UW-L English Studies Blog

Meshing academic, business worlds gives students a preview of future career possibilities

Celia Groff and Kaitlindh Moubry remember age 22 well. Armed with degrees in English literature and classical humanities, respectively, they didn’t know the extent of their career possibilities.

The two came to a UW-La Crosse technical writing class to share the future they found in the not-so-familiar field of technical writing. Both work at Epic, a Verona-based company that develops and installs health care software. The company has grown significantly in the last 12 years and now employs nearly 120 technical writers.

“Being able to write well is not a common skill these days,” notes Groff. “We wanted to let students know Epic is a potential career path because we want to attract good colleagues.”

Epic employees visited English Professor Marie Moeller’s technical writing class twice during spring semester. They focused on project management, effective communication and the importance of working with and connecting to clients.

Full Story: http://news.uwlax.edu/writing-for-work/

Poetry Reading, featuring Wisconsin Poet Laureate & 1970 UW-L alum Bruce Dethlefsen, November 8th, 5:30-6:30

Poetry Reading
Thursday, November 8th
5:30pm-6:30pm
1400 Centennial Hall 

Featuring 

Wisconsin Poet Laureate & 1970 UW-L alum Bruce Dethlefsen and Cathryn Cofell, author of six poetry chapbooks, including Kamikaze Commotion

Events are free & open to the public. | for more info call William Stobb at 608.785.6924.

Co-sponsored by The UW-La Crosse Department of English (www.uwlax.edu/english) and the La Crosse Public library Poet’s Workshop Series (www.lacrosselibrary.org).

"The Bipolar Expedition: next to normal and Its Abnormal Path to the Pulitzer Prize" - September 21st, 2:30-3:30, Wimberly 113

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

Dr. Gary Konas, English Department faculty member, will initiate the English Department's 2012-2013 William J. and Yvonne Hyde Colloquium Series with a presentation entitled "The Bipolar Expedition: next to normal and Its Abnormal Path to the Pulitzer Prize." The colloquium will showcase next to normal, a relatively small, low-budget Broadway musical centered around a housewife with a mental disorder, which seemed a most unlikely candidate to win the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Dr. Konas will discuss the show's score, the issues raised, its creators, and its innovative marketing to understand how next to normal became a hit, touching audience members deeply and winning America's highest literary prize. The presentation runs from 2:30-3:30 p.m. on Friday, September 21^th, in 113 Wimberly Hall. The event is free and open to the public. To arrange for disability accommodations, contact [email protected] or call 785-8295.

"Political Landscapes, Private Hauntings: Violence in Contemporary American Women’s Writing" - Monday, Sept. 17, 4 pm, 1309 Centennial Hall

"Political Landscapes, Private Hauntings: Violence in Contemporary American Women’s Writing"

A Lecture by Provost Heidi Macpherson.  

Ranging across a wide range of contemporary American women’s writing, this talk will focus on how contemporary anxieties are played out in the pages of women’s fiction, as well as the ways in which women’s writing increasingly stages legal conflict, or engages in representations of the aftermath of violence. A primary focus will be on Lionel Shriver’s award-winning novel We Need to Talk About Kevin (recently made into a film with Tilda Swinton) as well as other novels in which mothers come into conflict with the law and negotiate their ‘innocence’ or ‘guilt’ in the face of both real and imagined courts of law.

Monday, Sept. 17, 4 pm, 1309 Centennial Hall  

"Enthymeme as Diagrammatic: A Confucian Reading of Aristotle's Rhetoric" - May 4th, 2:30-3:30, Wimberly 113

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

Dr. Haixia Lan, English Department faculty member, will conclude the 2011-2012 William J. and Yvonne Hyde English Department Colloquium Series with a presentation entitled "Enthymeme as Diagrammatic: A Confucian Reading of Aristotle's Rhetoric." Her talk will focus on Confucius' rhetorical thinking based on an interpretation of Aristotle's rhetoric-as-enthymematic. Dr. Lan will discuss three characteristics of this enthymematic or rhetorical thinking: empathetic, appropriate, and heuristic; in Greek epieikeia, kairos, and topoi; and in Chinese ren (仁), yi (義), and li (禮). She will address the idea that rhetorical activities are processes through which people use public forums to deliberate about matters that are of consequence to the community for the purpose of inventing probable knowledge, forming probable judgments, and making probable decisions. Dr. Lan proposes that understanding Confucius' rhetoric this way can shed light on both similarities and differences between the thinking behind the discursive practices—written and oral—we try to teach Chinese students and the discursive practices with which they are familiar. The presentation runs from 2:30-3:30 p.m. on Friday, May 4th, in 113 Wimberly Hall. The event is free and open to the public. To arrange for disability accommodations, contact [email protected] or call 785-8295.

 

“Perfect example of a country queen”: Gay American English in the American South -- April 20, 2:30-3:30, Wimberly 113

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

Dr. Stephen L. Mann, English Department faculty member, will continue the English Department's 2011-2012 William J. and Yvonne Hyde Colloquium Series with a presentation entitled "'Perfect example of a country queen': Gay American English in the American South." Dr. Mann's presentation will focus on the relationship between "sounding gay" and "sounding southern." Findings suggest that listeners who perceive a gay male speaker to be southern may find it more difficult to correctly identify his sexual orientation. However, this difficulty does not lead to a complete incompatibility between sounding southern and sounding gay, a statement which Dr. Mann will support and explain by focusing on two gay male speakers, both consistently perceived as southern, but only one consistently identified as gay. The presentation runs from 2:30-3:30 p.m. on Friday, April 20^th, in 113 Wimberly Hall. The event is free and open to the public. To arrange for disability accommodations, contact [email protected] or call 785-8295. 

 

English Department Members in the new CLS Newsletter!

Clink on the image to read the first issue of Capstone, the new College of Liberal Studies Newsletter. It includes interviews with English Department members Dr. Virginia Crank, Dr. Kimberly DeFazio, and Dr. Rob Wilkie on their recent research and publications, as well as a story about Dr. Natalie Eschenbaum's "study abroad" week in London with her English Literature class.

"Conceiving and Consuming Fictions in Washington Irving's 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow'" -- March 23, 2:30-3:30, Wimberly 113

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

As part of the 2011-2012 William J. and Yvonne Hyde English Department Colloquium Series, Dr. Ryan Friesen, English Department, will present "Conceiving and Consuming Fictions in Washington Irvings 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow'." From the beginning of the "Legend," Irving stresses the control that the women of the Hollow exercise over the creation of tales and the naming of place and circumstance. This "lap of land" is deceptively inviting, and the "brook that glides through it" may murmur one to repose, but it is a region the fertility of which is belied by the "angry echoes" of a violent history. In one reading of the "Legend," a sincere but inept schoolmaster sees his romantic overtures trampled by his vain beloved's preference for a crass, brutish thug. However, this is not the parable that Irving composed, nor the battle of principles that he staged. The presentation runs from 2:30-3:30 p.m. on Friday, March 23rd, in 113 Wimberly Hall. The event is free and open to the public. To arrange for disability accommodations, contact [email protected] or call 785-8295.

 

A Presentation by Dr. Konas: "The Bipolar Expedition: next to normal and Its Abnormal Path to the Pulitzer Prize" - December 2, 12:00-1:00, 1303 Centennial Hall

Please join us

Friday, December 2, 2011
12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Centennial Hall
Room 1303
for Dr. Gary Konas' Presentation 

 "The Bipolar Expedition: next to normal and Its Abnormal Path to the Pulitzer Prize." 

Synopsis: next to normal, which opened on Broadway in 2009, began over a decade earlier as a 10-minute class exercise for composer Tom Kitt and lyricist Brian Yorkey. The musical was expanded and revised during subsequent productions in Washington State, Off-Broadway, D.C., and finally Broadway. It won three Tony Awards and enjoyed a surprisingly long run, considering that it is about a bipolar housewife--not exactly standard musical fare. It followed yet another tortuous path to winning the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. My multimedia presentation will attempt to convey the strengths of the show to an audience that has yet to see it in person. All are welcome to attend!

 

 

Dr. DeFazio's book, The City of the Senses, published

Dr. Kimberly DeFazio’s book, The City of the Senses, has been published by Palgrave.

Through an analysis of a wide range of literary and cultural texts—from Wordsworth’s The Prelude and Dickens’s Hard Times, to Lost in Translation, Crash and Ikea—The City of the Senses argues that the city is essentially a material place where people live, work, and participate in social practices within historical limits set not by sensory experience or cultural meanings but material social conditions. 

Further information about the book can be found here: 
http://us.macmillan.com/thecityofthesenses/
KimberlyDeFazio