Ohio University English Department News

Matthew Stallard Publishes Second Book on Milton

2013-05-23T17:16:00-05:00

Matthew Stallard is putting the finishing touches on his editorial introduction for John Milton, Paradise Regained and Short Poems: The Biblically Annotated Edition, slated for release by Mercer University Press in June 2013 His first book, John Milton, Paradise Lost: The Biblically Annotated Edition, was recently favorably reviewed in two journals: Restoration: Studies in English Literary Culture, 1660–1700, and Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Réforme. Another review is forthcoming in Milton Quarterly.

Dr. Stuart C. Blersch gifts $400,000 to The Roma King and Neville Rogers Scholarship

2013-05-23T15:18:01-05:00

Dr. Stuart C. Blersch began his undergraduate work at Ohio University in 1963 as a student in the pilot program of the Honors College (now the Honors Tutorial College). He received his B.A. in 1967, but as an outstanding student, he had been allowed to begin graduate studies in English during his senior year, before completing his undergraduate requirements. He received his M.A. in 1968 while also serving as a teaching assistant in the Department. After two years of Ph.D. work at the University of South Carolina he returned to the English Department at Ohio University in 1970 and received his Ph.D. in 1975. The Roma King and Neville Rogers Scholarship assists doctoral students writing dissertations in either Literary Studies or Rhetoric and Composition. Dr. Blersch's $400,000 estate gift is the largest single donation the department has ever received. For more information, see MaryKate McHugh's article on Dr. Blersch in Compass, which can be found here.

Congratulations to Leah Graysmith, Hillery Glasby and Amanda Hayes!

2013-05-20T16:53:01-05:00

Leah (pictured left) was awarded the Earl and Margaret Shively Scholarship for the 2012-13 academic year. Leah is a fourth-year doctoral candidate in Literature. Her scholarly focus has continually come back to the study of gender and sexuality and the role that animals play in defining these concepts, as demonstrated in her Master's thesis, “Sex and Gender in the Equine in Literature,” which looked at how horses in literature represent and reflect human sexuality. The topics of chivalry and courtly love, the influence of the fairy kingdom, animal characters, and Chaucer's work on Venus, will no doubt always be a big part of what she wrestles and plays with. Hillery (pictured right) won both the Philip and Kathleen Emily Tice Award for the best graduate essay in criticism for her paper entitled “A State(lessness) of Queer Unbelonging in Before Night Falls: Arenas as Castro’s Social Outlaw” and the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award for the English Department. Hillery is a second-year doctoral candidate in Rhetoric and Composition. Her research interests center around the intersections of queer theory and composition studies, queer rhetorics, and critical, queer, and liberatory pedagogies. Hillery also enjoys critical theory and transnational studies, which bridge her Rhetoric and Composition concentration with her love of literature and activism. Her aim in the classroom, and in her scholarship, is to tie theory to practice in the vein of social justice. In the classroom, Hillery enacts liberatory and critical pedagogies in her classrooms. She focuses her First Year composition class around the rhetorical ecology of the anti-GLBTQ bullying movement, creating writing projects that marry the study of rhetoric with alternate composing processes and form(at)s. Her attempts to queer the composition classroom, in both content and form, result in task-based multimodal and hybrid texts that engage students in innovative and imaginative composition. Similarly, her Junior composition class analyzes the rhetorical underpinnings of social activism and political movements through the study of Revolution(ary) Rhetoric. Amanda (not pictured) won the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award for the College of Arts and Sciences. Amanda Hayes is a fourth-year doctoral candidate in Rhetoric and Composition. Her studies focus on Appalachian rhetorics, and her teaching centers on place-based pedagogy, which theorizes that places are rhetorically constructed and also shape people and cultures in various ways. Her most recent composition course looked at Athens as a site of multiple and at times competing discourses, which students studied and analyzed via readings and personal experiences. Renee Behnam and Kristina Deonaldo also deserve praise, as they each earned honorable mention for the Philip and Kathleen Emily Tice Award—Renee for her essay “Frustrated Charity and the Value of Independence in Frances Burney’s Cecilia” and Kristina for her essay “The Economic Migrant in Henry James’s A Passionate Pilgrim.”

Professor Katarzyna Marciniak co-edits book

2013-05-20T15:53:00-05:00

Immigrant Protest: Politics, Aesthetics, and Everyday Dissent with Imogen Tyler--expected to release in 2014 through SUNY Press.

The pair also co-edited a special issue of the journal Citizenship Studies on "Immigrant Protest" (17.2, 2013). Within the issue, Professor Marciniak contributes the article "Legal/illegal: protesting citizenship in Fortress America".

Post-doctoral Fellow Jackson Connor Publishes Essay, A Good Weapon

2013-04-24T13:00:00-05:00

Post-doctoral Fellow Jackson Connor Publishes Essay, "A Good Weapon" in the newest issue of the journal River Teeth. The essay simultaneously explores images of torture from the war in Afghanistan and issues of class, race, and prejudice in rural Pennsylvania and Athens, Ohio. Dinty W. Moore, Director of Creative Writing, calls Connor’s effort “a brave, honest, brutal, and quite beautiful essay.” The February 2013 issue of River Teeth can be purchased in paper form or for reading on a Kindle here. The essay is also available through Ohio University Library’s full-text OhioLINK database here.

2013-04-05T20:52:00-05:00

2013 Lit Fest

2013's Lit Fest will be April 10th through April 12th and we will be thrilled to welcome nonfiction writer Diane Ackerman; fiction writers Robert Olen Butler and Bonnie Jo Campbell; and poets Sarah Lindsay and Dean Young.

Events on the 10th, the 11th, and the morning of the 12th will be held in Walter Hall Rotunda. Friday night's festivities will take place in Baker Center theater.

Event Schedule

Wednesday, April 10th, Walter Hall Rotunda

7:30 Dean Young Reading

8:30 Bonnie Jo Campbell Reading

Thursday, April 11th, Walter Hall Rotunda

11:00 Robert Olen Butler Lecture

12:00 Bonnie Jo Campbell Lecture

7:30 Diane Ackerman Lecture

8:30 Sarah Lindsay Reading

Friday, April 12th, Walter Hall Rotunda

11:00 Sarah Lindsay Lecture

12:00 Dean Young Lecture

Closing Night: Friday, April 12th, Baker Center theater

7:30 Robert Olen Butler Reading

8:30 Diane Ackerman Reading

2012 English Department Newsletter Released

2013-04-01T19:52:00-05:00

All interested parties can find a copy of Ohio University Department of English Language and Literature's most current newsletter here. Special thanks to Professor Joe McLaughlin for putting the issue together and Professor Marsha Dutton for her assistance in editing.

Call for Papers: 16th Biennial Rhetoric Society of America Conference

2013-02-19T21:02:00-05:00

San Antonio is an ideal city for thinking about borders. Not only has the city been positioned along different national borders, but it also exists at the interesting intersection of diverse cultures and histories. “Border Rhetorics” not only invites consideration of these kinds of geographic, political and cultural borders but also invites consideration of a wider range of borders: the borders between identities, between roles, between disciplines, between concepts, etc. The 2014 conference theme seeks to spur a broad conversation about the borders that unite and divide us, the ways in which these borders are constructed and deconstructed, confirmed and contested.

The theme of “Border Rhetorics” opens a space for numerous inquiries and conversations about the things that constitute our borders – politically, culturally, academically, etc. – as well as the ways in which those borders are constructed, crossed, challenged, circumvented, diminished and redrawn. The theme also encourages us not only to think about our borders but also to think across them in the hopes of opening spaces for dialogue and disagreement that may in turn alter our sense of these borders.

Interested parties are invited to submit abstracts for individual papers, proposals for panels, and ideas for special format events (roundtables, debates, etc.). Panels representing only one institution are strongly discouraged and a slight preference will be shown for panels representing not only different institutions but also different disciplinary fields (e.g., Composition and Communication Studies). Submissions that take advantage of off-site venues are also encouraged.

Submission Policies:

All submissions must be submitted through the electronic submission platform available HERE.
All submissions must be submitted by the deadline of July 1, 2013.
Abstracts for individual paper submissions should be no more than 250 words and must include the name and affiliation of the author.

Panel proposals must include:

Rationale for the panel of no more than 150 words;

Name and affiliation of each presenter;

Brief abstract for each paper presentation of no more than 150 words.

Proposals for special format (roundtables, debates, performances, etc.) should include:

Rational of no more than 150 words;
Name and affiliation of each presenter.
Generally, no participant will be allowed to present more than two papers at the conference.
Proposers will be notified of acceptance/rejection in early Fall.

Any questions concerning submission guidelines/policies can be directed to Kendall Phillips – kphillip@syr.edu

Craig A. Meyer Receives MLA International Bibliography Fellowship and Publishes Article

2013-02-07T21:45:00-05:00

In 2003, the Executive Council of the MLA created the MLA International Bibliography Fellowship. The fellowships help recognize the efforts of scholars who index materials on behalf of the MLA International Bibliography. As partial demonstration of the rigor, only five scholars have completed the fellowship requirements of serving three years as a field bibliographer. This year Craig A. Meyer, a PhD Candidate in the OU Rhetoric and Composition program, became the sixth. He received the award at the MLA Award Ceremony this January in Boston. Additionally, Craig has also published his article "Disability and Accessibility: Is There an App For That?" in Computers and Composition Online. According to the abstract, the "essay considers mobile learning or m-learning that takes place through various applications and platforms that have potential and productivity within disabled communities and posits their importance to learning the communication skills critical once students matriculate and eventually graduate from the university system." You can read the article here.

Matthew Vetter’s “Composing with Wikipedia: A Classroom Study of Online Writing”

2013-02-07T21:30:00-05:00

Ph.D. candidate Matthew Vetter published his article "Composing with Wikipedia: A Classroom Study of Online Writing" in the Winter 2013 issue of Computers and Composition Online. The full text can be found here.