English Department Newsletter

Ben Stroud’s “East Texas Lumber” Appears in Harper’s Magazine

admin — Wed, 22 May 2013 21:50:43 +0000

Ben Stroud’s short story “East Texas Lumber” is in the June 2013 issue of Harper’s Magazine. See the teaser at:

http://harpers.org/archive/2013/06/east-texas-lumber/

UTNews Reports English Students and Faculty Recognized at Awards Ceremony

admin — Sat, 11 May 2013 19:01:14 +0000


A story in UTNews covers the recognition of recipients of the winners of the 2013 Shapiro Writing Contest, the recipients of Kalmbach Scholarships, and Prof. Joel Lipman, for his elevation to Professor Emeritus. Read the whole story here.

Prof. Christina Fitzgerald’s Contribution to Medieval Studies Recognized by UTNews

admin — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 21:14:32 +0000


An April 26, 2013 article in UTNews recognizes Assoc. Prof. Christina Fitzgerald’s work in co-editing an anthology of Medieval drama. Read the full story at the UTNews website.

Prof. Douglas Coleman presents at 2013 OU CALL Conference

admin — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 16:58:43 +0000

Prof. Douglas W. Coleman conducted a workshop at the Fifth Annual Ohio University CALL Conference on computer-assisted language learning, April 19th 2013, Athens, Ohio. His hands-on workshop was titled “New Victoria: An OpenSim Virtual World for ESL Learning.” Participants visited the 3D virtual world of New Victoria, an imaginary mid-Atlantic island where English is spoken. They were allowed to explore the capital city and were shown how a virtual world can be used in second / foreign language learning.

New Victoria exists (virtually, of course) on a server at the University of Toledo. It is supported by OpenSim, an open-source server for virtual worlds. The UT OpenSim server is administered by Prof. Coleman. More views of New Victoria — and more information about it and its theoretical foundations — can be found here:

http://englvm00.utad.utoledo.edu/NewVictoria/

English Major Lavelle Ridley’s Summer 2013 Project Funded by the Office of Undergraduate Research

admin — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 18:57:11 +0000

English major Lavelle Ridley will be working on a special research project during Summer 2013. His proposal, “The Reconstructive Imagination of the Later Poetry of Herbert Woodward Martin, 1980-2008,” has been chosen for funding by The Office of Undergraduate Research. His faculty sponsor is Dr. Carmen Phelps. Lavelle will take advantage of the extensive collection of Martin’s letters, journals, and other materials, which are held in the Canaday Center on the 5^th floor of Carlson Library. Lavelle will study the impact of the Great Depression on Martin’s work, show the influence of the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, and situate the work in the context of other African-American poetry.

Jane Bradley Named Outstanding Faculty Researcher 2013

admin — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 18:49:39 +0000

Jane Bradley has been named Outstanding Faculty Researcher 2013!

She will be honored at an Awards Ceremony and Banquet on April 22^nd.

About our outstanding researcher, Matt Wikander writes: “When Jane Bradley came to the University of Toledo in 1990, she had just published her first collection of short stories, Powerlines, named a notable book of the year by the New York Times Book Review. Since then, she has published a novella, Living Doll, another collection of short stories, Are We Lucky Yet?, a textbook for screenwriting, and the novel You Believers. The reception of You Believers has been broadly enthusiastic: “a compelling crime story and a credible picture of the intersection of rural poverty and the New South,” declared Library Journal; “heartbreaking” and “haunting,” was the judgment of Publisher’s Weekly; and Booklist celebrated Bradley’s “unending compassion and chilling assessment of the kind of harm that people are able and willing to inflict on one another.” Translated into both Slovak and French, the novel has gained world-wide attention. Bradley’s honors include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and an Ohio Council of Arts Individual Fellowship; locally her work with at-risk women in Aurora House was recognized by the Arts Council of Greater Toledo.”

Aureole Press Book Republished by Kenyon Review

admin — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 17:46:56 +0000

Hunger to Hunger, a book of poetry assembled by David Baker, originally published at UT by Tim Geiger’s Aureole Press, has been digitally republished by the Kenyon Review.

Tim’s edition was “printed on a Vandercook Simple Precision-15 press and features a unique multi-signature, tri-fold design, Mohawk Superfine papers, and Tiziano wrap-around covers.” See details at the Kenyon Review website:

http://www.kenyonreview.org/kr-online-issue/2013-spring/selections/hunger-to-hunger-introduction/

Samuel Fetters UT English Outstanding Student 2013

admin — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 00:18:27 +0000

Sam Fetters has a consistent academic record of achieving the highest standards, evident in his GPA of 3.95 in his English major. His English Honors thesis on the Cleveland poet d.a. levy was innovative and ambitious and continues to attract attention from Levy’s readers and friends, many of whom have contacted Sam with questions and comments. Sam is also an accomplished poet. While Sam is currently engaged in several different reading and writing projects, he ultimately intends to teach middle or high school. The English Department believes he will be an inspiring mentor to his students.

About Sam (by Professor Joel Lipman): A dedicated humanist of poetic intelligence and intellectual courage, Sam Fetters truly modest mien and productively contemplative manner complement his exceptional skills as a literary reader, writer and researcher. Scholarship support, academic consistency and the award of undergraduate departmental Honors for his groundbreaking anti-canonical thesis on Daryl [d.a.] Levy’s long-poem “Suburban Monastery Death Poem” is underscored by the consistent excellence evident in his grade point average. As a discussant, Sam’s workshop productivity, outstanding seminar preparation and cultural journalism benefitted the greater campus conversation. Sam’s published poems are clear, intense, lyrics and his poetics, craft and community vision concrete and mature for one entering the practice of writing, the book arts and literature.

About Sam (by Sam):

I applied to UT on a whim during my senior year of high school. I had family in Sylvania (my dad is from there) and knew the town pretty well, but didn’t know much about the school. I visited campus in January of my senior year and left impressed by the personable staff and students — though I wasn’t thrilled with the weather.

After a few months of leaning towards some “bigger name” in-state schools and also getting accepted into Americorps, UT offered me an excellent financial aid package. I learned a little more about the school and spoke to my favorite high school teachers. Few of them seemed thrilled with the prospects UT had to offer and some pushed me towards more “established” English programs. Boy, were they wrong.

As a middle-class kid with mediocre grades (the first years of high school are tough) and three younger siblings, the financial aid package UT offered was too good to pass up. I thought I’d stick around for a year and maybe think about transferring. I didn’t. And I’m glad I didn’t.

At my orientation, I found out about the Arts Living and Learning Community, which turned out to be a great way to surround myself with creative people while being exposed to all sorts of neat events around town. The ALLC is one of UT’s best assets and is one of the things which kept me at UT during my freshman year and beyond.

From day one, I have been thrilled with UT’s English Department and found my professors to be thoughtful, dedicated and personable. While the English Department isn’t the biggest or most powerful department on campus, I have found the smaller department means more individualized attention and smaller class sizes, in addition to a wonderful underdog mentality. Lastly, a small department provides lots of opportunities for one-on-one research with professors, scholarships and contributes to a closeness among students.

In the last year, I’ve become more interested in the work my teachers do outside of the classroom and it has been fascinating to read my professors’ journal articles, anthologies, poems and novels. The English Department seems to lure some of the most fascinating literary-thinkers from around the Midwest and across the country.

In the fall of 2012, I wrote an Honor’s Thesis about d.a. levy’s Suburban Monastery Death Poem. Currently, my thesis is making the rounds via email in the small circle of levy-worshipers who sporadically contact me (and maybe, terrifyingly, each other) with questions, comments and corrections.

After graduation, I’m going to look around for teaching/master’s degree programs, as my main goal is to teach middle school and high school — the LAMP program at UT looks nice if they’ll take me. Additionally, I’ve always got, and always hope to have, little writing/publishing/printing projects bouncing around. In the next few months, I have poems and things appearing in a few little journals/lit mags/websites. I’ve been sending art and zines to prisoners in California and feeling guilty about not doing the same sort of thing for Ohio’s prisoners — so I’ll get some things out to them. I’m also going to be putting together a couple of little chapbooks for a few of my favorite writers as soon as they send me stuff. And last week I realized I’ve never read Tolstoy or Nabokov or Native Son, which embarrasses me — I’ve got some fun reading ahead this summer.

Prof. Andrew Mattison Publishes Book on English Renaissance Literature

admin — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 00:17:16 +0000

Prof. Andrew Mattison has recently published a follow-up to his 2007 book (Milton’s Uncertain Eden), The Unimagined in the English Renaissance: Poetry and the limits of mimesis (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press). It was written up in the print version of UT News (March 25, 2013). Read all about it on his Publications Page.

Doug Coleman Presenter at TESOL 2013 Convention in Dallas, TX

admin — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 22:59:06 +0000

(Click on the image to enlarge it.)

Prof. Douglas W. Coleman conducted a hands-on session titled “OpenSim Basics,” an introduction to the use of OpenSim for language learning, at the 2013 Annual Convention of TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) in Dallas, TX, March 20-23. “OpenSim Basics” was a 70-minute “mini-workshop” offered as an event in the Convention’s Electronic Village (EV). The Computer-Assisted Language Learning Interest Section of TESOL organizes the EV as an annual part of the TESOL Convention. Prof. Coleman’s electronic handout is available here.