Fall 2010 - Department of English Language and Literature

Humanities 289
1600 Holloway Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94132
http://www.sfsu.edu/~english
engdept@sfsu.edu
415-338-2264
Department of English Language and Literature at SFSU
Fall 2010
Department of English
News
From The Chair
Upcoming
Events
Nov. 10 — Theodore Koulouris lectures on Virginia
Woolf and Greece PAGE 4
Nov. 17 & 18 — Kory Lawson Ching leads workshop
on using Web 2.0 technologies PAGE 4
Nov. 18 — CRAFT Thanksgiving Potluck PAGE 4
Dec. 6 — ETC hosts session
on teaching students with
learning disabilities PAGE 5
April ‘11 — Word for Word
returns: “The Islanders” by
Andrew Sean Greer
PAGE 5
As the Fall 2010 term hurtles by and the end of the year approaches, the
English Department can look back on extraordinary work done under
difficult conditions. Furloughs, budget cuts, and students in distress
surrounded our faculty and staff during 2010, and all of them responded
with professionalism and good will. While future funding is still uncertain, this year's budget has improved and we can hope for further progress in the coming budget cycle. Regardless, the SFSU English Department continues to fulfill its mission with commitment to our students and consummate skill. Please support the faculty and staff in
their work by advocating for public education and higher ed funding
with your legislators and Governor-elect Brown.
Best wishes for a lively holiday season and a happy New Year,
Bruce Avery
Acting Chair
Grad Comp Programs Spotlighted Again In Inside Higher Ed
For the second time this year, the graduate Composition program has
been featured in Inside Higher Ed, an online journal of news and information that focuses on all aspects of higher education. IHE’s story on
“What Your Ph.D. Didn’t Cover” describes grad programs that prepare
students for teaching in community colleges. Sugie Goen-Salter and
Jennifer Trainor discuss the department’s certificates in teaching composition and teaching post-secondary reading.
In March, the newly revised M.A. Composition program was featured
in an IHE article on “Teaching the Writing Teachers.”
Prizes for the ETC’s 3rd Annual
Spooky Spelling Bee. Elise Wormuth
won with lycanthrope. [Photo: M. Carey]
Inside this issue:
Donor Acknowledge- 5
ments
Faculty Activities
2,3
CRAFT, GLA
4
Mixing at the de
Young
5
New publications
2
Staff Update
5
Student News
4
Upcoming Events
4,5
In Memoriam
In early September, three of our former professors passed away within just a few days of each
other. Clifford Josephson, Mark Linenthal and Joseph Axelrod taught at S.F. State in roughly the
same time period. In the earlier decades of that period (1950s and 1960s), all of the “English” faculty were housed in the Language Arts Division. Eventually, Mark Linenthal joined the newlyformed Creative Arts faculty, and was also director of the Poetry Center from 1966 to 1972. Joe Axelrod became part of the Humanities Department. Cliff Josephson was a Vice-Chair in English for
several years, and was Acting Chair in 1984.
On October 28, Dolora Cunningham died. Dolora, a distinguished Shakespeare scholar, taught in
the department from 1959 until she retired in 1992. In 2009, she established an endowed scholarship for graduate students in the department’s M.A. Literature program.
Obituaries for Dolora Cunningham, Cliff Josephson, Mark Linenthal and Joe Axelrod were published in the San Francisco Chronicle. These colleagues contributed in vital ways to the SFSU English Department as it went through a series of transitions during a time of unrest and uncertainty
on campus. They taught thousands of students with commitment and professionalism, and all of
us who follow them here are grateful for what they gave to English and the Humanities during
their lives.
Department of English Newsletter/Fall 2010/Page 2
New Publications
San Francisco's Nob Hill, Katherine
Powell’s second book for Arcadia
Publishers (the first was San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury, 2008), was
released on October 18.
Michael Krasny’s new book, Spiritual Envy: An Agnostic’s Quest, was
released on October 1 by New
World Library; it is currently on the
list of nonfiction best-sellers in the
Bay Area.
News from the World at My Birth: A
History, Peter Weltner’s book of
narrative poems, was released in
August by Standing Stone Books.
Faculty Activities
Hearty congratulations to Nelson
Graff on being awarded tenure, and
to Sara Hackenberg on her tenure
and promotion to Associate Professor!
Dana Teen Lomax will participate
on a panel at the Association of
Writers and Writing Programs Conference in Washington D.C. in February. During “Unite! Acts of Radical
Poetic Collaboration,” the panel will
discuss how collaborative poetic
work can lead to radical themes and
aesthetics.
As noted above, Peter Weltner’s
News from the World at My Birth: A
History was recently published and is
available either through Small Press
Distribution or at standingstonestudios.net. A second edition will be
released early in November. Other
new work will be published this fall
by Sixty Six: A Journal of Sonnet
Studies and Vision International.
Danse Macabre will publish four
poems from the book in its issue
titled Weltkrieg. Peter read from his
book and talked about his work at
S.F. City College on October 5th. He
has just completed a chapbook in
collaboration with the artist, photographer, and film maker Galen Garwood, 13 poems on 13 photographs,
entitled The One-Winged Body.
After a lengthy and demanding training process, Herman Haluza recently earned his Captain’s License
from the U.S. Coast Guard, which
certifies that he is a “Master of
Steam, Motor or Auxiliary Sail Ves-
note, her poem “Grandma’s Purse” is
included in the current (Fall) issue of
Poetica.
Herman Haluza’s view from
the helm. [Photo: H. Haluza]
sels of not more than 100 Gross Registered Tons (Domestic Tonnage)
Upon Inland Waters.” Herman
shares this brief video clip of approaching the Farralones by sea.
In June, Gitanjali Shahani was
invited to present a talk on “The
Bard in Bollywood” as part of a
speaker series on South Asian Cinema organized by 3rd-i Films, San
Francisco, at the Artists' Television
Access.
Nelson Graff’s article, “‘An Effective
and Agonizing Way to Learn’: Backwards Design and New Teachers'
Preparation for Planning Curriculum,” has been accepted for publication in Teacher Education Quarterly
and should appear in 2011.
Brian Strang had two poem/
paintings in a show at the Gallery
Extraña in Berkeley. “Show and Tell:
My Summer Fantasy” was “an eclectic melange of desire and daydream
by 20+ West Coast artists.” Also,
CALIBAN magazine has relaunched
itself as an online magazine; its first
edition includes two of Brian’s poems.
Emily Merriman has published an
essay, “London (& the Mind) as Sacred/Desecrated Place in Alan
Moore’s From Hell” as a book chapter
in Graven Images: Religion in Comic
Books and Graphic Novels.
Bruce Avery’s article “You Don't
Know Jack: Teaching Shakespeare to
the 21st Century Student” will appear
in Pedagogy (11.1) in December.
Jennifer Arin received a collaborative grant, with Professor Abdiel
Oñate of the History Department,
from the Program of Cultural Cooperation and Spanish Embassy to
conduct research in the Archivos de
la Memoria Histórica in Salamanca,
Spain for a book project relating to
the Spanish Civil War. On a separate
Ellen Peel was a featured presenter
for the Department of Women and
Gender Studies in its Colloquium
Series this fall. On Oct. 26, Ellen
spoke on “Making Up Bodies: Literature of the Constructed Body.”
The Athens Review of Books invited
Martha Klironomos reviewed a
publication for the October issue
(no. 11) of . Martha’s essay is entitled
“Anne Carson’s ‘NOX’: Elegy for A
Lost Brother.”
In September, Lynn Wardley, Bev
Voloshin, and Geoffrey Green
presented a panel on turning points
in American literature for the Fulbright Institute on American Studies
for German University Teachers,
funded by the German Fulbright
Commission and hosted by SF State.
Elana Dykewomon participated in
the Off the Richter Scale Readings
event at this year’s LitQuake, where
she was one of five writers on a panel
about "Women Authoring Change."
She also attended a conference in
New York sponsored by CUNY’s
graduate Center for Gay and Lesbian
Studies. At the conference, “In
Amerika they Call Us Dykes: Lesbian
Lives in the ‘70s,” Elana gave a reading and sat on two panels. In midOctober, Elana was one of the featured readers in “Writing Our
Words, Speaking Our Minds, Telling
Our Stories,” an event at the SF Main
Library that was part of A Year Honoring Lesbians with Disabilities, a
project of Fabled Asp.
Asked by World Literature Today to
introduce a promising younger
writer for its Emerging Authors series, George Evans chose former
SFSU Creative Writing graduate
student Andrew Lam. George’s brief
introduction and an essay by Lam
appeared in the magazine's September issue. Also, George has been
appointed to the advisory board for a
new series of books of contemporary
Southeast Asian fiction and creative
non-fiction to be published by Texas
Tech University Press. The general
editor will be novelist and translator
Wayne Karlin, and the ongoing series will begin with four works from
Viet Nam, followed by a wide range
Department of English Newsletter/Fall 2010/Page 3
Faculty Activities, continued
of works from all countries in the
region.
Sugie Goen-Salter. Tara Lockhart,
and Kory Lawson Ching represented
SFSU and the department at the fall
meeting of the CSU English Council
in San Diego. Sugie is serving as
Treasurer on EC’s Executive Council
this year. Tara is a member of EC’s
Task Force on Deliberation and Voting, a body charged with updating
the processes for an effective voting
membership. Kory was invited to the
meeting to sit on a plenary panel
entitled “Innovation in ‘Interesting
Times’”; for his part, Kory focused on
“Promoting Digital Literacies in the
Composition Classroom and Beyond.”
And, Sugie will present a paper at the
next annual meeting of the CCCC—
Conference on College Composition
and Communication— entitled
“Equal Opportunity and the Contested Value of Remediation.” The
conference takes place in April in
Atlanta, Georgia.
George Tuma and Dinah Hazell
have published an online essay, “The
Yellow Brick Road to Utopia,” in
which they treat Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, written in 1900,
as utopian literature and compare
Baum’s vision with its redaction by
MGM in 1939, exploring differences
in plot, characterization, imagery and
ideology. (For those who haven’t
read the book, a plot summary is
included.) The paper will be of interest to students and teachers of the
fairy tale genre, as well as general
readers.
Maricel G. Santos is a featured
speaker at the 2010 Northern Regional CATESOL Conference in Monterey this week. Her talk "Eddies of
Hope: How ESL Teachers are Changing the Tide in Health Literacy" addresses the need for more
established routes to interchange
and collaboration between adult ESL
educators and health professionals.
proximately 90-minute show will be
short improvised scenes and musical
numbers. The second half will be a
completely improvised long form, a
story for the holidays. And, in January, Elizabeth will give a paper,
“Using Poetry in the ESL Grammar
Class,” at the Hawaii International
Conference on Arts and Humanities.
Elise Wormuth submitted three
photographs for judging in the Santa
Cruz County Fair in September. Each
submission won a blue ribbon in its
section, and one, “Bovine,” took Best
in Section and Best in Show.
Sarah Fama and Tanna Rozar,
along with Caroline Prieto, a recent
graduate, will give a panel presentation at the April CCCC meeting on
“Negotiating Difference in the Classroom: Three Studies on Perceptions
of Diversity at a Large Public University.”
James Warren Boyd competed in
eight track and field events at the
Gay Games in Cologne, Germany last
August. He won three silver medals,
in the Hammer Throw, the Pole
Vault, and the 4X200M relay. Also,
James’s creative non-fiction story,
“Soldier,” will be published in the
special 100th volume of Transfer.
Bev Voloshin is serving on PAMLA's
Executive Committee and has
chaired PAMLA's Nominations Committee. Also, Bev’s essay "Edgar
Huntly and the Coherence of the
Self," about Charles Brockden
Brown's frontier novel and originally
published in Early American Literature, will be reprinted in the Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism
series.
Michael Krasny, “a lucid voice of
curiosity,” was profiled in the San
Francisco Chronicle on Nov. 7.
Sarita Cannon gave a paper entitled
“Manhood in the Construction of
Long Lance” at the Mid-Atlantic
Popular/American Culture Association in Alexandria, Virginia in late
October. In November, she will
travel to Honolulu where she will
chair a panel on American Literature
after 1865 and present a paper entitled “Delimiting the AfricanAmerican Autobiographical Tradition: The Case of Okah Tubbee."
Elizabeth Whalley’s improv troupe
Spontaneous Combustion will be
performing Saturday, December 4 at
the Dragon Theater (535 Alma Street,
Palo Alto). The first half of the ap-
David Gill continues to be very
involved with the study of Bay Area
science fiction writer Philip K. Dick.
He is collaborating with other scholars on the editing of Philip K. Dick’s
unpublished “Exegesis,” essentially a
set of notes that Dick kept during the
last eight years of his life. The fruits
of this labor are due to be published
in two volumes by Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt. In August, David was invited by the Ithaca (NY) Public Library to give a lecture on “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” The
book had been chosen as the town’s
community read after Cornell selected it as its freshmen book.
David’s PKD expertise was sought in
connection with a recent film production of “Radio Free Albemuth”;
the director, John Simon, consulted
with David on points of plot adaptation. Finally, David has just completed writing the introduction to a
memoir by Anne Dick, Dick’s third
wife. “The Search for Philip K. Dick”
was just released by Tachyon Publishing; David was interviewed for a
forthcoming New York Times article
about Ms. Dick and the memoir.
Casey Keck and YouJin Kim
(Georgia State University) have contracted with John Benjamins Publishing to write a teacher training textbook which will provide a comprehensive overview of pedagogical
grammar research and its implications for language teaching. The
book will include corpus-based descriptions of grammar in use, descriptions of how particular grammar areas are acquired by second
language learners, and empirical
studies that compare the relative
effectiveness of different approaches
to grammar instruction.
We extend a warm welcome to two
visiting scholars this semester.
Hiroko Tsujioka, from Nihon University in Tokyo, is here to conduct
research and collaborate with students and faculty in the M.A. TESOL
Program. Elaine Safer is on sabbatical from the University of Delaware,
and is here doing research. She has
also been teaching at the Fromm
Institute.
“Bovine” - Elise Wormuth’s blue
ribbon photo at the Santa Cruz
County Fair.
James Warren Boyd shows his form
in the discus throw at the Gay
Games. [Photo: © vvg.koeln]
Newest Arrivals
Brian Strang welcomed
Isabel Cesária on June
25. Two days later, Lisa
Vicar said hello to
daughter Ella Shay for
the first time. Sherry
Manis now has two
more in her fold: Ana
Alexa and Aurelio
Antonio (Lexy and Eli)
arrived on August 9. All
are doing beautifully.
Congratulations!
Department of English News/Fall 2010/Page 4
Upcoming Events
“Virginia Woolf and
Odysseus Elytis:
Modernism, Entopia
and Loss”
Dr. Theodore Koulouris
University of Sussex
Presented by the Center
for Modern Greek Studies;
cosponsored
by
the
College of Humanities and
the Dept. of English.
Wed., Nov. 10
12:00-1:00
HUM 587
“Using Web 2.0
Technologies to
Teach College
Writing”
Kory Lawson Ching will
lead this workshop, designed to help writing
teachers get started using
some promising Web 2.0
applications in composition classrooms. Blogs, RSS
feeds, and social bookmarking will be examined
as ways to help teachers
and students find information and write about it in
an increasingly digital age.
Wed., Nov. 17
11:00-12:00
HUM 200
Thu., Nov. 18
1:00-2:00
HUM 401
CRAFT POTLUCK
Get to know your peers in
the Comp M.A. and Ctf.
programs! Bring a hearty
appetite and food to
share.
Thu., Nov. 18
Details to be distributed
via class announcements;
Contact
harahap@mail.sfsu.edu
or
emilyw@mail.sfsu.edu
Student Accomplishments
As noted elsewhere, proposals from our department
for April’s CCCC meeting are being accepted. Two
GTAs in the M.A. Comp Program will be giving talks
based on their thesis research. In “What’s the Unconscious Got To Do With It? Intersections of Psychoanalysis and Writing in the Composition Classroom,”
Sarah Swaty (M.A. Comp student and GTA) will discuss the use of psychoanalytic theory as a theoretical
means of understanding how emotion influences the
writing process. Alissa Buckley will give a presentation entitled “Beyond the Center: Classroom-Based
Writing Tutors and Two-Year College Retention,”
which will be part of a session about Research on the
Nature and Effects of Writing Center Tutorials.
Al Harahap (Composition) presented “Decentralized:
Redefining Conventional Writing Center Identities
and Practices” at the International Writing Centers
Association 2010 Conference in Baltimore in early
November. (Included was a two-hour side trip to Pat's
King of Steaks in Philadelphia, the location of, according to Al, the best Philly cheesesteaks.) In April, Al will
present his ongoing research project, "Helping to Invent the University: Writing Fellows and Their Institutional and Pedagogical Considerations," at CCCC's
Research Network Forum."
Richard and Casey Mills, former graduate students
in literature, have started a biannual publication
called California Northern Magazine: A New Regionalism. The inaugural issue was released in the summer.
Loretta Stec brings news of two former students from
her time at the 12th Annual Conference of the Space
Between Society: Literature and Culture 1914-1945 last
summer: “This conference was organized by former
SFSU M.A. recipient, Geneviève Brassard, now an
Assistant Professor at the University of Portland applying for tenure this year. Professor Brassard received
her Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut in 2004.
Her research interests include women’s sexuality and
urban spaces in Anglo-American literature of the
interwar period. She sends warm regards to everyone
in the SFSU English Department, especially to Stephen
Arkin.
“Also attending the Space Between Conference was
another SFSU M.A. recipient, Douglas Higbee, who
presented a paper titled: "J.D. Salinger's Second World
War Stories: Traumatic Alienation and Narrative Communion." Douglas was hired as an Assistant Professor
at the University of South Carolina, Aiken in 2007. He
received his Ph.D. from the University of California,
Irvine where he studied literature of World War I.
Among his other accomplishments, Professor Higbee
has recently edited a volume titled Military Culture
and Education published by Ashgate Press. Douglas
asked me to pass on his appreciation to the faculty at
SFSU for preparing him to do Ph.D. work.”
News From Our Grad Student Organizations
Al Harahap and Paul Rueckhaus are
co-chairing Composition & Reading Association of Future Teachers (CRAFT) this year. Al reports:
CRAFT’s first event of the year was
“Waiting for Superman + DrinkyWinky Night.” A dozen graduates
from the Composition, Literature,
and Comparative Literature programs came together to see Davis
Guggenheim's controversial new
documentary and to socialize. To
the benefit of current and future
teachers, the film illuminates the
current discourse surrounding our
public education system and recent
anti-teacher sentiments in mainstream media. In the coming year,
CRAFT will hold more events such
as pub quiz nights, a job fair, a
Ph.D. roundtable, a GTA Q&A for
those wishing to apply for the 201112 year, and our upcoming POTLUCK (see left). Stay tuned for
more!
This year’s Graduate Literature
Association (GLA) co-chairs (Irene
Amster, Ian Latta, Annette Hulbert)
send this update: The GLA has been
thriving this fall, beginning with a
festive Welcome Potluck, a relaxing
pub night, and participation in the
very stimulating LitCrawl around
the Mission! This semester we also
look forward to attending a production of Hamlet on Alcatraz and cohosting a foreign film night with
graduate students in Comparative
Literature.
GLA encourages students to submit
abstracts and panel proposals to
next spring’s Humanities Education
and Research Association (HERA)
conference. The theme will be
“Transformations that occur in four
groupings or ‘streams:’ transformative Humanities pedagogy, Humanities research, creative contributions,
and making the most of this transformative moment.” Proposals are
due to HERA's web portal by Nov.
30. Visit HERA’s website for more
information. And, we are soliciting
submissions for Interpretations, our
annual peer-reviewed journal of
literary criticism and theory. Interpretations is in its twenty-third year
of publication and showcases the
level of graduate-level work in literature at SFSU. Please email submissions (as Word attachments) by
February 9 to
annette.hulbert@gmail.com .
New GTAs
Ben Armerding
Alissa Buckley
Galin Dent
Will DeVault
Dianna Doreen
Megan Flautt
Rex Ganding
Liam Gibson
Laura Gillis
Al Harahap
Mark Kelly
Donna Long
Nathan Maertens
Sarah Powers
Ron Richardson
Paul Rueckhaus
Jennifer Saltmarsh
Sarah Swaty
Lothlorien Watkins
Department of English News/Fall 2010/Page 5
This and previous
issues of the newsletter are available
at the department
website.
More Upcoming Events
Word for Word Returns
Teaching Students with Learning Disabilities
Planning is underway for another
appearance by the Word for Word
Theatre Company in the spring,
probably in April. They will perform Andrew Sean Greer’s “The
Islanders” in McKenna Theatre.
The event will be cosponsored by
the Department of English and the
College of Creative Arts. As in the
past few years, we invite all faculty
members teaching English 214 to
consider incorporating this work
and the performance into their
course, to give many of our 214
students a rich common experience.
The ETC is working in conjunction with the DPRC to develop a new workshop on teaching/tutoring students with learning disabilities. Open to all
Composition and Reading faculty and graduate students.
Monday, Dec. 6
2: 00 p.m
HUM 294
This semester’s drop-in tutoring hours in the ETC:
Mondays: 2-4pm & 5-6pm
Tuesdays: 12-1:30pm & 4-6pm
Wednesdays: 1-4pm & 5-6:30pm
Thursdays: 4-6pm
Fridays: 3-5pm
Drop-in times can be reserved! Advise students in your comp classes to
visit the ETC during open hours or call (415) 338-1821.
Staff Update
Harriet Rafter accepted a position in the Department of Child and Adolescent Development that began in midAugust. According to all reports, she is enjoying the challenge and adjusting well to a new department and college.
Harriet will be missed after her long connection to this department, and we wish her the best in her new position.
Luckily, Irina Simon applied for and has been offered the position, so the schedule (and many other aspects of
department business) will be in excellent hands.
On Oct. 6, the College of
Humanities hosted a reception in conjunction with its
current exhibit of art by Bev
Voloshin. [Photos: M. Carey]
Mixing at the de Young
Donor Acknowledgements
Several dozen members of the department gathered at the de Young
Museum café while a lovely September afternoon turned into evening.
James Boyd, Sara Hackenberg, Russell Ward (Sara’s spouse) and Ceci
Herrmann held down a section of
the outdoor area, and were soon
joined by colleagues, many of whom
brought family or friends. The
mood was relaxed and convivial,
and we enjoyed the chance to have
conversations away from the hallways of the Humanities building.
The prize for the longest distance
traveled went to the Christmas’s of
Petaluma (there was not such a
prize in fact, but as Bill is on sabbatical, such a trek seems all the
more noteworthy).
The department wishes to acknowledge
and give thanks to the following individuals for their generous contributions
over the course of this year:
Stealing away from the mixer to
enjoy the sunset from atop the de
Young tower. [Photo: M. Carey]
Professor Jim Brogan and Mr. John Post
Dr. Linda Buckley
Mr. Thomas Enright
Mr. and Mrs. Richard B. Faye
The Gant Family Foundation
Ms. Nina Handler
Ms. Patricia M Jameson
Professor Jim Kohn and Ms. Elaine
Fischer-Kohn
Mr. and Mrs. William G. Lee
Dr. Robecca Rodriguez Lemmermann
Professor Jonathan Middlebrook
Mrs. Debra Plousha Moore
Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Parris
Mr. James Stathis
Cheryl B. Willis
We are eager to maintain contact with alumni and friends of the department.
To receive future news and announcements, to update us about yourself, and to submit items
for the newsletter, please e-mail Ceci Herrmann at herrmann@sfsu.edu