This fall's commencement address was delivered by Shawnee attorney Terry W. West, who attended ECU in 1956 and 1957. West advised graduates to make a sincere effort to living a happy life. "Life is what you make it," he advised, and encouraged graduates to live in the present instead of always thinking about things that will make them happy some day in the future.
Gertrude Stein
West suggested that those who focus too much on the future may be disappointed as Modernist writer Gertrude Stein was when she traveled to her childhood home in Oakland, California and found that it was gone. As she put it, "there's no there there."
I counted five English majors listed in the program as candidates for Bachelor's degrees: Katherine Sarah Conrad, Amy Kathleen Davis, Samantha Jane Manuel, Benjamin D. Nicolls, and Brock Parsons.
Ken Hada writes: "You are invited to our annual December reading hosted by LeAnne Howe, December 14, 7pm. at the Ada Arts & Heritage Center (14th & Rennie).
"Starla Hibler will accompany readings on the piano. Readers include LeAnne Howe, Greg Rodgers, Phil Morgan, Jennifer Kidney, Al Turner, Jim Wilson, Ken Hada and perhaps others. Hope to see you there for an inspiring, fun evening."
"Mindy Choate was just hired as assistant professor of English at Seminole State, beginning in January, where she will be joining several other ECU English graduates on the faculty there. In addition, Mindy will continue to do some grant writing for the Konawa Clinic, where she is currently employed.
"Mark Francis is working as an editor for the Chickasaw Press, which is located in Sulphur; they have several book projects in the works.
"Katie Beth (Benson) Miller will graduate this week with a master’s in library science from Texas Woman’s University. She is employed as a librarian at the Greenhill School in Addison, TX.
"Jenny Crelia will begin a dual-appointment assistantship at UALR in January, teaching one class and working in their writing center as well."
"Language Awareness, the capstone course all English majors must take, requires students to compile a portfolio of work that reveals the completion of NCATE outcomes. Throughout each semester, English and Languages faculty will be collecting two copies of some assignments and placing them in your portfolio, which is kept in the Advising Suite. This collection adds our efforts significantly, but we can't collect everything you write. Please keep copies of everything you submit in an English majors' course so you will have access to it in case you decide to place it in your portfolio. In Language Awareness you must include seven works in the portfolio. This is required of ALL ENGLISH MAJORS regardless of how many works were collected by your professors, and the portfolio makes up a large portion of the grade in the Language Awareness course. You don't need to worry about the outcomes. That's our job. But please help our effort by saving all of your work. If you prefer, print an extra copy and place it in my door pocket (HM 317; above the stairwell) and I will file it in your dept. portfolio in the Advising Suite.
The following is adapted from the November 29th entry on Garrison Keillor's website, The Writer's Almanac:
November 29th is the birthday of Louisa May Alcott (1832), born in Germantown, Pennsylvania.. It is also the birthday of her father, Amos Bronson Alcott (1799), born in Wolcott, Connecticut, and also the birthday of his daughter. Louisa was the author of many books, most notably Little Women (1868); Bronson was a transcendentalist philosopher, abolitionist, teacher, and a vegan before the term even existed. He got by on loans from others, including his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson, but the Alcotts were often without money. At 15, Louisa vowed: "I will do something by and by. Don't care what, teach, sew, act, write, anything to help the family; and I'll be rich and famous and happy before I die, see if I won't! [...] I'll make a battering-ram of my head and make my way through this rough-and-tumble world."
Click here to read more on the Alcotts from today's entry in The Writer's Almanac.
Preston Marshall, East Central U: “The Lone Ranger: The Teacher Hero Who Stands Apart”
Jennifer McMahon, East Central U: “Cowboys, Schoolmarms, and the Western View of Education”
Brock Parsons, East Central U: “Teachers as God: Truth through the Eyes of a Child”
Jaime Worden, East Central U: “Pedagogical Perverts?: When Innocence and Isolation Take a Turn for the Worse”
Chair: Steve Benton, East Central U
11-11:50 AM Estep Auditorium
(Bill S. Cole University Center)
Ken Hada, East Central U: “’Tomorrow is just another day’: Teaching Models in Stand and Deliver and Dead Poet’s Society”
Alexis Peterson, Northwestern Oklahoma SU: “The Cinematic Teacher” Ryan Madison, East Central U: "Bad Teacher"
Chair: Cheryl Betts, East Central U
11-11:50 AM Regents Room
(Knight Hall)
Anthony Cloutier, East Central U: “Master Paik”
Paula Wiest, East Central U: “Misguided Youth: Kung Fu Style”
Nate Kipping, East Central U: “Mrs. Mathews”
Jason Murray, East Central U and Robin Murphy, East Central U: “Rotten Maize?: Native American Literature, Rhetoric(s), and Pedagogical Practices”
Chair: Toby Goforth, East Central U
11-11:50 AM Linscheid Library Lecture Room
Amber Donaldson, Northwestern Oklahoma SU: “Hollywood’s Teacher: Tough-Love or Airhead”
Jackie Duvall, East Central U: “Reaching In, Breaking Out: The Pedagogical Depictions of Female Educators”
Joshua McNeely, East Central U: “Tigers,Teachers, and Trouble: An Analysis of Ms. Wormwood from Calvin and Hobbes”
Chair: Misty Raymo, East Central U
12 PM Break for Lunch
SCHOLARLY PRESENTATIONS, continued
1-1:50 PM Estep Auditorium
(Bill S. Cole University Center)
Robin Cline, Northwestern Oklahoma SU:
“Educators in Hollywood”
Marc DiPaolo, Oklahoma City U: “’My Professor is a Sex-Obsessed, Socialist, Alcoholic Superhero’: College Professors as Heroes and Villains in British and American Film”
Kurt Edwards, East Central U: “Framing Educators, Killing Students: Rarely a Theatrical Happy Ending”
Chair: Kathryn Lane, Northwestern Oklahoma SU
1-1:50 PMLinscheid Library Lecture Room
Lindsi Bonar, East Central U: “From Little Women to the Chalk Children: Depictions of Homeschoolers in Film and Fiction”
Joshua Grasso, East Central U: "Teaching Lear in India: A Look at R.K. Narayan's The English Teacher”
Macy McDonald, East Central U: “Gilmore Girls, When Nice Students Snap: The Dubious Benefit of Standardization”
Chair: Jaime Worden, East Central U
1-1:50 PM Regents Room
(Knight Hall)
Kaylie Blackwell, East Central U: “Are You Informed?: The Educator as Depicted in Cold War Era Social Guidance Films”
Jim Hunter, East Central U: “Kingsfield Doesn't Get Paid for Lovin'”
Caitlyn Stephens, “The Cool Teacher vs. The Geeky Teacher”
Chair: Kaci Plunkett, East Central U
FEATURE FILM SCREENING: CHALK
2-3:30 Estep (Bill S. Cole University Center)
Directed and co-written by former high school teacher Mike Akel, this mockumentary applies the comic sensibility of TV’s The Office to the faculty of a Texas high school.
PANEL DISCUSSION of Chalk
3:30-4:15 Estep (Bill S. Cole University Center)
Featuring: James Bell, Northwestern Oklahoma State; Debbie Claxton, East Central University; and Mark Walling, East Central University; moderated by Steve Benton, East Central University.
BRUNCH SPECTACULAR BUFFET
5:30 Linscheid Library, 2nd floor Atrium
POETRY READING AND OPEN MIC
6:30 Linscheid Library, 2nd floor Atrium
Featuring: Ben Myers, author of Elegy for Trains, winner of the 2011 Oklahoma Book Award for Poetry
Dr. Christine Pappas of ECU's Political Science department will be taking a van of students to Norman on Thursday to hear Ayaan Hirsi Ali speak. Click here to learn more about the speaker and why some of us think some of you might be interested in going. Contact Dr. Pappas if you'd like to tag along (thank you Dr. Murphy for the heads up).
According to a recently published essay (Oct. 20, 211) in the New York Times by columnist David Brooks, the research Nobel-prize winner Daniel Kahneman is now publishing will be remembered hundreds of years from now. Among other things, Kahneman challenges the notion that people "are mostly rational agents" who "have control over the most important parts of their own thinking." Kahneman's research may change the way you view literature, writing, morality, and the way we learn about (and teach) all of these things.
Click here to learn more about what Kahneman has to say about the relationship between thought, emotion, human nature, bias, behavior, and the importance of working with people you disagree with.
In the "The End of Evil?," published on Slate September 30, 2011 (and recommended to us by Dr. Davis--thanks!), Ron Rosenbaum discusses recent research by neuroscientists who suggest that there "evil" is better understood as a "lack of empathy." As readers of this website already know, many supporters of literary study in the schools (including Martha Nussbaum) argue that its value lies its ability to promote empathy in students. In that sense, it could be argued that studying literature is a way to fight evil (or what has been traditionally thought of as evil).
Rosenbaum seems to think that the neuroscientists' view of evil is overly deterministic. If evil (or lack of empathy) is a matter of neurons, he suggests, then human actors have no "moral agency." Click here to read Rosenbaum's article and let us know what you think.
From the "It's a Small World" department: One of the neuroscientists Rosenbaum cites is Simon Baron-Cohen, cousin of Sacha Baron-Cohen, the infamous British star of theDa Ali G Show, Borat, and Bruno. The connection inspires this question: Does Sacha's comedyencourage empathy or weaken it?
"Many of you already know our new Assistant Professor of English, Dr. Jason Murray. He is a graduate of ECU.
"What you may not know is that Dr. Murray was recently recognized as 2011 Crazy Horse Educator of the Year for his work teaching at the Indian University of North America.
"We are so pleased to count Dr. Murray as a member of the East Central University faculty. Our students are fortunate to have such a talented and caring teacher. And we, his colleagues in the Department of English and Languages, are terrifically proud of his achievement.
"Please join us in offering Dr. Murray your congratulations."
Hank Lazer addressed the question this way when asked in an interview (that's Hank in the photo at left--and on the cake):
"First, I don’t think that there is a fixed “role of the writer” – certainly not a version of what a writer should be. A writer’s range of possible roles will, to a significant extent, be determined by cultural, historical, and local conditions.
"Personally, and in my own circumstances – living in Alabama, in the US, etc. – I think that as a poet I have an opportunity and an ethical imperative to explore and to advocate for non-utilitarian engagements with language. Poets have an opportunity to critique prevailing cultural assumptions and habits, including those of the various overlapping and separate poetry communities. Poetry, as an activity in a capitalist and consumer society, has the capacity to be a rare form of non-alienated labor. The poet’s role thus becomes an example of choosing work/play/labor that, for the most part, is done for its own sake. In the larger culture, the presence of such persons is a challenge and a provocation, as well as a reminder."
On Thursday, October 6th, Dr. Jason Murray, the most recent addition to the department of English and Languages full-time faculty rolls, participated as a panelist in a Native Humanities Forum titled "Carry the Fire," an inaugural event at the new Chickasaw Nation Arts and Humanities building.
According to the Chickasaw Nation website, the forum provided "an opportunity for public dialogue between Native and non-Native sectors on Native humanities for the development and welfare of local communities, regions and the State of Oklahoma." Dr. Thomas Cowger, the Chickasaw Nation endowed chair of the Department of History and Native Studies at ECU, led a question-and-answer panel discussion of the basic tenets of the humanities, historic contributions of Native and non-Native humanities, important current initiatives, and cross-cultural understanding and cooperation. In addition to Dr. Murray, other panelists included: Dr. Alvin O. Turner, emeritus dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at ECU; Linda Hogan, a Chickasaw poet, novelist, essayist, playwright and environmentalist as well as Chickasaw Nation writer-in-residence; and Rachel C. Jackson, University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma instructor for Kiowa Clemente Course in the Humanities and a doctoral student at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. The program was funded in part by the Oklahoma Humanities Council (OHC) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).
"Jason did an awesome job," reported departmental colleague Dr. Robin Murphy. "Our department should be very proud; he was articulate, relevant and extended the conversation in ways the other panelists did not."
Some say that one of the most important reasons to have literature classes is that reading develops empathy. In today's column in the New York Times, David Brooks suggests the value of this lesson may be overrated.
We are surrounded by people trying to make the world a better place. Peace activists bring enemies together so they can get to know one another and feel each other’s pain. School leaders try to attract a diverse set of students so each can understand what it’s like to walk in the others’ shoes. Religious and community groups try to cultivate empathy.
There’s a lot of truth to all this. We do have mirror neurons in our heads. People who are empathetic are more sensitive to the perspectives and sufferings of others. They are more likely to make compassionate moral judgments.
The problem comes when we try to turn feeling into action. Empathy makes you more aware of other people’s suffering, but it’s not clear it actually motivates you to take moral action or prevents you from taking immoral action.
Click here to read the rest of this brief article.
The 2012 Originals is currently accepting submissions in the genres of fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and drama. Any ECU student is welcome and encouraged to submit. Each student may submit a maximum of seven individual works. Each prose entry should not exceed 6,000 words. Poems should not exceed 100 lines. Submit all works to ecuoriginals @yahoo.com. Deadline for submissions is October 24. For more information contact Dr. Walling at 559-5440 or mwalling @ecok.edu.
Department Chair Dr. Jennifer McMahon sends thanks to "Dr. Robin Murphy for locating a sponsor for this event, to Citizens Bank for their generous donation of food and refreshments, and Chris Feiler, Citizens representative, for all the time he spent coordinating and administering the event. Last but not least, thanks to all the members of the Student Issues Committee, specifically Dr. Mara Sukholutskaya, Dr. Yolanda Forero, Dr. Hugh Tribbey, and Dr. Jason Murray, for their hard work."
On Thursday evening, September 15, East Central's own Dr. Ken Hada will be giving a poetry reading, followed by an open mic (in which you can participate). The event is a monthly occurrence at the Benedict Street Cafe in Shawnee, beginning at 7pm (It is usually over by 8:30 or 9 pm).
According to Dr. Hada, "Some good poetry usually occurs here, along with those just getting started. Also, the deli has great sandwiches, etc,. so if you get there around -ish you can have a tasty, inexpensive dinner and coffee while the poetry is occurring." See Dr. Hada if you need directions.
Check out this call for creative writing and poetry (which includes proposals from undergraduates; thanks for heads up, Dr. Murphy!)
Special Panels Creative Writing and Poetry
2011 Savagism and Civilization University of Oklahoma SAGES
Conference Date: Friday October 14, 2011
Two special panels devoted to creative writing are currently accepting author proposals. Proposals should engage poetry and/or fiction as a space for theoretical and/or historical dialogue with the theme of “Savagism and Civilization.” Proposals should include: 1) a short paragraph detailing a brief biography of the author and the ways in which the work engages the conference theme (250 words or less); 2) a writing sample of no more then four poems or five pages of fiction. Fiction writers selected to participate will workshop their short stories in a writing session and later present their work during an open panel. Poets will workshop their poetry, with a focus to revise their work for spoken word performance. Poets will perform their work during and open session for conference participants.
Batesville Nights (Arkansas) by Alan Cunningham from Cybersoleil
Click here to check out the inaugural issue of Cybersoleil (editor-at-large: Dr. Ken Hada), a collection of fresh poetry, photography, recipes, and fiction (most of the rest of the editorial staff hails from our sister institution, Cameron University, in Lawton, Oklahoma; hats off to Dr. Had and his Aggie friends!).
#107 on that list, the 2010 laureate, is Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa.
One of our 107 recently sent me the following comic strip:
And if you know any English major alumnus who graduated in May of 2010 or before, please ask him or her to complete the alum survey that our Academic Committee is working on. All the alum has to do is click on this link and answer a few questions.This is a vital tool in our assessment process, and it takes less than five minutes. Thanks!
2011 Oklahoma Laborfest poster art by Carlos Tello.
Help Oklahoma poets celebrate working class Oklahoma – an evening of soil, sweat and soul. Western Heritage Award-winning poet Ken Hada will MC a program featuring some of Oklahoma’s leading poetic voices. Among the featured readers scheduled, Dorothy Alexander’s striking perspectives of rural Oklahoma, Shirley Hall’s clarion voice for social justice, Jason Poudrier’s Purple Heart experiences and Bob Bearden’s labor poems are certain to entertain and inspire.
From 7-9pm at the 46th Star Auditorium, Downtown Library, Oklahoma City.
Imagine yourself in the picture below, picnicking on free (!) food with English and Languages Department faculty and students? You may be able to make it happen on Tuesday, September 6th from 5-7 p.m. Stay tuned for details.
If you see these folks around campus, please introduce yourself and make them feel welcome. They are the two newest full-time faculty members in the English and Languages department at ECU.
Dr. Yolanda Forero Villegas (on the left) teaches Spanish and French. Dr. Jason Murray (on the right) teaches English.
At least as far as the Ada Arts and Heritage Center (see image at right), 400 South Rennie Street in Ada.
The public is invited to the 4th annual summer poetry and fiction reading, July 28, 7 p.m by the Salonaires, a group of local poets and writers that meet yearly at Salon Ada, a literary and arts "salon." This year's impressive line-up leads off with Ken Hada, professor and poet at East Central University, winner of the 2011 Western Heritage Award for Spare Parts, poetry, 2010, published by Mongrel Empire Press. Alvin Turner, former Dean at East Central University will also read from his new book, Hanging Men, Mongrel Empire Press, 2011. Phil Morgan, Choctaw-Chickasaw will read from his new book, Dynamic Chickasaw Women, due fall 2011 from Chickasaw Press. Other readers include acclaimed poet, Jennifer Kidney; memoirist, and Chickasaw Summer Arts Academy teacher Jim Wilson; and, LeAnne Howe, Choctaw author, playwright and poet.
Alvin O. Turner, emeritus dean of social sciences and humanities and professor of history at East Central University, has just published Hanging Men, a collection of poems based on the 1909 vigilante hangings in Ada.
According to the press release from Mongel Empire Press, Hanging Man "reveals the human elements—hubris, fear, desire, greed—behind the sensational and sensationalized 1909 vigilante hangings of four men who were slated to stand trial for the murder of a local businessman in Ada, OK. There have been several historical treatments of the hangings and the events that led up to them, but Turner's poetic approach adds rich new layers to the story.
"The collection includes an extensively-researched “Historical Afterward” that contextualizes the events that led up to the hangings, responses to the hangings both contemporaneous and contemporary, and an evaluation of the continuing repercussions of violence in Pontotoc County as related in Robert Mayer's Dreams of Ada and John Grisham's Innocent Man."
Essais, a new journal published through Utah Valley University for undergraduate literature students, is asking for papers dealing with any subject in literature, rhetoric, theory, or cinema studies. Please send all questions or submissions to essais.uvu@gmail.com
Submission due date is September 16, 2011 for our Fall publication.
Deadline for Spring publication mid-january for our Spring issue.through Utah Valley University.
Dr. Jennifer McMahon, chair of the Department of English and Languages, will be exhibiting pencil sketches at Skidmore College's Reunion Art Exhibition taking place June 2-5, 2011, a juried exhibition open to graduates of the college in a reunion year (5-year cycles).
Dr. McMahon's work will be displayed in a group along with a piece by Dr. McMahon's mother, Joan Grippin McMahon (see "Apple" below), at Skidmore's Tang Museum and Gallery. The opening reception is Friday, June 3rd.
Skidmore College is a small, private. liberal arts college in Saratoga Springs, New York, where Dr. McMahon completed her coursework for the BA in Philosophy there in 1991. Her mother, aunt, and grandmother are also graduates of the college.
"Apple" by Joan Grippin McMahon
"Nervous Heifer" by Jennifer L. McMahon
Further information about the exhibit, the college, or the Tang gallery can be found at www.skidmore.edu.
This spring's commencement address was delivered by Stephanie K. Canada, an ECU graduate (class of '95) who taught grades 1 through 5 at Will Rogers Elementary School in Shawnee from 2003 to 2008. She was was named Oklahoma Teacher of the Year for 2008.
Canada talked to graduates about the pride she felt as a first-generation college graduate in 1995 (and the embarrassment she felt after the ceremony, when she and her family had lunch at the Golden Corral, and her grandmother removed her dentures and put them on the table).
"When you get into the world . . . constantly engage and participate in the world as a thinking person," Canada advised all. "Change your world from your very small corner of it."
I counted eleven English majors listed in the program as candidates for Bachelor's degrees: Joshua Dwayne Forrester, Brandon Michael Frye, SharLee Dawn Knighten (bottom left), Chad Allen Large, Tyler Ray Lee, DeAnna Russell (middle right), Jennifer Diane Sanchez (top right), Alexandra Royer Taussig (bottom right), Bryson Cole Vann (middle left), Patricia Ruth Vogan (top left), and Rodney Alvin Weaverling. (Not listed in the program: McKae Goetzinger.) Graduates with Minors supported by the Department of English and Languages included Hannah Medrano (English) and Cynthia Mellon (English as a Second Language), Rebecca Bottoms, Bryson J. Dunn (Humanities), and Shawn Ryan (Russian).
Congratulations to all! (And thanks for the pics, Dr. Murphy!)
"Conceptual poet and co-editor of the anthology of conceptual poetry Against Expression with Craig Dworkin, Kenneth Goldsmith is going to read his work at the White House.
“An Evening of Poetry”
Event Continues Arts Education Series at the White House on May 11th
The President and Mrs. Obama will host a celebration of American poetry and prose by welcoming accomplished poets, musicians and artists as well as students from across the country to the White House next week. Participants include Elizabeth Alexander, Billy Collins, Common, Rita Dove, Kenneth Goldsmith, Alison Knowles, Aimee Mann and Jill Scott who will read, sing, and showcase the impact of poetry on American culture. The President will make opening remarks at this event held in the East Room, which will be pooled press and streamed live on www.whitehouse.gov starting at 7:00 p.m. ET.
In a recent post on his blog in the Opinion pages of the New York Times, columnist David Brooks discusses "the way modern technology and culture is changing our souls" and suggests that "over the past few decades people have become more fragmented, more fleeting, more distracted. They possess less interior depth."
Along the way he quotes Dalton Conley (see image at left), author of Elsewhere, USA (2008), who claims, according to Brooks, that "the modern person is not an individual . . . , but an 'intravidual.'" Or as Conley puts it, the modern person is a person with “multiple selves competing for attention with his/her own mind, just as externally she or he is bombarded by multiple stimuli simultaneously.”
So do you feel "bombarded"? Or do you like having multiple selves to choose from?
The Limits of Empathy
This spring's commencement address was delivered by Stephanie K. Canada, an ECU graduate (class of '95) who taught grades 1 through 5 at Will Rogers Elementary School in Shawnee from 2003 to 2008. She was was named Oklahoma Teacher of the Year for 2008.
Canada talked to graduates about the pride she felt as a first-generation college graduate in 1995 (and the embarrassment she felt after the ceremony, when she and her family had lunch at the Golden Corral, and her grandmother removed her dentures and put them on the table).
I counted eleven English majors listed in the program as candidates for Bachelor's degrees: Joshua Dwayne Forrester, Brandon Michael Frye, SharLee Dawn Knighten (bottom left), Chad Allen Large, Tyler Ray Lee, DeAnna Russell (middle right), Jennifer Diane Sanchez (top right), Alexandra Royer Taussig (bottom right), Bryson Cole Vann (middle left), Patricia Ruth Vogan (top left), and Rodney Alvin Weaverling. (Not listed in the program: McKae Goetzinger.) Graduates with Minors supported by the Department of English and Languages included Hannah Medrano (English) and Cynthia Mellon (English as a Second Language), Rebecca Bottoms, Bryson J. Dunn (Humanities), and Shawn Ryan (Russian).
