News
Facilitating Multimodal Research
Miller-Cochran presenting at NCTE
Institutionalizing Second Language Writing
Call for Papers-Graduate Student Symposium
March 5-6, 2010
Deadline for Submissions: December 21, 2009
The Resurrection of the Paranormal: Investigating Otherness in 21st Century English Studies
With the recent explosion of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series and the maintained popularity of films like Labyrinth, Poltergeist, and Night of the Living Dead, notions of the paranormal are captivating the popular culture scene and subsequently influencing the scholarly community in ways which are beginning to challenge traditional notions of the paranormal. While investigations of the paranormal have a visible place in the literary canon, as Bram Stoker's Dracula and William Shakespeare's Hamlet make clear, the overwhelming success of popular series like Twilight has led some to question their potential for scholarly application. As such, examinations of the paranormal are now growing to include considerations of what we have termed the PARAnormal. Unlike paranormal texts, which address the supernatural and the fantastic, PARAnormal texts function in ways that could be considered supernatural or fantastic. These texts do not necessarily deal with paranormal topics, but instead challenge the roles traditionally attributed to texts by the scholarly community. In transcending genres and blurring conventional boundaries, PARAnormal texts cause us to reexamine scholarly notions and consider the application of less traditional genres in the classroom. Thus, while paranormal texts are interested in Otherness, PARAnormal texts are Others. In bringing together a broad range of approaches to the study of the paranormal and the PARAnormal, this symposium seeks to foster a dialogue about Otherness in 21st century English studies.
We invite submissions from all areas of English studies that explore the ways in which the paranormal or the PARAnormal are represented, framed, or interpreted in the 21st century. While presentations need not focus on texts produced in the 21st century, we encourage submissions which approach the subject from a variety of modern critical perspectives. We will accept submissions of scholarly papers and original creative work.
Presentations may address, but are not limited to, the following topics:
- Magical realism as exemplified by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Salman Rushdie, and Isabelle Allende
- Fabulous/Fantastic fiction as illustrated in the work of Octavia Butler, Nalo Hopkinson, and Tananarive Due
- Young adult fiction as characterized by J. K. Rowling, Charlaine Harris, and C. S. Lewis
- The construction of Otherness in paranormal texts
- Societal and cultural values portrayed in the paranormal
- Popular reception of paranormal texts
- The paranormal/supernatural as cultural heritage
- 'The voice of reason/rationale' in paranormal texts
- The paranormal or PARAnormal in popular media: Film
- Television Comics Gaming
- The paranormal or PARAnormal text as political statement
- Place of PARAnormal texts in the classroom
- Impact of PARAnormal texts on 21st century English studies
- Reclaiming cultural identity (Otherness) through PARAnormal texts
- Exploring gender identity (Otherness) through PARAnormal texts
Please submit a 300 word abstract by December 21st to aegs.ncsu@gmail.com. Proposals must include the title of the paper, the name of the presenter, and institutional affiliations (including area of English study). Panels should submit three complete proposals in one document with a 100 word explanation of the panel theme. Individual presentations will be limited to 15 minutes. Panel presentations will be limited to 45 minutes.
This symposium is hosted by the NCSU Association of English Graduate Students.
It is sponsored by the NCSU English Department.
"Six Feet Under"
Jon Thompson published "Six Feet Under" in Third Coast (Fall 2009).
Dante Rossetti Letters, Volume 8 Published
D.S. Brewer has now published Volume 8 of The Correspondence of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, for which Tony Harrison is one of four Completing Editors.
The Secret HIstory of Science Fiction
The anthology, a collection of stories from 1973 to 2008, makies the case for a rapprochement between science fiction and literary fiction. It contains stories by well known contemporary writers like Don DeLillo, T. Coraghessan Boyle, Margaret Atwood and Steven Millhauser, along with others by writers generally associated with science fiction like Lucius Shepard, Kate Wilhelm, Thomas Disch, and Maureen McHugh.
Kessel also reports the publication of a new story, "Events Preceding the Helvetican Renaissance," in the original anthology The New Space Opera 2.
NC Symposium on Teaching Writing
The second annual North Carolina Symposium on Teaching Writing, hosted Oct. 16-17, 2009, by the First-Year Writing Program, was a tremendous success. We had 70 participants from colleges, universities, and high schools around the region (and from as far away as the University of Pittsburgh and Auburn University). Kathleen Blake Yancey from Florida State University presented the keynote and urged us all to think more about the connections and communication between high school and college-level writing programs.
Thank you to Kate Maddalena and Kevin Brock for organizing such a fantastic symposium!Related Links:
Contributions Acknowledged
- Bob Kochersberger
- Julianna Nfah-Abbenyi
- Seth Styers '07
- Cat Warren
We are currently at $575, so we need only an additional $175 to support one student next year. Our goal is to raise $1500 so that we can support one student each semester. If you would like to contribute to the fund, please contact Susan_Katz@ncsu.edu for information about how to make your donation or click on the link below. Please indicate "English Interns' Scholarship Fund" on any contributions.
Related Links: CHASS "How To Give" page
News from Susan Katz
She also gave a talk on "Assessing Visuals in the Writing Classroom" at the NC Symposium on Teaching Writing on October 17.
Reavis on TV?
At 10 p.m. Sun., Oct. 18, MSNBC, notorious for cheesy true-crime documentaries, will air a program called "Witness to Waco." It is apparently a part of just-in-time-for-Halloween series, "Secrets of the Cults."
In preparation for the segment, the network last summer filmed a six-hour interview with me. If it runs any of it, I will be watching to see what approach it takes to me. Always before, TV crews treated me as a wily investigative reporter, one of their own kind, they'd say, and therefore worthy of respect. I am now wondering if they won't press me into another mold, that of the unworldly English prof.
If anyone still wants to know about Waco and Koresh, I'd heartily recommend my book.
NOTfiction Film Series
NCSU Film Studies and the UAB Present:
NOTfiction film series: films from and about the margins of mainstream
at the NCSU Campus Cinema
Oct. 14: YOU'RE GONNA MISS ME: A FILM ABOUT ROKY ERICKSON (2005)
91 min. - Dir. Keven McAlester ' Intro: Maria Pramaggiore, Film Studies
This is the story of Roky Erickson: manic frontman for the legendary band The 13th Floor Elevators, creators of psychedelic music and muse to Janis Joplin. YOU'RE GONNA MISS ME is a disturbingly intimate portrait of an imploding family and the struggle between modernized medicine and religion.
Known for his colossal heroin & LSD binges, struggles with schizophrenia, and an unthinkable term at Rusk hospital for the criminally insane, Roky went missing from the world. YOU'RE GONNA MISS ME reveals the shocking & triumphant truth behind one of Rock's great mysteries.
Oct. 21: DECASIA (2002) in 35mm!
70 min. - Dir. Bill Morrison; Intro: Maria Pramaggiore, Film Studies
Bill Morrison's film might be literally described as an avant-garde collage of decomposing film fragments set to an uncommonly evocative score. But this doesn't do justice to its lingering effects or its apocalyptic tone. Errol Morris describes it in the following breathless terms:
'A pure poetry of deliquescence. The images are at once haunting, mysterious, and incredibly beautiful. A definitive work of art. And a new kind of documentary documenting the decay of itself.'
Errol Morris, documentary filmmaker
Nov. 11: Special Veterans Day DOUBLE BILL
SELECTIVE SERVICE SYSTEM STORY
10 min - Dir. Bill Daniel (1998); Intro: Marsha Orgeron, Film Studies
Created for the Independent Film Channel's Split Screen series, Bill Daniel's film revisits the 1970 short film Selective Service System and interviews Dan Lovejoy and Warren Haake, who made the graphic depiction of an individual's attempt to avoid the Vietnam War draft as film students at San Francisco State University.
SIR! NO SIR! in 35mm!
85 min. - Dir. David Zeiger (2005)
SIR! NO SIR! is the story of one of the most vibrant and widespread upheavals of the 1960's'one that had profound impact on American society, yet has been virtually obliterated from the collective memory of that time: The GI movement to end the war in Vietnam.
SPECIAL EVENT ' FILMMAKER AND FILM SUBJECT IN PERSON!!!
Nov. 18: ROCATERRANIA (2009)
74 min - Dir. Brett Ingram
Rocaterrania is a feature-length documentary journey into the secret world of 76-year-old Renaldo Kuhler, a visionary artist who invented an imaginary country to survive his disaffected youth and illustrated the nation's history for six decades. FILMMAKER and UNC Greensboro Professor Brett Ingram and Raleigh Resident Renaldo Kuhler will introduce the film and take questions after the screening.
***all films begin at 7:00 and are free and open to the public***
Home Movie Day Raleigh - 2009
Home Movie Day Raleigh
A local celebration of amateur home movies and a chance to learn how to preserve them for future generations to enjoy. NOTE: Even if you don't have anything to screen, Home Movies are a great SPECTATOR sport!
When: Saturday October 17th, 1pm - 4pm
Where: North Carolina State Archives Auditorium, 109 East Jones Street, Raleigh NC 27601
Easy, free parking!
What: Dig through your closets, call up Grandma, search out your family's home movies (of vacation, holidays, family events, whatever), and bring a reel or two of your 8mm, Super 8, or 16mm home movies (sorry, no video or slides). We'll watch them and give you information on how to keep them safe. Also play Home Movie Day Bingo for fun and prizes!
For More Information:
Visit http://www.avgeeks.com/hmd.html
Or contact us, Skip Elsheimer skip@avgeeks.com or Marsha Orgeron mgorgero@unity.ncsu.edu
Home Movie Day 2009
Come and learn about those old home movies!
Daun Daemon contributes to Interweave Crochet
Daun Daemon acted as an editorial consultant for the Fall 2009 issue of Interweave Crochet magazine. Her contributions were the descriptive names of the magazine's designs. Ironically, Daun is a knitter, not a crocheter.
Jill McCorkle Reading
p.m. in the Caldwell Hall Lounge.
Given the chaos out on Hillsborough, we may lose some of our regulars attendees, so do encourage your students to attend--and we'd really like to see faculty there, too! Copies of Jill's books will be on sale and, as always, admission is free.
Kessel Wins Shirley Jackson Award
http://www.shirleyjacksonawards.org/sja_2008_winners.php
The Shirley Jackson Award comes with a trophy that includes an engraved stone (in reference to "The Lottery").
Hutcheson Nominated for Emmy
Balaban, Nilsen Address Graduates
At the ceremony, Poet-in-Residence John Balaban and graduating senior Ryan Nilsen addressed the graduates and their families.
The complete text of Professor Balaban's and Ryan Nilsen's speeches are available online.
Related Links:
Kessel Wins Nebula Award
Lloyd Biggle, Jr., the SFWA's first secretary-treasurer, originally proposed in 1965 that the organization publish an annual anthology of the best stories of the year. This notion, according to Damon Knight in his introduction to Nebula Award Stories: 1965 (Doubleday, 1966) "rapidly grew into an annual ballot of SFWA's members to choose the best stories, and an annual awards banquet."
Since 1965, the Nebula Awards have been given each year for the best novel, novella, novelette, and short story eligible for that year's award. An anthology including the winning pieces of short fiction and several runners-up is also published every year.
Film Studies and Full Frame Present
NCSU Film Studies and the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival Present:
Jeremiah Zagar's IN A DREAM
Witherspoon Campus Cinema
April 1 - 7:00-10:00
The filmmaker, Jeremiah Zagar, who won the Full Frame Guggenheim Emerging Artist Award in 2008, will introduce the film and take questions.
About the film: Over the last thirty years, artist Isaiah Zagar has covered forty thousand square feet of Philadelphia with grand-scale mosaics. When Zagar's son Jeremiah picks up a camera to document his father's career, he is confronted with the reality of the man in front of the lens. Mental illness, infidelity, sexual abuse, and addiction are some of the jagged pieces that make up the mosaic of Isaiah Zagar's life. IN A DREAM is an unblinking look at a celebrated artist who may not be the husband and father his family needs him to be.
NCSU Film Studies Alumnus to Premiere Film at Full Frame
Robert Greene, a graduate of the NCSU Film Studies Program, will debut his feature length documentary, OWNING THE WEATHER, at the prestigious Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, April 2-5 2009. Find out more at: www.fullframefest.org.
Salerno Wins Independent Weekly Poetry Contest
Chris Salerno, a long-time English Department Lecturer, has been named the winner of the 2009 Independent Weekly Poetry contest for his poem, "Whirl," which will appear in the Feb. 25th edition of the Independent. The prize carries a $500 award and the opportunity for Chris to read from his work at a reception/reading scheduled for March 18th.
LCW Major wins Dell Magazine Award
Undergraduate LCW major Joshua Eure has been named the winner of the 2009 Dell Magazines Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing (formerly the Isaac Asimov Award), sponsored by Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine and the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts, and supported by the Humanities Institute at the University of South Florida and the School of Mass Communications at the University of South Florida.
The $500 award goes to the best unpublished and unsold science fiction or fantasy short story submitted by a full-time undergraduate college student. The winner is invited to the IAFA annual Conference on the Fantastic in mid-March in Orlando, FL, and the winning story will be considered for publication in either Asimov's science fiction magazine or in the on-line version of the magazine.
Josh's story"We Were Real," was written for John Kessel's ENG 488 class in the spring of 2008. In addition, Maggie Morgan, a student in Kessel's ENG 388 class in the fall of 2008, placed third in the competition.
First Year Writing Program Awarded Certificate of Excellence
The NC State First Year Writing Program (FYWP)has been awarded a Writing Program Certificate of Excellence by the Conference on College Composition and Communication. According to FYWP Director Susan Miller-Cochran, the selection committee cited many noteworthy aspects of the program, including small class sizes, renewable full-time contracts for faculty members, the TA training program, and professional development opportunities provided by the program.
More information about the award can be found at: http://www.ncte.org/cccc/awards/writingprogramcert
John Kessel's Novelette Makes Nebula Award Preliminary List
John Kessel’s novelette Pride and Prometheus has made the preliminary ballot for the 2008 Nebula Award from the SF Writers of America. Only five stories in each category will make the final ballot.
The Nebula Awards are voted on, and presented by, active members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. Founded as the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1965 by Damon Knight, the organization began with a charter membership of 78 writers; it now has over 1,400 members, among them most of the leading writers of science fiction and fantasy.
The Nebula Awards Weekend will be held April 24-26 at the Luxe Hotel Sunset Boulevard, with the awards presentation banquet to be held on the UCLA campus to tie in with the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. (With the spirits of Jane Austen and Mary Shelley on his side, how can he lose!)
Alumni News
Michael Begnal, MFA - Creative Writing - Poetry graduate (2008), has had some of the poems from his thesis published in the online journal Otoliths. These can be viewed at: http://the-otolith.blogspot.com/2008/08/michael-s.html
Two more of the poems from Michael’s thesis, "Kells" and "Dead Rabbits," have been accepted for the Spring 2009 issue of Natural Bridge, the print literary journal of the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
Honors/Recognition
Visual artist Andi Sutton and Chris Tonelli received a $3,000 grant from the Council for the Arts at MIT to begin an installation piece based on the poems in Chris’s forthcoming chapbook For People Who Like Gravity and Other People.
Presentations
Marc K. Dudley recently presented at SAMLA (Nov. 7-9) in Louisville as part of the Hemingway Society's panel. Its theme was "Race, Ethnicity, and Nationality in Hemingway.”
Recent Publications
Tony Harrison's new book, The Cultural Production of Matthew Arnold, has now been formally accepted for the Victorian Studies series at Ohio University Press. It is scheduled to appear in Spring 2010. Volume 7 of The Correspondence of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, for which Tony is a Completing Editor, is forthcoming this spring.
One of Chris Tonelli’s poems that was published in Salt Hill was featured on Verse Daily : http://www.versedaily.org/2008/everysatellite.shtml. Chris also has poems forthcoming in LIT.
