Friends of English DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH / VOL. 1 NO. 1 SPRING 2008 Writing the first letter in decades More than anything, then, the object of this letter is to to alumni and friends of the begin a process of reaching out to our alumni—in the im- English Department at Case mediate area or wherever they may be—and letting them Western Reserve is a daunting know what’s going on in the department. rhetorical task. Why now? What particular claims do we have on We think it is an especially good time to do so. The major people’s attention? To explain is thriving, and the graduate program is strong. Our fac- properly, it’s best to begin at the ulty are publishing significant books, scholarly, fictional, beginning. and nonfictional. They continue to be nominated for major teaching and mentoring awards. Our efforts to launch an It began in late summer 2007. Some of us who were hired innovative Center for the Study of Writing have had initial in the 1970s and are still around remembered the old success in attracting support, as has our work to grow the Sherry Hours, and the poets and speakers who visited and Salomon Fund, which provides vital support to graduate read here in the heyday of Bob Wallace and Bits Press— students. The newer faculty who have joined us in the past John Updike, Allen Ginsberg, Mary Oliver. Hoping to few years have added depth and vibrancy to our programs. make current students and faculty more aware of the We have just hired a specialist in early modern literature department’s history and some of its great traditions, we (who can teach Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton) and a held a “First Annual Alumni Poetry Reading” in October specialist in rhetoric—digital and visual as well as tradi- 2007. Bonnie Jacobson (BA ’81), Al Cahen (MA ’69), and tional. In short, we’re on something of a roll. P. K. Saha read to a standing-room-only crowd in Guilford Parlor and brought down the house. We feel we learned something this year, too. We learned— or were reminded—of the importance of the department’s Encouraged by the success of the reading, we decided past and the many ways in which increased contact with to make a major effort to reach out to a bigger circle of the traditions, events, and people that are the department’s friends. In March 2008, we invited area alumni to a recep- history and legacy can enrich our lives and programs in the tion at the University’s new Alumni House at which we present. At the same time, we learned that such contact can celebrated important books recently published by profes- enrich the lives of our alumni. sors Gup, Koenigsberger, Marling, Spadoni, and Umrigar. Attendance was again encouraging, and talking with the So get ready—this is just the beginning. We want to keep Cleveland-area alumni who attended was instructive. After you informed about what we’re doing. We plan to have greeting old friends I hadn’t seen in years, I made a point more events like the ones this year. We hope that many of of introducing myself to a gentleman I didn’t recognize. you can attend, and we’ll seek your support for exciting He was an alumnus from the 1940s. I asked, Did he know new programs. anybody present? No, he didn’t. After a few more minutes, I asked him why he’d come. With a hint of a smile he said, What was it somebody or other said: “Only connect”? I “I just wanted to see what was going on in the department couldn’t have put it better myself. after all this time.” I came away convinced there are a lot of Sincerely, people out there like him. William R. Siebenschuh, Chair Salomon Dissertation Fellowship Former undergrads will remember Meanwhile, the generosity of Roger Salomon as the man who our alumni seeded a dissertation introduced them to the intricacies of fellowship in Roger’s name, which James Joyce or the wonders of modern has been helping to support worthy American literature. Graduate alumni graduate students since 2003. This may have sharper, deeper memories. year the department decided to use For years and years Roger interviewed the remaining funds to establish a every applicant to the graduate program permanent endowment. We hope that who could travel to Cleveland, and his if you are thinking of donating to the judgment on their achievements and University, you will consider helping Betty and Roger Salomon promise was unerring. us grow the Salomon Dissertation You may also recall the many times Fellowship fund. Not that he let you off easily, for he Roger and his wife Betty opened their legendarily refused to accept work he home for holiday parties, receptions for regarded as unfinished or unpolished. visiting writers and scholars, and events Remember the “incompletes” he devoted to the other arts (painting and insisted on at the end of the semester, dance especially) that they supported. to give you time to continue revising For information about giving to Well, Roger retired some years your seminar paper until it met his the Salomon Fund or other English back, leaving others of us to initiate department programs, please con- standards? How could you forget, for students in Joyce and vet grad student tact Harriet Wadsworth in the Arts once you finished your coursework, he applications, but he and Betty remain and Sciences development office. was the one you sought out as a mentor. involved in the life of the department. No one directed more dissertations than Email: [email protected] As the accompanying photo attests, Roger did in the last decades of the 20th Phone: (216) 368-6243 or they continue to host the annual century. (800) 360-5308 Christmas party with unchanged grace and generosity. Department Faculty Sarah Gridley, MFA James Kuzner, PhD Robert Spadoni, PhD Lecturer and Poet in Assistant Professor Assistant Professor Kimberly Emmons, PhD Residence Renaissance literature; Film Assistant Professor Shakespeare Rhetoric and composition; medical Mary Grimm, MFA Gary Stonum, PhD rhetoric Associate Professor William Marling, PhD Ovatt Professor Fiction writing Professor American literature; literary theory Christopher Flint, PhD American literature; Associate Professor Ted Gup, JD modernism Thrity Umrigar, PhD Eighteenth-century British litera- Shirley Wormser Professor Associate Professor ture; history of the novel Journalism Todd Oakley, PhD Journalism; fiction writing Associate Professor T. Kenny Fountain, PhD Megan Jewell, PhD Linguistics Athena Vrettos, PhD Assistant Professor Lecturer and Director of the Writ- Associate Professor and Graduate Scientific and technical communi- ing Resource Center Judith Oster, PhD Director cation; visual rhetoric Nineteenth-century American Professor Victorian literature; history of literature; poetics American literature; English as a medicine Jessica Gerard, PhD second language Lecturer and Coordinator of ESL Kurt Koenigsberger, PhD Martha Woodmansee, PhD and Literacy Programs Associate Professor & William Siebenschuh, PhD Professor of English and Law Second-language writing; literacy Director of Composition Professor and Chair Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century studies; applied linguistics Twentieth-century Eighteenth-century British litera- literature; intellectual property law British literature; postcolonial ture; auto/biography literature A New Center for the Study of Writing After several years of discussion and planning, the publishing support services to the University and University department has established a Center for the Study of Writing Circle communities. These three functions are integrally (CSW). Centers can be useful, Martha Woodmansee related, Woodmansee explained, “yet no university that we explains, because they cut across departments, drawing know of has thought to try to wed them. By combining university-wide attention and resources to big issues that the advantages of a major research center with a robust affect all of us. curriculum and support of the University community’s real writing and publishing activities, we anticipate that the CSW “Writing is an issue of this kind if there ever was one,” will distinguish us nationally.” Woodmansee says. Press coverage of the “literacy crisis” has put writing at the center of public debate. There is growing The CSW initiative is already resonating across campus, recognition of its centrality to research and teaching in every Woodmansee reported. “We’re especially encouraged by the discipline—to knowledge production generally. But English, support we’re finding among our alums.” Generous gifts from Marilyn McCulloch (FSM ’50) and from Edward S. Sadar, M.D. (ADL ’64, SOM ’68) and Melinda Melton Sadar (FSM ’66) will support exciting new programming in the coming academic year. Melinda attended Flora Stone Mather College, as did her three sisters, Maurya Melton Smith, Emily Melton Chabel, and Brigid Melton Sullivan (professional name) Lopez. The Sadars’ donation to the CSW recognizes their mother, Jessica Sheldon Melton, who worked in the Center for Documentation and Communication Research at Western Marilyn McCulloch Woodmansee adds, “is the only discipline that makes writing an object of inquiry in its own right. The Center will draw attention to our unique contribution.” For too long, Woodmansee says, “English faculty in the U.S. have emphasized what divides them. They think of themselves as doing criticism and literary history, or composition, or creative writing. But our department wants to foreground and capitalize on what unites us.” The CSW Melinda and Edward Sadar is grounded on the conviction that “whatever our individual focuses may be, we all study and teach writing.” The Center Reserve University from the late 1950s into the late 1960s. will foster the study of writing in all of its aspects, including Details of the programming these donors are sponsoring may its material basis—its diverse technologies, sites, and be viewed on the CSW website (www.case.edu/artsci/engl/ economies; its conventions, forms, and pedagogies; and its writing/csw/index.html).