This week’s snow and ice remind us that winter is still at hand, as we continue to navigate the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the start of the semester this week promises that spring is near!
Here are some of the online events that we’re looking forward to in the coming months for some inspiration, rejuvenation, and reflection — all are free but require advance registration:
~ Our spring events begin on Monday, February 8 at 3:30pm when we welcome back Kelsey Hixson-Bowles (BA ’12, MA ’14), currently serving as Assistant Professor of Literacies & Composition at Utah Valley University. Kelsey will present a workshop on “Teaching for Disposition Awareness in Difficult Times,” sponsored by the Department of English and the Graduate Track in Composition and Rhetoric. Register at https://tinyurl.com/kelseyhb.
~ Save the date for our Spring Colloquia Series, 3:30-4:30pm, on Wednesday February 17 and Wednesday April 28! The first colloquium will feature one of our faculty members sharing their research, while the second colloquium will feature our M.A. students for our annual Graduate Literature Symposium. Register for the first at https://tinyurl.com/englcolloq2021 and for the second at https://tinyurl.com/englgradlit.
~ Our Visiting Writers Series brings two authors to us this spring to share their work. On Friday February 18 at 3:30pm, we’ll first host Sean Hill, author of two award-winning poetry collections — Dangerous Goods (2014) and Blood Ties & Brown Liquor (2008) — as well as numerous poems and essays. Register at https://tinyurl.com/seanhillkstate. Then, on Friday March 26 at 3:30pm, we will host L.L. McKinney, author of the best-selling novel A Blade So Black (2018) and its sequels and the recently released comic Nubia: Real One (2021). Register at https://tinyurl.com/mckinneykstate.
~ Our annual Cultural Studies Symposium is in its 30th year, maintaining its track record as the longest running Cultural Studies event in the country. This year, we host Dr. Gabrielle (Brie) Owen, Assistant Professor of English at University of Nebraska, Lincoln, on Friday February 26 at 4:00pm. Owen will speak on “From Developmentalism to Queer Time: Rethinking the History of Adolescence.” Owen is author of A Queer History of Adolescence: Developmental Pasts, Relational Futures (University of Georgia Press, 2020), which develops a critical, historical, and theoretical framework for social conceptions of adolescence, bringing together questions of queer theory and categories of age. Owen has also published on The Hate U Give, I Am Jazz, queer theory, and trans identity. Register at https://tinyurl.com/brieowenkstate.
~ On Thursday April 29 at 4:00pm, we welcome back to Kansas State educator Julie Kohner. Kohner will present “Voices of the Generations,” a multimedia program that relates the life of her parents, Walter and Hanna Kohner. Hanna Kohner survived four concentration camps during the Holocaust, while Walter Kohner escaped by immigrating to the United States. They reunited after the war and finally married. Together, they wrote Hanna and Walter, A Love Story, which traces their steps from the 1930s in Czechoslovakia to California after World War II. Using the book, artifacts, and an episode of “This Is Your Life,” in which her mother was the first survivor to share her story on national television, Julie Kohner reveals the atrocities of the Holocaust in a very personal way. the event is co-sponsored with our colleagues in the College of Education, the Department of History, and K-State Libraries. Register at https://tinyurl.com/juliekohnerkstate.
Keep up to date on all events at our online calendar, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for photos and recaps — and check back here each week for highlights of research and creative activity from our faculty and students, perspectives from our alumni, glimpses into the department’s past, and plans for its future.
With wishes of good health for all —
— Karin Westman, Department Head
K-State English 