UW-L English Studies Blog

The UWL Poetry Club is hosting a reading and discussion with Dr. Lalita Hogan - Wednesday, April 24, 7:00-8:00pm, 3120 Union

The UWL Poetry Club is hosting a reading and discussion with Dr. Lalita Hogan, who will be reading from her book titled A Country Without Borders: Poems and Stories of Kashmir. Attendees are invited to bring a poem about their memories or experiences of "home" to share. Wednesday, April 24th, 7-8 pm, 3120 Union. Further Info: Marissa Davis ([email protected]) or Mya Lonnebotn ([email protected]).

“Transcorporeality and Eco-theory: A New Understanding of the Body” - Tuesday, April 23, 11:00-11:25am, Student Union, 3314

Graduating senior Mari Sweetman will present part of her honors thesis “Transcorporeality and Eco-theory: A New Understanding of the Body” on Tuesday, April 23 at 11:00-11:25 in the Student Union, Room 3314.  

“What is a body? Is it a mind, a soul, a physical form? The limits of the body are difficult to define. Experiences physical, mental, and emotional form a complex sensory existence, muddling what we understand to be a part of us. These are important to examine, for so much of what we do not only impacts us but all that is around us. Transcorporeality, a theory in which the body does not end with the physical or mental self but extends beyond, can help us grapple with this. In transcorporeality, the body becomes porous, ending not with the physical or mental, but with the actions, thoughts, feelings, and impacts of one’s actions. In this beings (both human and nonhuman) and matter are intermeshed within a web of consciousness and existence beyond human-centric thought. In response to a world damaged by this human-centric thought and action (i.e., human-driven climate change), I am compelled by the possibilities that an understanding of transcorporeality could bring to human understanding of human and nonhuman bodies, and the environment. In my oral presentation, I will address the connectedness between transcorporeality and the environment in through an exploration of both theoretical texts (including Alaimo, Barad, and Haraway) and  environmental literature (including Williams and Erdrich), with the aim of helping us go beyond our human-centric understanding of our own bodies in their interactions with the environment and in the marginalization of the bodies of others.”

“Robert Pirsig and Wallace Stegner: Crossing to Safety” - Friday, April 19, 2:30-3:30pm, Wimberly 104

Dr. Peter Olson will present “Robert Pirsig and Wallace Stegner: Crossing to Safety” on Friday, April 19 from 2:30-3:30 p.m. in Wimberly 104.

Robert Pirsig, the writer who transformed a startlingly original Chautauqua delving into the metaphysics of quality was also a reformer at the nexus of technology and art; Wallace Stegner, a writer raised on the plains of Saskatchewan, became the founder of Stanford’s creative writing program. Stegner divided his creative energies between didactic environmental writing and imaginative literature. Pirsig sought a reconciliation, perhaps futilely, between Western metaphysics and nominalist psychology. Pirsig’s book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance traces a complex narrative that combines travel journalism, nature writing, rhetorical exhortation, and the implications of an “undifferentiated aesthetic continuum,” through the development of his alter ego Phaedrus. Pirsig’s narrative is a chiasmus, a crossing that witnesses failure and reversal. Stegner explores human relationships that survive by means of trust and empathy even as his perspective remains critical and ironic of human potentialities that appear to be incapable of transcendence. Stegner’s environmental writing attributes human action to the willful harm done to the natural environment. Both authors recognize their own sense of contingency with respect to place—the West—and to American cultural dilemmas precipitated by late capitalism. Both authors attempt to address their contingency through a movement of return, a crossing to safety through their ability to translate their experience into art. Their connections to the landscape and commitments to direct and original seeing ultimately illuminate what Lawrence Buell terms the “environmental imagination.”

"Patterns, Negotiations, Ideologies: Designing Grading Contracts for Anti-racist Classrooms" - Friday, April 19, 11:00-12:00pm, UNION 3105

"Patterns, Negotiations, Ideologies: Designing Grading Contracts for Anti-racist Classrooms"

Presented by Virginia Schwarz

Friday, April 19. 2019

11 :00-12:00 - Presentation
12:00-1 :00 - Brown-bag Lunch

UNION 3105

UWL English Department presents the Spring 2019 Professional & Technical Writing Speaker Series

UWL English Department presents the Spring 2019 Professional & Technical Writing Speaker Series

UWL English alumni and other professionals will share their perspectives on professional and technical writing, offer job market advice, and discuss important skills for contemporary workplaces. All UWL students are welcome!

Mary Purdy
Marketing - Loyalty Coordinator
Kohl's Department Store
APRIL 11
6:00-7:30
WING 102

Peyton Bentley
Lead Information Developer
Kaplan Professional Education
APRIL 17
6:00-7:30
UNION 3314

Fue Yang
Community Trainer
Independent Living Resources
APRIL 23
6:00-7:30
UNION 3130

Eric King
Technical Writer
Illumina Manufacturing
MAY 1
6:00-7:30
UNION 3314

Questions? Contact Dr. Chris McCracken - cmccracken(at)uwlax.edu

Hmoob Immigration Tour - Tuesday, April 9, 5:30pm

Our final public La Crosse Reads 2019 event is on Tuesday, April 9th, at 5:30pm, beginning at the corner of King/5th Street in Cameron Park. We have collaborated with Hear, Here to offer a specialized tour focusing on stories of Hmoob immigration, developed by Associate Director of Hear, Here and Associate Archives Librarian at the La Crosse Public Library, Jenny DeRocher. The tour will highlight local stories and histories that resonate with Kao Kalia Yang’s The Latehomecomer, elevating those voices from our community that join the novel in weaving a rich and varied tapestry of the Hmoob experience in the upper Midwest.

Questions and accommodations: Dr. Natalie Eschenbaum, Associate Professor and Chair of English, neschenbaum(at)uwlax.edu