Reading Matters, Vol. 11, Issue 2, September 14, 2005
From (under) the Chair's Desk
How quickly a fortnight passes! My last two weeks were
busy in part watching goodwill being generated by the English Department.
Last Thursday and Friday was the annual meeting of the Dean’s Advisory
Board. This is a collection of two dozen worthy alums from CLAS who meet
once a year to give advice about broad College policies and to make suggestions
about fundraising (see http://www.clas.uiowa.edu/alumni/new/leaders/deans.shtml
and links). Two strong departments were selected to give a taste of the
intellectual life of the College: the Department of Physics & Astronomy
and us. While Physics & Astronomy had us beat for looking at things
both Very Big and Very Small, their DEO gave a fairly deadpan powerpoint
presentation of their virtues. Brooks, on the other hand, had the crowd
eating out of his hand as he gave a lively presentation of the range and
intellectual foment of English, ably assisted in brief star turns by Ed
Folsom, Linda Bolton, and John D’Agata. Congratulations to all four
for a job well done! I had the impression both at the presentation and
at the subsequent lunch that we generated a huge amount of interest and
goodwill. It looked like a potentially hard group to sell the humanities
to but I was delighted how they seemed dewy-eyed and positively idealistic
in embracing our mission. My strongest impression was of having captains
of industry and of finance button-hole me to tell me how meaningful their
undergraduate experience reading books had been and how important our
job as humanist educators is. We certainly generated goodwill; I only
hope that this may get translated into administrative support and tangible
benefit for the department.
The English Department was well represented again on Monday at the College’s
annual celebration of hiring and promotion. No other department had more
new hires than we did last year, with the influx of Gina, Marie, John,
and Tammy. Doug’s promotion to associate professor was also recognized
at the event.
Within the department, it was a delight to see so many colleagues at
the first Friday colloquium, even if the subject-matter, student plagiarism,
was not a cheery one. Ken Clinkenbeard described the university’s
anti-plagiarism computer program, Turn
It In, and this generated a discussion of the pros and cons of such
a web tool. Ken made the interesting point that students surveyed where
the program has been introduced had reported appreciation on the grounds
that it levels the playing field by catching classmates who cheat and
ensuring only honest intellectual work gets rewarded. It was clear that
English Department experience with the program is slight to non-existent
and we probably need such experience before considering any department-wide
recommendation about the program and so it was useful that a small and
coherent group – the teachers of Shakespeare – volunteered
to try it out in a pilot study.
It was also heartening to see so many colleagues at the first Monday
lunchtime discussion – a lively discussion of Susan Buck-Morss’s
Thinking Past Terror that raised broadly the role of the
intellectual in a post-9/11 world and the role of the cultural critic.
Thanks to Laura Rigal for suggesting the reading and initiating the discussion.
In terms of continuing business, let me report briefly on:
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the calendar. This semester’s predictable department meetings
have been sent out to all faculty and are incorporated in the calendar
below. It is quite likely that there will need to be one or two further
meetings as special issues arise. I will always try and give you as
much notice as possible and try first to schedule business meetings
in the formal Thursday afternoon meeting slot that is deliberately left
clear of teaching so that all faculty can attend. The next department
meeting is tomorrow to discuss the recommendations of the Task Force
on graduate education (report and appendices already circulated).
-
our request to search for two positions in African American literature
and culture. This went forward to the Dean in a timely manner (thanks,
Bluford, for chairing the committee effort) and we have not yet heard
back. My enquiries of the Dean suggest that we should hear in about
a week.
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course renumbering is going forward apace, spearheaded by Eric Gidal,
with ENGL as our selected prefix.
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faculty reporting of sick leave. This is going to come our way soon,
required by the Regents, but today’s news from the Provost Office
is that implementation of the policy has now been delayed until January.
I’ll be happy to explain briefly my understanding of the new reporting
requirement at a faculty meeting, but it seems to me more useful to
wait until the Provost’s Office irons out the bugs in their system
and tells us how we will have to make these reports before I try presenting
anything.
-
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the review process for Promotion and Tenure and other faculty reviews.
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the ever-exciting intellectual life of being an English professor…
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and I look forward to seeing you all at the departmental fall reception,
chez moi, Saturday at 5:30 p.m.
Departmental Matters
NEW SERVICE FOR ENGLISH FACULTY
LIBRARY PHOTOCOPYING
9/12/05
Rationale
This year it was impossible to satisfy all faculty requests for graduate Research
Assistants, and those faculty who were supported only got one semester of
support. While the Graduate College funding mechanism for next year has not
yet been announced, it is very likely that there will be still fewer RAs available
next year and so this situation will become yet more challenging. It would
be good to give faculty research a modest boost through judicious use of departmental
funds separate from graduate RAs.
Context
Currently, the English Department front desk student employees in 308 EPB
will copy material that is left for them by faculty for help with their research.
This service will continue. You need to leave material at the front desk along
with your copying number and allow at least a couple of days. Copying must
be legal within the constraints of copyright. In a related service, as you
all know, Interlibrary Loan material is copied and distributed by the Library’s
Interlibrary Loan service (see http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/ill/).
The new service is designed to help faculty by photocopying articles or book
chapters that are available in UI Libraries while saving faculty the time
of fetching and copying them.
New Service
The new service will use a team of front desk and ITC lab student employees
to locate and copy materials in the UI Libraries to facilitate faculty research.
The copying team will comprise non-specialist undergraduate students, some
not English majors, who are taking full undergraduate loads and already working
10+ hours in the English Department or ITC lab. Faculty will therefore need
to give precise reference information and allow significant time for the work
to be copied (i.e. about two weeks). This extra service should not put an
extra drain on existing office staff. It will need to operate within a limited
budget and so copying requests cannot be too extensive. I suggest that we
try it out on an experimental basis for Fall 2005 and review the experiment
in Spring 2006.
To make use of the service, faculty need to fill out a form available at
the front desk of 308 EPB or as an e-mail attachment from Cherie R. All copying
requested must be legal within the constraints of copyright. You can download
the form as a Word document or as
a fill-and-print .pdf document.
Other Research Support
One alternative source for research support is the Undergraduate Scholar Assistance
program, organized by the Pomerantz Career Center, that will fund an undergraduate
student with a gpa of at least 3.0 to work supporting a faculty member’s
research for at least 10 hours per week. See further http://www.careers.uiowa.edu/students/usa.html.
Publications, Presentations, and other Faculty Matters
A
few photos
of the Opening Meeting, taken by Florence Boos, are available online.
Click on the images to see larger versions of the photos.
Robin Hemley has a new short story, "Local Time,"
in the latest issue of The
Southern Review.
Kathy Lavezzo will be giving an invited talk at the University
of Michigan in October and an invited talk to celebrate the Chaucer Review's
40th anniversary at International
Medieval Congress in May. Her book Angels on the Edge of the World:
Geography, Literature and English Identity, 1000-1534 is due out in the
spring from Cornell University Press.
News Matters
"In a satirical op-ed piece, Tom Lutz, professor of
English at the University of Iowa, suggests supplementing the teaching of
Intelligent Design theory with ideas from Ghanain or Nigerian mythology, and
also announces his intention to develop a new alternate creation theory, Malevolent
Design."
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-lutz13sep13,0,7789946.story
(Los Angeles Times, Sept. 13)
"Teresa Mangum, an associate professor of English,
will have students in her course, which explores the relationship between
humans and animals through literature and films, work two hours per week at
the Iowa City Animal Services Center. 'Service learning was, for me, a real
help in making that link between learning through reading and experiential
methods,' said Mangum, who encourages her students to think of the volunteer
work as another 'text' from which to learn.
http://www.dailyiowan.com/media/paper599/news/2005/08/31/Metro/Ui.Using.HandsOn.Learning.In.Classes-972514.shtml
"There was a time when generations of African-American cooks learned
to reproduce the flavors of home firsthand from their elders in the kitchen.
But this recipe exchange was sidetracked during the Great Migration early
in the 20th century, when hundreds of thousands of African-Americans left
the South for the North. 'Until then, mothers passed down recipes to daughters
by way of oral tradition,' said Doris Witt, an associate
professor of English at the University of Iowa and the author of Black Hunger:
Soul Food and America.
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/living/12514412.htm
Upcoming
Events
Sept. 15 (Thr.), 3:45 p.m., Gerber Lounge - Departmental Faculty Meeting:
Discussion of graduate program
Sept. 16 (Fri.) – Deadline for submitting Faculty and Global
Scholar Award applications to Jon Wilcox.
Sept. 17 (Sat.), 5:30-7:30 p.m. – The Fall Departmental Party
will be held at the home of Jon Wilcox and Denise Filios, 404 Linder
Rd NE, Iowa City.
Sept. 19 (Mon.), 7:00 p.m., Buchanan Auditorium - Fiction reading by Jane
Smiley
Sept. 22 (Thr.), 10:00 a.m. – Doug Trevor will be a
guest on "Talk of Iowa,"
WSUI AM-910 & WOI-AM 640, KTPR-FM 91.1, and KOWI-FM 90.7 in anticipation
of his participation in the Saturday Scholars Series (see below).
Sept. 22 (Thr.), 8:00 p.m., Drake Univ., Cowles Library Reading Room –
Dale Bauer, Professor of English at Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign,
will speak on "Sex Expression and American Women Writers," at Drake
University in Des Moines. Dina Smith of Drake's English Dept. has expressly
invited members of the U of I English Dept. to attend both the talk and a reception
afterwards.
Sept. 23 (Fri.), 4:00-5:40 p.m., Gerber Lounge – Laura Rigal will be
the guest of a POROI Rhetoric Seminar with her paper "Moby Dick
and the Politics of Terror." A link to her paper is available on the POROI
calendar.
Sept. 24 (Sat.), 10:00-11:00 a.m., Schaeffer Hall, Room 40 – Doug
Trevor will present "Shakespeare on Passion, Deceit, and Sadness"
as part of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Saturday
Scholars Series. Each session will include a 20-30 minute presentation followed
by a question-and-answer session. Refreshments will be served.
Oct. 12 (Wed.), 8:00 p.m., Shambaugh Auditorium - Fiction reading by Grace
Paley (sponsored in part by the English Dept.)
Oct. 18 (Tue.), 12:00 noon, 331 EPB – a brown bag lunch with Gerry
Heng
Oct. 18 (Tue.), 4:00-6:00 p.m., IMU, South Room – Gerry Heng
talk/reception
Oct. 20 (Thr.), 3:45 p.m., Gerber Lounge - Departmental Faculty Meeting
October 21 (Fri.) – Deadline for submitting Flex Load Assignment
applications to Jon Wilcox.
Nov. 3 (Thr.), Gerber Lounge –This year's Freedman Lecture will be given
by Romanticist James Chandler, Univ. of Chicago. Topic and
exact time to be announced.
Nov. 4 (Fri.), Gerber Lounge – This year's Freedman Seminar will be led
by Romanticist James Chandler, Univ. of Chicago. Topic and
exact time to be announced.
Nov. 5-Feb. 6, 2006 – “Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass”
exhibit at the U of I Museum of Art (in conjunction with the “Whitman
Making Books / Books Making Whitman” Symposium, see below).
Nov. 8 (Tue.), Gerber Lounge – Lecture by Alan Trachtenberg,
Yale Univ., on Whitman and Melville
Nov. 9 (Wed.), 8:00 p.m., Tippie Auditorium, W151 Pappajohn Business Building
- Reverend Barry Stopfel, the first openly gay ordained Episcopalian
priest will give a public lecture as part of his Nov. 8-14 residency.
Nov. 10-12 (Thr.-Sat.), IMU – NONFICTIONOW
Conference. Keynotes and readings will be delivered
by Philip Lopate, Pico Iyer, and Lauren Slater. Other panelists and readers
include NPR reporter Jacki Lyden, Anthony Shadid, Jack Hitt, Faith Adele, Hope
Edelman, Bob Shacochis, James Alan McPherson, Albert Goldbarth, David Shields,
and many others.
Nov. 10-12 (Thr.-Sat.) – The “Whitman
Making Books / Books Making Whitman” symposium will celebrate
Whitman as a bookmaker. The keynote speaker will be Ezra Greenspan
of Southern Methodist Univ., and other speakers will include Betsy Erkkila,
Ted Genoways, Charles Green, Jerome Loving, and Kenneth M. Price. The symposium
is directed by Ed Folsom and David Schoonover.
Nov. 10-13 (Thr.-Sun.), The Pfister Hotel, Milwaukee, WI – The
47th Annual M/MLA Convention. The theme of this year's convention
is "History, Memory, Exile."
Nov. 15 (Tue.), 3:45 p.m., Gerber Lounge - Promotion and Review Meeting:
DCG Meeting to discuss P&T cases of Lori Branch and Kathy Levezzo
Nov. 17 (Thr.), 3:45 p.m., Gerber Lounge - Promotion and Review Meeting:
DCG Meeting to discuss P&T cases of Lori Branch and Kathy Levezzo (if needed)
Nov. 18 (Fri.) - Deadline for curriculum
development grant applications.
Dec. 1 (Thr.), 3:45 p.m., Gerber Lounge - Promotion and Review Meeting:
DCG Meeting to discuss PF cases of Barbara Eckstein, Patricia Foster, and Judith
Pascoe
Dec. 6 (Tue.), 3:45 p.m., Gerber Lounge - Promotion and Review Meeting:
DCG Meeting to discuss PF cases of Barbara Eckstein, Patricia Foster, and Judith
Pascoe
Dec. 8 (Thr.), 3:45 p.m., Gerber Lounge - Promotion and Review Meeting:
DCG Meeting to discuss 5th-year reviews (and other reviews, if needed)
Dec. 9 (Fri.) – Deadline for submitting Old Gold Summer Fellowship
applications to Jon Wilcox.
Mar. 2, 2006 (Thr.), 3:45 p.m., Gerber Lounge - Promotion and Review
Meeting: DCG Meeting to discuss 3rd-year review of Lara Trubowitz
Other Calendars
UI Master Calendar of Events
| UI Academic
Calendar | The Writers
Workshop Reading Schedule | POROI
Calendar
Future Issues
Please send any items for Reading Matters or the departmental calendar to Carolyn
Jacobson at carolyn-jacobson@uiowa.edu.
Reading Matters will appear every other Wednesday, and submissions should be
received by 5 p.m. on the preceding Tuesday. Please send submissions for the
next issue by 5 p.m. on Sept. 27. Thanks very much.