February 2025 - maenglish@lists.qc.cuny.edu

[EnglishMA] Library Links
by William Orchard 24 Feb '25

24 Feb '25

At the thesis workshop last week, some mentioned that they were having difficulty accessing the library because the library’s main webpage has been down. Below, I’ve pasted some direct links to some of the things researchers most access, like One Search, the list of Databases (like MLA), and Inter-Library Loan. Each link should take you to the correct page for that service. Best, Bill LIBRARY The library’s main website went down over the break. They are working on repairing it, but, if you need to use the library’s tool in the meantime, you can use the follow the following links, which still work:  One Search<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/hb4e4idab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001n4QoAPh…>  Databases A-Z<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/hb4e4idab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001n4QoAPh…> (Also, chat with a librarian available on right side).  Guides<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/hb4e4idab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001n4QoAPh…>  E-Reserves for Students<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/hb4e4idab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001n4QoAPh…>  Ask a Librarian - Chat<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/hb4e4idab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001n4QoAPh…>  Ask a Librarian - Email<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/hb4e4idab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001n4QoAPh…>  Interlibrary Loan ILLiad<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/hb4e4idab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001n4QoAPh…>  Borrowing & Circulation - Email<mailto:QC_ask_circ@qc.cuny.edu>  Library Hours<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/hb4e4idab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001n4QoAPh…>

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[EnglishMA] Events, Announcements, Opportunities, Summer Courses, and More
by William Orchard 24 Feb '25

24 Feb '25

Hello All, I’m writing with some announcements and upcoming events and opportunities, which are listed below. Graduation If you plan to graduate this semester, make sure that you apply for graduation on CUNYfirst by March 1, which is the end of this week. Reading/ Discussion Talking about Translation: Sarduy and Beyond! Are you interested in learning more about literary translation and/or Caribbean writers? This Wednesday February 26 at 12.30 on Zoom, Translator Alex Verdolini talks with QC MFA alums Jacqui Cornetta and Leo Grossman about translating and being inspired by Cuban writer Severo Sarduy<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severo_Sarduy>. Register here<https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/VZVNmXl0R_SnUi2eZ3q3DA>! Flyer attached. Watermark: A Graduate Student Journal Attached you’ll find a call for papers for a graduate student journal at California State University, Long Beach. The journal provides opportunities for MA students in English to publish their work, something that is good to build your CV and to bring the research and writing you did in classes to larger publics. MA Student Conference The MA Student Conference, Alone Together, will happen on March 10. More information will about this will be coming your way soon. We still have room for a few more presenters. If you are interested, please contact me by Friday, 2/28. Summer Registration Summer registration will begin on March 10. Course codes and further information will be available next week. Below are the course descriptions. In the first four-week session (which runs in June): * English 719/ Medieval Epic Literature with Edward Currie (online asynchronous) The epic is generally taken to be one of the oldest and most venerable genres, a literary form used by ancient cultures to represent their legendary origins and martial achievements. This course, a survey of medieval ‘epics’ (i.e., quasi-epics with epic features and pretensions) from the eighth century to the thirteenth, explores the diversity of forms and purposes that can be found in epic productions of the medieval period and the difficulty of bringing these extremely varied texts under one denominator. Although works within this genre have much in common, they are also diverse enough that it is hard to speak of them as belonging to one tradition. A heroic epic may include narrative elements—varying in number and type—derived from myth, legend, and folklore. The text may center on a single hero, or a group of warriors (e.g. a dynasty), exemplifying virtues we expect in literature of this sort, but also qualities particular to a certain culture and foreign to modern notions of ‘heroism.’ We will read texts composed in medieval England, France, Scandinavia, and Carolingian Germany; namely, Beowulf, The Song of Roland, The Saga of the Volsungs, and The Nibelungenlied. Some of our texts share the ‘same’ heroes and narrative situations, represented very differently according to the purposes of particular authors, the periods when they were composed, and the audiences for whom they were intended. The literature will be read in translation. Students will submit daily responses and write two papers: the first requires close readings of a text; the second is a research paper that involves engagement with scholarship. This online course will be asynchronous. Class discussions will occur on our Brightspace site, where required lectures and other course materials will also be available. * English 781/ Special Seminar (American Women Playwrights) (online synchronous MTWTh 645 to 825 pm) This special topics course will focus on American women playwrights, some of whom have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and some who are significant for other reasons. We will explore themes and approaches of these women dramatists and what their plays reveal about American culture. Among the topics considered are the relationship between women writers and their cultural and social backgrounds, conditions affecting women’s literary production, including their struggle for gender parity in the theatre world, the influence of female and male precursors, the impact of race and class, and the continuities and breaks with the dominant literary traditions; additionally, we will explore how contemporary theatre is connected to Greek tragedy and to Ibsen’s realistic social dramas of the 19th century. We will begin with the mother of American drama—Susan Glaspell, writing plays before women could vote—and end the course with the most recent winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama—Eboni Booth. Some of the other women playwrights we will discuss are Lillian Hellman, Lorraine Hansberry, Beth Henley, Marsha Norman, Paula Vogel, Rebecca Gilman, Sarah Ruhl, Quiara Alegria Hudes, Lynn Nottage, and Martyna Majok. In the second summer 7-week summer session (which runs from the last week of June to mid-August): * English 732 Latinx Literature (Latinx Childhood) with William Orchard (online synchronous MW 6:00 to 8:05 pm) In the heart-wrenching stories of migrant families torn asunder at the US-Mexico border, the Latinx child has emerged a key figure in contemporary political discourse. Although we are often inclined to think of childhood as a universal experience or a time of innocence, childhood is affected by a host of historical, economic, social, political, and cultural factors. In this class, we will examine the experience of Latinx childhood in three ways. First, we will consider the ways in which Latinx coming of age narratives have to rework the conventions of the bildungsroman in order to account for the roles that race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality play in a Latinx child’s growing understanding of their social roles. Second, we will read recent works in young adult and children’s literature to examine how Latinx childhood is being represented to young readers. Finally, we will consider the various ways in which childhood has been invoked and deployed in contemporary debates in the United States about immigration. Likely text include Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street, Tomas Rivera’s And the Earth Did Not Devour Him, Justin Torres’s We the Animals, Javier Zamora’s Unaccompanied, and Valeria Luiselli’s Tell Me How It Ends, and the film Coco. * English 781 Special Seminar (20th Century Poetry: Modernism to Postmodernism) with James Richie (online synchronous T/Th 6:00 to 8:05 pm) While new work is continually being done to re-examine the claims, terms, and historical contexts for modern poetry, there’s a general critical consensus on what poetic modernism entails and what works may be considered modern. Postmodern poetry, which both emerges and diverges from the tenets of modernism, is another story. Parameters are starting to emerge, but for the most there’s still debate on what counts as postmodern or if there even is (or was) such a thing as a “postmodernism.” This course is going to examine modern and postmodern American poetry with a historicizing lens to understand how poets from the early part of the century developed poetic strategies to account for the feeling of overwhelming, rapid, and unprecedented historical change and how the poets of the mid part of the 20th century drew from and critiqued those strategies to account for their own historical moment. It will also conclude by analyzing a few poets whose work emerged much later in the 20th century (or beginning of the 21st) to think through how these writers may be dealing with their own inherited dual legacy. Fall 2025 Registration Pre-registrations for Fall 2025 will start in March. More information on that will be send in the coming weeks. Below is a preview of fall’s offerings: MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY 4:40 742/ Victorian Lit (Schaffer) 642/ The Genre of Children’s Literature (Schanoes) 701/ Grad Methods (Miller) 781/ Detective Fiction (Ferguson) ONLINE 6:40 731Black Aliveness in the Long Nineteenth Century (Faherty) 636/ Literary Theory (Cassvan) ONLINE 663/ Studies in Race and Ethnicity (Weekes) 781/ Italian American Modernism (Gardaphe) ONLINE I hope your semester is going well. Please feel free to contact me of Professor Mak if you have any questions. Best, Bill

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[EnglishMA] Events, Announcements, Opportunities, Summer Courses, and More
by QNS qcenglmaprogram 24 Feb '25

24 Feb '25

Hello All, I’m writing with some announcements and upcoming events and opportunities, which are listed below. Graduation If you plan to graduate this semester, make sure that you apply for graduation on CUNYfirst by March 1, which is the end of this week. Reading/ Discussion Talking about Translation: Sarduy and Beyond! Are you interested in learning more about literary translation and/or Caribbean writers? This Wednesday February 26 at 12.30 on Zoom, Translator Alex Verdolini talks with QC MFA alums Jacqui Cornetta and Leo Grossman about translating and being inspired by Cuban writer Severo Sarduy<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severo_Sarduy>. Register here<https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/VZVNmXl0R_SnUi2eZ3q3DA>! Flyer attached. Watermark: A Graduate Student Journal Attached you’ll find a call for papers for a graduate student journal at California State University, Long Beach. The journal provides opportunities for MA students in English to publish their work, something that is good to build your CV and to bring the research and writing you did in classes to larger publics. MA Student Conference The MA Student Conference, Alone Together, will happen on March 10. More information will about this will be coming your way soon. We still have room for a few more presenters. If you are interested, please contact me by Friday, 2/28. Summer Registration Summer registration will begin on March 10. Course codes and further information will be available next week. Below are the course descriptions. In the first four-week session (which runs in June): * English 719/ Medieval Epic Literature with Edward Currie (online asynchronous) The epic is generally taken to be one of the oldest and most venerable genres, a literary form used by ancient cultures to represent their legendary origins and martial achievements. This course, a survey of medieval ‘epics’ (i.e., quasi-epics with epic features and pretensions) from the eighth century to the thirteenth, explores the diversity of forms and purposes that can be found in epic productions of the medieval period and the difficulty of bringing these extremely varied texts under one denominator. Although works within this genre have much in common, they are also diverse enough that it is hard to speak of them as belonging to one tradition. A heroic epic may include narrative elements—varying in number and type—derived from myth, legend, and folklore. The text may center on a single hero, or a group of warriors (e.g. a dynasty), exemplifying virtues we expect in literature of this sort, but also qualities particular to a certain culture and foreign to modern notions of ‘heroism.’ We will read texts composed in medieval England, France, Scandinavia, and Carolingian Germany; namely, Beowulf, The Song of Roland, The Saga of the Volsungs, and The Nibelungenlied. Some of our texts share the ‘same’ heroes and narrative situations, represented very differently according to the purposes of particular authors, the periods when they were composed, and the audiences for whom they were intended. The literature will be read in translation. Students will submit daily responses and write two papers: the first requires close readings of a text; the second is a research paper that involves engagement with scholarship. This online course will be asynchronous. Class discussions will occur on our Brightspace site, where required lectures and other course materials will also be available. * English 781/ Special Seminar (American Women Playwrights) (online synchronous MTWTh 645 to 825 pm) This special topics course will focus on American women playwrights, some of whom have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and some who are significant for other reasons. We will explore themes and approaches of these women dramatists and what their plays reveal about American culture. Among the topics considered are the relationship between women writers and their cultural and social backgrounds, conditions affecting women’s literary production, including their struggle for gender parity in the theatre world, the influence of female and male precursors, the impact of race and class, and the continuities and breaks with the dominant literary traditions; additionally, we will explore how contemporary theatre is connected to Greek tragedy and to Ibsen’s realistic social dramas of the 19th century. We will begin with the mother of American drama—Susan Glaspell, writing plays before women could vote—and end the course with the most recent winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama—Eboni Booth. Some of the other women playwrights we will discuss are Lillian Hellman, Lorraine Hansberry, Beth Henley, Marsha Norman, Paula Vogel, Rebecca Gilman, Sarah Ruhl, Quiara Alegria Hudes, Lynn Nottage, and Martyna Majok. In the second summer 7-week summer session (which runs from the last week of June to mid-August): * English 732 Latinx Literature (Latinx Childhood) with William Orchard (online synchronous MW 6:00 to 8:05 pm) In the heart-wrenching stories of migrant families torn asunder at the US-Mexico border, the Latinx child has emerged a key figure in contemporary political discourse. Although we are often inclined to think of childhood as a universal experience or a time of innocence, childhood is affected by a host of historical, economic, social, political, and cultural factors. In this class, we will examine the experience of Latinx childhood in three ways. First, we will consider the ways in which Latinx coming of age narratives have to rework the conventions of the bildungsroman in order to account for the roles that race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality play in a Latinx child’s growing understanding of their social roles. Second, we will read recent works in young adult and children’s literature to examine how Latinx childhood is being represented to young readers. Finally, we will consider the various ways in which childhood has been invoked and deployed in contemporary debates in the United States about immigration. Likely text include Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street, Tomas Rivera’s And the Earth Did Not Devour Him, Justin Torres’s We the Animals, Javier Zamora’s Unaccompanied, and Valeria Luiselli’s Tell Me How It Ends, and the film Coco. * English 781 Special Seminar (20th Century Poetry: Modernism to Postmodernism) with James Richie (online synchronous T/Th 6:00 to 8:05 pm) While new work is continually being done to re-examine the claims, terms, and historical contexts for modern poetry, there’s a general critical consensus on what poetic modernism entails and what works may be considered modern. Postmodern poetry, which both emerges and diverges from the tenets of modernism, is another story. Parameters are starting to emerge, but for the most there’s still debate on what counts as postmodern or if there even is (or was) such a thing as a “postmodernism.” This course is going to examine modern and postmodern American poetry with a historicizing lens to understand how poets from the early part of the century developed poetic strategies to account for the feeling of overwhelming, rapid, and unprecedented historical change and how the poets of the mid part of the 20th century drew from and critiqued those strategies to account for their own historical moment. It will also conclude by analyzing a few poets whose work emerged much later in the 20th century (or beginning of the 21st) to think through how these writers may be dealing with their own inherited dual legacy. Fall 2025 Registration Pre-registrations for Fall 2025 will start in March. More information on that will be send in the coming weeks. Below is a preview of fall’s offerings: MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY 4:40 742/ Victorian Lit (Schaffer) 642/ The Genre of Children’s Literature (Schanoes) 701/ Grad Methods (Miller) 781/ Detective Fiction (Ferguson) ONLINE 6:40 731Black Aliveness in the Long Nineteenth Century (Faherty) 636/ Literary Theory (Cassvan) ONLINE 663/ Studies in Race and Ethnicity (Weekes) 781/ Italian American Modernism (Gardaphe) ONLINE I hope your semester is going well. Please feel free to contact me of Professor Mak if you have any questions. Best, Bill

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[EnglishMA] Reminder: Last Day to Submit for the MA Student Conference, Alone Together
by William Orchard 10 Feb '25

10 Feb '25

Hello all, Today’s the last day to submit for the MA student conference, which will be held on March 10, 2025. The Call For Papers is pasted below for your reference. If you’d like to submit something, please do so by midnight tonight. We hope to have responses to everyone by Wednesday. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Best, Bill CALL FOR PAPERS Annual Queens College English MA Conference ALONE TOGETHER [A person sitting on a bed AI-generated content may be incorrect.] Edward Hopper, Morning Sun (1952) Conference Date: March 10, 2025 Abstract Submission Deadlines: Feb 8, 2025 The theme for this year’s annual Queens College English MA conference is inspired by Edwidge Danticat’s recent essay collection, We’re Alone. A reading by Danticat, sponsored by Writers at Queens, will be the culminating event for this year’s conference. In the introduction to the collection, Danticat notes the double-edged nature of her volume’s title, one that is repeated in the conference’s theme. On the one hand, “alone” suggests a condition of solitude, solitariness, or even abandonment. But the word “together” implies a state of collectivity, a communal sense of abandonment, and a group with whom one shares a sense of being dispossessed or left behind. Reflecting on her title, Danticat writes: “We’re alone is the persistent chorus of the deserted, as in no one is coming to save us. Yet, we’re alone can also be a promise writers make to their readers, a reminder of this singular intimacy between us. At least we are alone together.” We invite papers that think with and around these senses of solitude and solidarity. We welcome a range of critical and creative engagements with narratives of isolation, exile, and abandonment, as well as moments of unexpected connection, collective resilience, and intimacy. How do literature, film, and other cultural texts navigate the experience of being alone while forging communal bonds? How do writers, artists, and thinkers represent states of solitude as both a burden and a space of creative or political potential? Papers might examine topics such as migration, loss, trauma, and the ways in which communities form in response to shared experiences of exclusion. We are also interested in discussions of the role of literature as an intimate dialogue between writer and reader, a space where solitude transforms into shared meaning and where language itself becomes a bridge between aloneness and shared experience. Possible submission topics include but are not limited to: Narratives of Isolation * Migration and Displacement * Literature of Solitude * Affects and Feelings * Trauma and Loss Collective Resistance * Writing as Community * Literature as Activism * Networks of Care * Censorship and Silence Intimacy and Connection * Reader-Writer Bonds * Hybrid & Experimental Forms * Memoir and Selfhood * Bearing Witness Bodies and Borders * Gender and Exclusion * Science and the Body * Carceral Narratives * Kinship Beyond Borders To Submit a Proposal Please send proposals of 250 words or less plus a short biography or CV to MAEnglish(a)qc.cuny.edu<mailto:MAEnglish@qc.cuny.edu> by February 8, 2025. Proposals should be pasted in the body of the email. Please include your full name and the name of your program and school. All Queens College MA, MFA, and MS Ed students are welcome to submit, as well as master’s students from other universities. If you have any questions, please email MAEnglish(a)qc.cuny.edu<mailto:MAEnglish@qc.cuny.edu>.

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[EnglishMA] Workshop - Decolonizing Storytelling
by William Orchard 10 Feb '25

10 Feb '25

FYI— I’m forwarding an announcement about a workshop sponsored by the School of Library Science on “Decolonizing Storytelling.” The workshop is open to all, and, as described below, focusing on decolonizing teaching practices. It’s free, virtual, and open to English MA students. Sign up info is below. It’s currently just half full, so there are many spots still available! Best, Bill From: James Lowry <James.Lowry(a)qc.cuny.edu> Date: Friday, February 7, 2025 at 10:58 AM To: glisann(a)lists.qc.cuny.edu <glisann(a)lists.qc.cuny.edu> Subject: Workshop - Decolonizing Storytelling [ONLINE ORGANIZING + CONSULTING — EMI AGUILAR] Decolonizing Storytelling A Workshop with Emi Aguilar Monday February 24, 2025 4pm – 6pm, online The Archival Technologies Lab at Queens College, City University of New York, presents Decolonizing Storytelling, a workshop with Emi Aguilar. In this collaborative workshop, participants will engage in reflection, dialogue, and storytelling to decolonize their practice. This workshop is intended for arts educators, artists, storytellers, caregivers, youth workers, and adult educators. This workshop will de-center settler-colonial perspectives, teaching practices, and values. Emi Aguilar<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/emxaguilar.net/my-story__;!!E8lrGBvW!ulc…> is the Director of Research and Action at IllumiNative, a member of the Repatriation Committee, Miakan-Garza Band of Coahuiltecans, and creator @IndigenizingArtsEd Participation is free to GSLIS students and alumni, but is limited to 20 participants. To register, email james.lowry(a)qc.cuny.edu<mailto:james.lowry@qc.cuny.edu> We will operate a waitlist.

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[EnglishMA] Reminder: Last Day to Submit for the MA Student Conference, Alone Together
by QNS qcenglmaprogram 10 Feb '25

10 Feb '25

Hello all, Today’s the last day to submit for the MA student conference, which will be held on March 10, 2025. The Call For Papers is pasted below for your reference. If you’d like to submit something, please do so by midnight tonight. We hope to have responses to everyone by Wednesday. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Best, Bill CALL FOR PAPERS Annual Queens College English MA Conference ALONE TOGETHER [A person sitting on a bed AI-generated content may be incorrect.] Edward Hopper, Morning Sun (1952) Conference Date: March 10, 2025 Abstract Submission Deadlines: Feb 8, 2025 The theme for this year’s annual Queens College English MA conference is inspired by Edwidge Danticat’s recent essay collection, We’re Alone. A reading by Danticat, sponsored by Writers at Queens, will be the culminating event for this year’s conference. In the introduction to the collection, Danticat notes the double-edged nature of her volume’s title, one that is repeated in the conference’s theme. On the one hand, “alone” suggests a condition of solitude, solitariness, or even abandonment. But the word “together” implies a state of collectivity, a communal sense of abandonment, and a group with whom one shares a sense of being dispossessed or left behind. Reflecting on her title, Danticat writes: “We’re alone is the persistent chorus of the deserted, as in no one is coming to save us. Yet, we’re alone can also be a promise writers make to their readers, a reminder of this singular intimacy between us. At least we are alone together.” We invite papers that think with and around these senses of solitude and solidarity. We welcome a range of critical and creative engagements with narratives of isolation, exile, and abandonment, as well as moments of unexpected connection, collective resilience, and intimacy. How do literature, film, and other cultural texts navigate the experience of being alone while forging communal bonds? How do writers, artists, and thinkers represent states of solitude as both a burden and a space of creative or political potential? Papers might examine topics such as migration, loss, trauma, and the ways in which communities form in response to shared experiences of exclusion. We are also interested in discussions of the role of literature as an intimate dialogue between writer and reader, a space where solitude transforms into shared meaning and where language itself becomes a bridge between aloneness and shared experience. Possible submission topics include but are not limited to: Narratives of Isolation * Migration and Displacement * Literature of Solitude * Affects and Feelings * Trauma and Loss Collective Resistance * Writing as Community * Literature as Activism * Networks of Care * Censorship and Silence Intimacy and Connection * Reader-Writer Bonds * Hybrid & Experimental Forms * Memoir and Selfhood * Bearing Witness Bodies and Borders * Gender and Exclusion * Science and the Body * Carceral Narratives * Kinship Beyond Borders To Submit a Proposal Please send proposals of 250 words or less plus a short biography or CV to MAEnglish(a)qc.cuny.edu<mailto:MAEnglish@qc.cuny.edu> by February 8, 2025. Proposals should be pasted in the body of the email. Please include your full name and the name of your program and school. All Queens College MA, MFA, and MS Ed students are welcome to submit, as well as master’s students from other universities. If you have any questions, please email MAEnglish(a)qc.cuny.edu<mailto:MAEnglish@qc.cuny.edu>.

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