Join Us for the Next "Voices of the Rainbow" Event:

Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai

Thursday, November 6, Noon, Humanities Building, Room 206

Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai is a Chicago-born, Brooklyn-based, Chinese Taiwanese American spoken word artist who has been featured at over 275 performances worldwide including three seasons of HBO's award-winning Russell Simmons' Def Poetry Jam.

Voices of the Rainbow Event

Gary Shteyngart & Marie-Elena John

Wednesday, October 8, Noon
Health Sciences Building, Room 119

Gary Shteyngart was born in the Soviet Union. He is the author of the satiric novels The Russian Debutante's Handbook and Absurdistan, chosen as one of the New York Times' best books of 2006.

Marie-Elena Jones, a native of Antigua, is author of the novel Unburnable, "a love story, a murder mystery, a multigenerational epic, and a reinterpretation of Black history."

Faculty Forum Event

Professor Harriet Malinowitz (English Department) on "Propaganda: Persuasion in the Age of Unreason"

The Richard L. Conolly College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Invites the LIU Brooklyn Campus Community to a Faculty Forum Presentation by Professor Harriet Malinowitz of the English Department

Title & Topic

"Propaganda: Persuasion in the Age of Unreason"

Why don’t human beings respond more consistently to logic and reason? Why do so many people vote and act against their self-interest? What is the difference between robust public debate and the engineering of consent? These are questions worth pondering on the eve of a national election.

Please join us as Professor Malinowitz examines the roots of contemporary propaganda in late 19th and early 20th century theories of “the crowd,” “the public,” and “the herd instinct,” as well as the pioneering of methods of mass manipulation.

When & Where

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008
4:00 p.m.-5:30 p.m., Library Learning Center, Room 515

Refreshments will be served

For further information, please contact Gladys Schrynemakers (718-488-1001) or William Burgos (718-488-1094).

Note: This is part of the Campus-wide Faculty Forum program; it is not part of the English Department's own Faculty Forum: Works in Progress program.

MFA Reading Series Event

Cornelia Street Cafe Poetry Reading by MFA Candidates

When:

Thursday, October 9, 2008
6-8 PM

Where:

Cornelia Street Cafe
29 Cornelia Street (Manhattan)
A, C, E, B, D, F, or V to West 4th Street
1 to Sheridan Square

$7 for poetry & a drink

Readers:

Lilian Almendarez
Lewis Warsh
Gary Parrish
Giorgios Qure-Lacroix Retsinas
Uche Nduka
Christine Gans
Stephanie Gray
Jamey Jones
Danielle Moskowitz
Zahra Patterson
Jon L. Peacock

Click the image to see a larger version of the flyer for this event:

MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR DR. GERALD SILVEIRA

Please join us in commemorating the life of Gerald E. Silveira. Dean Silveira was a beloved teacher and respected colleague and a member of the Brooklyn Campus community for over 50 years. The special celebration will include a Fountain dedication, followed by performances in the Kumble Theater by the American Ballet Theater and other artists.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008
4:30 p.m.
Gerald E. Silveira Fountain (located directly in front of the Campus entrance of Wellness, Recreation Center)

NEW DATE & TIME: Graduate Student Open House

This event was supposed to be Wednesday, September 17, but a conflict has arisen, so the new date/time is as follows...

Thursday, September 18th
5:15 – 6:45 pm
Humanities Building, Fourth Floor Lounge

Please come and meet the new students in the MA and MFA programs (16 this semester plus 1 readmit!), ask questions of the Chair, meet faculty, and generally eat pizza, drink beer, and celebrate the beginning of the new school year together. This event is informal and fun.

All graduate students, prospective graduate students, and faculty are welcome.

Paumanok Lecture: Walter Mosley

The Department of English of Long Island University's Brooklyn Campus & The MFA Program in Creative Writing cordially invite you to attend...

STARTING FROM PAUMANOK
the Annual Reading and Talk on American Literature and Culture.

This year's Lecture will be given by...

Walter Mosley

6-8 pm, Thursday, October 2, 2008

(Walter Mosley will be introduced by Jessica Hagedorn)

Kumble Theater, Humanities Building
Long Island University, Brooklyn
Flatbush Avenue Extension and Dekalb Avenue
For further information, call (718) 488-1050

The event is free and open to the public. Seating is limited and reservations are required.

RSVP: 718 488 1624

kumble@brooklyn.liu.edu

Co-sponsored by the Provost's Office, the English Department, the Creative Writing MFA program, and Voices of the Rainbow reading series, this event is supported by grants from the Mellon Foundation and Long Island University's John P. McGrath Fund

WALTER MOSLEY is the author of twenty-nine critically acclaimed books which have been translated into twenty-one languages. His popular mysteries featuring Easy Rawlins began with Devil in a Blue Dress in 1990. Others in the series include A Red Death, White Butterfly, Black Betty, and A Little Yellow Dog (both of which were New York Times bestsellers). Recently, Easy Rawlins has returned in Bad Boy Brawly Brown, Six Easy Pieces, Little Scarlet and Cinnamon Kiss, a 2006 New York Times bestseller.

Mosley has written five works of literary fiction: RL's Dream; Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned; Walkin' the Dog; The Man in My Basement and Fortunate Son; three works of science fiction, Blue Light, Futureland and The Wave; and four works of nonfiction, Workin' on the Chain Gang, What Next, Life out of Context, and This Year You Write Your Novel. Two movies have been made from his work: Devil in A Blue Dress, starring Denzel Washington and Always Outnumbered, starring Laurence Fishburne.

He has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including a Grammy Award, the O'Henry Award, the Sundance Institute Risktaker Award for his creative and activist efforts, and the Anisfield Wolf Award, an honor given to works that increase the appreciation and understanding of race in America.

Mosley created, along with The City College, a new Publishing Degree Program aimed at young urban residents. It is the only such program in the country. Born and raised in Los Angeles, he now lives in Brooklyn.

For further information, visit Walter Mosley's website.

Voices of the Rainbow: Fall 2008 Readings

The following are the readings scheduled for this semester. More detailed announcements will appear right before each event, but mark your calendars now!

Walter Mosley (Paumanok Lecture)

Thursday, October 2, 6PM, Kumble Theatre (Humanities Building, first floor)

Walter Mosley is one of America's best-loved writers. He is the author of such mysteries as Devil in a Blue Dress, Black Betty, Blonde Faith, and Fearless Jones. He will be making the annual Paumanok Lecture on American Literature.

Program co-sponsored by the Provost's Office, the English Department, the Creative Writing MFA program, and Voices of the Rainbow.

Gary Shteyngart & Marie-Elena John

Wednesday, October 8, Noon, Health Sciences Building, Room 119

Gary Shteyngart was born in the Soviet Union. He is the author of the satiric novels The Russian Debutante's Handbook and Absurdistan, chosen as one of the New York Times' best books of 2006.

Marie-Elena Jones, a native of Antigua, is author of the novel Unburnable, "a love story, a murder mystery, a multigenerational epic, and a reinterpretation of Black history."

Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai

Thursday, November 6, Noon, Humanities Building, Room 206

Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai is a Chicago-born, Brooklyn-based, Chinese Taiwanese American spoken word artist who has been featured at over 275 performances worldwide including three seasons of HBO's award-winning Russell Simmons' Def Poetry Jam.

Charles Dickens' Holiday Story The Chimes, performed by David Houston

Wednesday, December 10, 6PM, Health Sciences Building, Room 119

Just in time for the Christmas season, we will be presenting a one-man performance of Charles Dickens' The Chimes, a witty, ironic and poignant short novel exposing how the rich think the poor ought to live. Performed by actor/author David Houston, who has appeared in leading roles in scores of plays and musicals.

Graduate Courses, Summer & Fall 2008

Summer Session One 2008

 (May 19 -- June 30)

English 636
Representations of Struggle in South African Literature and Film
Professor Patricia Stephens
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 6:00 to 8:15 PM

In this course, our explorations of South African literature and film will be framed by the historical, social, political, and cultural contexts of the rise and fall of Apartheid--a period of intense struggle for and against social change. Working chronologically, we will explore texts (print and film) written or set within three specific eras: 1940s-1950s (the inception and institutionalization of formal Apartheid policies); 1960s-1980s (the rise of Black Consciousness and anti-Apartheid movements); and 1990s-present (the rise of democracy and the post-Apartheid years). Our print texts for the course will span several genres: novels, memoir and/or autobiography, short stories, drama, poetry, creative non-fiction, as well as excerpts from transcripts taken from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Hearings. In conjunction with our readings, we will watch several films that document both historical events and day-to-day lives in South Africa, past and present. Throughout the course, we will examine how and why writers and filmmakers depict struggle in the ways they do and what kinds of "truths" readers take from these representations. As outsiders reading about a country still very much in transition, we will examine our own understandings of the connections between history, politics, culture, and the literature and film of South Africa. Written work for the course will include short responses to the texts as well as a final research paper (topics to be determined via conferences between the instructor and students). Alternative projects may be considered. Below are some possible texts for the course:

1940s-50s: Abrahams, Peter. Mine Boy; Paton, Alan. Cry, the Beloved Country (film); Mphalele, Ezekiel.Down 2nd Avenue; Poetry Selections (from Drum);

1960s-80s: Biko, Steven. Excerpts from I Write What I Like; Mandela, Nelson. Excerpts from Long Walk to Freedom and Selected Speeches; Mhlope, Gcina. "Have You Seen Zandile?"; Wicomb, Zoë. You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town; Poetry selections (from Staffrider); Amandla: A Revolution in Four Part Harmony (film)

1990s-present: Krog, Antjie. Country of My Skull; Magona, Sindiwe. Mother to Mother. Mda, Zakes.Ways of Dying; Gordimer, Nadine. The House Gun. Long Day's Journey into Night (film); Facing the Truth (film),

FALL 2008

English 503: Theory of Writing: Remembering the Present
Professor Lewis Warsh
Thursdays, 4:10 to 6:00 PM

Writing theory is an all encompassing endeavor. It must take into account both the past and the present while pointing instructively towards the future. Many great 20th century theorists were fiction writers and poets themselves--their theoretical work derived from their practice as creative writers. One goal of this course is to develop and articulate our own sense of what we want to do as writers and what we expect as readers. We will use the ideas expressed in these essays to inspire and inform our own work.

Another goal is to create a dialogue between ourselves and these authors. Ezra Pound's notable quote (I'm paraphrasing) : "Don't take advice from anyone who hasn't written a great work" is something to keep in mind. What gives anyone the right to theorize? One of the ongoing threads in this class will be an attempt to understand the place of theory in our work as writers, beginning with the inescapable question: “Is it necessary?”

Among the authors we will read are Henry James, E.M. Forester, Virginia Woolf, Ezra Pound, Laura Riding, Gertruce Stein, Roland Barthes, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Walter Benjamin, M.M. Bakhtin, Tzvetan Todorov, Maurice Blanchot, James Baldwin, Charles Olson, Frank O’Hara, Ralph Ellison, Amiri Baraka, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, Lyn Hejinian.

English 523: Fiction Writing Workshop: Starting Points in Fiction
Professor Han Ong (Visiting Writer)
Thursdays, 6:10 to 8:00 PM

In this class we will take a look at the initial sources of inspiration writers use and build upon in crafting a novel or short story. For some writers, it's a premise: "What if ...?" For others, it's a plot, a sequence of events one leading to the other; this can be true of writers who use newspaper articles as their jumping off point. Character is key for some; for example, they want to write a piece about their grade school teacher, who was important in their life. Some writers hear a stretch of dialogue and that's where they begin. Yet others are compelled by place, setting; this might be true of some immigrant or foreign writers trying to recapture a lost world, for example. Oftentimes, where we start in our writing forecasts what the strengths of the work are going to be, as well as the weaknesses. By querying their own starting points, each student in class will begin to understand why it is that he or she runs into a set of problems in the middle of the writing process, which is different for every writer. This way, too, they can begin to identify elements that they need to strengthen to make their novel or story a more integrated and satisfying whole.

Han Ong is the author of two novels: Fixer Chao (2001) and The Disinherited (2004), both published by Picador USA. He has been the recipient of Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellowships, as well as a fellowship to the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. His writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Natural History, BOMB, and the journal Conjunctions. He is also the author of more than three dozen plays, which have been produced across the country at such venues as the Joseph Papp Public Theater, Berkeley Rep, and the American Repertory Theater.

English 524: Poetry Writing Workshop: Writing the Long Poem: Everything We Know
Professor Lewis Warsh
Tuesdays, 6:10 to 8:00 PM

The long poem is a place where we can include everything: knowledge of ecology and politics, all the various emotional states and upheavals that we’ve experienced, annotation of the present moment and the passage of time. Each student will initiate what might be a long poem of several pages or even a book-length poem written and accumulated over the course of the semester. We'll discuss the ways of bringing together data by direct observation and journal writing, by reading the newspaper (which is a kind of daily poem), and by sustaining a rhythm, a feeling, a theme. We'll pay attention to ways of improvisation, how to translate daily life into poetry, and how to use repetition and variation. We'll use as models some of the great long poems of the last century, most notably Paterson by William Carlos Williams, The Skaters and Three Poems by John Ashbery, A by Louis Zukofsky and Midwinter Day by Bernadette Mayer. Mostly we'll look closely at each other's work, give each other feedback and advice, and share each other's concerns regarding the importance of poetry in the world.

English 525: Play Writing Workshop: The Art of Playwriting
Professor Jessica Hagedorn
Wednesdays, 6:10 to 8:00 PM

In this workshop, we will explore what it means to write for the theatre, how to create characters who engage and surprise us, how to develop an ear for the poetry of ordinary speech, and how to develop an appreciation for the power of silence. Expect in-class writing and visualization exercises, close readings and discussions of plays, monologues and excerpted scenes by major contemporary playwrights; expect to write a five-to-ten minute piece to be performed, using your fellow students as actors. Guest speaker and field trip to one Off-Broadway play, TBA. Registration limited.

English 527: Professional Writing Workshop: Grant Writing
Professor John Killoran
Thursdays 6:10 - 8:00 pm

This course is designed not only for English graduate students but also for students from other disciplines and for professionals who seek to develop their skills as persuasive professional writers.

Behind much of the work conducted by cultural agencies, businesses, nonprofits, and researchers are successfully grant proposals. The grant proposal is essentially a persuasive document, and this course thus approaches grant writing through a rhetorical perspective. A rhetorical perspective offers not just a wily way with words but a means of responding to a rhetorical situation, of generating successful ideas. The rhetorical perspective helps students define the problem, analyze the audience, and invent the arguments that best present their case. Specifically, in the course, students will...

1. identify a problem on campus or in their organization, social and cultural communities, or research field;

2. analyse potential sponsors who might share the goal of solving the problem;

3. and plan, draft, and revise a grant proposal.

The course is designed for those seeking to write grant proposals for cultural agencies, business RFPs, nonprofits, and research. However, students will develop knowledge and skills that can be applied broadly to the various kinds of writing required in their careers.

English 579: Seminar in Special Studies: Virginia Woolf and Modernism
Professor Patrick Horrigan
Mondays, 6:10 to 8:00 PM

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) is one of the most challenging and beautiful writers in the English language. Every time she began work on a new novel, she renewed her ambition to reinvent the genre and to make it penetrate to depths of human experience never before tried by writers of fiction. The course will trace the path from her early, tentatively realistic fiction (The Voyage Out), through her experimental short fiction of the late teens and early 1920s ("The Mark on the Wall," "An Unwritten Novel"), to the achievement of her high modernist style in four major novels: Jacob's Room, Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and The Waves. Woolf was also an innovator in the art of the essay, and we will read some of her most famous works in the genre, including "Modern Fiction," "On Being Ill," and her revolutionary (and very funny) manifesto for women writers, A Room of One's Own. Because Woolf was keenly interested in painting and was intimately associated with a circle of avant-garde artists, special emphasis will be placed on the intersection between verbal and visual art in her life and work.

Field trips to the Museum of Modern Art and the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library (which houses the largest collection of Woolf manuscripts in the world) will be arranged. In addition to on-going class discussion, students will write a series of short essays in response to the readings, and one longer critical essay or creative term project.

English 641: Literacy and Basic Writing
Professor Donald McCrary
Wednesdays, 4:10 to 6:00 PM

In this course we will attempt to identify and understand what constitutes literacy in the academy and how "basic writers" are positioned within and against this term in their struggle to acquire academic discourse, a term we will also examine. We will investigate our own assumptions about literacy and test those assumptions against academy dictates and practices. We will problematize "basic writing" in relation to theories and methods of teaching basic and college writing. For example, is the social constructionist approach viable, or should students' primary languages be included in the instruction and production of college writing? What is the relationship between reading and writing, and how might one inform the other? How might orality be utilized in the classroom to help students increase their awareness of standard English? How do we offer cohesive, productive instruction when students within the same class have different levels and types of literacy? Authors we might read include Delpit, Bourdieu, Bizzell, and Heath. The course will be particularly beneficial for students who plan to teach in academic institutions with students from diverse linguistic backgrounds.

English 646: Individual and Small Group Writing Instruction
Professor Patricia Stephens
Tuesdays, 4:10 to 6:00 PM

This course is designed to introduce tutors and teachers to the theories and practices of tutoring writing (online, face-to-face, one-to-one, and small groups). Though our work in this class will help all tutors/teachers expand their repertoire of theoretical and pedagogical knowledge about tutoring writing in general, we will also focus on some of the specific needs of writers who use the LIU/Brooklyn Writing Center. As we familiarize ourselves with the curriculum and pedagogy of the Writing Program and interdisciplinary writing concerns (through WAC) on campus, we will locate the work we do at our Writing Center within the broader historical and institutional contexts of writing centers, in general. Throughout the semester, the course will address practical concerns about tutoring: structuring sessions and setting goals; assessing, diagnosing and responding to student writing; learning strategies to teach planning, drafting, revising, proofreading and editing; learning strategies to work on specific grammatical concerns; helping students with reading comprehension; working with ESL concerns; noticing interpersonal dynamics and maintaining boundaries; respecting and responding to cultural and ethnic differences; working as an online tutor, and facilitating small group sessions. We will also explore connections between writing center histories and institutional politics in order to understand how particular practices emerge within specific contexts. Students interested in pursuing a specific topic not included in the general readings (such as writing center administration) are encouraged to do so, with permission from the instructor. Classes will be conducted as seminars/workshops so that all students have the opportunity to participate in class presentations, mock tutorials, etc. All students are required to tutor for one hour per week during the semester and attend staff development meetings at the Writing Center. Each of you will write an observation report of a session conducted by another tutor and audio/video tape one session with a student (for use in a self-study).

Our Condolences to the Silveira Family

Gerald E. Silveira passed away early Saturday, May 10, after a long battle with cancer. He was 81.

Dean Silveira was part of Long Island University for 50 years. He taught for nearly two decades at the Brooklyn Campus, rising to the rank of professor after joining as an English instructor in 1958. He went on to fill important roles as part of the administration, serving as assistant dean of the Richard L. Conolly College of Liberal Arts and Sciences from 1977 to 1980 and then as associate dean until the present; for a period in 1985, he was acting dean of the College.

Through all this time, Dean Silveira never lost love for writing, literature and the performing arts. He also was an avid fan of the New York Times crossword puzzle, which never required more than 15 minutes for him to complete!

Gerry, as he was known to the many who enjoyed working with him at LIU, was a native of Gloucester, Massachusetts. He earned a B.A. at Boston University and an M.A. at Rutgers University, specializing in linguistics and English as a second language. He was the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship in 1954 and a Carnegie Southern Scholarship award for 1956 to 1958.

Gerry Silveira is survived by a niece and many good friends at the Brooklyn Campus. Plans for services at the Campus will be announced after commencement.