English Graduate Gazette

A Publication of the English Graduate Office and GradSEA
Issue Four

ENGLISH GRADUATE STUDENT NEWS

Congratulations to those who completed their Ph.D. prelims.

GRAD STUDENT PUBLICATIONS

Matthew Abraham presented a paper at the MLA conference last December in New Orleans entitled "DeManian Allergens: Why Are They So Potent?" as part of a panel entitled "Struggling With Our De Manian Inheritance:Paul de Man and the Afterlife of Theory". Todd Hoffman and Arkady Plotnitsky appeared on the panel with Matthew. On April 5th, 2002, Matthew presented a paper titled "The Supreme Court and Veiled Majoritarianism" at The Question of Race Conference at Harvard University's W.E.B. Dubois Insitute. In November 2000, he presented a paper titled "Supreme Rhetoric: Veiled Majoritarianism and the Enforcement of the Racial Contract" at the University of Wisconsin at Lacrosse's Race and the Humanities Conference.

A number of Purdue graduate students presented papers at the 5th National Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) Conference, including Scott Baxter, Kate Agena, Christine Norris, Jessie Kapper, Julia Romberger, and Kevin Eric DePew. The conference was May 31-June 2, 2001 and was
held at Indiana University, Bloomington.

Scott Baxter has had numerous accomplishments during the past year. He was one of the winners of the Purdue Graduate Student Association travel grants in the spring of 2001. The award was given to present his paper, "Disciplinary Writing Inside and Outside the United States: Toward an understanding of the last chapter of a dissertation" at the 5th National WAC conference. Scott also was invited to give a lecture to the department of computer sciences. The lecture was titled "Seven Suggestions for Giving Academic Presentations (give or take a few)" and was given on August 23, 2001. Scott received the second place 2002 Kneale Award for Pedagogy. He has a forthcoming publication, titled "Teaching reviewing to graduate students," with Jens Palsberg, that is tentatively slated for fall 2002 in Communications of the ACM. With Joanne Lax, Scott presented a poster, titled "Preliminary examinations into the role of qualification and certainty in an electrical engineering writing exam: what are the characteristics of these L2 writers?", at at 4th annual meeting of the Midwest Association of Language Testers (MwALT) in Oak Brook, Illinois, January 21-22, 2002. On November 10, 2001, he presented "A Genre Based Approach to Teaching the MA Thesis to Polish Students of English: Preliminary Examinations" at the 23rd Annual Indiana Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (INTESOL) Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Scott Baxter and Christine Tardy were invited to be lecturers at the University of Michigan's English Language Institute this past summer in their intensive program. Both taught courses in academic writing, academic speaking, and pronunciation to students from Japan and Korea, who had been admitted to begin studies at the University of Michigan in the fall.

Cynthia Fortner gave a paper, titled "Translating Kristeva's Pedagogical Texts," at the International Conference on Literature and Psychology, in Arezzo, Italy, June 26th to July 1st, 2002.

David Wood received a GSA Travel Grant for a summer conference.

Daryn Glassbrook presented a paper titled "God Versus the People: The Politics of Reading the Bible as Rhetoric" at this year's Rhetoric Society of America conference in Las Vegas, May 23-26. The summer 2002 issue of Shofar, Purdue University's Interdisciplinary Jewish Studies Journal, featured his review of Allegra Goodman's latest novel, Paradise Park.

Tracy Collins was awarded a year long PRF Grant. In addition, she and her husband, John Pfeiffer, had a baby girl. Rebecca Julia Clare was born January 26.

OUR RECENT GRAD STUDENT SUCCESSES ON THE JOB MARKET

This is an incomplete list of grad students, current as well as former, who have landed college and university appointments in the past year or so. Please email Professor White information about those who have been overlooked.

Karen Kopelson has a tenure-track appointment at University of Louisville, starting Fall 2002.

Nicole Brown started a tenure-track appointment at University of Western Washington in Fall 2002.

Jennifer Purvis (Ph.D. in English and Philosophy with a graduate minor in Women's Studies) started this Fall as Assistant Professor in the Women's Studies Department (tenure-track) at The University of Alabama, where she teaches courses in Feminist Theory and Philosophy.

After completing his dissertation, Re-Orienting Orientalism: China in Early American Writing, Henry Hughes has accepted a tenure track position teaching American literature and creative writing at Western Oregon University. As a doctoral student, Henry published several articles, essays and interviews in journals including Criticism and English Studies. His poetry appears in the recent issues of The Malahat Review, Apostrophe, and Passages North, and his introduction to Withoutcovers: Literary Magazines and the Digital Edge is forthcoming from Purdue University Press.

Kathleen Maloney is taking a one-year job as an Assistant Professor of English at Belmont University in Nashville, TN, beginning this August. She graduated from Purdue in May 2002.

David Robinson has accepted a position at the Library of Congress, in the Rare Books and Special Collections division.

Mairead Byrne's collection of poetry "Nelson & the Huruburu Bird" was published by Wild Honey Press in Ireland in July, 2002. Mairead recently accepted an appointment as Assistant Professor of Poetry at Rhode Island School of Design.

Henry Hughes and Rob Davidson published an interview with Ha Jin in the most recent Sycamore Review. The interview is entitled "Of Bird's Milk and
Cowboy Chicken: An Interview with Ha Jin."

Rob Davidson accepted a tenure-track job in English at California State University-Chico, where he will be teaching creative writing and literature. The job begins Fall 2002. He delivered a paper entitled "Dancing the Big Drum: Probing the Question of Renewal in Paule Marshall's PRAISESONG FOR THE WIDOW" at this year's 20th Century Lit Conference at the University of Louisville (Feb 2002).

ALUMNI NEWS

Willard Greenwood had a poem, "Pelagic Mania," published in the April issue of The Seneca Review.

Brian Donahue has been teaching literature and composition in a non-tenure-track full-time position at Gonzaga University. His article "Marxism, Postmodernism, Zizek" is published in the current issue of Postmodern Culture, 12.2 (January 2002), available at: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/pmc/contents.all.html.

Colleen Reilly is a new assistant professor in the English department at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington (appointed Aug. 2001), where she teaches courses in computers and writing and professional writing. She was awarded a Summer Initiative Grant from UNCW for Summer 2002 to study organization communication. In August 2001, Colleen joined the editorial staff of Kairos: A journal of rhetoric, technology, and pedagogy (http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/) as a co-editor for the Response section of the journal.

Grant Snider has accepted a position as an Assistant Professor of Humanities and Composition at Point Park College in Pittsburgh, beginning in fall 2002.

Margaret Reimer continues to work at University of Southern Maine teaching composition and literature. She is the Democratic candidate for her district for the Maine House of Representatives.

Rich Morris is an Associate Professor of English at Parkland College (since 1997), where he has served as the Director of Composition since 1998. His article "Writing in a Post Berlinian Landscape: Cultural Composition in the Classroom," with Michelle Sidler, is published in JAC, A Journal of Advanced Composition Theory, November 1998.

ANNOUNCEMENT

This is the fourth issue of the English Graduate Gazette, which publishes news and information about Purdue English Department graduate students and alumni. It is particularly designed to announce graduate student publications, conference presentations, fellowships and other awards and achievements, along with academic appointments and promotions. Please e-mail your news items to the Director of Graduate Studies or the GradSEA Officers.