Winter 2021-2022 Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

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Cover for Karma Animalia (Social Justice Anthologies, 2022) by Ania Payne   Each month during the academic year, we assemble a newsletter of the department's recent publications, presentations, announcements, and awards. As we begin a third year living with COVID-19, we continue to direct energies towards teaching our courses and to supporting others during the … Continue reading Winter 2021-2022 Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

Meme That Craft Element!

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One of the memes created by students in Traci Brimhall's ENGL 463 "Introduction to Poetry" (Spring 2022) To get us ready for a semester of metrical fun, my ENGL 463 "Introduction to Poetry" students got do everyone’s favorite thing: watch a professor laugh at their own jokes on a PowerPoint. But then they got to … Continue reading Meme That Craft Element!

Spring Preview

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Spring Flowers (photo: Office of the President) This week's glimpse of warmer temperatures offers a preview of what's ahead, once we experience some more winter weather. As we dodge snow and the latest COVID-19 variant here at the start of the semester, we'll look for signs of spring where we can! Here are some of … Continue reading Spring Preview

November 2021 Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

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Cover for the online journal Fleas on the Dog, where Ania Payne's work appears.     Each month during the academic year, we assemble a newsletter of the department's recent publications, presentations, announcements, and awards. As COVID-19 continues, we continue to direct energies towards teaching fall courses and to supporting others during the pandemic. We're … Continue reading November 2021 Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

October 2021 Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

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Cover for Dust Off the Medal: Rediscovering Children's Literature at the Newbery Centennial (Routledge, 2021), where Anne Phillips' and Greg Eiselein's work appears.     Each month during the academic year, we assemble a newsletter of the department's recent publications, presentations, announcements, and awards. As COVID-19 continues, we continue to direct energies towards teaching fall … Continue reading October 2021 Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

Some Advice on Applying to MFA Programs

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First, let’s dispel some of the myths. If you say “Candyman” five times in front of a mirror, you will not get into Iowa. No matter what you read on Twitter or The GradCafe, almost no one — no one! — with actual affiliations to creative writing programs believes you attend an MFA program to … Continue reading Some Advice on Applying to MFA Programs

September 2021 Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

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Image for Ania Payne's "Unsocialized" at Complete Sentence Literature. (Art by Jeff Kallet.)     Each month during the academic year, we assemble a newsletter of the department's recent publications, presentations, announcements, and awards. As COVID-19 continues, we continue to direct energies towards teaching fall courses and to supporting others during the pandemic. We're also … Continue reading September 2021 Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

Grad Student Spotlight: Molly James

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Molly James (B.A. '20, M.A. '22) My love for the fantastic drove me to pursue a bachelor’s degree in English, but I've always struggled to find myself in the urban fantastic. These stories take place in large cities or in locales that I never had the opportunity to visit growing up; in response, many of … Continue reading Grad Student Spotlight: Molly James

Celebrate Banned Books Week 2021

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Banned Books Week 2020 (Artwork courtesy of the American Library Association) When thinking of acts of rebellion, reading usually isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. It can be hard to think of people like my brother who can hardly wait to give people books or those who restock community Little Libraries as literary … Continue reading Celebrate Banned Books Week 2021

The Body as Metaphor

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This semester I am teaching the ENGL 825 graduate seminar class as "Narrative Medicine," which is an interdisciplinary field that unites the narrative skill of close reading/listening and creativity to address the need for a deeper communication in healthcare. To kick things off, we started with hefty texts like Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor and … Continue reading The Body as Metaphor