The English Department has recently launched the Holloway Postdoctoral Fellowship in Poetry and Poetics, a one-year position for recent PhDs that allows them to further both their creative and critical projects. This year we have three Fellows: Margaret Ronda, Jessica Fisher and Jeremy Ecke. In what follows, the three poet-scholars talk about their current projects, the importance of this Fellowship and what makes Berkeley an especially rich place to write poetry and criticism.Read full post…
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What does it mean to be a public intellectual in 21st century America? And to what extent does the often intensely private work of an academic speak to larger issues in today’s world? Aaron Bady blogs at zunguzungu.wordpress.com. Two fifth-year English PhD candidates, Aaron Bady and Paul Kerschen, think often about these questions. Both Aaron and Paul are active bloggers – though with somewhat divergent styles and objectives – and they see the forum of the blog as a way to redefine the border between the private work of the academic and the public role of the intellectual.Aaron’s blogging practices seem to exhibit this redefinition of boundaries most explicitly. He is present online in three different venues: his personal blog, the history [...] In what follows, fifth-year graduate student Matthew Sergi reflects on his experience “visiting” the Modern Language Association convention that recently took place in San Francisco. This is a somewhat condensed version of Matthew’s more colorful account which can be found on his own personal blog. *** MLA members are the custodians of language, and language is at the heart of virtually all disciplines (at least the humanistic ones).– Rosemary Feal, MLA Executive Director The thirty thousand scholars of language and literature who form the Modern Language Association convene annually in late December. In a different city every year, we critique each other’s research, compare notes on teaching and evaluate the current state of humanities education. We also hold preliminary interviews for the majority [...] PASSED FROM ONE MOUTH TO ANOTHER.* Cecil Giscombe’s English 243 class presents an evening of poetry and song along with food prepared by the poets. Graduate students Anthony Bello, Rachel Carden, Rebecca Gaydos, Nikhil Govind, Mariah Hamilton, Charity Ketz, Gillian Osborne, Samia Rahimtoola, Robert Reyes, and Rachel Wamsley will read, sing, and recite. Monday, 8 December • 7 pm • English Department Lounge (Wheeler 330) (*from “Anthem” by Samia Rahimtoola) Peter Chernin (BA, English, 1974) serves as President and Chief Operating Officer of News Corporation, and Chairman and CEO of the Fox Group. He has overseen Fox’s tremendous growth in sports, cable, and entertainment programming, and gained a reputation as an executive with a unique mastery of the creative side of the business. Mr. Chernin is also Chairman of Malaria No More, a non-profit dedicated to ending deaths due to malaria. Please come to hear him in conversation with incoming Chair Sam Otter and Professor Bob Hass this coming Monday! In an article in the September 7 issue of The New York Times Magazine, entitled “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy,” Clive Thompson discusses the way that a rise in social networking applications is (unsurprisingly) changing the kinds of relationships we are having. He points out that web applications like Facebook and Twitter explodes the number of “weak ties” – the term sociologists use for loose acquaintances with whom one is more or less friendly – a person is able to cultivate and maintain. Any member of a networking site like Facebook has had the experience of reading all about someone with whom they haven’t spoken in years. It’s both exhilarating and disorienting, but whatever it is, it is redefining [...] |
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Nuruddin Farah—among the foremost of contemporary African writers, author of numerous novels including the trilogies Variations on the Theme of An African Dictatorship and Blood in the Sun, and recipient of the 1998 Neustadt International Prize for Literature—delivered this year’s English Department commencement address at the Greek Theatre on May 16. You’ll find the text below the fold.