UW-L English Studies Blog

Three English Department Capstone Presentations This Week -- May 7, 8, 9

The next three Capstone Colloquia featuring presentations by Rhetoric & Writing and Literature Majors will take place this week.  A brief question-and-answer period follows each presentation. Light refreshments will be served. Please drop in for any or all of the presentations and encourage your students to attend.

Tuesday, May 7^th   (259 Cartwright)      

Rhetoric and Writing Capstone Colloquium:

9:00-10:30am

·         Olivia Allen: “Like us on Facebook. A look at Social Media in Today's Economy”

·         Rose Davey: “Growing Pains: Capitalism and the Commerce of Hurt”

·         Michael Gibson: “Redundancy, Mediocrity, and Merit in Online Culture”

·         Xiaoqi Wu: “Do Translators need to be Creative?”

11:00-12:30pm

·         Caleb Brown: “Missing the Meaning”

·         Megan Couch:  “The Growing Implications of Social Media in Student Administrative Affairs”

·         Melissa Holen:  “Affirmative Action: A Progressive Initiative or An Outdated Program?”

·         Mitch Marty: “Control of Cultural Objects in the Digital Marketplace”

 

Wednesday, May 8^th  (3214 Centennial Hall)      

Literature Capstone Colloquium:

8:45-10:40am   

·         Ashley Dillard: “Questioning the Boundaries of Humanity: Gender and Species in Chaucer's ‘Parliament of Fowls’”

·         Amber Griffin: “Crime and Punishment’s Ambiguities through a Sociological Lens”

·         Phillip Hernandez: “Crash: A Linguistic Analysis of the Impact of Race on Language”

·         Rachael Hillegass: “Food as a Means of Feminine Resistance in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar”

·         Patrick Lee: “Decentering Ellison and Eliot: Implications of Intertextuality”

·         Ryan O'Grady: “The Heritage of Spanish, the Importance of English, and the Language of Assimilation: A Study of Spanglish and its Role in Benjamin Alire Sáez's Sammy & Juliana in Hollywood”

·         Sarah Pedretti: “Nature and Human Relations: William Wordsworth’s The Prelude through Humanist, Post-Humanist, and Christian Stewardship Perspectives”

·         Teresa Turner: “The Transition of Fairy Tales from Then to Now”

·         Andrew Wolcott: “Blood in the Gutters: Trauma and Time in Spiegelman's Maus”

 

Thursday, May 9^th   (259 Cartwright)      

Rhetoric and Writing Capstone Colloquium:

9:00-10:30am

·         Elizabeth Bowman: “The Emergence of Digital Art: Breaking New Ground and Dissociating the Human”

·         Natalie Goodman:”(De)constructing the Gender Binary”

·         David Briggs: “The Compensation of Independence: How Digital Media and Direct Sales Are Finally Making Creativity Both Popular and Practical”

·         Xi Ming Yu: “Crisis on Public Transportation: Analyses and Suggestions”

·         Rebecca Franzel: “Voices Behind the Screen: Social Change Through Anonymity or Pseudonymity in the Digital Age”

11:00-12:30pm

·         Emily Jones: “Technical Communication and Perceptions on Disability”

·         Lindsey Casto: “Choosing your Words Wisely: Rhetorical Ethics in Technical and Professional Writing”

·         Amanda Specktor: “The Value of the Arts and Arts Education”

·         Nicole Meulemans: “Language Revolution through Digital Technology”

College Writing I Symposium - Friday, April 26th, 9:00-2:00, Hall of Nations, Centennial Hall

On Friday, April 26th, 2013, the UW-L English Department will host the second annual UW-L College Writing I Symposium.  UW-L students currently enrolled in our ENG 110 and 112 (College Writing I) courses will present original papers on a wide variety of research topics.

There will be multiple hour-long paper sessions that will begin at 9:00 am, 10:30 am, and 1:00 pm. Please come to the registration and welcome room in the Hall of Nations, Centennial Hall, and join us for one, two, or all three sessions.  Together, we will celebrate the work of our College Writing I students. If you have questions, contact Dr. Darci Thoune, Freshman Writing Program Coordinator, at dthoune@uwlax.edu or 608-785-6921. 

Science and Chinese Buddhism - May 2nd, 4:30-6:30, 3212 Centennial Hall.

The English Department is sponsoring a pair of presentations on Science and Chinese Buddhism on May 2nd at 4:30 in 3212 Centennial Hall. 

Master Xianqi
"The Scientific Spirit in the Development of Chinese Buddhism" 

Ven. Xianqi, PhD, is a member of the Management Committee of Beijing Longquan Monastery, in charge of the Charity Dept. (Beijing Ren Ai Charity Foundation), the Culture Dept., Voice of Longquan website, Beijing Great Sinology Foundation, and the Cartoon and Animation Group. 

Master Xianwei 
“The Dialogue Between Buddhism and Science” 

Ven. Xianwei, MA and ABD, is Secretary to the Management Committee of Beijing Longquan Monastery.

"The Quest for Knightly Identity: Knight-Errant or Knight-Domestic?" - March 8th, 2:30-3:30, Wimberly 113

A Presentation of the English Department's William J. and Yvonne Hyde Colloquium Series.

Dr. Rebekah Fowler, English Department faculty member, will continue the English Department’s 2012-2013 William J. and Yvonne Hyde Colloquium Series with a presentation entitled "The Quest for Knightly Identity: Knight-Errant or Knight-Domestic?"  Medieval romances are rife with tales of knight errantry, but what happens when a knight wishes to replace a life of adventure and tournaments with one of domestic stability and defense of home and family? In this presentation, Dr. Fowler will examine how Chrétien de Troyes’ Yvain, ou le Chevalier au Lion represents the emergence of the "domestic knight" as an alternative knightly identity to the more common romance ideal of the knight errant. In particular, she will consider the social construction of masculine identity and the quest for suitable social (and individual?) roles. The presentation runs from 2:30-3:30 p.m. on Friday, March8^th, in 113 Wimberly Hall. The event is free and open to the public. To arrange for disability accommodations, contact english@uwlax.edu or call 785-8295.

Rhetoric and Writing Senior Presentations - December 11th, 11:00-12:30, Wimberly 229

On December 11th, from 11:00-12:30, in Wimberly 229, senior Rhetoric and Writing majors who are currently taking English 413 will present papers engaging some of the most pressing issues in contemporary writing studies, including e-publishing, political rhetoric, and posthuman representations. 

Presenters:

Jessica Haugen
Amanda McAllister
Melissa Moss
Kathleen Powers
Cassandra Schwarzenstein 

The presentations are free and open to the public and everyone is welcome to attend!

 

 

“The Battle Without Killing: Eliza Haywood and the Politics of Attempted Rape” - December 7th, 2:30-3:30, Wimberly 113

A Presentation of the English Department's William J. and Yvonne Hyde Colloquium Series. 

Dr. Kate Parker, English Department faculty member, will continue the English Department’s 2012-2013 William J. and Yvonne Hyde Colloquium Series with a presentation entitled “The Battle Without Killing: Eliza Haywood and the Politics of Attempted Rape.”  This presentation brings eighteenth-century poetry into conversation with the burgeoning domestic novel through a case study of Haywood’s The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless (1751) and its mock-heroic depictions of attempted rape.  Dr. Parker contends that, through Haywood’s parodic and often disturbingly comic representations of sexual violence, she both instantiates and resists a mock-heroic model of rape (elsewhere exemplified by poems like Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock) that trivializes both the female experience of desire and the social dynamics of courtship in eighteenth-century fiction. The presentation runs from 2:30-3:30 p.m. on Friday, December7^th, in 113 Wimberly Hall. The event is free and open to the public. To arrange for disability accommodations, contact english@uwlax.edu or call 785-8295.

Dessa -- essayist, rapper, and spoken word artist -- November 27th, 6:00-7:15 -- Valhalla

We are excited to welcome Dessa Darling to UWL as a speaker on Tuesday, November 27th, 6:00-7:15 pm in Valhalla, meet-and-greet to follow in the Ward Room.  

Dessa is an essayist, rapper and spoken word artist from Minneapolis, MN.  For the past 7 years Dessa has been involved in the Minneapolis hip-hop scene as a member of the rap-collective Doomtree. In addition, Dessa has released two solo projects, A Badly Broken Code and Castor, The Twin. Dessa has also published a collection of essays (Spiral Bound), taught at Smith McNally College of Music, and writes for The Star Tribune.  Dessa visits to speak on the ethical relationships between art, academia, language, and class -- she is locating this particular discussion in rap, but the ramifications of the talk will be wide-reaching. 

"'Milk for the pussens': Animality in James Joyce's Ulysses" -- November 16th, 2:30-3:30, Wimberly 113

A Presentation of the English Department's William J. and Yvonne Hyde Colloquium Series. 

Dr. Adam Putz, IAS faculty in English, will continue the English Department's 2012-2013 William J. and Yvonne Hyde Colloquium Series with a presentation entitled "'Milk for the pussens': Animality in James Joyce's Ulysses." Dr. Putz will present findings from his research trip to Trinity College, Dublin, which was supported over the summer by the National Endowment for the Humanities and UWL's International Development Fund. His archival work at TCD focused on the Royal Zoological Society in order to reconnect the configurations of animality in Ulysses to representations of poverty that begin but do not end with Bloom and his cat. Therefore, this paper interrogates Joyce's investment in the larger project of not only blurring the boundaries between the city's built and natural environments, but also between its human and nonhuman inhabitants. The presentation runs from 2:30-3:30 p.m. on Friday, November 16^th, in 113 Wimberly Hall. The event is free and open to the public. To arrange for disability accommodations, contact english@uwlax.edu or call 785-8295.

 

Crossing the Tigris - November 1st, 4:00-6:00pm, Murphy Library Special Collections

November 1, 2012
Murphy Library Special Collections
4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Please join us to meet the artists and hear them read excerpts from their work, followed by a panel discussion of their creative process, collaboration and the provocative subject matter.

Summary:

Crossing the Tigris is a limited edition artist book created by the collaboration of Brian Borchardt, Caren Heft and Jeff Morin. Three letterpress books contained in a collage, handmade paper box houses stories from the Iraq war. The regional ephemera preserved in this collection fall into the realm of hildhood treasures. From the presses, "The inside of the container sets the stage for juvenile battle. These are the props for pretend war.” When confronted with the grittiness of war, do these ill-prepared soldiers simply break with reality? Are they taught that they are above the law? Neither the container nor the three books answer the questions posed above. This collaboration is intended to catalyze a conversation about the nature of change that allows potentially decent people to commit indecent acts.

"Disgust before Disgust: Repulsion in Renaissance Literature" -- October 12th, 2:30-3:30, Wimberly 113

A Presentation of the English Department's William J. and Yvonne Hyde Colloquium Series.

Dr. Natalie Eschenbaum, English Department faculty member, will continue the English Department's 2012-2013 William J. and Yvonne Hyde Colloquium Series with a presentation entitled "Disgust before Disgust: Repulsion in Renaissance Literature." The word "disgust" did not enter the English language until 1598. In this presentation, Dr. Eschenbaum will consider how literary texts expressed the powerful emotion of aversion as this new word was coming into being.  She will address such questions as:  How and why did early modern English individuals experience revulsion, and how and why did they express this revulsion in poetry, plays, and prose?  What does it mean for literature to instruct, to delight, and to disgust?  The presentation runs from 2:30-3:30 p.m. on Friday, October 12^th, in 113 Wimberly Hall. The event is free and open to the public. To arrange for disability accommodations, contact english@uwlax.edu or call 785-8295.