Current News

Faculty and staff are invited to participate in the Humanities Alumni Society's 2^nd Annual Golf Outing on May 19 at Westchester Golf Course in Canal Winchester. Proceeds from the event benefit the Humanities Alumni Scholarship Fund which provides support to Humanities undergraduate students. For details, visit our COH Alumni Golf Outing page. Contact: Shari Lorbach, 688-4532 or lorbach.1@osu.edu.

Brenda Jo Brueggemann, English, and Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson, eds.: Disability and the Teaching of Writing, Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007.

David Herman, English: "Recontextualizing Character: Role-Theoretic Frameworks for Narrative Analysis," Semiotica 1651/4 (2007): 191-204.

Graduate student Ivonne García, English, has received a Marilyn Yarbrough Dissertation/Teaching Fellowship for the 2007-2008 academic year at Kenyon College.

Cynthia Selfe and H. Lewis Ulman, English, have received a $40,000 Innovation Grant from the College of Humanities to help fund the creation of the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives (DALN, a national, public repository of stories submitted by individuals about own personal literacy practices and values) that will be developed with the help of OhioLink. The initial stages of this project involve collaborating with Brenda Brueggeman, Richard Selfe, and a departmenal GRA to collect an initial group of literacy narratives from deaf and hard of hearing individuals; working with OhioLink to design an online interface for the DALN; and holding a small working conference at OSU in the Spring of 2008 to test the web interface for the DLAN. In subsequent stages, the DALN will be put online so that anyone can submit their own literacy narratives and so that scholars, literacy workers, and members of the public can access and study these narratives.

Graduate student Ivonne García, English, presented "Indigenizing the Transnational: Queen Lili'uokalani's Story," Conference on College Composition and Communication, New York City, March 23.

Kenneth Goings, African American and African Studies, presented "The Classics, Church/College Politics, and the 'Firing' of Professor William S. Scarborough," co-authored and presented with Eugene O'Connor as part of a session entitled "Classical Studies at Wilberforce University," annual meeting of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South, Cincinnati, April 11-14.

Graduate student Julie O'Leary Green, English, presented "New Approaches to Setting in Narrative: Rhetorical and Cognitive Perspectives on Place in Their Eyes Were Watching God," International Conference on Narrative, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., March 15.

Graduate student Lauren Kulesza, English, presented "Watching the Detectives: Copycat as Women's Detective Fiction" at the PCA/ACA National Conference, Boston, April 7.

Lee Martin, English, read from his fiction at Miami University of Ohio, Oxford, April 5.

Lecturer Viola Newton, African American and African Studies, was a guest speaker at the 32^nd Annual National Conference for the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), The Ohio State University Chapter, Columbus, March 30. Dr. Newton focused on the theme "Foundation, Impact, Revitalize, and Empower (F.I.R.E.)," emphasizing her background in mathematics and teaching African American Studies.

Graduate student Kimberly Thompson, English, presented "Laughing at and Laughing with Merchants: The Middle English Octavian Romances," Wittenberg English Department Colloquium Series, Springfield, Ohio, March 29.

Diane Goldstein (Memorial University) will present "Appropriating Personal Voices and the Vernacular Politics of Genre: Racist and Counter-Racist Constructions of Katrina," 3:30 pm, April 19, 311 Denney Hall. There will also be a brown bag lunch, noon, April 19, 308 Dulles Hall, where students will have the chance to meet with and chat informally with Professor Goldstein. Contact: Center for Folklore Studies, 688-3639.

Pearl Cleage (novelist, playwright, contributing writer to Essence magazine) will present "The Writer's Role in Wartime," 7:00 pm, April 19, Fawcett Center Auditorium 2400 Olentangy River Road, for the President and Provost's 2006-07 Diversity Lecture & Cultural Arts Series. Co-sponsors are the College of the Arts and Sciences and the Department of English.

Katherine Burkman, English, is directing "Yoga Warriors," an original play which opens at the Columbus Dance Theatre, 592 E. Main, and plays April 19, 20, 21 at 8:00 pm and April 22 at 2:00 pm. The play is about a group of people at a yoga retreat who are struggling with their lives and relationships. Not entirely reverent, the play explores the struggle for peace. Tickets: $20 or $15 students/seniors or $10 groups of 5 or more; reservations needed. Contact: burkman.2@osu.edu or 457-6580. Visit the Department of English Web site for more information.

Gender and Ethnicity Across Divides, the CIRIT 5^th Annual Symposium: Gender & Women's Social Rights, will begin at 10:00 am, April 20, Knight House, 104 East 15^th Avenue. Contact: Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities, 688-0265.

Alan Farmer, English, will present "Newsbooks and History Plays in Caroline England," 2:30 pm, April 20, 206 Hagerty Hall, in a Faculty Colloquium. Contact: Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 292-7495.

Nie Zhenzhao (University of Chicago) will present "Hamlet and Literary Ethics," 4:00 pm, April 23, Knight House, 104 East 15^th Avenue, for the Narrative and Cognition Working Group. Contact: Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities, 688-0265.

Susan Schreiner (University of Chicago) will present "A Distant Mirror: The Tyranny of the Present," 4:30 pm, April 26, 090 Science & Engineering Library, in the Religion and the Academy: Enduring Issues, New Approaches Series. Contact: Program in the Study of Religions, 688-8010.

Graduate students Vera Dukaj, Shawn Casey, and Cormac Slevin, English, will present "Linking Literacies in Composition, Technology, and Copyright" 11:30 am, April 27, Knight House, 104 East 15^th Avenue, for the Graduate Student Interdisciplinary Seminar on Literacy Studies. Contact: Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities, 688-0265.

The Film Aesthetics and European Cinema: the Seventh European Cinema Research Forum will be held April 27-29 at the Blackwell Inn and will feature forty speakers from various universities in the UK, US, Canada, and Singapore. The keynote speakers are Janet Bergstrom (UCLA) and Tom Gunning (University of Chicago), and the panels include: Film and Other Media, Time and Film Aesthetics, Film (out from) under Dictatorship, The European and the National, Institutions and Aesthetics, Geo-Social Spaces, Film/Theory, Film (as) Fetish, Avant Garde in the 60s and 70s, and Informatics and the Digital in Cinema. Sponsors include the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences Office of the Executive Dean, The Office of International Affairs, the Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities, the Departments of History of Art, Germanic Languages and Literatures, Spanish and Portuguese, French and Italian, East Asian Languages and Literatures, Women's Studies, English, Theatre, and Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures. Read more about the forum on the Film Studies Web site. Contact: filmstudies@osu.edu.

Brian Joseph, Linguistics and Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures, will present "Why We Need History in Balkan Linguistics," 3:30 pm, April 27, Faculty Club, for the 10^th Annual Kenneth E. Naylor Memorial Lecture in South Slavic Linguistics. Papers and Remembrances will be presented throughout the day in honor of the memory of Professor Naylor. Contact: Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures, 292-6733.

Faculty and staff are invited to the College's 13^th annual Baccalaureate at 3:30 pm, Saturday, June 9, in 131 Hitchcock Hall. Alumnus Craig Zimpher (B.A./M.A. History) will give the Baccalaureate address. Mr. Zimpher is vice president of government relations for Nationwide. RSVP College of Humanities, 292-1882. Please encourage graduating students to participate.

The Department of African American and African Studies Community Extension Center is currently accepting applications for its Summer Residential Program for High School Juniors and Seniors, June 17-23. The theme of this year's program is "Bookmarks: African Americans in a Cultural Revolution." During this week-long program students will engage in a focused study of the remarkable achievements of African American artists from Blacks in Vaudeville to the crossover into mainstream culture. Application deadline is April 18. For more information, visit the Community Center Web site to download an application or contact Chauncey Beaty, 292-3922.