End-of-Term News Roundup
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| Our Spring 2011 Newsletter: Clearly something to applaud! |
As I write, the English office is quieter than usual, but not because no one getting work done. Rather, everyone is hunkered down: faculty are busy reading and grading; students are even busier writing papers and studying for final exams, which end this Monday, May 9. For graduating students, a round of celebrations culminating in Commencement begins shortly thereafter.
Here is a list of recent highlights concerning English department students and faculty. I’ll report in later this spring with news and statistics from our annual department report.
- GW Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute – Director Jeffrey Cohen reports that GW MEMSI has received two years of additional funding from the office of VP for Research Leo Chalupa, allowing the Institute to continue to offer a robust series of talks, seminars, and other events during 2011-13.
- So popular was her call for papers on Asian American literature and cinema that Associate Professor Kavita Daiya organized two panels–one on “Gender, Sexuality, and New Perspectives in Asian American Literature and Cinema” and another on “Space, Sexuality, and New Perspectives on Asian American Cinema” for the recent Northeast Modern Language Association annual conference. “What was interesting about both panels was an attention to the transnational connections between Asia and the US/North America, political and cultural, that allowed for a new analytic focus beyond labor migrations,” she writes. Among the panelists were former English undergrad Rajiv Menon (“Romancing the Desi Girl: Masculinity and Performance in South Asian Diasporic Film and Culture”) and current English PhD student Marilena Zackheos (“Queer Subjectivity, Ex-isle and Belonging in Shyam Selvadurai’s Funny Boy”).
- Professor and Deputy Chair Robert McRuer put together an excellent spring newsletter for English department alumni. Check it out on the department website. Thanks to the excellent CCAS staff–including Ryan Dellolio, Anita Ponchione, and Denise St. Ours–for their help.
- Professor Gayle Wald (that would be me!) won this year’s Robert Kenny Prize for Excellence in Teaching. Sadly, I’ll be out of town during CCAS Celebration, when the award is usually announced.
