A few months back I blogged about the publication of Audrey Petty's terrific and important book High Rise Stories. Well, on the basis of that book Audrey has just been chosen one of the Chicagoans of the Year by the Chicago Tribune!
Congratulations Audrey for that wholly deserved honor!
Here's the front page of the Tribune's Arts and Entertainment section with a great photo of Audrey:
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Monday, December 23, 2013
Semester's End and Winter Convocation
On Saturday I had the pleasure of attending the LAS Winter Convocation, during which a few hundred students received their BA, MA, and PhD degrees.
Although there were relatively few English students graduating mid-year, I was still pleased to be part of the festivities. The Great Hall at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts was filled to the brim, and it's always a moving moment to see students honored for years of hard work.
I especially liked hearing the applause and shouts of family and friends when particular names were called--even though the college requests guests "to withhold their applause" in order "to enhance the dignity and ensure the smooth flow of the ceremony!" Who can exercise that kind of restraint when their loved one is being recognized for such an achievement?
Although department business continues into the holiday break, the convocation also marked the end of my first semester as department head. Thanks to my hard-working colleagues and the wonderful staff in the department, it has been about as smooth a first semester as I could have hoped for. More than anything, I've learned an incredible amount in the last few months about our department and about how the university works. It's been a challenge, but a satisfying one.
We have many exciting initiatives under way--from graduate student conferences to innovative course development and a new undergraduate journal--so I'm optimistic about the semester to come. We also have three searches going on and I am confident we'll be adding terrific new colleagues in needed areas to our faculty in the next year.
I wish everyone a restful break and a Happy New Year!
Although there were relatively few English students graduating mid-year, I was still pleased to be part of the festivities. The Great Hall at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts was filled to the brim, and it's always a moving moment to see students honored for years of hard work.
I especially liked hearing the applause and shouts of family and friends when particular names were called--even though the college requests guests "to withhold their applause" in order "to enhance the dignity and ensure the smooth flow of the ceremony!" Who can exercise that kind of restraint when their loved one is being recognized for such an achievement?
Although department business continues into the holiday break, the convocation also marked the end of my first semester as department head. Thanks to my hard-working colleagues and the wonderful staff in the department, it has been about as smooth a first semester as I could have hoped for. More than anything, I've learned an incredible amount in the last few months about our department and about how the university works. It's been a challenge, but a satisfying one.
We have many exciting initiatives under way--from graduate student conferences to innovative course development and a new undergraduate journal--so I'm optimistic about the semester to come. We also have three searches going on and I am confident we'll be adding terrific new colleagues in needed areas to our faculty in the next year.
I wish everyone a restful break and a Happy New Year!
Monday, December 9, 2013
Imagining the Lives of Others: The Importance of Studying Literature
Recently I posted on some of the successful and surprising career paths our alumni are taking. In response I received a really wonderful letter
from another alum. With permission, I am posting his note below—I think this is
one of the most eloquent accounts of the importance of studying literature I’ve
seen.
[Update: I just read this essay by Lisa Zunshine in The Chronicle of Higher Education on the cognitive benefits of reading literature and I think it only confirms Jarrett Dapier's comments below (password may be necessary).]
[Update: I just read this essay by Lisa Zunshine in The Chronicle of Higher Education on the cognitive benefits of reading literature and I think it only confirms Jarrett Dapier's comments below (password may be necessary).]
----------
Dear Mr.
Rothberg,
I am a
graduate of the English department (B.A. '01) and have enjoyed the department
newsletters I've been receiving in the mail as well as reading new content on
the blog. Your efforts to keep in touch with alumni have renewed an
appreciation in myself for the education I received while I studied English and
creative writing at Illinois.
In the 10 years since graduation, I have followed
a course that may appear scattershot to a lot of people, but is one that I've
found deeply rewarding. I've taught reading enrichment classes to students of
all ages for a private reading instruction firm, worked as a legal assistant at
the ACLU of Illinois on their racial justice and reproductive rights projects,
acted as the assistant publisher at In These Times magazine in Chicago
(where I wrote for the magazine's blog and published occasional articles), and
am now beginning my 5th year as a teen services/young adult librarian at the
Evanston Public Library in Evanston, IL. Outside of my professional life, I
recently published an original stage adaptation of My Antonia by Willa
Cather which was produced at the Station Theatre in Urbana, I have performed at
Lookingglass Theater, the Goodman Theatre, and the White House, and I worked
twice as an assistant director at Steppenwolf Theatre Company. I also am
married with two children.
I have been very happy in all my pursuits and I
credit the writing and reading guidance, critical thinking skills, and
encouragement I received from my creative writing and English teachers - along
with the local theater artists with whom I worked in Urbana during my time
there - for my abilities to work creatively and professionally in disparate
work environments.
But, I think there's an even deeper commonality between the
jobs I've worked in the last decade: despite the different structures and missions
of each organization for which I've worked, despite the differences in
responsibilities at each job, each has drawn on my ability to imagine the lives
of others and approach them from a place of compassion and respect. I feel like
the passion for literature, respect for characters, and belief in literature's
ability to encourage connections between people and across communities I
absorbed from my professors at Illinois have encouraged a level of empathy that
has helped me in work and life. I'm thankful for it.
I remain stricken at the
thought that English departments - particularly at state universities - are
struggling. They're crucial in ways the usual metric cannot measure.
Thanks again
for keeping us in the loop.
Sincerely,
Jarrett Dapier
Friday, December 6, 2013
Mocking for Success
Last night was the annual English Department event we call
Mock Interviews. Organized by our indefatigable Placement Officer Justine Murison, the mock interviews give our graduate students an opportunity to hone
their interviewing skills—and receive instant feedback—in advance of the annual
Modern Language Association Convention. Various pairs of faculty sit in their
offices, pretending they’re in some anonymous convention hotel, and the
students circulate among us, so that they get a chance to have at least two
different practice interviews.
These days more and more interviews are taking place via
Skype and the interviewing season has become earlier and earlier, but MLA is
still one of the primary components of the job search in English. This year’s
convention will take place in early January and will be conveniently located in
Chicago. I’m looking forward to seeing our job candidates there as well as many
colleagues and friends.
Although most search committees (including some of our own!)
are still in the process of making their way through applications, I have been
pleased to hear that a number of our job candidates have already received calls
for interviews.
I have to admit that each year I have the same experience
with the mock interviews. In the run-up to the event, I’m always a bit peeved.
Who wants to return to the office at 7:00 pm for two more hours of work? But
every time it turns out the same: mock interviews are fun! They’re fun because we
get to see our wonderful graduate students in action and hear what they have
been working on. As in the past, I was really impressed by the great
dissertation projects our students have and by their creative ideas for
teaching (some of which I will surely steal!). It’s also always a pleasure to
be paired with a colleague you might not otherwise work closely with—this year
I was lucky to mock with Melissa Littlefield and I learned a lot from her
questions.
This year’s mock interviews took place against a dramatic
backdrop. With temperatures dropping and the weather forecast promising snow,
we learned late in the afternoon that Facilities and Services would be turning
off the heat in part of our building because of an unspecified emergency! This
was really not what Justine and I wanted to hear a few hours before the
interviews. In the end, though, the snow never materialized and the venerable
English Building seemed to stay pretty warm (maybe because of all of those
circulating, nervous bodies!). From my perspective, the event seemed to go off
without a hitch. Thanks to Justine and all the faculty who participated!
The most important message, however, is this. If you happen to be reading this as a search committee member at another school, we’ve got some terrific, professional, and brilliant candidates for your jobs: hire them!
The most important message, however, is this. If you happen to be reading this as a search committee member at another school, we’ve got some terrific, professional, and brilliant candidates for your jobs: hire them!
Monday, December 2, 2013
Alumni Career Paths
A few weeks ago we sent out our
annual English Department newsletter. Besides being a way of letting folks know
about what has been going on around the department, the newsletter also serves
as a way for us to hear from our alumni—and for alumni to hear from each other.
In addition to the pleasure of reading the many alumni notes that were
submitted to the newsletter, I have also been gratified to hear from some
alumni directly (and would love to hear from even more!).
I was especially excited to receive
an email from a former student of mine, Jim Jay, who wrote an undergraduate
honors thesis with me about a decade ago on the novels of Don DeLillo and
Philip Roth. After graduating, Jim went on to do a law degree here at Illinois
and then worked as a prosecutor for the state for eighteen months. At that
point, his career took a fairly dramatic turn and he joined the State
Department. Since switching paths, he’s worked at US missions in Lagos and
Jakarta, and in 2015 he’ll head to Ho Chi Minh City. As Jim wrote to me, “The State Department is not where I
would have imagined I would end up when I was taking your class and working on
my thesis, but I have trouble seeing how things could have worked out better.” I’m
thrilled that things have turned out so well for Jim—and I’m also pleased to
hear that he still returns to some of the books we read together.
I also heard from an alumna who had graduated before my time in
Illinois. Michelle (Kelley) Crane was a double major in Rhetoric and Spanish
and, like Jim, has gone in directions that you might not have guessed.
Immediately after graduating, Michelle started a career in television and
worked first as a reporter for a local Champaign station. She then made a leap
to the national level—joining CNN as a field producer and subsequently working
for many years producing documentaries for A&E. She’s now struck out on her
own and is building her own production company, producing and writing videos
for television, hospitals, corporations, and non-profit organizations.
Like Jim, Michelle has volunteered to be part of the department’s
Alumni Mentoring Network—an effort coordinated in our Academic Advising Office by
Anna Ivy. The network puts current majors in touch with alumni working in all
sorts of fields in order to give students a sense of the range of possibilities
for post-college careers. Michelle summed up the spirit of the program well:
“If anyone needs advice on how
they should go about pursuing their future career, I would love to help. My
oldest son is a junior in high school, so I definitely see the value in helping
college bound teenagers and those about to graduate from college!”
There is no doubt that college students today are on the front lines of a rapidly changing economy; they are facing the rising costs of education and a challenging job market. There’s no avoiding the serious implications of those facts, but I have to say I am heartened by the stories of Jim, Michelle, and other alumni who have forged satisfying and successful career paths. Precisely because we live in a world of rapid change and increasingly networked communication, an English major remains a great choice. We help foster the abilities that everyone can benefit from: close reading, clear thinking, lucid writing. Those also happen to be the skills that employers are looking for—something I’ve heard directly from colleagues in business and computer science lately. There’s much more to an English major than acquiring job skills, but it’s inspiring to see the unexpected things our majors have done with what they’ve learned here at Illinois.
There is no doubt that college students today are on the front lines of a rapidly changing economy; they are facing the rising costs of education and a challenging job market. There’s no avoiding the serious implications of those facts, but I have to say I am heartened by the stories of Jim, Michelle, and other alumni who have forged satisfying and successful career paths. Precisely because we live in a world of rapid change and increasingly networked communication, an English major remains a great choice. We help foster the abilities that everyone can benefit from: close reading, clear thinking, lucid writing. Those also happen to be the skills that employers are looking for—something I’ve heard directly from colleagues in business and computer science lately. There’s much more to an English major than acquiring job skills, but it’s inspiring to see the unexpected things our majors have done with what they’ve learned here at Illinois.
Monday, November 4, 2013
More honors!
October was a busy month for me, with lots of campus deadlines and a conference to organize, so I have fallen a little behind on this blog.
But now that I have a quick minute I just wanted to pass on some more good news: I am very pleased to report that Lisa Cacho, an Associate Professor of Asian American Studies, Latina/Latino Studies, English, and Gender and Women's Studies, has won the 2013 John Hope Franklin Publication Prize of the American Studies Association for her book Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and the Criminalization of the Unprotected. Named after one of the most distinguished American historians of the twentieth century, the John Hope Franklin Publication Prize is given annually to the best published book in American Studies. This is a huge honor for Lisa and for our campus.
NYU Press, Lisa's publisher, has a page announcing her prize here and you can read more about the book here.
On a personal note: Lisa and I were part of the same fellows' seminar at the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities when she was in the early stages of working on this project, so it's a particular thrill for me to see how the book has fulfilled the promise that was already evident then. Congratulations, Lisa!
But now that I have a quick minute I just wanted to pass on some more good news: I am very pleased to report that Lisa Cacho, an Associate Professor of Asian American Studies, Latina/Latino Studies, English, and Gender and Women's Studies, has won the 2013 John Hope Franklin Publication Prize of the American Studies Association for her book Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and the Criminalization of the Unprotected. Named after one of the most distinguished American historians of the twentieth century, the John Hope Franklin Publication Prize is given annually to the best published book in American Studies. This is a huge honor for Lisa and for our campus.
NYU Press, Lisa's publisher, has a page announcing her prize here and you can read more about the book here.
On a personal note: Lisa and I were part of the same fellows' seminar at the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities when she was in the early stages of working on this project, so it's a particular thrill for me to see how the book has fulfilled the promise that was already evident then. Congratulations, Lisa!
Monday, October 14, 2013
Faculty Honors...
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences here at Illinois is
celebrating its centennial this year. As part of the celebration, we’ve already
heard about the naming of Centennial Scholars. Now the College has announced a
new set of honors. A “Gallery of Excellence” has gone up on the LAS website
that will highlight the teachers, researchers, academic programs, and alumni
who have been responsible “for some of the most important ideas and discoveries
of the 20th and 21st centuries.”
I’m pleased to report that English is represented in the
first round of honorees that is now available. I can’t think of a more
deserving person to be singled out than Nina Baym, emerita professor of
English, who is indeed responsible for many important ideas and discoveries!
Nina held a number of the most prestigious titles available on this campus
during the course of her career, including Swanlund Endowed Chair, Jubilee Professor
in the College of LAS, and Center for Advanced Study Professor of English. What
is important is of course not the names of those positions but the work that
stands behind them: Nina is universally recognized as a major figure in
changing the way we think about American literary history. She is especially
and rightly renowned for expanding the canon of American literature so that it
would take into account and value many women writers previously left out of the
picture. Among her numerous important books during the course of a very rich
career are Women’s Fiction (1978), Feminism and American Literary History
(1992), and Women Writers and the
American West, 1833-1927 (2011). Among the signs of her prominence in the
field are her ongoing editorship of The
Norton Anthology of American Literature (since 1985), and the many awards
she has won, including the Modern Language Association’s Jay B. Hubbell Award
for lifetime achievement in American literary studies (2000). Congratulations,
Nina! You honor us by being part of our community.
While we’re on the topic of honors, I’m also very happy to
report that Feisal Mohamed has received a new award. His co-edited collection Milton and Questions of History (2012) has
just been awarded the Milton Society of America’s Irene Samuel Memorial Award,
the highest honor from the society for a collection of essays. This is the second consecutive year that Feisal has received an award from the MSA. The award will
be bestowed at the upcoming Milton Society Association conference in Chicago.
Congratulations, Feisal, for receiving this further recognition of your work!
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Journals!
The other day I had the great pleasure of attending a
planning meeting for a new Undergraduate Literary Criticism Journal that our
English majors are creating. This new journal will join Montage, a student-run creative writing and visual arts periodical
with a long presence on campus. (You can read about both journals here.)
I was extremely impressed by the energy and commitment of
the many students who attended, some of whom I enjoyed teaching last spring in
my course on Critical Approaches to Literature! The meeting was led by Michael
Chan and Clara Mount (see the picture below), but other students have also been involved in getting
this initiative going, as you can read in this Daily Illini article from last spring. The students are getting
great support from our Director of Undergraduate Studies Lori Newcomb as well
as from our advisors, the University Library, and the Office of UndergraduateResearch.
When it appears next semester, this new journal will join
what is already a very impressive array of publications coming out of our
department. In addition to Montage
and our award-winning literary magazine Ninth
Letter (edited by Jodee Stanley and our wonderful Creative Writing
faculty), we now serve as the home base for no less than six other faculty-edited journals. One very established journal, College English, has just arrived
with our new colleague Kelly Ritter, and another about-to-appear journal, Resilience, is the brainchild of
Stephanie Foote, who is becoming a leading figure in the new environmental humanities.
Configurations, the official journal
of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, was recently taken over
by Melissa Littlefield, and Bob Markley, Charlie Wright and Martin Camargo, and
Gordon Hutner continue to edit The
Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, and American Literary History, respectively.
As you can see, this is a remarkable and diverse lineup that
covers a huge terrain of “traditional” literary areas along with emerging
interdisciplinary fields. Together with the great teaching and research that
goes on in our department, this kind of editorial work is one of the signs of
our intellectual vitality. Editing a journal is enormously hard work—as our
majors are about to find out!—but it is also incredibly rewarding. And it’s a
crucial service to our profession and to society at large, because it ultimately
involves the preservation and transformation of our literary and cultural
heritage.
As I told the students when I attended their meeting the
other day, editing a journal in graduate school was one of the most enjoyable,
challenging, and educational experiences I ever had as a student. Journals are
the lifeblood of our profession: they are the way we most frequently get new
ideas out into the world. It pleases me greatly that my colleagues and students
are contributing in such a fundamental way to the creation and circulation of
new works of literature, criticism, and theory.
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Audrey Petty's High Rise Stories
I am very pleased to announce that Audrey Petty’s new book High Rise Stories: Voices from Chicago Public Housing has just appeared. Thanks to Audrey, I have a copy right
here next to me on my desk! This book is a powerful work of oral history and
historical recovery—it collects the voices of residents from no-longer-existing
housing projects in Chicago. Audrey, who is an Associate Professor of Creative
Writing in our department, served as editor, compiler, and introducer for these
first-person narratives. The book is published in the Voice of Witness series,
an imprint of McSweeney’s Books dedicated to “illuminating human rights crises
through oral history.”
I was fortunate to hear Audrey read from and discuss High Rise Stories during a very affecting
event about memoirs and memory at the IPRH last February that also included our
own LeAnne Howe. Some of you may have also seen Audrey present the book during
a joint event sponsored by the English Department and the Chicago Humanities Festival. I can attest that High Rise
Stories is a moving and important book that exemplifies the best impulses
of faculty in the humanities to make their work available to and for a larger
public.
Here’s a little more about the book and the people who tell
their stories in it, taken from the publisher’s website:
“About the
book:
In the gripping
first-person accounts of High Rise Stories, former residents of
Chicago’s iconic public housing projects describe life in the now-demolished
high rises. These stories of community, displacement, and poverty in the wake
of gentrification give voice to those who have long been ignored, but whose
hopes and struggles exist firmly at the heart of our national identity.
Among the
narrators:
DONNELL, who
was initiated into gang life at the age of twelve. A former resident of
Rockwell Gardens, Donnell recounts growing up in an environment where daily
life involved selling drugs, fighting rival gangs, and navigating encounters
with a corrupt and often violent police force, as well as his efforts to turn
his life around after incarceration.
SABRINA, whose
sister was shot in the head in their Cabrini-Green apartment when she was
caught in the middle of a turf-related shooting. Because ambulances refused to
come to Cabrini-Green, and the elevators were out of order, Sabrina’s father
and her then-pregnant mother had to carry her sister down thirteen flights of
stairs to rush her to the hospital.
DOLORES, who,
at the age of 82, was hastily displaced from her home in Cabrini-Green after 53
years and forced to leave many of her belongings behind. Dolores depicts her
community’s evolution over five decades, including her leadership in resident
government, and her husband’s mentoring of youth through a Drum and Bugle
Corps.
CHANDRA, whose
son’s felony conviction bars him from entering the grounds of Chandra’s home in
Orchard Park. Chicago Housing Authority rules demand that Chandra report him to
the police if she sees him on the property, or face eviction herself.”
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