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The Department of English
Alumni Newsletter - December 2018
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Donations to the Department of English have been used for student scholarships and travel support, to bring important guests to campus, and more. Please give today.
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Welcome from the Acting Chair
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| Dear Alumni and Friends: Greetings and many warm wishes for a loving and joyous holiday season from all of us in the English Department. I particularly am thankful to my colleague, Mary Jean Corbett, for serving as Acting Chair this fall semester so that I could take an Assigned Research Appointment before beginning a full term as Department Chair. I am excited to begin full time at the helm on January 1, 2019. We have much to be thankful for this year, most notably the successes of our students, faculty, and staff. My wooly winter hat is off to you, our alumni, for your remarkable achievements. I proffer a sampling of your wonderful accomplishments, with the promise to share more with you over the years if you promise to share them with me so that I can brag about you. If you wish to host a book club this winter, you couldn’t do better than to focus on your fellow English Department alumni, perhaps starting with: - Jennifer Harford Vargas (BA 2002), whose book Forms of Dictatorship: Power, Narrative, and Authoritarianism in the Latina/o Novel came out from Oxford University Press last December.
- Sami Schalk (BA 2008), who will visit campus this February 22 to keynote Miami’s Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality Symposium has recently published her book, Bodyminds Reimagined: (Dis)Ability, Race, and Gender in Black Women’s Speculative Fiction.
- Jay Dolmage (PhD 2006) has a new book out as well, Disabled Upon Arrival: Eugenics, Immigration, and the Construction of Race and Disability.
- Megan Giddings (MA 2013), who received a 2018 Barbara Deming Memorial fund grant for feminist fiction, will publish her novel, Lakewood, with Amisted Press in 2020.
- If memoir is more your cup of tea, Matt Young’s (MA 2015) Eat the Apple is being reissued in paperback this February.
- And if you want to relax after all of your intense reading, singer-songwriter Griffin House (BA 2002) has just released a new album, So on and So Forth.
Lest you think the faculty are slacking in comparison to our wonderful alumni, here is a brief sample of our new work to incorporate into your book group: - Tara Shea Nesbit’s “The Mothering Class,” was named one of the best five essays of 2017 by Salon.com.
- Daisy Hernández whose memoir, A Cup of Water Under My Bed was just translated into Spanish, also brought out a new edition of her co-edited anthology of writings by young women of color, Colonize This!
- Keith Tuma, who has graciously taken over the directorship of our Low Residency MFA program upon founding director Eric Goodman’s retirement, has a new collection of poetry, Climbing into the Orchestra: Selected and New Poems.
- Tory Pearman’s Disability and Knighthood in Malory's Morte D'arthur is hot off the press for those of you who were fans of Arthurian legend even before Game of Thrones made medievalism fashionable.
- Heidi McKee and James Porter recently published Professional Communication and Network Interaction to put on your writing and rhetoric bookshelf alongside Michele Simmons’ Lean Technical Communication: Toward Sustainable Program Innovation, and Elizabeth Wardle’s Composition, Rhetoric, and Disciplinarity.
- Erin Edwards just published The Modernist Corpse: Posthumanism and the Posthumous. You can read her musings on the subject in her blog post for the University of Minnesota Press.
- Returning to the local scene, Diana Royer co-edited a commemorative collection of Hamilton, OH author Fannie Hurst’s letters, Fannie Hurst, In Her Own Words 1952-1968.
- Alas, we have not released any music albums this year, but cris cheek, whose Pickles and Jams came out in 2017, has continued his practice of live performance in his Augmented Reality series.
- I will leave you with this oldie but goodie, featuring many of your former English professors attempting to dance in sync.
No doubt you are all voracious readers, but I am hoping this list of English Department publications will keep you busy until our summer newsletter. In the meantime, please do keep in touch with your news, questions, and suggestions. We would like to make a regular feature of listing books and major productions by alumni in the winter newsletter so that you know what to put on your wish lists for the holidays. With admiration, gratitude, and best wishes for a happy and healthy 2019, Madelyn Detloff
Professor and Chair
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Expanding the Classroom: Big Cats Visit Environmental Lit Course
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| Professor Anita Mannur’s ENG 495E Postcolonial Environments capstone class had some very unique visitors to end the semester. The Cincy Big Cat Ambassador Program brought a cheetah, ocelot, housecat, and a dog to class to spark discussions on conservation and adaptation.
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| Learn about iNTRA, a Professional Development Program
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Faculty Research Accolades
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| Professors Gwendolyn Etter-Lewis, Cynthia Klestinec, and Kaara Peterson (L to R, above) were each awarded distinctive appointments.
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| Where Are They Now? Judi Ketteler Alumni Spotlight Catch up with Judi Ketteler, who graduated with a MA in literature and now works full-time as a freelance writer, publishing work in The New York Times, The LA Times, The Washington Post, as well as creating content marketing and copywriting for various businesses. “I really learned how to write, and write better, during my time at Miami, which has certainly contributed to my work today.”
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| 356 Bachelor Hall • 301 S. Patterson Ave. • Oxford, OH 45056
Phone: 513-529-5221 • Email: english@MiamiOH.edu
© 2018 Miami University
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