Literature Senior Reception

Tomorrow, Tuesday, December 8th, there will be a reception in honor of the Literature department's December graduates. Graduates and their guests are invited to join faculty in the Laurel Forum from 4:00 - 6:00.

Call for Undergraduate Abstracts and/or Papers

Undergraduate Research Conference

February 19-20 2010.

Call for abstracts and/or papers demonstrating original undergraduate research. For more information about the conference visit http://www.coker.edu/humanities/humanities/index.html

Alumni Reception photos

Friday, November 15th was the Literature Alumni Reception, held in the Laurel Forum.

Click for an enlarged view.













Thank you to everyone who attended!

Congratulations to Koren Bakkegard!

Congratulations to alum Koren Bakkegard, who recently had a baby! Koren graduated from UNCA in 1996 and now works at Stanford University.

Poe in the Library

Poe in the Library
Thursday, October 29 12:30pm Ramsey Library Special Collections

Students and staff will read poetry and prose by E.A. Poe, master of the macabre. The program will take place in Ramsey Library Special Collections Room (RL 205) suitably darkened, and accompanied by all the appropriate sound effects. Join us for a haunting experience.

The Black Cat & Other Music inspired by works of Edgar Allan Poe
Friday, October 30 7:00pm Lipinsky Hall

International award winning composer Nathan Shirley presents his original, dark, melodic, and brutally virtuosic compositions based on works written by Poe. Performed on piano by the composer, with Dr. David Hopes (narration) and Jennifer Park (voice), among others.

This will be the world premier performance of the following original compositions:

The Black Cat
piano solo with dramatic reading of the story by Dr. David Hopes
(Contains disturbing content which may not be suitable for some)
The Lake
Poe's poem set to music for piano & voice, sung by Jenifer Park
Annabel Lee
piano & violin solo with string quintet and reading of the poem by Dr. David Hopes
(Annabel Lee will receive its European premier later this year by the London Schubert Players)

More information on the composer: www.nathanshirley.org
Sponsored by Ramsey Library and the UNC Asheville Literature Department.

Reading Poe
October 26-30 Ramsey Library

Display of Books by Edgar Allan Poe and Books about Edgar Allan Poe.

Katherine Min reading, 10/25/2009, 1:00 pm

On October 25, 2009, Katherine Min will be doing a reading at Malaprops Bookstore and Cafe in Downtown Asheville. She will be reading for the Long Story Short anthology of flash fiction.

C.A. Conrad reading, October 21, 7:30 pm

Poet C.A. Conrad will be giving a reading at the Glasshouse (beside Ramsey Library) at 7:30 pm on Wednesday, October 21. The reading is sponsored by the UNCA Literature Club.

Headwaters Creative Arts Magazine accepting submissions

The Literature and Language department's literary magazine, Headwaters, is accepting submissions of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and visual art through December 10th. Email submissions to headwaters.magazine@gmail.com.

Upcoming local readings

A couple of readings in the Asheville area that may be of interest to students:

• Natasha Trethewey will be giving a reading on October 29th at 8:00 pm at Possano Cafe in on Biltmore Avenue. She author of Native Guard (2006), Bellocq's Ophelia (2002), and Domestic Work (2000), and winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
  



• Barbara Kingsolver will be giving a reading on November 2nd at Malaprops bookstore and cafe at 7:00 pm. A ticket is free with the purchase of her new book, The Lacuna. Her first novel, The Bean Trees, was published in 1988; her 1998 novel The Poisonwood Bible was a bestseller that won the National Book Prize of South Africa, was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize and PEN/Faulkner Award, and was chosen as an Oprah's Book Club selection. In 2000, Kingsolver was awarded the National Humanities Medal by U.S. President Bill Clinton.

Jeff Rackam Award

The Literature department has set up an award in memory of the late Jeff Rackham for the top Literature major with a teacher licensure concentration called the Jeff Rackham award. Donations are currently being accepted for the spring award.

Jeff Rackham Memorial: Friday, 9/25, Laurel Forum, 4:00 pm

The Jeff Rackham Memorial will be held in the Laurel Forum (Karpen Hall 139) on Friday, September 25, 2009, at 4:00 pm. Speakers for the memorial will be Drs. Peg Downes and David Hopes, as well as UNCA alum Caroline Harkins McCarty. We welcome anyone who wishes to attend.

Creative Writing application deadline: 10/16/2009, 12:00 pm

The deadline for turning in Creative Writing major applications is Friday, October 16, 2009, but 12:00 pm. Application guidelines are available here. See the Creative Writing major program description for more information.

Contact Dr. Chess with any questions.

Katherine Min reading at Ramsey Library: 9/22/09 at 12:30 p.m.

Katherine Min reads from and discusses her novel-in-progress, The Fetishist. Her last novel, Secondhand World, was recently published in paperback (Anchor, 2008).

Katherine was recently also awarded the 2009-10 artist fellowship in prose writing by the North Carolina Arts Council. This is a highly competitive and substantial grant. There were 148 applicants and eight award recipients. Along with the funds, fellowship winners are nominated to represent NC at the Southern Artistry website, an online juried showcase for artists who live in the Southeast, and are invited to attend a weekend workshop in February 2010, with Creative Capital Foundation, in NYC, an artist-centered, grant-making organization that has pioneered a strategic planning curriculum for artists around the country. She plans to do research for her second novel “The Fetishist” in Florence, Italy.

This award not only speaks to Katherine’s growing recognition as a leading literary figure, but it also offers our department and university new opportunities as we develop our network for future visiting writers.

Please let her know how pleased we are at her success here!

NEW SITE LAUNCH

The new Literature and Language Department web site is now online! And, more importantly, it is here to stay! Please, please, please take a minute to knock through the pages and let me know if there are any errors with departmental information, faculty info (such as recent teaching or office number), or even if a photo is ten years out of date.

Thanks to everyone who helped me and gave feedback on the site's work in progress.

Philological Association of the Carolinas 11-13 March 2010 Conference Call for Papers

The 34th annual Philological Associate of the Carolinas (PAC) conference is now calling for both papers and panels. The theme for the 2010 conference is Literature as Bridge and will take place at the College of Charleston, SC, on March 11-13.

From Dr. Blake Hobby:

We welcome papers and panels on any topi co finterest to literature and language scholars. Past sessions have focused on English, American, world and multiethnic literatures, as well as on linguistics, composition, and pedagogy. Especially encouraged are proposals that consider literary works as a bridge to understanding. Several papers from each conference are published in Postscript,
the peer-reviewed journal of the Philological Association of the Carolinas. The Don Joiner Award is given to the best manuscript published in Postscript, as is an award for the best graduate student submission.

Email proposals along with a brief abstract and CV by 6 November 2009 to:

American / British Topics	Foreign / Comparative / Linguistics / Pedagogy Topics
Dr. Blake Hobby Assistant Professor of Literature and Language University of North Carolina at Asheville	Dr. David Smith Assistant Professor of German East Carolina University

Panel proposals must include a letter of justification along with the session title; brief abstracts in English of all proposed papers; and the names, email addresses, and institutional affiliation of all participants. Each session should consist of presenters from more than one institution and contain no more than one paper by a graduate student.

Gudger Awards: 9/15/09 at 12:30 pm, Laurel Forum

The Gudger Awards will be held on Tuesday, September 15th at 12:30 pm in the Laurel Forum. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Senior Comps: 9/12/09 from 9:00 am - 12:00 pm and 1:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Saturday, September 12th, from 9 am - 12 pm and 1 pm - 5 pm. Both computer rooms on the ground level of Karpen have been reserved for this purpose.

Jeff Rackham Memorial Event: 9/25/09 at 4:00 pm

The Laurel Forum has been reserved for September 25th at 4 p.m. We are in the process of getting a list of all Literature alumni to invite to the memorial.

In Memoriam: Jeff Rackham (1942-2009)

It is with sadness that we announce the death of our colleague, Jeff Rackham, who died June 24 2009 in Asheville, NC. He is survived by his wife, DeDe Rackham and children Quill, Adam, Isabella, and Steele.

Jeff taught at UNC Asheville from 1980 until his retirement in 2006. He taught a variety of classes in literature, composition and creative writing as well as in the MLA and Humanities programs. Along with his many administrative duties, he served as department chair, faculty senate chair, and acting Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs.

His publications included the widely used writing textbook, From Sight to Insight (Wadsworth Publishing 7^th Edition, 2002), the novel Rag and Bone Shop (Penguin 2002), and Windows: Exploring Personal Values through Reading and Writing (co-editor, Longman 1994).

The department will be hosting an on-campus memorial gathering for Jeff at 4:00PM on September 25, 2009 in the Laurel Forum on the UNC Asheville campus, and we invite you to attend. At that time we’ll announce details of an award to be established in his memory. Memorial donations can be made to an educational fund designated for the Rackham children at the NC Credit Union, or to the UNC Asheville Foundation with a designation to Literature and Language in memory of Jeff Rackham.

New Computer Classroom and Lab Opening Fall 2009

The Literature and Language department will reopen with a new computer classroom and lab this fall. KH 232 will boast 24 Dell "Netbooks" and wireless Internet connectivity, and will be largely used for writing workshop classes. We have also reclaimed classrooms vacated by Multi-Media Studies (now in the new Zeis Hall). KH 245 will function as a writing lab, and is equipped with 15 Macintosh computers. KH 244 will serve as a regular classroom. Check these new spaces out when you get a chance!

The classroom and lab were largely funded by a classroom-enhancement grant from the UNC General Administration from Spring 2009.

Jessica Lynn Wallace receives Manly E. Wright Award

Departmental graduate Jessica Lynn Wallace, who double-majored in Literature and History, received the Manly E. Wright Award, which is presented to the student first in scholarship, in May, 2008. During her undergraduate years, Jessica spent a summer doing research in Oxford and came back to New York City to participate in a research program as a Gilder Lehrman History Scholar. She is now in graduate study at Ohio State University.