It’s getting cold out there, #bsuenglish! Hopefully, you’ll find some warmth in all the good news from our faculty, alumni, and students. Read on to hear about an impressive amount of publishings, our Practical Criticism Midwest event, and what your peers are up to!

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Faculty

Emeritus faculty member Prof. Joe Trimmer received two awards at the annual Alumni and Benefactors Dinner during Homecoming weekend:

• The Honorary Alumni Award which honors friends of the university who have made significant and long-standing contributions to Ball State’s welfare, reputation, prestige, and pursuit of excellence. Prof. Trimmer donated this trophy to the English Department.
• The Founders Award honors those who have given over 1 million dollars to the University. The trophy was inscribed to “Joe and Carol Trimmer” and donated to the Virginia Ball Center, which Trimmer founded

Patrick Collier and James J. Connolly’s chapter “Everyday Life in Middletown: The Archive as Community Engagement,” will appear in Digital Community Engagement, recently cleared for publication by the University of Cincinnati Press.

Pamela Hartman’s article, “’I feel much more like a teacher!’: The Effects of Conference Attendance on English/Language Arts Teacher Candidates” is accepted for publication in the Spring issue of English Language Teacher Education and Development (ELTED) Journal.

Pamela Hartman will be presenting “Memes as a Means: Using Popular Culture to Enhance Character Study” with alumni, Jessica Berg, Hannah Fulton, and Brandon Schuler at the November 2019 National Council of English (NCTE) convention in Baltimore.

Prof Sean Lovelace’s flash essay “Muncie Creek” was anthologized in the 2019 Indiana Humanities Project, Next Indiana Campfires: A Trail Companion.

Prof. Silas Hansen’s essay about gender and fashion was published by Catapult at the end of September. The Fall 2019 issue of Waxwing–his third as Nonfiction Editor–also went life in mid-October.

Andrea Wolfe and Kathryn Ludwig have been awarded an Indiana Humanities Council grant to host a “One State / One Story” Campus Read program at Ball State. The grant will enable Andrea and Kathryn to offer a two-course series on “Midwestern Stories” during the 2020/2021 academic year. The project will culminate in a student-curated exhibit at  Minnetrista Cultural Center. You can read more about the project on the press release.

Rani Deighe Crowe and Kathryn Gardiner’s short film, Welfare Check, is an Official Selection of  Film Girl Film Festival in Milwaukee (formerly the Milwaukee Women’s Film Festival), Illawarra Film Festival in Australia (formerly Wollongong Film Festival), and Grand Rapids Feminist Film Festival in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

In the next month, Cathy Day’s book review of Deborah Kennedy’s novel Tornado Weather will be featured on the Indiana Humanities website, shared on social media, and also distributed as a “ready-to-run” article for newspapers statewide.

Prof. Emily Jo Scalzo has a new poem up at NewVerseNews, “Placebo Panacea,” about the impeachment.

Molly Ferguson attended the Midwest American Conference for Irish Studies in Omaha, where she presided as president for the second year. She presented a paper, “The Changeling Myth as Code for Abuse in Catriona Lally’s Eggshells” on a panel. She also participated in a lively roundtable, “Teaching Irish Literature in the #MeToo Era”.

Dr. Darolyn “Lyn” Jones’ article co-written with undergraduate English education student, Laurinda Webb, titled “Rethinking Autism Representation in Children’s & YA Literature: Representation Matters!” was accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed journal Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

Dr. Joyce Huff presented a paper entitled “Dickens Remediated: The Victorian Character Commonplace Project and the Teaching of Victorian Literature” at the North American Victorian Studies Association conference. The paper showcased work done by students in English 365 over three semesters.

Dr. Kathryn Ludwig and Dr. Vanessa Rapatz joined Dr. Karma Waltonen (President of the Margaret Atwood Society) for a roundtable titled “Prophecy and Pedagogy: Utopian and Dystopian Fiction in the Undergraduate Classroom” presented at this year’s Society for Utopian Studies Conference at Michigan State University. The discussion focused largely on teaching dystopian texts by authors including Margaret Atwood and Octavia Butler in our current sociopolitical climate.

Ben Bascom presented a paper entitled “Settler Palimpsest: John Filson’s Kentucky and the Topography of the State” at the Charles Brockden Brown Society conference in October.

Michael Begnal’s poem “A Trans-Historical Interview between Poets (after the Irish text Immacallam an Dá Thuarad)” appears in the Autumn 2019 issue of ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, vol. 26, no. 4. ISLE is the peer-reviewed journal of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE). The poem is open-access archived online.

Sarah Domet’s short story “With Whom” was named a “Distinguished Story” in Best American Short Stories 2019, edited by Anthony Doerr. This story was originally published by Bridge Eight.

Students

Practical Criticism Midwest, happened on Oct, 11 1-6 pm. We had about 45 attendees, including faculty, students, and friends/family. For the students who presented at PCM, thank you for sharing your excellent projects with us. It was really inspiring. Some photos are available here. Thanks to Ben Bascom (Faculty advisor) and Emilie Schiess (PCM chair) for their amazing work to make PCM possible. Practical Criticism Midwest Excellent Presentation Award Winners are:

• Ellen Good presenting Accessing Quiet in Monique Truong’s “The Book of Salt”: Empowerment Through Guarded Interiority of the Othered Outsider
• Jacob Lauve presenting Habits of Mind for Tutoring Multilingual Writers / Giving Feedback to Multilingual Writers
• Valerie Weingart presenting “Overture”: We’re a Collective Conflicted Chorus
• Tamaya Greenlee presenting Venus in the Ring: Race and Spectacle in Professional Wrestling and Suzan-Lori Parks’ “Venus”

Vinny Ramos-Niaves was featured in a New York Times article that grappled with the question “Do Works by Men Implicated by #MeToo Belong in the Classroom?” He contributed to the national conversation surrounding the movement, referencing Dr. Jeff Spanke’s class in the article.

Sarah Bredar, Devon Lejman, and Nykasia Williams were the only undergraduates who presented at PCM.  Their topic was over their summer internship with the Indiana Writers Center under the direction of Dr. Darolyn “Lyn” Jones.  The presentation was titled: “Building a Rainbow: Influencing the community to raise their voices through creative memoir writing.”

Alumni

Becca McNair was one of eight early-career humanities professionals to be awarded a fellowship by Indiana Humanities. McNair will use the fellowship to work with local youth, designing forums and workshops about the future of Columbus. They will also explore the potential of libraries to shape communities’ futures by including teens in the planning process.

Dino Ljubijankic (BA CW and RW 2019) just landed a job as a Customer Service Representative at Sears Garage Doors and Repairs in Glenview, IL. And he cut his hair! In addition to scheduling appointments for clients, he’ll work on marketing strategies to help advertise the company. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

Martina Myers was quoted in a New York Times article this month, contributing to the national conversation surrounding the #MeToo movement. Myers teaches at Piñon High School, on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona.

Caroline Delk (BA English/CW 2017) was recently hired in an 8th grade ELA teaching position at Shanks Middle School in Quincy, Florida.

Casey McArdle (Ph.d Rhetoric and Composition 2019) has just published his first book Personal, Accessible, Responsive, Strategic: Resources and Strategies for Online Writing Instructors.

Sadie Brown Lundy (BA Lit 2015) was promoted to Branch Service Manager at the Broad Ripple Branch of Huntington National Bank. Connect with her on LinkedIn.

 

Do you have anything cool happening November? We want to brag about you, #bsuenglish! Send us your November 2019 Good News at bsueng@bsu.edu!