Annual Newsletter 2019
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Department of English ANNUAL NEWSLETTER 2019 Veronique Lee ’11 From Amherst to Uganda: a career in international development 1 WELCOME FROM THE CHAIR Acting Department Chair Donna LeCourt. Photo: D. Toomey Dear Friends and Alums, It’s an exciting and challenging time for by current faculty, alumni, and students efforts. Stay tuned for more and do be in the Department of English as we seek in April, offer opportunities for all of us touch if you would like to help us get the out new directions in English studies to reflect upon why the humanities and word out about how valuable an English (environmental humanities, gaming English in particular are so important major can be in the 21st century. Stay culture, Arab American literature) and in our times for not only careers but connected through our improved website, also understanding each other and our join us through LinkedIn, and keep abreast seek to help others understand what The Literary Arts Fair, one of many events featured positions globally. of our activities through Facebook and in the 2019 Juniper Festival. Photo: Noah Loving TABLE OF CONTENTS an English major can entail. Although nationally the number of English majors Instagram. Please use those venues to keep Department News ...........................................................................................4 continues to decline, and UMass is Department faculty continue to lead in us informed of your doings, as well. We want very much to know, and we may want The Troy Lectures on the Humanities and Public Life ........................5 not immune to such a trend, we are such endeavors, winning high prestige Thanks for editorial assistance are owed awards such as the MacArthur “genius” to tap your expertise! to Meg Caulmare and Jennifer Jacobson. Alumni Spotlights ............................................................................................6 heartened by the creativity of our majors grant, writing residences, Fulbrights, “best Undergraduate Studies ..................................................................................8 and their ability to, in the words of article” honors, and taking on leadership On a side note, let me say that when you Cover Photo: Veronique Lee ‘11 among the Graduate Studies ..............................................................................................9 Veronique Lee ’11, “be nimble” and to positions on campus and beyond. I’m read this in the spring semester, Randall Tegalalang rice fields in Ubud, Bali (Indonesia). MFA Program for Poets and Writers ........................................................10 “understand the versatility” of their skills. Photo: Michael Buehler delighted to share some of those accolades Knoper will have returned as chair of the Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies .................12 In this newsletter, we see the variety of and experiences here. I’m just as happy department after a much-deserved fall UMass Writing Program ...............................................................................13 work English majors go on to do, from Western Massachusetts Writing Project .................................................14 to report that our faculty continues to sabbatical. While my presence as chair was being award-winning writers to program fleeting, the achievements described in this Program for Professional Writing grow as we are currently searching for a developers and English teachers. The newsletter are sure to be lasting. and Technical Communication ...............................................................15 specialist in African American literature. department continues to seek ways to The department has also launched a new Oxford Summer Seminar ............................................................................16 highlight the diversity of careers open task force on helping to grow the major —Donna LeCourt, Live Performance: International Theatre Festival Immersion ........17 to English majors and to invite alumni and is considering everything from Acting Chair Recent Books ...................................................................................................18 to share their stories and expertise with highlighting the variety of paths through Returning Alumni ..........................................................................................21 our current students. Panels such as “The an English major and the ways it helps Giving to the Department, 2019 Donors ..............................................22 State of English Studies, 2019,” offered one engage the world to new recruiting 2 3 DEPARTMENT NEWS Stephen Clingman delivered the Bram Anna Rita Napoleone, director of the Fischer Memorial Lecture at Oxford University of Massachusetts Amherst Writing University in October. This prestigious Center and site director of the Western event is held every year at Rhodes House in Massachusetts Writing Project (WMWP), was celebration of the life and commitment to awarded a $15,000 Public Service Endowment justice shown by Bram Fischer. Grant for the UMass Writing Center. David Fleming received the 2019 National Jeff Parker received a Fulbright US Scholar Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) grant to Kyiv, Ukraine. The Fulbright Program Richard C. Ohmann Outstanding Article in is one of several United States cultural College English award. The award recognizes exchange programs whose goal is to improve an outstanding refereed article in the past intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and volume year that makes the most significant intercultural competence between the people contribution to scholarship or research, or of the United States and other countries theory or pedagogy, in English studies. through the exchange of persons, knowledge, and skills. It is one of the most prestigious and Laura Furlan was named as the program chair competitive fellowship programs in the world. of the Five Colleges Native American and Indigenous Studies program. Students in the Jordy Rosenberg’s novel, Confessions of the Five College Native American and Indigenous Fox, was shortlisted for the UK’s Historical Studies (NAIS) certificate program explore Writers Association Debut Crown award. Native American and Indigenous histories, Rosenberg also appeared as an invited guest literatures, and cultures. at the Sydney Writers Festival and the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. John Hennessy and Ostap Kin were awarded the John Frederick Nims Memorial Prize for Chair of the Troy Lecture Committee Steven Clingman, Natasha Tretheway, and MFA Program Director Jeff Parker. Photo: Dennis Vandal Translation for their translation of Serhiy TreaAndrea M. Russworm has been named Zhadan's poems. The prize was established the series editor of Power Play: Games, Politics, The Troy Lectures on the Humanities in 1999 by Bonnie Larkin Nims, trustees of Culture (Duke University Press). Russworm The English Department Troy Lecture, 2019 THE TROY and Public Life are presented in honor the Poetry Foundation, and friends of the late was also honored by Indiana University’s Black of the late Frederick S. (Barney) Troy, poet, translator, and editor. Film Archive and Cultural Studies program LECTURES ON THE Natasha Trethewey emeritus professor of English, honorary United States Poet Laureate, 2012–2014 with a “master class,” designed around her Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 2007 professor of the university, and former University of Massachusetts MFA for Poets and Writers, 1995 Edie Meidav was selected as the Jane Geuting work. HUMANITIES AND university trustee. The list of past speakers Camp Fellow by the Virginia Center for the is singularly distinguished, and includes Creative Arts (VCCA). The Jane Geuting Ocean Vuong, author of the New York Times PUBLIC LIFE “You Are Not Safe in Science; Nadine Gordimer, Sherman Alexie, You Are Not Safe in History”: Camp Fellowship was established in 1988 bestselling novel On Earth We're Briefly Margaret Atwood, Judith Butler, J. M. in memory of former VCCA president Jane Gorgeous (Penguin Press, 2019) received On Abiding Metaphors Coetzee, Seamus Heaney, Salman Rushdie, and Finding a Calling Camp and is endowed by her family and the a MacArthur Fellowship. Commonly but Wole Soyinka, and Zadie Smith. James L. Camp Foundation. unofficially known as a "genius” grant, the fellowship is awarded annually by the John This year’s Troy Lecture was delivered by Sabina Murray received a Samuel F. D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Thursday, October 3, 4:30pm Natasha Trethewey ’95MFA , a Pulitzer Conti Faculty Fellowship. The fellowships typically to between 20 and 30 individuals, Bowker Auditorium, Stockbridge Hall Prize-winning poet and two-time US poet are awarded to UMass Amherst faculty working in any field, who have shown Natasha Trethewey is the author of Monument (2018); Thrall (2012); Native Guard (2007); Bellocq’s Ophelia (2002); and Domestic Work (2000). Trethewey is also the author of the laureate. Her talk, given on October 3, poetry chapbook Congregation (2015) and the prose book Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on members in recognition of outstanding "extraordinary originality and dedication in the Mississippi Gulf Coast (2012). was entitled “‘You Are Not Safe in Science; accomplishments in research and creative their creative pursuits and a marked capacity “Trethewey has a genuine gift for verse forms, and the depth of her engagement in You Are Not Safe in History’: On Abiding language marks her as a true poet.” — Washington