What does it mean to be a public intellectual in 21st century America? And to what extent does the often intensely private work of an academic speak to larger issues in today’s world? Aaron Bady blogs at zunguzungu.wordpress.com. Two fifth-year English PhD candidates, Aaron Bady and Paul Kerschen, think often about these questions. Both Aaron and Paul are active bloggers...
Every Wednesday, we’ll post a round-up of links which may be of interest to the larger Berkeley English community. Let us know if you see anything you think we should pass along! The great Sudanese writer, Tayeb Salih, passed away late last Tuesday. He’s best known for his 1966 novel Season of Migration to the North, which Edward Said called...
In the past year, Professors Ian Duncan and C. S. Giscombe were each awarded prizes for their recent books. Duncan’s Scott’s Shadow: The Novel in Romantic Edinburgh won the The National Library of Scotland Saltire Research Book of the Year, while Giscombe’s book of poetry Prairie Style received an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. Two graduate students,...
READ MORE A Sense of Where We Are: Two Professors Win Awards for Recent Books
The Berkeley Poetry Review publishes poetry by UC Berkeley faculty, students, staff, and alumni. The deadline for the 40th issue is March 1. Those interested can submit up to four poems to berkeleypoetryreview at yahoo.com or leave them in our mailbox in 322 Wheeler. Detailed instructions can be found here.
In what follows, second-year graduate student Monica Huerta describes the inauguration of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellows Program at Berkeley. A Mellon Fellow herself, Huerta playfully profiles two undergraduate English majors, Cecilia Caballero (who also focuses on Chicano Studies) and Teresa Jimenez, who are part of the first cohort of Berkeley Fellows. ***In Arts and Humanities Graduate Diversity Program Director...
READ MORE Two English Majors Chosen for Inaugural Cohort of Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship
This past November, Professor Kathleen Donegan was asked by a student of hers who was serving as the President of the Prytanean Women’s Honor Society to speak to the society on finding a balance between life and work as a female academic. Speaking at the Gender Equity Resource Center, Professor Donegan designed her talk as a continuation of the thread of...
In what follows, PhD candidate Jhoanna Infante details her experiences with the University’s Early Academic Outreach Program and shows another way that the English Department gets involved with the surrounding Bay Area community. *** One afternoon last summer, I unexpectedly found myself behind a podium defending the U.S. War on Mexico of 1846, channeling President James K. Polk’s argument that...
One of the ongoing ways in which some members of the English department involve themselves with the larger community of the Bay Area is, as we’ve already touched on here, through the Prison University Project. Below, graduate student Annie McClanahan continues her account of teaching at San Quentin by answering some “Frequently Asked Questions” about her experience. As the semester...
In what follows, fifth-year graduate student Matthew Sergi reflects on his experience “visiting” the Modern Language Association convention that recently took place in San Francisco. This is a somewhat condensed version of Matthew’s more colorful account which can be found on his own personal blog. *** MLA members are the custodians of language, and language is at the heart of...
UC Berkeley is famous for inspiring its undergraduates to pursue advanced degrees in graduate school, and the English Department is no exception. Senior English major Ana Schwartz, one of the department’s very promising young scholars, spent this past summer participating in Yale University’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship, where she was funded by the Leadership Alliance, a program that helps to...
READ MORE Undergraduate Major Spends a Research Summer at Yale
The English Department wishes everyone a safe and happy holiday. As the students depart for winter break, the department blog is also taking a short hiatus. We will be back online with our weekly Sunday posts (and an all new lay-out!) starting January 4, 2009. Until then, we leave with you a classic holiday poem: Robert Burns’ “Auld Lang Syne.”...
In what follows, Ph.D. candidate Natalia Cecire offers what she calls an “idiosyncratic list of recent (i.e. from the last ten years) children’s fiction that I’ve enjoyed, with a bias toward fantasy.” Natalia is the co-founder of the Children’s Literature Working Group and offers these recommendations as suggestions either to get your young niece or nephew into good but entertaining...
The following is an account, written by first-year student Marsha Polovets, about the Freshman Seminar she took this semester. Freshman and Sophomore seminars are one-credit courses given by a faculty member to a small group of lower-division students to explore a scholarly topic of mutual interest together. Marsha has been enrolled in Professor Katherine Snyder’s “Rethinking Hemingway” course which focused...
PASSED FROM ONE MOUTH TO ANOTHER.* (a poetry event featuring UCB grad students) Cecil Giscombe’s English 243 class presents an evening of poetry and song along with food prepared by the poets. Graduate students Anthony Bello, Rachel Carden, Rebecca Gaydos, Nikhil Govind, Mariah Hamilton, Charity Ketz, Gillian Osborne, Samia Rahimtoola, Robert Reyes, and Rachel Wamsley will read, sing, and recite....
In what follows, second-year graduate student Juliana Chow, one of this year’s organizers for the English Graduate Association’s series of colloquia, reports on a recent department event, entitled Modernism: Material, Spectral, Aural. *** Rubbish, refuse, trash. Noise, static, din. I know when I go to talks, I’m supposed to be able to make sense of all the words flung out...
READ MORE Faculty/Graduate Colloquium — Modernism: Material, Spectral, Aural
