Lewis Warsh to MC Reading at St. Mark's Bookshop

St. Mark's Bookshop presents an early summer evening of poetry with Bernadette Mayer & Matvei Yankelevich emceed by Lewis Warsh (English Department Professor and Director of Creative Writing MFA program at LIU Brooklyn). When & Where Monday, June 11, 2012, 7:00 PM 31 Third Ave, NYC --- Matvei Yankelevich's is the author of the newly released poetry collection Alpha Donut (United Artists Books, 2012), and a novel in fragments, Boris by the Sea (Octopus Books, 2009), as well as several chapbooks. He is the translator and editor of Today I Wrote Nothing: The Selected Writings of Daniil Kharms (Overlook, 2007). His translations of Russian poetry have appeared in many periodicals including Harper's, New American Writing, Poetry, and the New Yorker, and in several anthologies. He is one of the founding editors of Ugly Duckling Presse (where he runs the Eastern European Poets Series), and a member of the writing faculty of the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College. Bernadette Mayer is an avant-garde writer associated with the New York School of poets. She was born in Brooklyn, New York, and has spent most of her life in New York City. Her collections of poetry include Midwinter Day (1982, 1999), A Bernadette Mayer Reader (1992), The Desire of Mothers to Please Others in Letters (1994), Another Smashed Pinecone (1998), and Poetry State Forest (2008). She edited the journal 0 TO 9 with artist Vito Acconci and established United Artists press with the poet Lewis Warsh. United Artists Press, under Mayer and Warsh, published a number of influential writers, including Robert Creeley, Anne Waldman, James Schuyler, and Alice Notley. Mayer has taught at the New School for Social Research and The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church in New York City.

Call for Papers: Caribbean Irish Connections

Professor Maria McGarrity (English Department) is an organizer, along with Alison Donnell (University of Reading, UK) and Evelyn O’Callaghan (University of the West Indies, Barbados), of the conference Caribbean Irish Connections, and she sends along the following call for papers.

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In the middle of a story about a Jamaican woman called Miss Manda, whose speech acts reveal her as both multiply situated and ‘out of place’, the prominent Jamaican novelist Erna Brodber issues a surprising provocation to scholars of Caribbean studies,

I want to know what the Irish, the Scottish, the Welsh gave to the Creole mix as much as I want to know…what particular part of Africa is my heritage…I will solve the African riddle but who will tell me about the others? (Brodber 1998: 75)

Although there has been more recent scholarship on the connections between Ireland and the Caribbean, such as the The Black and Green Atlantic: Cross-Currents of the African and Irish Diasporas edited by O’Neill and Lloyd, there remains still too little conversation between scholars based in Caribbean Studies and those in Irish Studies. This conference aims to open up these conversations as they pertain to history, politics, language, geography, expressive cultural forms, and everyday practices (such as the use of a shamrock passport stamp in Montserrat). We seek the active engagement of scholars working within this highly focused yet potentially broad field to further shape this emerging critical discourse.

Please send abstracts of 250 words and a brief bio to a.j.donnell@reading.ac.uk by June 29, 2012. Presenters will be notified by first week in August.

A special accommodation rate has been negotiated for presenters at Beach View, Paynes Bay, St. James, Barbados, and all conference sessions will be held there. 
beachviewbarbados.com

Registration fees: (including lunches & BBQ supper with drinks on Saturday night):

US & Europe : US$150

Caribbean : US$75

Selected papers will be considered for an edited collection in Palgrave’s New Caribbean Studies series.

Jonathan Haynes: Sabbatical Activity

Jonathan Haynes was on the jury of the Zuma Film Festival in Abuja, Nigeria, in early May.  At the opening ceremony of the festival he was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Nigerian Film Corporation.  While in Abuja he was named a Distinguished Fellow of the Centre for Democracy and Development and took part in a training workshop there in relation to a project supported by the Rockefeller Foundation.  He is now in Lagos, carrying on with his research.

Awards Ceremony

On May 2, 2012, the English Department held its annual Awards Ceremony, at which the following award winners and graduates were recognized.


SIGMA TAU DELTA inductees


John Casquarelli, MFA; Nicholas Conklin, BA; Theresa Gorella, BA; Rachel Jackson, MFA; Gina Pacheco, BA; Willie Perdomo, MFA; Sarah Reynolds, BA; Katiana Sylvain, BA; Ralph Tolbert



Excellence in English Awards for 2011-2012.
(Eligible: students with graduation dates of September 2011, January 2012, or May 2012.)


Graduate (3.8 GPA or higher): John Casquarelli, Aimee Herman, Tony Iantosca, Rachel Jackson, Willie Perdomo, Jessica Wedge

Undergrad (3.5 GPA or higher): Kadienne Bruinsma-Campbell, Nicholas Conklin, Theresa Gorella, Sarah Reynolds, Ralph Tolbert



Elaine Spielberg Award


Bridget Castro



Louis & Ann Parascandola Graduate Award


Laurel Schumacher



Edward Edelman & Susanne Popper-Edelman English Essay Prizes


Core Literature: Josh Lamore


Upper Division: Jahsel Carmichael


Senior Seminar: Jacquelle Morgan



Esther Hyneman Graduate Awards in Poetry & Fiction


Fiction: Michael Grove


Poetry: Felice Bell & Joey Infante


Cross-Genre Writing: Aimee Herman



Barbara Henning Distinguished Service Award


Sarah Walllen

NYCAAPSE Conference

On Tuesday, May 15th, the English Department is collaborating with NYCAAPSE in a one-day conference that brings LIU teachers, graduate students, and high school professionals together for an extended conversation on Our Common Cores - Theory and Practice. In a series of hands-on workshops, we will be exploring our shared values as well as the distinct expectations our students face as they move from high school to college.

The conference begins at 9 AM with a keynote address from Dr. Peggy O’Neill, Loyola University Maryland. Workshops on topics ranging from Teaching and Technology to Writing Fiction start at 10 AM, and the conference ends with lunch from 1:30-2:30 PM. Registration is free, with a $21 charge for lunch. The English Department will underwrite lunch for graduate students and any faculty who need the subsidy.

Last year's conference was a rousing success, in large part because of a strong presence from our department, and we hope that you will join us to make this year's gathering fruitful for all concerned. See flier has for details and the link for registration. For further information, contact Deborah Mutnick, Sealy Gilles, or Leah Dilworth.

Josh Lamore Wins 2012 Career Services Award

Josh LaMore (sophomore English major, Creative Writing concentration) is the winner of this year's Student Service Award from the Office of Career Services. Congratulations, Josh!

Lewis Warsh at Sidewalk Cafe (with Tsipi Keller)

Thursday, May 3, 2012

6:30 to 7:45 p.m. (starts & ends on time!)

The back room of the East Village's SideWalk Café

94 Avenue A at 6^th Street, NYC

F to Second Avenue, exit at First Avenue

212-473-7373

One drink minimum (or purchase a munchie). No cover charge but we do ask for a generous contribution, which goes to the readers.

Tsipi Keller’s latest novel, The Prophet of 10^th Street, published this March, has been called a literary love story “about” writing itself, about using language—opinionated, fanciful, foolish and inspired—as ways and means to absorb, consume and in a sense outlast the Holocaust. “In elegant, pitch-perfect prose, Tsipi Keller explores what it means to be a writer in a post-Holocaust world. Her evocation of Marcus Weiss—at once tender and wise—lays bare the felt life of the novelist,” wrote Andrew Furman, author of Israel Through the Jewish-American Imagination.

Lewis Warsh, best known as a poet, has published two books of stories and four novels, most recently A Place in the Sun, 2010. He is editor and publisher of United Artists Books and director of the MFA program in creative writing at LIU Brooklyn. About A Place in the Sun, Michael Lally writes: “Lewis Warsh brings his poet's sensibility to a mash up of literary and genre fiction techniques—including constantly shifting perspectives and unexpected interconnections—to create an intriguingly compelling and deeply satisfying reading experience. I loved it.”

MFA Reading Series: Graduating MFA Students

Please join us for a celebratory reading by 2012 graduates of the MFA program in creative writing.

Friday, May 4

6-8 PM

Spector Lounge, 4th Floor, H Building

Alicia Berbenick

John Casquarelli

Aimee Herman

Micah Savaglio

Patia Braithwaite

Uche Nduka

Gulay Isik

Willie Perdomo

Tony Iantosca

Book Party for Uche Nduka

Join Overpass Books for a release party for Ijele, the ninth collection of poems from Uche Nduka (a student in the Creative Writing MFA program), which is now available at overpassbooks.com.

Saturday, May 12, 2012

7:30 PM

Unnameable Books

600 Vanderbilt Avenue

Brooklyn

Deborah Mutnick's Honors Students Host Town Hall

Please join Professor Deborah Mutnick (English) and her Honors elective (HSM 110) students in a Brooklyn Campus Town Hall on student debt. The students have been learning about public sphere theory and tools for engaging in civic dialogue for social change. They chose the topic of student debt, and are excited to be putting theory into practice.