital photo portfolios, web pages, audio tracks and movies. No prior technological experience is required (Call # 08695-2). This course satisfies GEC the requirement for Arts and Humanities, Analysis of Texts and Works of Art, Visual/Performing Arts.

English 587, taught by Professor Martin Ponce, will present a creative and interactive approach to engaging with Asian-American texts, through small-group and computer-based activities (including building collaborative web pages). The class will meet in a computer lab, and no prior technological experience is necessary (Call # 08773-7).
Read more about the new autumn courses

Spring Honors and Awards Receptions Acknowledges English Department Excellence (06-28-2007)

The annual Spring Honors and Awards Reception, which was held on May 23, 2007, in the Grand Lounge of the Faculty Club, bestowed well-deserved accolades on faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates alike, and confirmed the Ohio State English Department’s esteemed reputation. The event included special mention of Marissa Cull and Tom Pruiksma, the department’s two recipients of the coveted university-wide Graduate Presidential Fellowships, which includes a year of funding. In total, 24 awards were presented.
Read more about the award ceremony.

True Kin: Stories(06-11-2007)

Ric Jahna

The Ohio State University Press and the MFA Program in Creative Writing at OSU are pleased to announce that Ric Jahna's collection True Kin: Stories has been selected as the winner of the 2007 Ohio State University Prize in Short Fiction. The OSU Press will publish True Kin in the Spring of 2008.
Read More about Ric Jahna.

A Matter of Degree(06-07-2007)

Justin Crooks
Hometown: Columbus, OH
B.A., Summer, 2007

WHY DID YOU CHOOSE YOUR MAJOR?
I have always loved great story telling, poetry, and songwriting, but as an older, non-traditional student, I made the pragmatic choice to go to college as a business major. Fortunately, I soon discovered that I needed the types of intellectual stimulation my business classes didn’t seem to offer. My English classes fostered development of the precise communication skills and intelligent discussions I had been craving, while also connecting my mind to the minds and hearts of some of history’s greatest artists and thinkers. In spring 2006 I reevaluated my reasons for going to college and switched my major to English with an emphasis in education. Within one quarter following the switch, my personal growth, academic direction, and career path came sharply into focus. Following graduation I plan to teach English to young adults in South America before returning to OSU in summer 2008 to begin work on my Masters in Education.
Read more about Justin.

Hannibal Hamlin Wins Three Fellowships(05-23-2007)

Professor Hannibal Hamlin, OSU-Mansfield campus, is the recipient of three major fellowships to work on a book-length study of Shakespeare and biblical culture: a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, a Francis Bacon Foundation Fellowship, and the 2008-2009 Frederick Burkhardt Fellowship for Recently Tenured Scholars from the American Council of Learned Societies.
Read More About Hannibal Hamlin.

John Edgar Wideman Awes Crowd at Wex(05-23-2007)

Author of twenty books and winner of the International Pen/Faulkner and O. Henry Awards, John Edgar Wideman read short fiction at the Wexner Center on May 16th, marking the seventh event in the seventh year of the President and Provost Diversity Lecture and Cultural Arts Series.
Read More About John Edgar Wideman.

MFA Alum Erica Dawson Wins Anthony Hecht Prize(05-23-2007)

MFA Alum Erica Dawson’s manuscript Big-Eyed Afraid was awarded the 2006 Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize. Her manuscript was selected from more than 450 other manuscripts. The prize includes a $3,000 check and publication in the fall of 2007.
Read More About Erica Dawson

Fenner Undergraduate Research Award Recipient(05-02-2007)

Thanks in part to a Fenner Undergraduate Research Award this spring, Clayton Caroon, a senior English major at Ohio State-Newark, will be returning to Vietnam to continue his research on culturally appropriate English-language pedagogical methods. Caroon will conduct research on-site in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to study contemporary educational methods and ideologies applied within its public schools, universities, and private English language institutes and academies.
Read More About Clayton's Research

Oz Mania in the English Department(05-01-2007)

Oz is alive and well in the English Department. This year our students were presented with an opportunity to explore L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz, its sequels and its textual spin-offs in three different English courses, taught by Professors Michelle Herman, Susie Kneedler and Les Tannenbaum.
Read More About Oz Mania

Professor of English Wins Faculty Award for Distinguished University Service(05-01-2007)

Dr. Susan Williams can add another award to her long list of accolades: the Faculty Award for Distinguished University Service. The award, which honors faculty who have influenced the quality of the university through non-administrative roles, comes with a cash award of $3,000, and a base salary increase of $1,200.
Read More About Dr. Susan Williams.

Professor Jim Phelan Wins Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching(04-23-2007)

As a result of his superior teaching, Professor Jim Phelan recently received the prestigious, university-wide Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching. Recipients are nominated by present and former teachers and colleagues. Professor Phelan will receive a cash award of $3,000, as well as base salary increase of $1,200, and will be inducted into the university’s Academy of Teaching.
Read More About Jim Phelan.

MFA Student Donald Ray Pollock Signs Book Contract with Doubleday(04-18-2007)

As part of the MFA program, fiction writer Don Pollock wrote the last half of what would become his soon-to-be published first book, Knockemstiff, a collection of eighteen short stories set in the town of Knockemstiff, Ohio. The collection will be published by Doubleday in Spring 2008.
Read More About Don Pollock.

Undergraduate Wins Fenner Undergraduate Research Award(04-12-2007)

Senior Josh Steskal won the Fenner Undergraduate Research Award in support of his project that blurs the line between the imagined and real in narrative. Steskal will create an imaginary travel log detailing his trip to Italy, complete with euros, ticket stubs, and receipts. Then the narrator of the travel log will admit to the fictionality of the trip, saying he "grew up poor in the hills of Kentucky," and is unable to afford the trip. This, too, will be ultimately exposed as fiction, since Steskal will use the $500 award to make the imaginary trip to Italy a reality, further complicating the layers of truth and fiction in his thesis.
Read more about Josh Steskal.

Play Yoga Warriors has Ohio State English Connections(03-27-2007)

When Katherine Burkman, Professor Emeritus in English at Ohio State University, began working on a play about yoga, she mentioned it to her yoga instructor, the American Yogi Richard Esquinas, whose enthusiasm about the project was immediate. Burkman recalls Esquinas saying “I’ll produce it! We’ll go to New York!” Fortunately for Columbus theater-goers, the resulting play, Yoga Warriors, will be performed right here April 19-21, at 8 p.m., and April 22 at 2 p.m., at the Columbus Dance Theatre on 592 East Main St.
Read More About Yoga Warriors

Ohio State MFA Alum Named among “Best of Young American Novelists”(03-12-2007)

Christopher Coake, graduate of Ohio State's MFA program and author of the short story collection We're In Trouble, was recently named one of Granta Magazine's “Best of Young American Novelists,” a list which features twenty young writers.
Read More About Chris Coake

Featured Course: Pranav Jani's English 564.04 - Salman Rushdie(02-27-2007)

To study the work of British-Indian author Salman Rushdie is to study not only his writing—his popular second novel Midnight’s Children, his ninth novel The Moor’s Last Sigh, or his controversial The Satanic Verses—but also history, politics, culture, and society, all of which collide to form his complex, fabulist, postmodern tales. Pranav Jani’s English 564.04, taught in Autumn 2006, studied the work of Rushdie on its own terms and gave students a chance to read and think about the works of a well-known, nonwestern author.
More info about English 564.04

The Journal/OSU Press Announces 2007 Poetry Book Prize Winner(02-19-2007)

Mark Svenvold's collection of poetry, Empire Burlesque, was recently selected for The Journal/Ohio State University Press Award in Poetry. The award includes publication as well as the Charles B. Wheeler prize of $3,000.
More about Mark Svenvold’s prize and his work

Featured Course: Richard Green’s Ballad Course – English 577.01(02-15-2007)

"Yestreen I lay in a well-made bed,
And my good lord beside me;
This night I’ll ly in a tenant’s barn,
Whatever shall betide me."
--from "My Gypsie Laddie"

They sang them in kitchens and back parlors and pubs, from the Appalachian Mountains to New England, in Canada, Nova Scotia, and England. These ballads were "the poetry of the people," said Professor Richard Green, who teaches English 577.01, a folklore class that concentrates on the history of the ballad in America and beyond, and uses multimedia to do so.
more about Professor Green's Ballad course

Professor Steve Kuusisto on Learning in London(01-29-2007)

In the summer of 2006 I had the opportunity to take nine Ohio State students to London as a featured part of English 595: "Literary Locations." This course offers students at The Ohio State University the opportunity to study literature in Columbus and then travel together as a class to their designated "literary location" in the company of their English professor. In recent years English majors have visited London, Paris, Bath, and Stratford. My students and I traveled to London with an unusual plan in mind. We studied the 19th century development of disability as a unique and problematic category of modern life. Because I am blind my students experienced what it was like to guide a person with a disability through the architecture of Victorian London. The link below will take you to an essay about this trip that I recently published in The Washington Post

English Department GTAs Honored for Teaching(01-29-2007)

Fourteen graduate teaching associates in English were recently nominated for the prestigious 2007 Graduate Associate Teaching Award, an annual award that honors exceptional teaching by graduate students. The English Department nominees include: Jessica Clements, Catherine Crabtree, Sharon Estes, Sean Flanigan, Julie O’Leary-Green, Kristen Hartman, Brian Hauser, Chris Higgs, Heather Kirn, Kate Faber Oestreich, Tera Pettella, Tom Pruiksma, Rachel Reischling, Seth Reno, and Cormac Slevin.

The GTAs have found teaching to be a demanding and invigorating means of fostering intellectual growth both in their students and in themselves. “Teaching has challenged me to explore topics deeply,” said Kate Faber Oestreich. “This approach has not only strengthened my ability to get students interested in new and challenging ideas, but it has also led me to more effectively communicate my own scholarship.”

Nominees will be evaluated based on a teaching portfolio, and winners will be recognized at the end of Spring Quarter. The award includes a commemorative plaque and a $1500 honorarium

English Department Alumna Publishes Feminist Study(01-22-2007)

We are proud to celebrate the publication of a new book by Molly Youngkin, an alumna of The Ohio State University Ph.D. program: Feminist Realism at the Fin De Siècle, published by The Ohio State University Press.

In Feminist Realism at the Fin De Siecle, Youngkin asks the question: Was the transition from the Victorian novel to the modern novel enabled by antirealist or realist narrative strategies? Youngkin analyzes book reviews from two feminist periodicals to study the role of women’s presses in the development of the novel, and explores how these feminist periodicals focused on certain narrative strategies and emphasized consciousness as part of woman’s agency, which encouraged writers of the time “to push the boundaries of traditional realism and anticipate the modern aesthetic.” Youngkin focuses on the works of Thomas Hardy, Sarah Grand, George Gissing, Mona Caird, George Meredith, Ménie Dowie, George Moore, and Henrietta Stannard.

In her review of Feminist Realism, Teresa Mangum, Associate Professor at the University of Iowa, said “Youngkin offers new and important contexts for understanding the rise of New Women fiction, but also, very importantly, for understanding the nuanced differences among these novels of critical importance to critics, feminists, and avid fans of realist fiction in the nineteenth century.”

Youngkin, who received her Ph.D. in Nineteenth-Century British Literature in 2003, is an Associate Professor of English at California State University, Dominguez Hills. She teaches a variety of courses, including Practice in Literary Criticism, British Literature 1642-1832, Children’s Literature, and Literature and the Rights of Women.

National Book Award Finalist Offers Advice to Young Writers(01-09-2007)

In a Q & A session at Ohio State, award-winning fiction writer Jean Thompson gave some free advice to a gathering of graduate and undergraduate apprentice writers.
"Read promiscuously. Read all over so you’re not overly influenced by anyone,"she offered. "I’ll contradict myself and tell you that imitation is not bad, but at some point you have to move on."
Read more about the event.

Graduate Colloquium Aids Students' Professional Development(01-08-2007)

English Department graduate students present the results of their research at a departmental graduate colloquium entitled, "Re-reading the Canon."
Read More About "Re-reading the Canon"

Tobias Wolff Visits OSU for Common Book Program(01-08-2007)

First-year Ohio State students had the opportunity to meet literary giant Tobias Wolff, author of Old School, as part of their Common Book experience.
Read More About Tobias Wolff's Visit.

Ohio State Poet Laureate David Citino Remembered in Televison Broadcast(01-08-2007)

David Citino, Ohio State's poet laureate and author of a dozen books, passed away in October of 2005, leaving behind a legacy of poetry and generosity that won't be forgotten by those who knew him. Citino was remembered recently in "Artzine: Remembering David Citino," a thirty-minute documentary on Citino's life and art. The show will re-air on Monday, January 15, at 4:30 a.m. and on Wednesday, January 24 at 7:30 p.m. on WOSU Channel 34 Columbus.
Read More About the Documentary

The Creative Writing Community Chooses Innocence(01-04-2007)

The Journal, the literary magazine of The Ohio State University, and The Ohio State University Press are proud to announce the publication of Innocence, by Jean Nordhaus, winner of the 2006 Charles B. Wheeler Prize for Poetry.
Read More About Nordhaus' Innocence

The OSU Community Honors Poet David Citino(12-04-2006)

On Tuesday, November 28, professors, students, family, and friends gathered to celebrate David Citino's posthumously published collection of poems, A History of Hands. Citino, who earned his M.A. and Ph.D. from The Ohio State University, served as professor of English at the Marion campus for 11 years before coming to the Columbus campus in 1985. He passed away in the fall of 2006 knowing that The Ohio State University Press would publish his final collection.
More about the celebration of David Citino.

Renaissance Man Voted Professor of the Year(12-01-2006)

Professor Alan Farmer moves quickly. He came to Ohio State just last year from grad school at Columbia, in New York City, and has already been voted Undergraduate Professor of the Year by his students.
Read more about our Renaissance Man.

Ohio State Alumna Spends Fulbright Year Abroad(11-22-2006)

OSU English Department graduate Kristen Risley (Ph. D. 2002) has been spending her Fulbright Fellowship year teaching American Literature and Culture in Bergen, Norway.
Read more about Kristin Risley.

Conferences Near and Far: National Scholarly Events(11-22-2006)

The Ohio State English Department has just hosted two major academic conferences, and our faculty and graduate students have been attending those and various other conferences across the country as part of their professional and scholarly development.
More conference stories.

English Professor to Mark King Lear's 400^th Anniversary on BBC Radio(11-22-2006)

This year marks the 400th anniversary of the first performance of Shakespeare's King Lear, and Dr. Richard Dutton, Ohio State Humanities Distinguished Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, has been asked, along with other experts in the field, to commemorate the performance in an upcoming BBC radio documentary.
Read more about King Lear's 400^th anniversary.

Jewel Parker Rhodes Reads in African American Literary Cavalcade(11-13-2006)

Award-winning author Jewel Parker Rhodes kicked off the 2006-2007 African American Literary Cavalcade, reading from her novel, Douglas’ Women, before a captivated audience of more than fifty Ohio State students. "Begin at the beginning," Rhodes read. "Tell it true. Everybody knows Frederick’s story. This one here be mine."
Read more about Jewel Parker Rhodes' visit to OSU.

MFA Alumnus, Chris Coake, Wins PEN/Bingham Award(11-08-2006)

Chris Coake received an ominous e-mail message that he should give writer, Thomas Beller, a call. Once he did, Beller told him that he had won a prize. "I stammered about that," Coake said, "and then he told me there was money attached, and that I should sit down. I didn't. He told me how much money, and I sat down with a thump." Coake, who earned his MFA in fiction in 2004, received the prestigious PEN/Bingham award for his first book, We're In Trouble. The award honors a talented fiction writer whose debut work suggests great promise. It also comes with a handsome $35,000 cash prize, intended to free the recipient to write a second book.
Read more about Chris Coake

A Matter of Degree(10-26-2006)

Erica Speltz

Beginning Autumn 2006, the Department of English will feature an article recounting the experiences of a soon-to-graduate OSU English Major. Our first interviewee is:
Read about Erica's experience as an English major.

New Academic Year, New Faces(10-18-2006)

The English Department is pleased to welcome the fifty new graduate students who have entered our M.A., M.F.A. and Ph.D. programs. Coming from all over the country, they bring us their talents and enthusiasm, and they find life here to be both comfortable and exciting.
Read more about our new students.

Summer Study in Greenwich, England(10-18-2006)

The Department of English is pleased to announce a new six-week study abroad summer program at the University of Greenwich, England, which takes the place of the Bath program. The University of Greenwich is on the banks of the River Thames in south-east London about and fifteen minutes by train from central London. The historical Greenwich campus is a World Heritage Site consisting of three baroque buildings designed by Sir Christopher Wren at the end of the seventeenth century. In the past, the site has been occupied by a Tudor royal palace, a naval hospital, and a Royal Naval College.
More information about the Greenwich program.

New and Special Topics Courses for Winter Quarter (10-16-2006)

"Poetry and Contemporary Alternative Music," "Language and Black Experience," "Race and Queer Sexuality," "Shakespeare's Comedies," "Oz and Hogwarts," and "Hitchcock's American Films" are just a few of the new and special topics courses being offered this Winter quarter.
Special topic courses from the Department of English for Winter 2007

Welcome to New Faculty! (10-16-2006)

The English Department is pleased to welcome eight new faculty members to our community: Ryan Friedman, Adeleke Adeeko , Merrill Kaplan , Ray Cashman, Sean O’ Sullivan, Andreá N. Williams, Sarah Crosby, and Lauren Sanders.
More information about our new faculty.

Department Adds New Program: Project Narrative(09-25-2006)

Project Narrative, a new initiative in the English Department designed to promote state-of-the-art research and teaching in the area of narrative studies, kicks off in fall 2006. The Project, which was funded by a grant from the College of Humanities under the Targeted Investment in Excellence initiative, aims to bring together scholars from across the arts and sciences interested in any aspect of narrative--whether in literature, face-to-face interaction, oral traditions, printed news media, graphic novels, cinema, digital media, or any other means of narrative expression. Three major goals include promoting research and publication in the area of narrative inquiry, pursuing curricular initiatives such as an interdisciplinary undergraduate minor and a graduate specialization in narrative theory, and building connections among faculty and graduate students in the various units of the English Department, in the College, and across the University, as well as ties with colleagues at other institutions both here and abroad. Their overarching aim is to establish OSU as the primary place in North America (and one of the top places in the world) for advanced, cutting-edge research on narrative.
The Project Narrative Web site.

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