Summer 2011

Thanks to the good efforts of Priscilla Ybarra, UNT collaborated with Rice University to host a Chicana/o Studies Writing Workshop in August. Nine scholars representing Chicana/o Studies from CU-Boulder, the University of Utah, the University of New Mexico (and of course UNT and Rice) gathered to discuss pre-circulated writings. The workshop concluded with a trip to the Dallas Latino Cultural Center to see an original play, El Viaje de Tina, produced by the Mexican American theatre company Cara Mía in collaboration with the Laboratorio de la Máscara from Mexico City.

Faculty Accomplishments: Deborah Needleman Armintor's book, The Little Everyman: Stature and Masculinity in Eighteenth-Century Literature was published by the University of Washington Press. Kyle Jensen won the Kenneth Burke Society's Emerging Scholar Award, given once every three years to recognize extraordinary promise in the work of a young scholar. James Duban published "Written, Unwritten, and Vastly Rewritten: Meyer Levin's In Search and Philip Roth's 'Defender of the Faith,' The Plot Against America, and Indignation," in Philip Roth Studies, 7.1 (Spring 2011): 28-50. Bonnie Friedman's essay, "The Watcher," was accepted by Image. Rick Joines published three reviews: of Stephen Burt's Close Calls with Nonsense (in the Spring 2011 issue of Southern Humanities Review), of Montaigne After Theory / Theory After Montaigne in SHR's Summer 2011 issue, and of former Poet Laureate Kay Ryan's The Best of It on the Contemporary Poetry Review website: http://www.cprw.com/rick-joines-the-gravity-and-levity-of-kay-ryan/. Miroslav Penkov's East of the West: A Country in Stories was published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Alex Pettit published "The Headwaters of Ooze (Richardson the Polemicist)," in "Hearts Resolved and Hands Prepared": Essays in Honor of Jerry C. Beasley, ed. Christopher Johnson (Newark: U. of Delaware Press, 2011), 67-85.

Student Accomplishments: Chelsea Woodard and Ash Bowen had work accepted for the 2011 Best New Poets anthology. Chelsea contributed "Finding the Porn Magazines," and Ash contributed "How Gravity Hated Us."

September

Two new tenure-system faculty members joined us in Fall 2011: B. H. Fairchild and Ryan Skinnell. B. H. Fairchild is an award-winning American poet whose most recent book, Usher (Norton, 2009), is his sixth collection. His previous volume, Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest (Norton, 2004), won the National Book Critics Circle Award. His work has won many other significant awards and fellowships, including the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America, the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, the Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry, the Bobbitt National Prize from the Library of Congress, the Arthur Rense Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the California Book Award, the PEN Center USA West Poetry Award, and Rockefeller, Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships. Ryan Skinnell, a specialist in rhetoric and composition, came to us from Arizona State University, where his doctoral dissertation explored the effects of institutional pressures on the evolution of writing instruction; his publications include essays in Enculturation, JAC, and Rhetoric Review. We were also pleased to welcome a new full-time lecturer, Justin Jones, a recent graduate of our own PhD program who specializes in Victorian literature and who has placed essays in Victorians and Studies in English Literature.

Faculty Accomplishments: Bruce Bond won The Saint Petersburg Review Poetry Award ($1000 and publication) for his poem "Threnody: After Penderecki." He reported forthcoming critical essays in Kenyon Review and Asheville Poetry Review and poems in Raritan, Missouri Review, Image, Sewanee Theological Review, The Journal, Salt Hill, 32 Poems, Bellingham Review, St. Katherine's Review, Stand, Lingerpost, IO: A Journal of New American Poets, Subtropics, The Pinch, and Alaska Quarterly Review. Stephanie Hawkins's article, "William James, Gustav Fechner, and Early Psychophysics," was accepted for publication by Frontiers in Fractal Physiology for a forthcoming special issue that will focus on "Networking of Psychophysics, Psychology and Neurophysiology." Ann McCutchan's River Music: An Atchafalaya Story was published by Texas A&M University Press. Masood Raja reported publication of "Ousmane Sembene's God's Bits of Wood: The Anatomy of a Strike and the Ideologeme of Solidarity" in Matatu: Journal for African Culture and Society; a short story entitled "On the Day of Z. A. Bhutto's Death" in South Asian Review; and a review entitled "Two and a Half Words, or How to Write Truly Pakistani Fiction" in Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies. He also reported the following accepted for publication: "Neoliberal Dispositif and the Rise of Fundamentalism: The Case of Pakistan" by Journal of International and Global Studies; "Allama Muhammad Iqbal: Poet Philosopher and the Dangers of Appropriation" in Decolonizing the Body of Christ: Theology and Theory after Empire, ed. Joseph Duggan (Palgrave, forthcoming). Priscilla Ybarra's essay, "Erasure by U.S. Legislation: Ruiz de Burton's Nineteenth Century Novels and the Lost Archive of Mexican American Environmental Knowledge" appeared in Environmental Criticism for the Twenty-First Century, eds. Stephanie LeMenager, Teresa Shewry, and Ken Hiltner (Routledge, 2011), 135-147.

Student Accomplishments: Amanda Kellogg's essay, "'Divers schedules of my beauty': Portraiture as Allusion to Queen Elizabeth I in Twelfth Night," was accepted for a collection entitled The Emblematic Queen: Studies in Early Modern Visual Culture, to be published by Palgrave. Dale Dewoody's poem, "Gunter, Texas: 1989," was accepted by Southwestern American Review.

October

Faculty Accomplishments: Ft. Worth Weekly selected Miroslav Penkov's East of the West: A Country in Stories as the winner of its Best of 2011 award in the category of "Book by Texas Author Published in the Last 12 Months."

Student Accomplishments: Ashley Reis contributed a "program profile" of our department's work in the area of literature and the environment to the quarterly newsletter of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (see http://www.asle.org/site/publications/graduate-handbook/programs/). She also gave a talk entitled "Interdisciplinary Approaches to Environmental Graduate Studies: An Intro to Ecocriticism" to the Ecological Society of America's SEEDS (Strategies for Ecology Education, Diversity and Sustainability) undergraduate chapter at UNT. In addition, she attended the annual Western Literature Association's national conference in Missoula, Montana to present a paper entitled "'The Dream of a Good Place': Land Use and Identity in Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven," which examines land use, land ethic, and identity in Steinbeck's short story sequence.

November/December

We were thrilled when the ad below appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education:

Faculty Accomplishments: Ian Finseth reported that his article, "Irony and Modernity in the Early Slave Narrative: Bonds of Duty, Contracts of Meaning," was accepted by Early American Literature. Rick Joines's chapbook of poems, Paradeisos, was published by Anaphora Press. The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Samuel Richardson, Early Works: 'Aesop's Fables,' 'Letters Written to and for Particular Friends' and Other Works, edited by Alex Pettit, was published by Cambridge University Press. Javier Rodríguez's essay, "Hell in Mexican Texas: Stephen Crane at the American Abyss," appeared in a collection entitled The Turn Around Religion in America: Literature, Culture, and the Work of Sacvan Bercovitch, published by Ashgate.

Student Accomplishments: Beth Neely Clauser presented her paper, "Beyond Lowell: 'The Armadillo,' Fire Balloons, and the Threat to a Home in Brasil," at "Dazzling Dialectics: Brasil in the Eyes of Elizabeth Bishop," a conference in Ouro Preto and Mariana, Brasil in honor of the 100th anniversary of Elizabeth Bishop's birth. Matt Davis's essay, "In Search of a Pastoral America: The Proustian Narrative Structure of American Pastoral," was published in a collection of essays, Reading Philip Roth's "American Pastoral," released by Presses Universitaires Du Mirail. Tim Regetz was awarded a Newberry Renaissance Consortium Grant to travel to Chicago where he gave a talk entitled "Margery Kempe and the Discourse of Universal Salvation" at the Newberry Library Center for Renaissance Studies' prestigious Multidisciplinary Graduate Student Conference. Justin Swink's essay, "Lily Briscoe/Lily Shakespeare: The Androgynous Mind in To the Lighthouse," was accepted by Consciousness, Literature, and the Arts.

January

Faculty Accomplishments: Bruce Bond reported poems accepted by Best American Poetry 2012, The Georgia Review, The Yale Review, Raritan, The Georgia Review, Southwest Review, The Southern Review, Poetry Northwest, Tampa Review, Fiddlehead, Prairie Schooner, Cutthroat, Linebreak, Bellevue Literary Review, The Boiler Review, Quadrant: Journal of the C.G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology, Borderlands, Pilot Light, Connecticut Review, The Laurel Review, and The Dark Horse. Third Coast nominated his poem "Water Scripture" for a Pushcart. Kevin Curran was interviewed by NPR at MLA in Seattle for a documentary called "Shakespeare Is." The program is being produced for both television and radio and is scheduled for release in late 2012. Also, his co-edited special issue on "Shakespeare and Phenomenology" was accepted by Criticism. Kevin contributed an essay called "Feeling Criminal in Macbeth" and co-wrote the Introduction. The University of Georgia Press's ongoing edition of The Works of Tobias Smollett, for which Alex Pettit serves as General Editor, produced a new volume: The Adventures of Roderick Random, edited by James G. Basker, Paul-Gabriel Boucé, and Nicole A. Seary.
Routledge approved a revised edition of Ian Finseth's The American Civil War: An Anthology of Essential Writings, which should appear in early in 2013. Masood Raja reported that his essay, "Democratic Criticism and the Importance of Islamic Hermeneutics of Reading in the Twenty-First Century," had been accepted for publication by South Asia Journal and that he had signed a contract with ABC-CLIO Press to write a comprehensive volume on Pakistan. Daryl Scroggins's microfictions, "Waiting," "Introspect," "Whiter," and "Electrolux" were accepted by elimae. Kelly Wisecup reported that her article, "Medicine, Communication, and Authority in Samson Occom's Herbal," was forthcoming in Early American Studies.

Student Accomplishments: Kara Dorris published poems in Stone Highway Review and Skidrow Penthouse and her chapbook, Night Ride Home, was accepted by Finishing Line Press. Erin Stalcup's story, "In the Heart of the Heart of the Empire," appeared in The Kenyon Review, which also featured an online interview with her. Two of our undergraduates, Jon Savage and Sean Enfield, had work accepted in the Sigma Tau Delta Regional Journal, Open Ear of the Universe.

February

Laura Kasischke's Space, in Chains, published by Copper Canyon Press, won the first annual UNT Rilke Prize. This $10,000 award recognizes a book written by a mid-career poet and published in the preceding year that demonstrates exceptional artistry and vision. The judges also selected three finalists: Kevin Prufer's In a Beautiful Country (Four Way Books), Dana Levin's Sky Burial (Copper Canyon), and Wayne Miller's The City, Our City (Milkweed Editions).

Faculty Accomplishments: Bruce Bond's latest book, The Visible, was published by LSU Press. Kevin Curran received word that a book series for which he will serve as Series Editor, "Edinburgh Critical Studies in Shakespeare, Theory, and Performance," had been put under contract by Edinburgh University Press. Ian Finseth was awarded an Earhart Foundation Fellowship on Civil War America. Jack Peters' book, Joseph Conrad's Critical Reception, was accepted by Cambridge University Press and his essay, "Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and the World of Western Women," appeared in Studies in Short Fiction. The Story Prize named Miroslav Penkov's East of the West: A Country in Stories a Notable 2011 Collection.

Student Accomplishments: Jessica Hindman, April Murphy, Ashley Reis, and Mark Sweeney were nominated by the department for university Outstanding Teaching Fellow Awards, one of which was subsequently won by Jessica. Kyle McCord's third book of poems, Sympathy from the Devil, was accepted for publication by Gold Wake Press. He was also awarded the Baltic Writing Residency for 2012.

March

The following faculty won departmental awards for 2012: Kevin Curran (Kesterson Award for Outstanding Graduate Teaching); Corey Marks (Stevens Award for Outstanding Departmental Service); Kelly Wisecup (Preston Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching); and Rachel Yeatts (Vann Award for Outstanding Lecturer). Kevin Curran was also honored by the Graduate Students in English Association as the 2012 GSEA Professor of the Year.


Faculty Accomplishments: Jim Duban reported two new publications, "'Oceanic Wonder': Arthur Koestler and Melville's Castaway" in Philosophy and Literature, 35 (2011), pp. 371-74; and "Arthur Koestler and Meyer Levin: The Trivial, the Tragic, and Rationalization Post Factum in Roth's 'Eli, the Fanatic,'" in Philip Roth Studies, 7 (2011), pp. 171-86. Corey Marks' book, The Radio Tree, winner of the 2011 Green Rose Prize, appeared from New Issues Poetry and Prose. Nicole Smith's Sartorial Strategies: Outfitting Aristocrats and Fashioning Conduct in Late Medieval Literature, was published by the University of Notre Dame Press.

Student Accomplishments: Justin Bigos was accepted to the Texas Institute for Literary and Textual Studies Summer Poetry Workshop. Michael Winston, one of seven UNT-English students who attended the Sigma Tau Delta national convention in New Orleans, won the Sigma Tau Delta Graduate Scholarship, a $4000 prize.

April

April was an unusually eventful month. Rilke Prize winner Laura Kasischke came to town to receive her prize and gave readings sponsored by the department both on campus and in Dallas at the Dallas Institute for Humanities and Culture. Winners of various departmental and university awards for students were also announced, including: Hella Bloom, winner of the first annual Scott Simpkins Prize for her essay, "Ghostly Pleasures: Narrative Erotics and the Death-Wish in Keats's 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci'"; Heidi Cephus, winner of the fifth annual Pearla Marquez Award for her essay, "Hamlet and the Sensory Experience of Play Going": Darcy Lewis, winner of the 2012 UNT Honor's Day Best Graduate Essay Award for a paper entitled "'Lost in Infinite Perspectives' of Death and the Sea: Absence and the Paradox of Displacement in Moby-Dick"; Alyssa Quintanilla, winner of the 2012 Whitten Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Student in English; and Chelsea Woodard, winner of the 2012 Wright Award for Outstanding Graduate Student in English.

Faculty Accomplishments: Bonnie Friedman reported that her essay, "The Buddhist of Craig's List," a chapter from her book in progress, Brooklyn Spiritual, had been accepted by Shambhala Sun. Raina Joines was awarded the Paul Mariani Fellowship to attend The Glen Workshop in Santa Fe; she was also accepted into the Tin House Summer Writer's Workshop. East Carolina University's School of Music commissioned Ann McCutchan to write the libretto for a three-act opera based on a story from her book, Circular Breathing. Music for the opera, to be titled Swan's Inlet, will be by ECU faculty composer Mark Alan Taggart, and the premiere is set for the fall of 2014. Ann was also elected to the Texas Institute of Letters Council. Robert Upchurch's essay, "Shepherding the Shepherds in the Ways of Pastoral Care: Ælfric and CUL MS Gg.3.28," was selected for publication in Saints and Scholars: New Perspectives on Anglo-Saxon Literature and Culture in Honour of Hugh Magennis, edited by S. McWilliams (Woodbridge, Eng.: D. S. Brewer, 2012, pp. 54-74).

Student Accomplishments: Justin Bigos' poem, "Pictures of Lisa," appeared in Slice. The Fulbright Foundation awarded Beth Neely Clauser a grant to conduct research in Brazil for six months, beginning in March 2013. Caitlin Cowan's poem, "Agnieszka's Spine," was included in the Emerging Writers issue of Catch Up. Lauren Rogener's opera, No Masque for Good Measure, premiered in Winnipeg, Canada at the Cluster New Music and Integrated Arts Festival. Lauren authored the libretto, while Canadian composer and Columbia University PhD candidate Matthew Ricketts composed the music as part of a special commission by the 2012 incarnation of the Cluster Festival. Lauren also received a commission to provide an original poem for Montreal composer Darren Russo's song cycle/oratorio. Undergraduate English major Jon Savage was invited by New York University to participate in the NYU Summer Research-Early Identification Program. In addition, Jon was selected for NYU's Leadership Alliance Mellon Initiative, which brings together students who share an interest in pursuing doctoral study in the humanities.

May

Faculty Accomplishments: Jacqueline Foertsch's latest book, Reckoning Day: Race, Place, and the Atom Bomb in Postwar America, was accepted by Vanderbilt University Press. Corey Marks was named a University Distinguished Teaching Professor. Jack Peters' edition of Joseph Conrad: The Contemporary Reviews: Vol. 2 Typhoon to Under Western Eyes was published by Cambridge University Press.

Student Accomplishments: Jeanette Laredo published a piece on Sherlock Holmes in the Victorians Beyond the Academy series at the Journal of Victorian Culture Online. Undergraduate English major and Honors College student Sydnee Wagner won a $1500 scholarship from the McNair Scholar's Program to attend the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, VA.