Volume 11 Issue 2 Spring 2008 NEWSLETTER OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AT ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY Healing Words Musical statement on the human cost of war fuses Indigenous themes with classical forms nemy Slayer: A Navajo Oratorio her creative skill to accomplish just that. relevant to today’s audience, it had to be premiered in Phoenix, February 7 “A successful collaboration includes faith,” fi ltered through a contemporary lens. Eand 9, 2008. Conducted by she says, “I had complete faith that Hence, a veteran who returns home must Michael Christie, with a score by Mark whatever Mark created would come from overcome the monsters he brings back Grey, the Phoenix Symphony performed a his integrity and honesty. I was writing from the war.” She adds, “Th e fusion… brilliant alliance of Indigenous oral what I knew about Navajo oral tradition creates a powerful statement about the tradition and Western classical and choral and writing poetry, while he composed aftermath of war. It creates a bridge music. Th e performance highlighted the from his training, experience, and artistic between two worlds using orchestra, fusion of Diné oral tradition with English sense.” voice, story, and imagery. It also affi rms language in a libretto by ASU Associate What makes Enemy Slayer remarkable is Diné language, oral literature, and the Professor Laura Tohe—whose native its present-day topical relevance to the power of music to bring everything cultural heritage is Diné (the cultural American public’s concern about the Iraq together artistically.” name preferred by the Navajo tribe of War, and the impact and toll of that war In conclusion, Tohe observed, “On one Arizona). level, Enemy Slayer expresses the torment Th e oratorio’s evocation of Diné cultural of the veteran protagonist and his need to sense of presence so impressed me that I heal, while on another level, it expresses asked Professor Tohe how she came to how war touches our lives personally, write the libretto. According to Tohe, communally, and nationally. If there is a composer Grey had in mind a concert resolution to be made—and I hope there composition with an Indigenous theme. is—it is that this country needs to He had “researched Navajo poets and my acknowledge the terrible toll that war work in New York City library holdings.” takes on returning veterans and on us as a She further explained how “in the sum- nation. While Seeker is restored through mer of 2006, he [Grey] contacted me… Diné ceremony, there must be other ways with the prospect of writing a Navajo for returning soldiers to heal.” creation story and asked if I would be From L to R: Michael Christie, conductor; Judging by the standing ovation Enemy Scott Hendricks, baritone; Laura Tohe, librettist; interested in writing the libretto for the Mark Grey, composer. Photo/Deborah O'Grady Slayer received at its premier, the impact oratorio.… I was challenged [by] the of the oratorio vision was very positive. idea….” on the American psyche. Seeker, the hero Th is vision was expressed wonderfully by Enemy Slayer is based loosely on Mon- and principal voice, sung by baritone the 150 member chorus—representing ster Slayer, a mythic fi gure in Diné oral Scott Hendricks, is an Indigenous combat Seeker’s home and national community— traditon. It is quite a leap in cultural veteran returning home to the Navajo in its lyrical recitation of a Diné prayer understanding to have Diné mythic Nation. Traumatized by war, he suff ers toward the end: knowledge conveyed and understood in a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) By means of corn pollen culture and language ostensibly diff erent symptoms like many Iraq War veterans. May there be hózhó before you from the original. Because composer Grey Tohe says, “Growing up around storytell- May there be hózhó below you imagined Enemy Slayer as an attempt to ers, I learned [that] stories of the past— May there be hózhó above you demonstrate events that happen in mythic or historic—are still relevant to May there be hózhó all around you. diff erent worlds as the same, Tohe off ered our lives today. To make the mythic story —SIMON ORTIZ Page 2 Th e Chair’s Corner New Faculty Books new energy pervades the Department of O M Brack, Jr., English. With ongoing Cajsa C. Baldini, ed. Tobias Smollett, A ed. Th e Cenci: A support from ASU’s President Scotland's First Tragedy in Five and Provost, we came together Novelist: New Acts: An Authorita- Essays in Memory during this semester’s fi rst weeks tive Text Based on to entertain campus visits for of Paul-Gabriel the 1819 Edition. Boucé. Univ. of ten national searches. Excellent Valancourt, 2008. Delaware Press, candidates from the best places 2007. around the country accepted our off ers with vitality and eagerness to grow, transform, and advance the Department’s excellence. Sharon Crowley Th at excellence is already Neal A. Lester Robert E. Bjork, R. D. Fulk, and and Michael showcased vividly by our faculty’s John D. Niles, Stancliff . Critical scholarship, creativity, and teaching. Maureen Daly Goggin eds. Klaeber’s Situations: A was acknowledged as “Faculty Exemplar”in the last tenure ‘Beowulf,’ 4th ed. Rhetoric for Writ- and promotion cycle, and Jim Blasingame was named Univ. of Toronto ing in Communi- “Outstanding College Teacher of Children’s or Young Adult Press, 2008. ties. Longman, Literature” by the International Reading Association and 2008. “Professor of the Year” by the ASU Parents Association. Th e Conference on College Composition and Communi- cation deemed Sharon Crowley’s Toward a Civil Discourse: Rhetoric and Fundamentalism “Outstanding Book,” and Rhetoric Review selected Keith Miller’s essay on the Rever- Sharon Crowley end Martin Luther King, Jr., as the “Best Essay.” and Debra Bettie Anne Hawhee. Ancient Doebler We also applaud our students’ accomplishments: English Lost Sheep. Club members presented at the 23rd Annual National Rhetorics for Contemporary PublishAmerica, Undergraduate Literature Conference at Weber State Uni- 2007. versity (Ogden, UT), and our graduate students accepted Students. 4th ed. Longman, 2008. tenure-track positions across the country. Inside and outside ASU, this Department is also collabo- rating with diverse communities. Th e Phoenix Symphony premiered Enemy Slayer: A Navajo Oratorio, with Laura Tohe as the librettist. Scholar Ned Blackhawk, jointly with the Heard Museum and ASU’s American Indian Studies Maureen Daly Program, launched the Simon Ortiz and Labriola Center Goggin, Lecture on Indigenous Land, Culture, and Community. Richard Bullock, Peter N. Goggin and Francine Alumnus Dan Shilling pledged to the Department half the Professing Literacy Weinberg. Th e in Composition proceeds from his new book Civic Tourism: Th e Poetry and Norton Field Studies.Hampton, Politics of Place. Creative Writing faculty Melissa Pritchard Guide to Writing 2008. initiated an outreach project with patients in the Kidney with Readings and Dialysis Unit at Phoenix Children’s Hospital. Handbook. W. W. Th e recent visit and lecture by Th e Matrix series actor Norton, 2007. Harry Lennix, coordinated by Ayanna Th ompson, best embodies the Department’s new energy. Speaking to a standing-room-only audience, Lennix pledged to return to ASU. Afterwards, he wrote to Th ompson: “Th e entire Neal A. Lester Peter Lehman and Maureen week was extremely affi rming for me, and I cannot think of Running Scared: a better use of my time and energy.… I have said it before Daly Goggin Masculinity and eds. Racialized and I think a repeat is warranted: I enjoy the exchange of the Representation Politics of Desire ideas with intelligent and invested people, just like you and of the Male Body. in Personal Ads. your colleagues.… I am eager to return there as soon as Wayne State Univ. Lexington/Row- time allows.” Press, 2007. man & Littlefi eld, Please join us in our growth and transformation! 2007. —NEAL A. LESTER [Eng-lish] (n.) Defi ne Yourself. SPRING 2008 Page 3 New Faculty Books Claudia Richard Newhauser Joe Lockard Sadowski-Smith and István Bejczy. A Watching Melissa Pritchard Border Fictions: Supplement to Mor- Slavery: Phoenix. Italian Globalization, Em- ton W. Bloomfi eld et Witness Texts translation of pire, and Writing at al., 'Incipits of Latin and Travel Phoenix (1991). the Boundaries of the Works on the Virtues Reports. Peter Palomar, 2007. United States. Univ. and Vices, 1100-1500 Lang, 2008. of Virginia Press, A.D.' Brepols, 2008. 2008. From Literature Scholar to Cultural and Environmental Activist oving from his native Pennsylvania to Tempe in ism, geotourism and other place-based activities.” In 2006, 1980 to pursue a PhD in eighteenth-century Brit- while Curator of Humanities at the Sharlot Hall Museum in Mish literature, Dan Shilling, Community Faculty Prescott, he organized the fi rst national Conference on Civic Associate, earned that degree Tourism. Th e conference generated so much enthusiasm that in 1987 with a dissertation on a second national conference is scheduled this fall in rhetorical strategies in essays Rhode Island. of Samuel Johnson. Little did Tourism is the world’s largest and fastest growing indus- he know this would lead him try, but it is often limited by corporate economics, which to a life of civic activism or Shilling calls “disaster tourism”—wherein little is authentic, “applied” humanities. After local voices are ignored, and most of the profi ts are funneled serving fi ve years as a program outside the communities that generate them. Th e antidote, director at the Arizona Hu- Shilling believes, is civic tourism. manities Council, he became Civic Tourism: Th e Poetry and Politics of Place (Sharlot Hall its Executive Director in 1989. Museum Press, 2007) is an outcome of this For the next 14 years, Shilling community-based ethos.