AISB Outstanding Student Award in English

New UNM student Bobbie Thomas (Navajo) was honored with the Outstanding Student Award in English for the 2014 American Indian Summer Bridge (AISB) Program. Through the intensive summer program sponsored by American Indian Student Services, recent high school graduates earn credit in Native American Studies, math, and English courses and prepare for college success. The writing workshop course this summer was taught by Dr. Kathleen Washburn and Ph.D. student Julie Williams.

Winners of the Lena Todd Awards In Creative Writing

Every fall term, instructors of UNM’s undergraduate creative writing workshops nominate stories, poems, and creative nonfiction essays written by their students for the Lena Todd Awards. This year the authors of the first place entries will receive $100, the second place entries $50, and all winners will be given the opportunity to read from their work at an upcoming Works-in-Progress reading at Winnings Coffee House (111 Harvard Dr. SE).

Fiction:
First Place: Quentin Chirdon, “The Flyover” (Instructor: Jack Trujillo)
About “The Flyover,” Judge Brenna Gomez had this to say: “The entry self-consciously explores a writer’s struggle with herself and her work as she watches another bitter writer she knows—and hasn’t spoken to in years—implode. The prose is sure and strong, the dialogue funny, painful, and very believable.”
Second Place: Lyndsey Broyles, “American Perspective Weekly Special Feature” (Instructor: Jill Dehnert)
“A newspaper pays tribute to their obituary writer by showcasing his best obituaries—one of an old friend, one of his wife, one of a woman he loved and killed in an accident, and finally himself. Reading this story was a bit like fitting the pieces of a puzzle together—at the end the reader fits together the smaller character sketches to create one larger sketch of the main character. The experimental nature and ambition of the piece is intriguing and successful,” writes Gomez.

Poetry:
First Place: Erin Pooley-Cooper, “Genesister” (Instructor: Diane Thiel)
Judge Reid Maruyama admired the line breaks and concrete, synesthetic imagery. “The poet,” he writes, “makes an utterly captivating statement about gender roles with regards to the Biblical tradition.”
Second Place: Tiffini Mungia, “Of the Sun and Moon: a haiku series” (Instructor Diane Thiel)
“The imagery, rhythm, and form were perfectly suited to the content,” writes Maruyama.

Creative Nonfiction:
First Place: Molly Cudia, “The Bat” (Instructor: Ben Dolan)
“The best memoirs are often disguised by voice,” writes Judge Annie Olson. “The narrator in “The Bat” is tender, honest, and wise beyond her years. She is impressively strong and vulnerable at the same time. The essay relies on the narrator’s keen eye for detail. A meticulous description of the house she grew up in serves as the foundation for an essay about how one’s sense of home, family and belonging is irreparably altered by divorce. The narrator in “The Bat could easily judge her family and upbringing, but refuses to do so, and this is a big factor in why she is so endearing to readers.”
Second Place: Catherine A. Hubka, “Ghost Towns” (Instructor: Marisa Clark)
“Addressing grief and loss in writing is thematically challenging. The narrator in “Ghost Towns” is poignantly honest and forthcoming with readers about the death of her son. The essay is narrated with humor, poise and candor. There’s momentum to this story. From page one, readers are compelled to journey with the narrator, learn from her mistakes and insights, hurt for her loss, and relate to her humanity.”

Many thanks to this year’s judges! Congratulations to the writers and their mentors!

English 500 Symposium -- Friday, Dec. 6, 2013 in Zimmerman Library

The English 500 Symposium

Friday, December 6th
Frank Waters Room, Zimmerman Library

9:00-10:20: PANEL I

Emily Frontiere (MA program, Medieval Studies)
“Costs, Costs, Costs and Nothing is Done”: Lawyers and Power in Charles Dickens’s Bleak House

Emily Simons (MA program, Medieval Studies)
Blurred Lines: The Female and the Animal in Marie de France’s Lais

Bradley Tepper (MA program, Literature)
Thomas Hardy’s Use of Law in Tess of the d’Urbervilles

10:30-11:50: PANEL II

Margaux Brown (MA program, Literature)
From Christian Salvation to Literary Salvation: Jupiter Hammon’s “An Essay on Slavery”

Megan Malcom-Morgan (MA program, Literature)
An Echo in the Hollow: The Intrusion of Race in Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Mariya Tseptsura (PhD program, Rhetoric & Writing)
The Return of Cold War Rhetoric: Mission Possible?

12-1: LUNCH BREAK

1:10-2:30: PANEL III

Leandra Binder (PhD program, BILS)
“Maddened Blood”: Nietzschean Animalism in Felix Salten’s Bambi

Kelly Hunnings (PhD program, BILS)
Seeking the Familiar in John Clare’s Middle Period Satire

Gerard Lavin (MA program, Medieval Studies)
Instrument of Revelation: Understanding “Pearl” as an Object of Religious Contemplation

2:40-4:30: PANEL IV

Diana Filar (MA program, Literature)
Windigo, Overheard Dreams, and the Direct Impact of Story: Vengeful Agency as Influenced by Ancestral Stories in Louise Erdrich’s Round House

Amy Gore (PhD program, ALS)
Indigenizing the Gothic Novel: Harold Johnson’s Backtrack and its Uncanny Conventions

Kathryn Manis (MA program, Art History)
Man and Superman: Reframing the “Man of Steel” in Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

Karra Shimabukuro (PhD program, BILS)
Grimm and La Llorona: Liminal Space or Appropriation?

English 500 Presents A Mini-Conference of Graduate Student Work

Tuesday, Dec. 4, 12:30-1:45
Thursday, Dec. 6, 12:15-1:50

Please join us for a mini-conference of graduate student work featuring presentations by the graduate students enrolled in English 500. The conference will be held on Tuesday, Dec. 4, from 12:30-1:45, in Hum 324 (the Leon Howard Memorial Library) and on Thursday, Dec. 6, from 12:15-1:50, in the same location.

Tuesday, December 4 Hum 324—Leon Howard Memorial Library 12:30-1:45

Oliver Baker

PhD Student “Illicit Economies in the Ozarks: Challenges to Neo-Liberal Order in Winter’s Bone”

Annie D’Orazio

PhD Student “Ancient Warriors, Insular Hands, and Monster Fights”

Justin Falk-Gee

PhD Student “Language and Negotiation in the Basic Writing Classroom”

Thursday, December 6, 12:15-1:50 Hum 324—Leon Howard Memorial Library 12:15-1:50

Silvia Lu

MA Student “Deferring ‘Perfect Concord’: Proposals of Marriage and Novel Masculinities in Jane Eyre”

Leonard Martinez

MA Student “Robert G. Ingersoll: Forgotten American Polemic”

Nichole Neff

MA Student “Shark Representation in Nineteenth-Century Texts: Into the Belly of the Beast”

Erin Woltkamp

MA Student “Performing the Discourse of Power: Breaking Away from the Madwoman in the Attic through Gendered Language”

Colleen Dunn talk November 15

The Feminist Research Institute invites you to attend a talk by Colleen Dunn, PhD Candidate in Medieval Studies here at the University of New Mexico.

"Lives in Translation: The Vitae of Juliana and Katherine in Late Anglo-Saxon and Early Anglo-Norman England"

Colleen Dunn
November 15th, 12:30-1:30 p.m.
SUB Cherry/Silver

As always, there will be refreshments available.
Please join us next Thursday for this enlightening talk.

Adam Nunez & Bonnie Arning: MFA publications and awards

Adam Nunez had his poetry published in the Connecticut Review, Fall 2011 and LUMINA, Fall 2010. He also had a review published in Pleiades, Winter 2011. He also published a chap book, with associated reading series: Ghosts and Projectors, Spring 2012. Adam also received 2nd place in The Atlantic's Student Writing Contest, October 2009, the Patricia Clark Smith Scholarship in Creative Writing, Spring 2011, and the Outstanding TA Award, Spring 2011. Adam was the Poetry Co-Editor for BMR, 2010-2011, and will have BA/MD GAship 2012.

Bonnie Arning will publish her poetery, "Lost Body," in Cream City Review, forthcoming fall 2012; and her fiction, "Bodies of Water," in Gargoyle Magazine, forthcoming fall 2012.

Graduate Students Attending Scholarly Conferences in February and March 2012

Conference for the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Tempe, AZ, February 2012

Marisa Sikes: “De-eroticizing the Lurid Gaze: The Knight of the Tower’s Use of Exempla in his Manual for his Daughters”

Conference for College Composition and Communication, St. Louis, MO, March 2012

Brian Hendrickson: “As Taproot, As Heart: Writing Across Communities and the Democratizing Function of the Community Writing Center”

Valerie Kinsey: “Grassroots in Zion: An Ecological Approach to the Rhetorical Landscape in the Utah Suffrage Debate, 1895”

Charles Paine, Session Presider: The Consortium for the Study of Writing Survey as a Gateway to Writing Assessment, Faculty Development, and Program Building: A Comparative Perspective

Michael Schwartz, Lindsey Ives, Tom Pierce and Annie Leming and UNM alumna Elizabeth Leahy: “Is the Next America Totally WACked?”

Medieval Association of the Pacific, Santa Clara University, CA, March 2012

Justin Brock: “‘Here the Spear Tore My Flesh’: The Performative Depiction of Christ and the Virgin in the Lauds of Jacapone da Todi”

Emilee Howland-Davis: “From Lyric Poetry to Arthurian Romance: The Influence of the Troubadour Tradition on the Works of Crétien de Troyes”

Lisa Myers: “Environmental Meaning and Action in Beowulf and Felix’s Life of Guthlac”

Anita Obermeier: “Incubus Conception and the Queering of Merlin”

Anita Obermeier also assumed the role of President of the Medieval Association of the Pacific at the meeting for a term of two years.

Doaa Omran: “The Virgin Saint as an Archetypal Heroine in Bockenham’s Legends of Holy Women”

Marisa Sikes: “Rhetorical Shaming and Hypothesizing Gynosocialities: Imagery for Women in the Writings of Christine de Pizan and Anne de France”

Celebration of Student Writing Videos

Explore the Celebration of Student Writing:



And for those who missed the Lady Gaga Cover that everyone has been talking about, check out the video:

UNM English Graduate Students Present at RMMLA

Several UNM English graduate students presented this past weekend at the 2010 Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association Convention in Albuquerque:

• Christine Kozikowski, “Charlemagne and the Creation of English Identity.”
• Lisa Myers, “Malory’s Forest of Irrational Love.”
• Bruce A. Carroll, “Laid Down and Broken: Law in Malory’s Morte D’Arthur.”
• Annarose Fitzgerald, “‘So I Will Tell You This’: Auricular Confession in Charlotte Mew’s ‘Saturday Market’ and ‘Ne Me Tangito’.”
• Gregory Evans, “Holy Crap, it’s a Coup!” and "Hermeneutics in the Classroom: Collaborative, Student-Centered Learning for the Twenty-first Century."
• Douglas Ryan VanBenthuysen, “The Old French Word ‘Mortaise’ in the York Play of the Crucifixion.”
• Paul Formisano, “A River of Voices: Confluences and Cross-Currents in the Literature of the Colorado River.”
• Marisa Sikes, "Appropriating Joan: The Saint in Christine de Pizan’s Ditié de Jehanne d’Arc and The Legend of Billie Jean."
• Carolyn Kuchera, "American Primitives."
• Katherine Marie Alexander, "Collapsing the Boundaries Between Two Worlds: Language and Mourning in Mary Shelley."
• Ying Xu, "A Body of Troubled Site/Sight: Re-signifying Double Consciousness in Yung Wing’s My Life in China and America."
• Leah Sneider, "Gender, Genre and Self-Determination in Winnemucca's Life Among the Piutes."
• Bonnie Altamirano and Richard Vargas read during the "Readings by Poets from the University of New Mexico" session.

Session Chairs:

• Jen Nader: American Nineteenth-Century Literature - I & American Nineteenth-Century Literature - II
• Douglas Ryan VanBenthuysen was elected chair for the Old and Middle English sessions at the 2011 RMMLA Convention in Scottsdale, AZ.
  

Scholarship Information 2010 Now Posted

This year's deadline is April 21, 2010 so students are highly encouraged to prepare their applications early.

Undergraduates should email their materials in Word or pdf formats to Associate Chair, Dan Mueller, dmueller@unm.edu

Graduates should email their materials in Word or pdf formats to Associate Chair, Anita Obermeier, AObermei@unm.edu

See full details on English Department scholarship opportunities here.

The Nineteenth Century Group Presents

Stacey Kikendall, “‘She opened her eyes and looked’: Vision, Empire, and the New Woman in The Story of an
African Farm”

Calinda Shely, “Consuming the Upper Crust: Gout and Overconsumption in East Lynne”

Please join us for a special preview of papers that will be presented at the 2010 Eighteenth- and
Nineteenth-Century British Women Writers Conference at Texas A & M.

Friday March 26, 3:30 p.m.
SUB Acoma A

Publication news - Lisa Gill in Brevity

Lisa Gill had her third essay from her dissertation manuscript taken by a good literary magazine - Brevity, which grew out of the comps she just passed last month. Brevity is probably the finest venue for short form creative nonfiction. Their recent issue, fall 09, has an essay by Sherman Alexie.

Celebrating Student Writing