Dear MA Students, I hope that you had a chance to enjoy the Labor Day weekend, and I hope that the chaos of the start of the semester has subsided and that you’re nicely settled into your classes. I plan to send out email messages on the first Monday of each month, alerting you to important upcoming deadlines and events and sharing information about the program. With the exception of urgent announcements, like those regarding registration, we’ll try to limit emails to these monthly messages. More regular postings about the department will appear on the program’s social media accounts, which you can click on below to follow: * Facebook<https://www.facebook.com/QCMAEnglish/> * Twitter<https://twitter.com/QCEnglishMA> GRADUATE CONFERENCE: We will begin planning soon for the program’s annual graduate student conference. The conference is a chance to share your research and writing with others, meet students from other NYC graduate programs, and develop your curriculum vitae or resumes. MA students select the conference theme, review proposals, and organize the day. If you would like to be involved in this year’s conference, please email EnglishMA@qc.cuny.edu<mailto:EnglishMA@qc.cuny.edu> by September 23. The first meeting of the conference planning committee will happen in the beginning of October. SPRING COURSES: Although the schedule is in the process of being finalized and specific course titles and descriptions will be available next month, we wanted to give you a sense of what next semester’s course offerings and modalities will likely look like (keep in mind that this still might change slightly). 636 Tue 6:40pm 8:30pm Ferguson In Person 701 Mon 4:40pm 6:30pm Weingarten In Person 702 Thu 6:40pm 8:30pm Nysenholc Hybrid 719 Tue 6:40pm 8:30pm Sargent Hybrid 722 Mon 6:40pm 9:30pm Alryyes In Person 729 Thu 6:40pm 8:30pm Mak In Person 781 Tue 4:40pm 6:30pm Cassvan Online 781 Wed 4:40pm 6:30pm Hintz Online 781 Thu 4:40pm 6:30pm Paslawski Online September important dates and events: September 14: TALK: Community as Rebellion: A Conversation with Lorgia García Peña. This conversation will discuss strategies for decolonizing higher education, which in this case means thinking about ways to resist the academy’s extractive and exploitative practices, and how we might transform existing institutional spaces in ways that create more liberation and cultivate community for students and faculty of color. Sponsored by the Public Labs Project at the CUNY Graduate Center (which sponsors many events that are open to MA students for free). Online at 6 pm. Register for the zoom link at: https://publicslab.gc.cuny.edu/events/community-as-rebellion-a-conversation-... September 20: READING: Crystal Hana Kim, Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing, will read and discuss her work in Queen’s College’s Off the Page Series. Read more about Professor Kim’s work here<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Hana_Kim> and here<https://electricliterature.com/crystal-hana-kim-doesnt-want-to-write-the-perfect-korean/>. For tickets and registration, visit the Off the Page website: https://kupferbergcenter.org/off-the-page-conversations-with-writers/ September 26 / 27: No Classes (Rosh Hashanah) September 29: READING: Emmanuel Xavier, Americano. Xavier is a queer Latinx writer who came of age in New York City’s ballroom culture (think Pose or Paris is Burning). The reading will include ballroom performances by the House of Babylon. More information on Xavier is available here<https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/emanuel-xavier> and here<https://labloga.blogspot.com/2009/07/interview-with-emanuel-xavier.html>. 6 pm at the Student Union. September 29 (Thursday): Follows a Monday schedule. Finally, an alumna of the MA program sent along an announcement for some teaching jobs in English and History at the Cristo Rey School in Brooklyn. That announcement is attached here and posted outside my office door. As always, feel free to reach out to Hillary Miller or me if you any questions or concerns. Hillary’s student hours are Mondays from 2 to 4 pm in Klapper 707, and mine are Tuesdays from 3:30 to 5 pm and Wednesdays from 5:30 to 6:30 pm in Klapper 637. You’re also welcome to contact us by email if you can’t make those times. I hope your semester is off to a great start. Best, Bill