Thursday, September 24, 2009
Originals: A Public Reading
The Originals staff will be hosting a public reading, Thursday, Oct. 8, at 6:00 p.m. in the University Center. We are conducting the session to promote Originals. Please consider reading a favorite work or one of your own. Let me know if you are interested. Snacks will be provided.
The Decline of the English Department: How it happened and what could be done to reverse it
"During the last four decades, a well-publicized shift in what undergraduate students prefer to study has taken place in American higher education. The number of young men and women majoring in English has dropped dramatically; the same is true of philosophy, foreign languages, art history, and kindred fields, including history. As someone who has taught in four university English departments over the last 40 years, I am dismayed by this shift, as are my colleagues here and there across the land. And because it is probably irreversible, it is important to attempt to sort out the reasons—the many reasons—for what has happened."To read the rest of this essay by William M. Chace [that's Chace on the left]--which is in the Autumn 2009 issue of The American Scholar (the magazine of the Phi Beta Kappa Society)--click here.
Thanks for the rec, Dr. Grasso!
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
STD: Experience it!
This Schoolyear’s First Meeting of the ECU Chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the International English Honor Society will be held this Friday, September 4, 2009 at 2 o’clock p.m.Where: The Tower Room on the 2nd floor of the University Center
Where is the Tower Room? That’s the room with the windows, east (left) of the Wellness Center(and if it’s too crowded or hot, we’ll go to the Governor’s Room in the University Center)
Who Will Be There? Sigma Tau Delta Sponsors--Drs. Joshua Grasso and Steve Benton--and Whoever Else Answers the Call
Who Should Answer the Call? ECU Students Interested in Discussing Books, Articles, Poetry, Films and Related Ideas in a Casual, Unstructured Environment
Do I Have I to Be a Member or an English Major to Attend the Meeting? No
What Will The Agenda Be at This First Meeting? Blowing Minds
Sugarmule Wants You
This just in from Sugar Mule literary magazine:"We invite all writers currently living in Oklahoma to submit to this special issue of Sugar Mule; all genres are solicited. Only writers who are current residents of Oklahoma may submit. While the editor does not require that Oklahoma is topic or theme of the writing (the editor wishes to encourage experimental submissions), she will admit to a bias for stories, poems, and essays that capture the near-ineffable oddness and beauty and pain of living in the State. All work submitted will be considered for the Sugar Mule Oklahoma Special Edition (February 2010); Mongrel Empire Press, in partnership with Sugar Mule, is also planning an expanded, print edition and all submissions will be considered for the print edition as well.
Please read the complete submission guidelines before submitting: click here.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Poetry! Poetry! Chickasha September 3--HughTribbey to read!
Poetry Reading—Chickasha, OK
Bring a Poem, or not—Hear the Featured Poet—Read Your Own or a Favorite
Have some Fun!
Downtown Chickasha!
Thursday, September 3, 7:00 p.m. until the Fun Ends
Odd Fellows Music Hall
118 South 4th Street
(4th Street = Highway 81, Between Kansas and Chickasha Avenues)
(On the west side with the big red star on the front—parking behind)
Featured Poet: Hugh Tribbey
Hugh Tribbey’s poetry has most recently appeared or is forthcoming in Peter Ganick’s Archive Project, Spaltung, We, Moria, Apocryphal Text, Crash-Test, 5-Trope, Aught, xStream, Lost and Found Times, and Eratio. He is the author of three collections of poetry: Finish Your Sentence, Juvjula Detours, and Asteroid.
Hugh has performed his poetry at the Austin International Poetry Festival, AWP Innovailers and Outsliders: Experimental Writers from Across the Country, and the & Now Festival of Innovative Literature and Art, and he was a featured author with Gino Frangello and Jesse Seldess at William Allegrezza’s Series A Reading in the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago. Hugh’s poem "Reckoning" received honorable mention for the Academy of American Poets Prize, and the poem "Greyface" was nominated for the Associated Writing Programs Intro Journals Project. Hugh is currently the Area Chair in Experimental Writing and Aesthetics for the Southwest/Texas Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association. He holds a Ph.D. in Poetics and Contemporary Literature from Oklahoma State University in Stillwater and teaches literature and creative writing at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma.
See: Finish Your Sentence: http://www.lulu.com/xpressed; Juvjula Detours: http://www.xpressed.org [free download]; Asteroid: http://www.puddinghouse.com.
Open mic reading also
Read your own or bring a favorite or two.
Refreshments Available for Purchase
Sponsored by the Chickasha Area Arts Council
For more information, contact Rockford Johnson, 224-0160; 317-7506.
Directions to Chickasha Poetry Reading at
the Oddfellows Music Hall (118 S. 4th Street = Highway 81)
From OKC on I-44: Exit # 83/US 62, Right on Highway 62, Left on US 81 (= 4th Street),
South 1 ½ blocks to the building with the star on the west side.
From Lawton on I-44: Exit # 81, North on US 81 (= 4th Street) about 2 miles,
3 ½ blocks north of the Sonic Drive-In
(Ample parking behind the building)
(Enter front or back)
Bring a Poem, or not—Hear the Featured Poet—Read Your Own or a Favorite
Have some Fun!
Downtown Chickasha!
Thursday, September 3, 7:00 p.m. until the Fun Ends
Odd Fellows Music Hall
118 South 4th Street
(4th Street = Highway 81, Between Kansas and Chickasha Avenues)
(On the west side with the big red star on the front—parking behind)
Featured Poet: Hugh Tribbey
Hugh Tribbey’s poetry has most recently appeared or is forthcoming in Peter Ganick’s Archive Project, Spaltung, We, Moria, Apocryphal Text, Crash-Test, 5-Trope, Aught, xStream, Lost and Found Times, and Eratio. He is the author of three collections of poetry: Finish Your Sentence, Juvjula Detours, and Asteroid.
Hugh has performed his poetry at the Austin International Poetry Festival, AWP Innovailers and Outsliders: Experimental Writers from Across the Country, and the & Now Festival of Innovative Literature and Art, and he was a featured author with Gino Frangello and Jesse Seldess at William Allegrezza’s Series A Reading in the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago. Hugh’s poem "Reckoning" received honorable mention for the Academy of American Poets Prize, and the poem "Greyface" was nominated for the Associated Writing Programs Intro Journals Project. Hugh is currently the Area Chair in Experimental Writing and Aesthetics for the Southwest/Texas Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association. He holds a Ph.D. in Poetics and Contemporary Literature from Oklahoma State University in Stillwater and teaches literature and creative writing at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma.
See: Finish Your Sentence: http://www.lulu.com/xpressed; Juvjula Detours: http://www.xpressed.org [free download]; Asteroid: http://www.puddinghouse.com.
Open mic reading also
Read your own or bring a favorite or two.
Refreshments Available for Purchase
Sponsored by the Chickasha Area Arts Council
For more information, contact Rockford Johnson, 224-0160; 317-7506.
Directions to Chickasha Poetry Reading at
the Oddfellows Music Hall (118 S. 4th Street = Highway 81)
From OKC on I-44: Exit # 83/US 62, Right on Highway 62, Left on US 81 (= 4th Street),
South 1 ½ blocks to the building with the star on the west side.
From Lawton on I-44: Exit # 81, North on US 81 (= 4th Street) about 2 miles,
3 ½ blocks north of the Sonic Drive-In
(Ample parking behind the building)
(Enter front or back)
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Our Social Mythology
Ken Hada writes:
Teachers teach because they can’t do anything else; they are largely irrelevant from the “real world” with its real problems. They are low on the hierarchy of important positions for society
Profit is an unalienable right and a justification for any thing (including a social hierarchies and innovations or reversals in common practices or problem-solving.
Diversity has only a symbolic meaning and limited effectiveness.
Appearance is superior to reality; image is everything.
Justice is a commodity.
Debate (with its necessary assumed analysis and content base) is time consuming, tedious and ultimately unnecessary.
The lowest common denominator is the standard expectation.
Pathos is for oneself; rather than a vision of community or compassion for others.
The environment is an endless commodity; its purpose is to serve humans.
Values are private and have no effect on behavior; or behavior is justifiable given one’s social status.
Hyperactivity is normal (even if one can’t identify why he/she is active); contemplation, solitude, reflection is abnormal.
The nostalgic past is referred to without accurate assessment and longed for as an imaginary status.
The present is all that matters; we are progressing, regardless of destination or purpose or means to the desired end.
The end, i.e., the future is unclear and thus it is fantasized as apocalyptic or survival of the strong few.
(Pastoral Myths and Progressive Myths)
We tend to separate the “voice of reason” from the “voice of imagination” ???
Words establish a society (cf: Martha Nussbaum,--that's her on the left-- Novitz, Wayne Booth)
“It is clear that the end of literary teaching is not simply the admiration of literature; it’s something more like the transfer of imaginative energy from literature to the student.”
The “story of the loss and regaining of identity is, I think, the framework of all literature.” This leads to heroes and mythic situations. Over time “the gods and heroes of the old myths fade away and give place to people like ourselves.”
For those of you in ENG 4813, below is a copy of some notes we will discuss in ENG 4813. They may be of interest to the rest of you too. 
Quotes from Northrop Frye (see image at right), The Educated Imagination (Indiana University Press, 1964).
“The fundamental job of the imagination in ordinary life, then, is to produce, out of the society we have to live in, a vision of the society we want to live in.”
Society substitutes for literature, a “social mythology” whose “purpose … is to persuade us to accept our society’s standards and values, to “adjust” to it ..”
Inferences: Some elements of our social mythology ?
(Hada, not Frye, in case you have a problem with some of them)
The “real world” vs. the world of imagination, literature and academics. What is real? Is reality to be understood only in terms of pragmatics, economics, etc.?
Quotes from Northrop Frye (see image at right), The Educated Imagination (Indiana University Press, 1964).
“The fundamental job of the imagination in ordinary life, then, is to produce, out of the society we have to live in, a vision of the society we want to live in.”
Society substitutes for literature, a “social mythology” whose “purpose … is to persuade us to accept our society’s standards and values, to “adjust” to it ..”
Inferences: Some elements of our social mythology ?
(Hada, not Frye, in case you have a problem with some of them)
The “real world” vs. the world of imagination, literature and academics. What is real? Is reality to be understood only in terms of pragmatics, economics, etc.?
Teachers teach because they can’t do anything else; they are largely irrelevant from the “real world” with its real problems. They are low on the hierarchy of important positions for society
Profit is an unalienable right and a justification for any thing (including a social hierarchies and innovations or reversals in common practices or problem-solving.
Diversity has only a symbolic meaning and limited effectiveness.
Appearance is superior to reality; image is everything.
Justice is a commodity.
Debate (with its necessary assumed analysis and content base) is time consuming, tedious and ultimately unnecessary.
The lowest common denominator is the standard expectation.Pathos is for oneself; rather than a vision of community or compassion for others.
The environment is an endless commodity; its purpose is to serve humans.
Values are private and have no effect on behavior; or behavior is justifiable given one’s social status.
Hyperactivity is normal (even if one can’t identify why he/she is active); contemplation, solitude, reflection is abnormal.
The nostalgic past is referred to without accurate assessment and longed for as an imaginary status.
The present is all that matters; we are progressing, regardless of destination or purpose or means to the desired end.
The end, i.e., the future is unclear and thus it is fantasized as apocalyptic or survival of the strong few.
(Pastoral Myths and Progressive Myths)
We tend to separate the “voice of reason” from the “voice of imagination” ???
Words establish a society (cf: Martha Nussbaum,--that's her on the left-- Novitz, Wayne Booth)
“It is clear that the end of literary teaching is not simply the admiration of literature; it’s something more like the transfer of imaginative energy from literature to the student.”
The “story of the loss and regaining of identity is, I think, the framework of all literature.” This leads to heroes and mythic situations. Over time “the gods and heroes of the old myths fade away and give place to people like ourselves.”
Image Source:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)