News from the English Department

Spring 2011 • Volume 4, Issue 1

In this Issue: Award Winners...... 2 Terrance Hayes...... 3 Duquesne Doctoral Alumni Updates...... 4 Trinh Minh-ha and “Miles of Candidate Earns Strangeness”...... 5 Theater Performances...... 5 National Recognition Doctoral Graduates...... 6 Faculty Updates...... 6 Michelle B. Gaffey, a two-time Duquesne Caroline Bergvall Speaks at alumna, received the prestigious K. Patricia Duquesne...... 7 Cross Future Leaders Award from the Association of American Colleges and Upcoming Events...... 7 Universities (AAC&U) in January 2011. The award, given annually to a handful Labriola Memorial Library of graduate students across the country, Fund...... 8 recognizes those who, in the words of the AAC&U, “show exemplary promise as For questions or future leaders of higher education; who submissions, contact: demonstrate a commitment to developing academic and civic responsibility in Nora McBurney themselves and others; and whose work Administrative Assistant reflects a strong emphasis on teaching English Department and learning.” [email protected] (412) 396-1484 Michelle, currently a doctoral candidate in English, combines stellar leadership and accomplishment in teaching with a consistent dedication to community service. Her application materials outlined her “Community Listening Project” service-learning project, her work as a community anti-sweatshop organizer, and her role in developing and teaching Carlow University’s interdisciplinary course, McAnulty College and Graduate “Women v. Sweatshops.” School of Liberal Arts

continued on next page Michelle B. Gaffey Doctoral Candidate Earns National Recognition continued from page 1

At January’s annual meeting of the AAC&U, Michelle received her B.A. in English, B.S. in She has been so important to Duquesne for Michelle participated in a panel, “Faculty of Secondary Education, and M.A. in English so long that we in the English Department the Future: Voices from the Next Generation,” from Duquesne. She has been awarded fear that the university’s buildings as one of eight 2011 award recipients. (More a Graduate Certificate in Women’s themselves may collapse when Michelle information about the honorees is available and Gender Studies and a 2009–2010 graduates and moves on to bigger and at www.aacu.org.) Michelle is currently Dissertation Fellowship from the McAnulty better things. Join us in wishing her the best collaborating with several Cross Scholars Graduate School. Her dissertation, Subjects as she embarks on what is sure to be an to propose a panel for next year’s AAC&U of Economy,examines five contemporary illustrious, rewarding, and socially engaged convention that will describe and reflect photo-poetic projects that engage with career. upon the opportunities and support systems the social documentary book tradition for graduate teaching assistants at their and considers strategies for teaching these respective institutions of higher learning. texts, particularly within service-learning frameworks.

Award Winners

English Graduate English Department Students win CTE Awards Sweeps College Awards

Erin Rentschler and Melissa Wehler, Ph.D. candidates in The Department of English did extremely well this year, the English Department, won both of the Graduate Student sweeping the 2011 McAnulty College and Graduate Excellence in Teaching awards given out to McAnulty College School of Liberal Arts’ annual awards in all three students by the Center for Teaching Excellence in April 2011. categories. Magali Cornier Michael won the Faculty The awards, inaugurated in 2003, recognize graduate Teaching Excellence in Scholarship Award, and doctoral Fellows who demonstrate mastery of the basics of teaching, student Beth Buhot Runquist won the Graduate engage in professional interactions about teaching with Excellence in Scholarship Award. Anne Brannen won colleagues and mentors, and reflect on their experiences in order the Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award, and John to develop as teachers. Recipients receive public recognition Lane won the Faculty Excellence in Service Award. and $500.

Melissa and Erin’s sweep continues a remarkable streak of success for English Teaching Fellows, who have won ten such awards. (All of the other departments in the College combined have won eight.) At least one English Teaching Fellow has won the award every year but one since the award was instituted.

www.duq.edu/english 2 Terrance Hayes

Terrance Hayes

On Monday, April 4, acclaimed poet answered audience questions, many of Terrance Hayes gave a reading before a which focused on advice for young writers. standing-room only crowd in the Power Born in Columbia, South Carolina, Hayes Center Ballroom. Hayes is the author of received a B.A. from Coker College and four books of poetry, including Lighthead an M.F.A. from the University of Pittsburgh (Penguin), which won the 2010 National writing program. Hayes’ other books of Book Award for Poetry. At 39, he is one of poetry are Muscular Music (Carnegie the youngest people ever to win the award. Mellon Press, 1999), winner of the Kate Tufts The reading, sponsored by the English Discovery Award; Hip Logic (Penguin, 2002), Department, the First-Year Writing Program, which won the 2001 National Poetry Series and the Office of the Provost, brought and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times in students and faculty from all over the Book Award; and Wind in a Box (Penguin, University itself as well as Duquesne alumni, 2006). He has received many honors and students from surrounding universities and awards, including a Whiting Writers Award, a colleges, and local residents. 550 seats were Pushcart Prize, three Best American Poetry available, but people crowded the sides selections, and fellowships from the National and rear of the ballroom, eager to hear Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and Hayes, who did not disappoint. He read the Guggenheim Foundation. Currently, through many of the poems from his latest he teaches creative writing at Carnegie collection but also spent time providing the Mellon University and lives in Pittsburgh, context for several of the poems, offering Pennsylvania, with his wife Yona Harvey, who often humorous anecdotes about the directs the creative writing program at CMU inspiration and his own technique and and is also a poet, and their two children. style. When the reading was finished, he

3 Alumni Updates

Cami Agan (Ph.D. 1997) published a such as L.A. Tim has never forgotten the day gave readings in Pittsburgh this February, chapter, “Frances Sheridan: A Case Study he and fellow English doctoral students Ellen and she is looking forward to meeting with for Mid-Eighteenth Century Comedy,” in Foster and Lynda Szabo petitioned late Professor Linda Kinnahan’s undergraduate Approaches to Teaching British Women Duquesne Provost Michael Weber for funds poetry class in the fall. Playwrights of the Restoration and to develop a conference. Provost Weber did Eighteenth Century (MLA Press). She also not hesitate, saying, “It sounds like a good Laurie McMillan (Ph.D. 2004) was granted presented a paper on Frances Sheridan’s idea; let’s do it!” tenure at Marywood University in Scranton, The Dupe at the 2011 American Society PA. In addition, she participated in two for Eighteenth Century Studies (ASECS) Lori Campbell (Ph.D. 2002) was an invited conferences with fellow Duquesne alums. conference in Vancouver B.C. speaker for the Harry Potter Symposium that First, she and Christine Cusick participated in was hosted by the Health Sciences Library a roundtable entitled Where Are We Now?: Claire Barbetti (Ph.D. 2009) will have her at the University of Pittsburgh in March Ecocriticism & Narrative Scholarship at the book, Ekphrastic Medieval Visions: A New 2011. She talked about a chapter from her MLA conference in Los Angeles (January Discussion in Interarts Theory, published book, Portals of Power: Magical Agency 2011). Laurie presented “Feminism & Place- by Palgrave Macmillan in “The New and Transformation in Literary Fantasy Based Criticism.” Next, she and Megan Middle Ages Series” edited by Bonnie (McFarland 2010). Using Harry Potter’s Swihart Jewell participated in a roundtable Wheeler. Her essay “Secret Designs/ character as an example, she discussed organized by Greg Barnhisel, entitled Writing Public Shapes: Ekphrastic Tensions in how the concept of the gateway or ‘portal’ Assessment Inside and Outside the English Hildegard’s Scivias” is forthcoming in the between real and magical worlds operates Department, at NEMLA in New Brunswick collection Reading Memory and Identity in contemporary fantasy writing. Her talk (April 2011). Laurie presented “Walking the in the Texts of Medieval European Holy demonstrated the ways in which magical Assessment Report Tightrope.” Women, edited by Margaret Cotter- nexus points and movement between these Lynch and Bradley Herzog, also in “The worlds are used throughout the 7-volume Ellen McGrath Smith (Ph.D. 2002) was New Middle Ages Series” by Palgrave Harry Potter series to illustrate real-world selected to be among 14 postdoctoral Macmillan. Last fall, she was a Featured power dynamics. university literature instructors participating Guest Writer for the Scrawl Writers Festival this summer in the National Humanities at Westminster College and, this winter, Cara Cilano (Ph.D. 2000) published a Center Summer Institute in Literary Studies. she was a featured poet in the Pittsburgh monograph, National Identities in Pakistan: They will be focusing on the work of T.S. Speaking Of Reading Series. She continues The 1971 War in Contemporary Pakistani Eliot under the direction of Christopher to write and perform her poetry and is also Literature, through Routledge. She was also Ricks. Ellen is a lecturer at Pitt and also teaching yoga and earning her 200-hour selected by her home institution, University teaches women’s poetry workshops for RYT through the Himalayan Institute. of North Carolina-Wilmington, to act as the Carlow University’s Madwomen in the Attic Faculty Resident Director for the UNCW program. Some of her recent publications Timothy Bintrim (Ph.D. 2004) joined three Spring 2012 Semester Study Abroad Program include “Critical Reception of The Bell Jar” other Saint Francis University faculty at the University of Swansea, Wales. She will in the Salem Press Critical Insights Series on in piloting a Free Medical Screening be teaching in the University of Swansea’s Plath’s The Bell Jar (forthcoming, ed. Janet event in Loretto, PA. Their second Free Cultural and Political Studies Program and McCann); “The Poetics of Gracelessness” Screening, held April 3, served 79 persons serving as the point person for the UNCW (essay forthcoming in the online journal from surrounding communities, offering students, as well as other American students, Cerise); and “’Hearing a Pear’: Poetry cardiovascular, diabetic, dental, and who are spending the semester there. Readings on a New Frequency,” in Beauty Is physical exams, as well as potentially a Verb: An Anthology of Poetry, Poetics, and lifesaving carotid and aortic ultrasounds. Megan Swihart Jewell (Ph.D. 2006) has two Disability (forthcoming, Cinco Puntos Press). All care was donated gratis by local health essays forthcoming: “Taking on the Official She has also published poems in Kestrel, care professionals and by faculty at SFU, Voice: Charles Bernstein and Post-Process Cerise, The Same, and The Girls with Glasses which is known for its PA, PT, and nursing Writing Pedagogy” in The Salt Companion Anthology. She will be reading her poetry programs, as well as English. More than a to Charles Bernstein and “Sustaining at Hemingways (Pittsburgh) on June 7, 2011, hundred students volunteered as well. The Argument: Centralizing the Role of the and in July as part of the Carnegie Library next clinic, planned for early October, will Writing Center in Program Assessment” in Sunday Poetry Reading Series. be on the heels of a campus visit by Stan Praxis. Brock, founder of Remote Area Medical Mary Ann Tobin (Ph.D. 2006) has accepted Foundation, the all-volunteer, airborne, free Sally Rosen Kindred (M.A. 1998) had the position of Director of Teaching and medical care organization which regularly her first full-length poetry book,No Eden, Learning at Triton College in River Grove, IL. treats 8,000 Americans per weekend in cities published by Mayapple Press in January. She

www.duq.edu/english 4 Trinh Minh-ha and Theater “Miles of Strangeness” Performances April brought a visit to Duquesne by Trinh used as a classic text in theory classes. Peter Mills Playhouse Minh-ha, internationally renowned as a This spring, a new collection of essays Duquesne University feminist and post-colonial theorist. She has appeared, entitled Elsewhere, Within All performances begin at 8:00 p.m. presented a fascinating talk, “Miles of Here: Immigration, Refugeeism, and Strangeness,” which theorized feminism, the Boundary Event, which draws upon the “feminine,” and identity in relation her autobiographical experience as a Summer Company 2011 to contemporary discourses of war and Vietnamese immigrant to the United States Look Homeward, Angel (Ketti Frings) borders. Her talk attracted a sizable in theorizing contemporary concepts of June 2, 3, 4 & 9, 10, 11 audience from across the University and national borders, exile, and immigration. the Pittsburgh community and was followed Rhinoceros (Eugène Ionesco) by an energetic discussion session and Trinh Minh-ha is currently Professor of July 14, 15, 16 & 21, 22, 23 more informal conversation at a lovely Women’s Studies and Rhetoric (Film) at the reception and book-signing. University of California, Berkeley, and she Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? has taught and lectured around the world. (Edward Albee) Trinh Minh-Ha is the author of eight books Her many awards and grants include the Co-production with Summer Company on film, music, gender, and cultural politics “Trailblaizers” Award at MIPDOC, Cannes, and Red Masquers as well as an artist who creates large- the AFI National Independent Filmmaker August 25, 26, 27 & September 1, 2, 3 scale multimedia installations and a Maya Deren Award, and fellowships from filmmaker, whose six feature-length films the Guggenheim Foundation, the National have been honored in retrospectives Endowment of the Arts, the Rockefeller Fall 2011 around the world. Her book, Woman/ Foundation, the American Film Institute, The Measure for Measure Native/Other, developed groundbreaking Japan Foundation, and the California Arts (William Shakespeare) connections between post-colonial and Council. September 29 & 30, October 1, 6, 7, 8 feminist thought, and it is often Her visit was the result of generous The Maids (Jean Genet) forms of co-sponsorship between November 9, 10, 11, 12 the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies and the Premiere Performances following: Duquesne University’s Student written, directed, and produced Departments of English, History, one-acts Philosophy, Psychology, Modern November 30, December 1, 2, 3 Languages, Classics, and Political Science; the Center Pittsburgh Monologue Project for Qualitative Research; TBA, please check the English the McAnulty College NEH Department Events page for more Endowment; and the Office information of the Provost at Duquesne; and the College of Arts and Sciences at Carlow University.

5 Doctoral Faculty Updates Caroline Bergvall

Craig Bernier published his short story, “The Manual of Heavy Drinking,” in the literary Speaks at Duquesne Graduates magazine Gigantic Sequins.

Anne Brannen won the McAnulty College and Graduate School’s 2011 Faculty FALL 2010 Excellence in Teaching Award.

Janine Bayer, Ph.D. Laura Engel published Fashioning Celebrity: Eighteenth-Century British Actresses and Dissertation: Nicomachean and Neo- Strategies for Image Making (Ohio State UP, 2011). Aristotelian Ethics and Shakespeare’s Tragedies Kathy Glass completed a book review of Linda Furgerson Selzer’s Charles Johnson Anne Brannen, director; Bernard Beranek, in Context (U of Massachusetts P, 2009) that is forthcoming in the fall 2011 issue of The first reader; Sr. Michele Bisbey, Ph.D., American Philosophical Association Newsletter on Philosophy and the Black Experience. second reader

Linda Kinnahan published “Feminism’s Experimental ‘work at the language-face’” in The SPRING 2011 Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century British and Irish Women’s Poetry, edited by Jane Dowson (Cambridge UP 2011). In March, Dr. Kinnahan gave the keynote address, Sharon George, Ph.D. “Photojournalism and War in the Documentary Surrealism of Mina Loy and Lee Miller,” at Dissertation: The Pursuit of Divinity: the ‘Echoes: Across Disciplines, Texts, and Times’ English Graduate Student Conference Religious Faith and Fear in late Victorian at Duquesne University. She also gave the keynote address, “Urban Photography and Women’s Poetry Spaces of Poverty in Mina Loy’s Bowery,” in April at the ‘Forming Identity, Transforming Daniel Watkins, director; Laura Engel, first Space’ Annual Graduate Student Conference at the Madrid, Spain Campus of St. Louis reader; Kathy Glass, second reader University.

Betina Jones, Ph.D. John Lane won the McAnulty College and Graduate School’s 2011 Faculty Excellence Dissertation: ‘This is Me Right Here’: in Service Award. August Wilson and Pittsburgh’s Hill District Linda Kinnahan, director; Anne Brannen, Magali Cornier Michael presented “Viewing 9/11 through the Lens of the Crime Thriller: first reader; Magali Michael, second Jess Walter’s The Zero” at ‘Narrative: An International Conference,’ held this April in St. reader Louis. Dr. Michael also won the McAnulty College and Graduate School’s 2011 Faculty Excellence in Scholarship Award. Amy Criniti Phillips, Ph.D. Dissertation: Private Reader, Public Emad Mirmotahari published Islam in the Eastern African Novel (Palgrave, 2011). Redactor: Narrative Strategies of the Nineteenth-Century Female Revisionist Jim Purdy co-published “Valuing Digital Scholarship: Exploring the Changing Realities Laura Callanan, director; Laura Engel, first of Intellectual Work,” along with Joyce R. Walker, in Profession (2010) and received the reader; Daniel Watkins, second reader 2010 Ellen Nold Award for the Best Article in Computers and Composition Studies for the article. He also presented “More than Delivery: Thoughts on Writing an Open Text as a Knowledge-Making Practice” and “Making a Case for Tenure and Promotion within/ outside Rhetoric and Composition,” at the ‘Conference on College Composition and Communication’ held this April in Atlanta.

Tim Vincent published “Subjective Deformation: Expressionism and the Modernist Child” in Red Feather Journal (Oklahoma State U). He also had an essay, “From Sympathy to Empathy: Baudelaire, Vischer, and Early Modernism” accepted by the journal Mosaic (U of Manitoba) for an upcoming special issue on the intersection of poetry and philosophy.

www.duq.edu/english 6 Caroline Bergvall Upcoming Speaks at Duquesne Events On February 15, the English Department and the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies joined together to bring Caroline Bergvall to campus for a talk and reading. Sudhir Venkatesh Bergvall, an international writer based in London, works across multiple art forms, Wednesday, November 2, 2011 and her projects include books, audio pieces, performances, and installations. As 7:00 p.m., Power Center a teacher, theorist, poet, and artist, she has been associated with communities of As part of the First-Year Honors experimental poetry and performance writing in Britain. She helped to found the Writing Seminar, the eminent Performance Writing Program at Dartington College of Arts in England, and her Columbia University sociologist Sudhir own critical writing theorizes constructions of gender and the body in relation to Venkatesh will be giving a lecture to the language and performance. Her creative projects engage with contemporary Duquesne community on November 2, theory and experiment with visual and verbal forms, investigating relations between 2011, at 7:00 p.m. in the Power Center. language, historical and socio-political contexts, and subjectivity. Recent projects The lecture will also be open to the include re-workings of Dante and Chaucer, as well as linguistic responses to public, and we encourage our alumni photographic representations of gender by the Surrealist artist Hans Bellmer and to attend! the contemporary photographer Cindy Sherman. The American poet-critic Charles Bernstein claims that “Caroline Bergvall has emerged over the past decade as one Venkatesh’s Gang Leader for a Day tells of the most brilliantly inventive poets of our time.” Her work has been presented the story of his time as a graduate internationally, including at Dia, MoMA, The Serpentine Gallery, Tate Modern, and student at the University of Chicago, The Hammer Museum. She has held teaching residencies at Dartington College living with and writing on street gangs of Arts, Bard College, and Temple University and an AHRC Fellow in the Creative in Chicago’s Robert Taylor Homes and Performing Arts. Her newest book, MEDDLE ENGLISH: New and Selected Texts, housing project. The book, intended appeared this spring from Nightwood Books and gathers important work from the for a general audience, is not only a past decade. fascinating story and an eye-opening perspective on the daily lives of the Speaking at Duquesne to a packed crowd of sixty or so people, Bergvall presented urban poor, but also a meditation on an overview of her work’s concerns and read selections from Meddle English. Venkatesh’s experience learning how to She also showed a piece of a film of her recent installation,Caroline Bergvall: survive, and communicate, in two very Middling English, which opened in September 2010 at the John Hansard Gallery different worlds (the academic groves in Southhampton, England. More information on Bergvall and virtual access to her and the urban streets). work can be found at the following websites: http://www.carolinebergvall.com/ and http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/bergvall/

7 McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts 600 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15282

Labriola Memorial Library Fund “Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.” —John Milton

Over nearly four decades of teaching at Duquesne, Dr. Albert C. Labriola introduced thousands of students to the great works of Milton, Shakespeare and others. Some of these women and men followed in Dr. Labriola’s footsteps as scholars; many others pursued successful careers in a variety of fields. Yet all were enlightened by his passionate teaching and research. Decades later, countless alumni associate pivotal moments in their lives with passages from the enduring works of literature he explored and explained. In deep gratitude, we seek to keep his spirit alive forever.

The English Department of the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts and the Gumberg Library established the Dr. Albert C. Labriola Memorial Library Fund in 2009. This endowment is used to perpetually support the purchase of literature volumes, which are recommended by the English Department faculty and housed in the library’s collection.

Your reverent expression of thanks through a donation to this fund will extend Dr. Labriola’s love for learning, sparking transcendent moments of awe for generations of students to come.

For more information or to contribute to the Labriola Memorial Library Fund, please contact:

Bernadette Krueger Associate Director, Annual Giving 401 Administration Building Duquesne University 600 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15282

Phone: 412.396.4936 | E-mail: [email protected]