Each month during the academic year, we assemble a newsletter of the department’s recent publications, presentations, announcements, and awards.
We’re happy to recognize the recent successes in research, scholarship, and creative activity outlined below.
Want to catch up on past successes or to find future announcements? Visit our archive of monthly newsletters Reading Matters as well as related blog posts.
Have news to report? Email us at english@ksu.edu.
— Karin Westman, Department Head
Publications
Traci Brimhall, “Death for Dinner” (essay). New Letters, vol. 90, no. 1&2, Winter/Spring 2024.
“Mouth of the Canyon” (poem). You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World, edited by Ada Limon, Milkweed Editions, 2024.
Mark Crosby and Josephine A. McQuail, editors, William Blake’s Manuscripts: Praxis, Palimpsests, and Puzzles, Palgrave MacMillan, 2024.
Crosby and McQuail, “‘Writing is the Divine Revelation’: Introduction to Blake’s Manuscripts.” William Blake’s Manuscripts: Palimpsests, and Puzzles, edited by Mark Crosby and Josephine McQuail, Palgrave MacMillan, 2024, pp.1-18.
Crosby, “’minutely Appropriate Execution’: Variation and Pentimento in Blake’s Title Pages.” William Blake’s Manuscripts: Palimpsests, and Puzzles, edited by Mark Crosby and Josephine McQuail, Palgrave MacMillan, 2024, pp. 111-132.
“Blake in the Marketplace, 2023.” Blake An Illustrated Quarterly, vol. 57, no. 4, 2024: https://blakequarterly.org/index.php/blake/article/view/crosby574/crosby574html
“Absorbed by the Poets”: The Sources and Hanging Arrangement for Blake’s 18 Portrait Heads. Virtual Exhibition hosted by the William Blake Archive: https://blakearchive.org/exhibit/absorbedbythepoets
Anne Phillips, “‘There’s more to life than mops and pails!’: Liminal Spaces in Picture Books.” Liminal Spaces in Children’s and Young Adult Literature, edited by Mark West, Lexington Books, 2024, pp. 23-36.
Thomas Xavier Sarmiento with M. Bianet Castellanos and Christopher Perreira, editors, Unsettling Global Midwests, special double issue of American Studies with American Studies International, with guest creative curator Jessica Lopez Lyman, vol. 62, no. 4, 2023.
Sarmiento with Jessica Lopez Lyman, Christopher Perreira, and M. Bianet Castellanos, “Place-Making and Place-Keeping the Global Midwests” (introduction), Unsettling Global Midwests, special double issue of American Studies with American Studies International, vol. 62, no. 4, 2023, pp. 7–21.
Presentations
Traci Brimhall, readings at
- Poetry Palooza, Des Moines, IA. 19-20 April 2024.
- Dodge County Community College, Dodge City, KS. 14 April 2024.
- Ashland Library, Ashland, KS. 13 April 2024.
- Stevens County Library, Hugoton, KS. 12 April 2024.
- Jetmore Library, Jetmore, KS. 12 April 2024.
- Scott County Library, Scott City, KS. 11 April 2024.
- Salina Public Library, Salina, KS. 10 April 2024.
Elizabeth Dodd hosted a nonfiction reading by Kate Neville, inaugural winner of the Sowell Emerging Writer Award from Texas Tech University Press and Terrain.org, via Zoom. 25 April 2024.
Michele Janette, “CAALS Sponsored Roundtable: Re-thinking Asian American Literary Criticism in the 2020s” (chair and participant). Asian American Studies Annual Conference. Seattle, WA. 25 April 2024.
Beth Jones (MA ’25), “LGBTQ+ Romance.” Readers Take Denver. Aurora, CO. 19 April 2024.
Abby Knoblauch, “When Abundance is Abject: Notes Toward a Fat Pedagogy.” Conference on College Composition and Communication. Spokane, WA. 4 April 2024.
Philip Nel, “Purple Crayon, Red Author, Black Character?: A Material History of Harold and the Purple Crayon,” The Child and the Book Conference. Université de Rouen Normandie. Rouen, France. 3 May 2024.
Jon Olsen (MA ’24), “‘Not All Doom and Gloom’: Climate Consciousness in PBS’ Molly of Denali” Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures. Online. 12 April 2024.
Ania Payne, “Living like ______.” on the panel “Writing Freely Against Scarce Time: A Creative Nonfiction Writing Workshop.” Conference on College Composition and Communication. Spokane, Washington. 6 April 2024.
Thomas Xavier Sarmiento, “Reframing the Middle: New Perspectives in Asian American Midwest Studies,” prepared remarks on the Midwest’s Filipinx and Philippine archives. Association for Asian American Studies. Seattle, WA. 26 April 2024.
“Contingent Solidarities, Ambivalent Relationalities in Asian American Studies” (panel chair). Association for Asian American Studies. Seattle, WA. 25 April 2024.
D. K. Smith, reading from No Art Without Sin (novel). The Dusty Bookshelf, Manhattan, KS. 4 April 2024.
Awards
Traci Brimhall has been named a University Distinguished Professor, a “lifetime title that represents the highest honor Kansas State University can bestow on its faculty.”
Gregory Eiselein received the 2024 University Honors Program Outstanding Teaching and Mentoring Award.
Featured in Media
Traci Brimhall appeared on KPR with Kaye MacIntyre, 30 April 2024, and in “Poet Laureate Lauds Taylor Swift’s Latest Album” for the Topeka Capitol Journal, 22 April 2024.
Announcements
Eleven English majors were invited to join Phi Beta Kappa.
Five English majors became new members of our local chapter of the international English honor society, Sigma Tau Delta.
Michael Mlekoday (MA ‘11) published “An Essay on Seeds” in About Place Journal (vol. 7, no. 4, 2023).
K-State English 