English Accents 2015

VOL 3, NO. 3

ENGLISH Accents

A Newsletter of the KU Department of English spring 2015

English Amplified

HOW SOCIAL AND NATURAL SCIENCES ARE ELECTRIFYING THE KU ENGLISH EXPERIENCE

Inside the Issue n Cover Story

n Year in Review n Hitting the Hallmark n Cover Story Cont'd n Beecher's 5 n To China and Back n Stories From the British Assistant Professor Phillip Drake presides over his Environmental Rhetorics capstone course in April 2015.

Summer Institute n Taking the World’s Stage

In her February 2015 address to the University of Kansas, “Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?: The Arts, The Sciences, The Humanities, the Inhumanities, and the Nonhumanities.

Zombies Thrown In Extra,” renowned writer Margaret Atwood discussed the divide between the humanities and the sciences, ultimately coming to the conclusion that for society to progress without self-destructing, we must become aware of the connections and positive influences our disciplines have with and on one another.

This academic year, our department has been acutely aware of our connection to the sciences, seeing the study of English amplified by them in a number of ways.

Successful students are double majoring in

English and natural sciences, and a newlyhired professor of Environmental Rhetoric is teaching courses on the intersections of nature, technology, and literature. Moreover, through the generosity of the 1st Annual John F. Eberhardt Prize for Excellence in Writing, two students double majoring or minoring in English will recieve a lucrative award of $1,000.

When KU senior Pharmacy major, Hall Center scholar, and James K. Hitt and ACE award-winner Alex Kong was told that a creative writing minor was possible, he knew he had to seize the opportunity.

Kong believes that “every successful scientist should be able to write well.” While

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n We Asked,You Answered n Undergraduate Awards n Fundraising Statement

department of english College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

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ANNA NEILL, DEPARTMENT CHAIR

2014-2015 Year in Review 2014-15 was a year full of challenges and triumphs. Our students continue to do us enormously proud: winning honors and awards, showcasing their work, travelling on study abroad programs, building connections to other disciplines, and reaching out to connect with and serve multiple communities.

They are our ambassadors, showing others how literature, writing, critical thinking, social and environmental justice, and many of the other themes that English carries are vital and transformative.

As you can see from the stories in this issue, we have concentrated this year on bridge building within and beyond the University.

Our newest faculty member, Professor Phil Drake, whose work is profiled in this issue, strengthens our ties with Environmental Studies. Professor Drake is one of a group of professors hired as part of a team focused on the topic of “Water Resources” in the context of a looming water crisis in the state of Kansas.

Professor Ayesha Hardison, who joins us in the fall, will bring us closer to the Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and contribute to the already-strong field of African American studies at KU. Drake and Hardison join other faculty members in English who organize their teaching and mentoring around community connections and activism. I’d like to especially single out Professor Darren Canady, who last summer directed

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a group of students from Topeka’s Highland Park High School in a play he had written for them on the topic of school violence. In August, he accompanied these students and oversaw their performance at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe—the largest theatre festival in the world! It is no surprise that Darren was recognized as one of KU’s 2015 Men of Merit and as an undergraduate research faculty mentor this year.

Such faculty strengths are also helping us build new programs that allow students’ love of literature or passion for writing to combine with their other studies across the University. Our new creative writing minor, launched this year, is drawing students from as far afield as Business and Engineering. New interdisciplinary certificate programs in Science Fiction, Professional Communication, and Environmental Studies will allow students to broaden their disciplinary horizons even as they earn a qualification that will help them in just about any job market. These initiatives are very timely: there has never been a more important time for the humanities as a new generation of students must develop innovative, problem-solving and critical thinking skills that can help us navigate the global problems we face in coming decades.

I’d like to describe just a few exciting examples of student work that brings English

studies to other intellectual and community venues. Graduating senior Rachel Cross has completed a collection of digital, interactive poetry for her honors thesis; Anna Wenner (also graduating this year) wrote and directed a play focused on sexual assault (in response to events on campus last fall) that has been performed in several public venues; while another of our writers, Crystal Bradshaw, is at work on a historical fiction novel focused on the Exoduster movement—a project that draws from the genealogical research she has conducted into her family history.We are also thrilled to announce the first winners of our new John F. Eberhardt Excellence in Writing Award. Loic Njiakin (an English and Neurobiology major) and Jonathan James (English and French) represent ways that literature, language, and writing in English enrich the study of other disciplines. This award, which recognizes a double major or minor in English, comes to us from the Johnstone-Eberhardt family, whose generosity in the past has already brought a great many high profile speakers to campus.

In all of these ways, English continues to grow as a cross-disciplinary, innovative, and engaged community of writers and thinkers, students and faculty. My deepest thanks to you, our alumni and friends. It is your wonderful support that makes all this possible.

Continued from page 1... suit of a double major in English and Physics.

Bernauer has always loved studying English literature and she feels that KU’s English Department has increased her interest by providing many amazing courses and professors to teach them.

Alex Kong

most of Kong’s peers “dread” writing, he says he looks forward to opportunities to write in both English and science courses. He feels that both of his fields of study have positively impacted his study of the other. Although Kong has used creative writing and science to complement one another, he has also used his English courses as a break from the sciences.

“I read Raymond Carver in between memorizing the mechanisms of action of antibiotics and Cheryl Strayed after gruesome medical photos had been seared into my vision.”

Bernauer sees her majors informing each other in a variety of ways: “Physics helps develop a logical thought process and a problem-solving attitude, which is really helpful when you’re trying to put forward arguments in English papers and discussions. English helps cultivate communication skills that are needed for explaining physics concepts. Both subjects require attention to detail but a realization that there’s a bigger picture being formed.”

Clara is currently interested in using her majors to pursue a career in patent law and advises other students considering a double major or minor in science and the humanities to keep in close contact with their advisors: “Know that one person can’t answer all of the questions you have since half of them probably won’t be in their field. You’ll have to rely on the insight of multiple professors

Kong offers this advice to other students considering a double major or minor in science and the humanities: “Do what works best for you, but don’t let either major falter. Whether you let your majors separate or converge, remember why you decided to pursue both, and let that passion carry you forward.”

Sophomore Clara Bernauer is certainly letting passion carry her forward in her pur-

Clara Bernauer

or counselors. Don’t be shy when talking to them.”

Assistant Professor Phillip Drake is currently wrapping up his first semester of teaching in the English Deparment at KU and could certainly serve as a resource to students looking to blur the boundries between science and the humanities. A lover of the outdoors, particularly long runs and birdwatching, Drake was nearly as taken with the environment of Lawrence and the surrounding region as he was with the strength of the faculty in the English Department.

In the two years prior to his arrival at KU, he was affiliated with an environmental studies program. This experience with teaching and conducting research outside of a traditional humanities setting underscored the importance of bringing both areas of study into conversation. In his classroom, the interactions between science and the humanities play out in various ways, whether it means approching specific scientific issues through literary texts or reading scientific texts critically. Drake draws on a hypothetical example of a class session focusing on a specific environmental issue like hydraulic fracturing: “We might use depictions of the effects of fracking in scientific literature, in the news media, and in film to explore the ways information and points of contention shift across different discursive contexts.”

In the coming years, Drake is eager to apply his background and forthcoming research to the classroom. Most immediately, he plans on teaching courses in environmental rhetoric, environmental disasters and literature, and the nonhuman as a focal point of inquiry. Going forward, he will continue to study the ways exploitation is expressed and countered across social and ecological communities, noting how texts both perform and reflect these activities.

Hitting the Hallmark Outstanding Senior Anna Wenner has always loved reading and creative writing, but didn’t start out her academic career as an English major. Thankfully, it didn’t take very many KU English classes to change her mind. She attributes this decision to the department’s “fantastic faculty,” including Mary Klayder and Darren Canady. “Loving the subject is one thing,” says Wenner, “but if you don’t have a person who can help you grow and improve, the major isn’t doing what it should be.”

Wenner is amplifying her English degree by double majoring in History and earning a minor in Global and International Studies. Anna says she has found History to be a great complement to her study of English, remarking that “to really appreciate and understand a piece of fiction, it is helpful to understand the historical context in which the piece was written.”

Last summer, through KU English’s internship program, Anna was able to gain valuable editorial experience at Hallmark Cards, Inc. Her exemplary performance earned her the Associate Editor position she will begin after her graduation in May.

Anna Wenner

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Professor Megan Kam inski presides over a Q& A session with visiting wri ter Carmen Gimenez Sm ith

Assistant Professor Darren Canady interviews Associate Professor Laura Moriarty at a KU Common tes in a Big r a picture Book event fo s se po Alumnus Dennis Etzel, Jr. Participa ma Graham United States, Bookstore n em Rave the ar at t M even s r.

Serie D e Tent Reading 2014 visit ident of th r es be Pr e em th ov with his N in Lawrence ma, during Barack Oba

ALYSE BENSEL AND SARA LEAVENS, EDITORS

Beecher’s 5 Beecher’s, the national literary magazine run by the department’s graduate students, is celebrating the publication of its 5th issue in 2015. Named after the Kansas abolitionist, Henry Ward Beecher, Beecher’s considers itself on the revolutionary edge of literary publishing and takes pride in printing the best in fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry from both emerging and established authors. The Review Review calls Beecher’s “a notable journal with a solid mix of every type of writing and writer that is well worth being a part of if you should be so lucky as to be selected for inclusion.”

Issue 4 contained an illuminating interview with the provocative writer Junot Diaz, and issue 5 will contain an interview with celebrated poet and “Smutty Metaphor Queen of Lawrence, Kansas,” Patricia Lockwood.

Beecher’s also holds a cash prize contest every year, boasting an impressive line-up of judges ranging from Dinty W. Moore. to Frank X. Walker. This year’s judges are Matt Bell, LaTasha Nevada Diggs, and Alissa Nutting.

Along with representatives of the Graduate Creative Writing Program, Beecher’s ran a table at the AWP conference in Minneapolis, MN, in April 2015. Amid unseasonably low temperatures, they were able to hold a well-attended offsite reading featuring readers that were published in both previous and upcoming issues of the magazine.

Issues are available for purchase at department sponsored readings, the Raven Bookstore in downtown Lawrence and online at www.beechersmag.com.

d Student Rhetoric and Composition graduate students PhD Candidate Simone Savannah introdu position Gra ork at ces Visiting Writer Carmen c and Com w ri r to he he ts R and faculty gather for a 2Cs meeting bi Gimenez Smith in Feb hi ruary lexis Catanzarite ex sium 2015 A ent Sympo ud St e at du the KU Gra

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Sara Leavens and Alyse Bensel

MFA candidate Danny Caine reads his work at a Graduate Reading Series event at Decade Coffee in Lawrence

To China and Back Distinguished Professor Maryemma Graham spent much of October in China amplifying KU English’s reach by delivering lectures and visiting classes at four different institutions as an official guest of the Chinese Ministry of Education. For part of the trip, she was accompanied by KU English Ph.D. student, Hui Meng. Dr. Graham’s visit grew out of burgeoning professional communications between The Project on the History of Black Writing and colleagues in China and Japan. She was happy to report that faculty members at Harbin Engineering University are eager to further their professional development via KU if at all possible.

AYESHA HARDISON

KU English has teamed with Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies to hire Dr. Ayesha Hardison in a joint appointment beginning in the Fall 2015 semester. After spending the Fall 2014 semester in a visiting faculty position at KU, Dr. Hardison comes to us from Ohio University, where she specializes in twentieth and twenty-first century African American literature, cultural history, critical race theory, and gender and sexuality studies.

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Stories from the

British Sum Along with our London Review and Costa Rican travel writing study abroad opportunities, The British Summer Institute in the Humanities provides a wonderful chance for its participants to combine study and travel in the context of an interdisciplinary academic environment. Our department’s Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies, Honors Lecturer Mary Klayder, is the organizer of this well-regarded program.

All students who partcipate earn credit for three courses, including English 315: British Literature in its Context, History of Art 305: The Art of the British Isles, and Honors 492/LAS 492: Culture of the British Isles.

Emily Roberts

I Will Walk 500 Miles You had better bring your walking shoes when you pack for the British Summer Institute. While there are shiny, red double decker buses, a highly organized underground tube system, and a taxi service, walking is truly the best way to travel.

Stepping out of the London flats on the first day, I really got a sense of the city. The air was surprisingly fresh and the sky surprisingly sunny (although there is no guarantee of these for any future students). As a group, we decided to walk in a huddled mass through the streets of London, navigating the diagonal, nonlinear directions. Our fear of getting lost was greater than our growing awareness of our American-ness. Soon, however, we all gained the confidence to find and to lose our way.

I walked down the quaint streets and through the park just like Mrs. Dalloway and read the Woolf novel in a wholly meta experience. I straddled the Millenium Bridge that took me from the old to the new: from St. Paul’s Cathedral to the Tate Modern Museum. I remembered to always mind the gap. With just a hop and a skip, I landed at the closest pub and enjoyed a shared communal understanding of our gracious host culture.

Stumbling back, my fellow BSI-er’s and I climbed the stairs to our flat to discuss novels, write in our journals, and assess the damage done to our shoes and wallets.

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Exiting London, I now had to navigate the quiet cobblestone streets and the vast rolling hills of the countryside. The smaller city of York offers more of a “stroll” than a “power walk.” It’s easy to want to get lost in the alleys and lanes that will have you wondering if you stumbled into the “Magical World of Harry Potter” (yes, the BSI does live up to its “Harry Potter Study Abroad Program” nickname). And if young adult literature is not your cuppa, then you have the chance to run on the moors like Bronte’s Heathcliff and Catherine.

The three-day adventure in the Highlands is arguably the best part of the trip. Here, my feet took me up to the top of a Lord-of-the-Ringsstyle mountain, even when my lungs protested.

They took me to the edge of Loch Ness to seek Nessie. They danced in the bar at Saucy Mary’s, where age and nationality faded away. They carried me through all the streets, the museums, the pubs, the theaters, and the mountains.

It is simply impossible to sum up the experience of the British Summer Institute in so few words, but all I know is I have never walked such a beautiful 500 miles. And, as I declared in an unforgettable duet of the Proclaimers’ Scottish anthem with Professor Klayder, “I would walk 500 more.”

ummer Institute Clara Bernauer

Can I Go Again?

Last summer, I read the assigned books ahead of time, packed clothes that I could wear in layers, and watched all of the BBC shows I could, but none of those things actually prepared me to study abroad in the UK. When I walked into the airport and boarded my plane, I had few expectations and a fair number of nerves about what lay ahead of me. During the British Summer Institute, I underwent the most exciting, hectic, and educational four weeks I could imagine. I don’t think I’ve ever been so exhausted yet thrilled to be awake at the same time.

Navigating a foreign place like London (which is not built on a grid by the way) was also an excellent way to make friends with the other members of the BSI group. The bonds formed while reaching the group dinner destination with help from your fellow travelers is only rivaled by that of sharing your last package of gummies with them on a three-day bus tour of the Highlands. And, not to get sappy, but these bonds lasted longer than a dinner or even a three-day tour. I still get together with the people from this trip, especially my flatmates.

In that short month, I walked the city streets of London, wandered the Shambles of York, and trekked the Scottish Highlands (there was an enormous amount of walking on this trip!). I was glad I packed comfortable shoes along with those layers. The physicality of this trip was one of the best parts. We were able to discuss famous works of art in the morning, break for lunch and then reconvene at a museum within walking distance to see those very pieces in person. All of this movement gave us a fair amount of freedom.

BSI packs a huge number of experiences into a very short time period. It would be impossible to describe even a fraction of the trip, but I’ll try anyway by listing a few of my highlights: returning with a small group to the British Museum and exploring until closing; looking out over Oxford from the top of St. Mary’s spire; eating random Chinese takeaway in York; taking selfies in front of Stonehenge; hearing classic Scottish stories from two crazy Scots; sipping apple tea in Edinburgh; climbing the ruins of Fountains Abbey; and seeing one of Shakespeare’s plays in the New Globe Theater as a groundling.

This freedom allowed us to explore whatever city we were in and led to us going out on our own adventures. I’ll admit, more than a few of these adventures resulted in some backtracking and reliance upon the kindness of strangers for directions, but that is all part of the experience.

Whew! I’m almost exhausted from just listing those, but it all brings back amazing memories and it honestly makes me want to ask Mary if I can go again!

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KATHERINE GWYNN, SENIOR

Taking the World’s Stage I started to write Merely Players in the summer of 2013.

I had just returned from the British Summer Institute and had seen quite a lot of theatre, including a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Globe. Shakespeare, theatre, and art were all on my mind. In light of this, the first weekend I was back, I went to The Heart of America production of As You Like It. I found myself amused by Rosalind, the play’s subversive heroine. I learned in the pamphlet notes that Rosalind has the most lines of any female character Shakespeare ever created. Indeed, with its drag, gender-inverted courtship, and blatant discussion of sexuality (specifically the sexuality of women), the play seemed like my bread and butter.

I found myself most drawn, though, not to Rosalind but to Phebe. Phebe is a shepherd girl who happens to fall in love with Rosalind the girl when she is playing Ganymede the boy. Phebe’s story isn’t even a B-plot in Shakespeare’s play, yet when I left the show, all I could think about was, “but what about Phebe?” “What would Phebe have to say if she was more than a bit character?” “What would Phebe say if she were given the spotlight?” I also kept pondering one of Shakespeare’s most famous speeches, which, before that night, I had not realized came from As You Like It: “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players.”

That night I began to write the first lines of Merely Players, and this fall I began to devote myself to it fully as my English honors thesis project under the direction of Darren Canady. He challenged me, guided me, prodded me, and encouraged me. He also was the one to push me to seek opportunities for full production, something that I wouldn’t have thought to seek out on my own. With his support, I went to the Jayhawk Initiative for Student Theatre, and after pitching them my script, was told that in the spring they would help me fully produce Merely Players.

A scene from Merely Players

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This spring semester, after receiving an Undergraduate Research Grant to fund production costs, and with the support of English department faculty, Darren Canady, and JIST, I met my director, Lynn DeBoek, a wonderful member of the Theatre department here who just earned her doctorate. We immediately clicked and set about casting my show before we headed into workshop as a group of five women, all students at the University of Kansas, ready to make a play.

For months we rehearsed, met, and discussed; I rewrote, re-considered, and learned. I also laughed and cried and experienced first-hand the beauty of truly colaborative art. I grew as an artist in astronomical ways, and Merely Players became something more than I could have ever imagined. It was a beautiful, moving piece of theatre.

We finished our last night of full performance in the William Inge Memorial Theatre on April 28th, a few weeks before my graduation. It’s because of this experience, and the support I received, that I’ll be applying to MFA programs in playwriting in the fall. And it’s because of Merely Players, everything and everyone involved in it, that I feel my art has value—that art is capable of molding one’s mind and heart into something wholly transformed.

After its premiere at KU, Katherine’s script was awarded The Jane Chambers Student Playwriting Award from the Women & Theatre Program of the Association of Theatre in Higher Education. The national-level award is given to an exceptional work created by an undergraduate or graduate woman that presents a feminist perspective and contain significant opportunities for female performers. Katherine was honored and excerpts of the play were read at the annual ATHE conference this summer in Montreal, Canada.

Katherine and Darren Canady on Opening Night

We Asked...You Answered

Q: “How Has the Study of English Amplified Your Life?”

“I can say that studying English has definitely enriched (or amplified) my career in law. I think that lawyers are sometimes susceptible to thinking about language only as a technical matter; words are tools, and we use them to craft precise statements, whether those statements are meant to be persuasive or otherwise protective of our clients’ interests. The saving grace of an English background is that it makes it impossible to forget that language is also art, and that language can also be beautiful and funny and so much more than a utilitarian way to make an abstract concept concrete. I think that studying English, and my continuing love of literature, have kept my writing from becoming too dry, technical, and lifeless. Lawyers aren’t supposed to be reading lab reports, after all, but if you don’t keep reading and appreciating words as art, I think that is a definite risk.”

Sarah Edwards, English and Environmental Studies Class of 2008

How to Stay In Touch: @KUEnglish KU Department of English 9

Where should we go next?

Last year, we visited our NYC alumni and had a great time. Where can we send Mary Klayder next? Make your suggestion for the next city to visit on our Facebook page or by tweeting @KUEnglish. We canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t wait to reconnect with you!

Congrats to this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wizards! pictured are award winners at the 2015 English Department Awards Banquet

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MICHAEL WADE SMITH, ADVISORY BOARD PRESIDENT

A NOTE ABOUT GIVING Why English? This was the question my father asked me many years ago when I told him I intended to become an English major. At the time, I wasn’t empowered with a great answer. Now, years after making what I still believe was an excellent decision, I have the right answer—an English degree prepares you for life. Some alumni have noted that critical thinking, argument construction and analysis, synthesizing content from varied sources, and the ability to write a compelling narrative are among the transferrable skills that an English degree provided them.

One professor shared that our field of study is empowering us to “fight for our right to read.” All of these things are true, but are still only an expression of a small fraction of the value our English degrees provide.

Over the next year, we will need your help.

The question “Why English?” is no longer relegated to the dinner table of families aiming to justify their child’s potential major choice. This same question is now at the forefront of national conversations surrounding the value of the humanities, state conversations around funding for education, and local debates around funding for our department. We are in a time when, more than ever, we need to define our value and answer unequivocally why English is valuable. We must make this statement on two fronts: with our words and with our actions.

This year, we will work to collect and share the stories of our English alumni.

Please be on the lookout for posts on our website and Facebook page soliciting the narrative of your experiences and how your study of English helped shape your life. We need your success stories to help us make the case for our value to the public, to the institution, and to new Jayhawks aiming to choose their major.

Further, and very importantly, we need your financial support to be able to provide students with the same life changing experience you received in the KU Department of English. With state support for the institution below 25% and likely to decline further in coming years, it is more critical than ever that we show our support for the department at whatever level we are able. In 2015, please consider a gift to the KU Department of English. Your gifts will make an impact on students’ ability to study abroad, conduct undergraduate research, and experience high quality, nationally ranked graduate study at an AAU Research I institution from world-class faculty.

Will you consider making a gift today of $15, $150, or $1500? Your gift will immediately be put to work to help more students fully experience an elite program at an elite institution.

If so, please visit the KU Endowment Association website at www.kuendowment.org and click Make a Gift. Make sure to direct the gift to the KU Department of English.

This newsletter is published by: KU Department of English 1445 Jayhawk Blvd., Room 3001 Lawrence, Kansas 66045 785.864.4520 english.ku.edu Graduate Assistant: Sara Leavens Faculty Sponsor: Mary Klayder ©2015– All rights reserved

Thank you for your continued support of the Department of English. We look forward to hearing and sharing your stories this year.

Rock Chalk, Michael Wade Smith

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