VLP Reception and Reading April 29th

Everyone is invited to attend the Vermillion Literary Project Reception and Reading to celebrate the publication of the 2004 VLP magazine! This event takes place on Thursday, April 29th, at 7 p.m., at the Coffee Shop Gallery, 24 W. Main Street, downtown Vermillion. This is the last VLP event of the 2003-04 regular school year. Copies of the new magazine will be available for sale. For more info: call 677-5229.
posted by Michelle Rogge Gannon at 6:43 PM

2004 Forum for Graduate Student Research and Creative Work

Several USD English graduate students are participating in the Forum for Graduate Student Research and Creative Work at USD, including Christopher Bloss, Paul Fattaruso, Courtney Huse-Wika, Erin Kaufman, John Nelson, Renee Richard, Daniel Jones, Thomas Klett, Jeremy Christensen, and Jennifer Zimmerman.

The Forum for Graduate Student Research and Creative Work will be held at the Coyote Student Center on the University of South Dakota campus on Friday, April 23, 2004, 8:30 am-6:00 pm. A detailed schedule is available at http://www.usd.edu/oorsch/gradforum.cfm. 

According to the website, "[t]he Forum features presentations by USD graduate students in all disciplines, including the physical and natural sciences, social sciences, education, fine arts, law, and humanities. . . . The purpose of the forum is to allow graduate and professional students an opportunity to present their work in a formal setting to their peers and faculty. The forum also is an excellent setting for students to showcase new work and find out what others are doing on campus."  All USD faculty, staff, and students are welcome to attend.

posted by Michelle Rogge Gannon at 6:08 PM

Department Chair Search Process: Dr. Emily Haddad will become chairperson of the English Department effective January 2, 2005. Dr. Brian Bedard will remain chairperson for the remainder of 2004. Congratulations, Emily and Thank You, Brian!
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The Department welcomes the additions of Amanda Emerson, Americanist, and Chris Ervin, Compositionist. Both will begin teaching this fall.
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Lee Ann Roripaugh's second volume of poetry, Year of the Snake, has now been officially released from Southern Illinois University Press as part of the Crab Orchard Award Series in Poetry. To celebrate the launching of the book, Roripaugh was invited to give public poetry readings at the Associated Writing Programs Conference in Chicago, Illinois; Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois; SUNY-Fredonia in Fredonia, New York; and the University of North Carolina in Asheville, North Carolina. Lee Ann Roripaugh was named winner of the Prairie Schooner Strousse Award, with a cash prize of $500, for best poem or group of poems published in Prairie Schooner literary magazine in 2003.
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Michelle Rogge Gannon attended the National Writing Project's Leadership meeting in Washington, D.C. on April 3rd, representing the NWP Electronic Design Team.

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Emily Haddad received a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend, awarded to support work on her second book, the working title of which is Indigenous Economies and Imperial Power in Nineteenth-Century British Literature.

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In April, the University of Alabama Press published John Dudley's first book, A Man’s Game: Masculinity and the Anti-Aesthetics of American Literary Naturalism, as part of their ongoing series “Studies in American Literary Realism and Naturalism.” The book traces the development of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century literature alongside evolving ideas of gender in the Progressive Era and the emergence of spectator sports as mass entertainment.

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Norma Wilson will travel to Indianapolis April 14-18 for the National Conference on Undergraduate Research to be held on the Indiana/Purdue University campus. Katie Lorenzen will present her paper, The Power of Songs in the Lakota Culture as Shown in the Literary Works of Delphine Red Shirt at the conference. She wrote the paper for Dr. Wilson's fall 2003 course in American Indian Literature. Norma Wilson will present her paper, War's Destruction of Earth: Indigenous Perspectives from the Great Plains, at the Dakota Conference, Augustana College, Sioux Falls, April 24.
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Brian Bedard, Lee Roripaugh, Ed Allen, and Eileen Sullivan attended the annual Associated Writing Programs Conference in Chicago March 25-27. All four worked rotating shifts at the South Dakota Review display table at the conference Book Fair and also attended panel sessions and readings during the three day conference. Ed Allen did a book signing for his new story collection, Ate It Anyway, at the University of Georgia Press table, and Lee Roripaugh also did a book signing and was one of five award winning writers to read at the Crab Orchard Review Awards Reading. Over 4,000 writers, editors, publishers, and creative writing students attended the conference.
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Brian Bedard and Lee Ann Roripaugh gave a reading of their short stories via interactive television with Northern State University in Aberdeen on February 26. The reading was arranged by English Department PhD graduate, Penni Pearson, who teaches literature and writing at Northern. Two of Penni's classes attended the reading, which was transmitted to Northern from USD. Brian and Lee Ann answered questions during a Q and A session following the reading.

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Craig Arnold has accepted a tenure-track position at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, where he will help to develop the English department's fledgling MFA program. Best wishes, Craig! Craig Arnold was also recently invited to read at Black Hills State and Southwest Minnesota State Universities.

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Tom Gannon has been asked to review a new anthology, Genocide of the Mind: New Native American Writing, Mari Jo Moore, ed. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 2003. It includes writings by two USD English majors: Mary Black Bonnet, Blood Flowing in Two Worlds (13-20) and Joel Waters, Indians in the Attic (85-92).

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Nancy Zuercher participated in the National Writing Project (NWP) Spring Meeting in Washington, D. C. April 1-2. NWP awarded the Dakota Writing Project $43,000 for DWP's work in 2004-2005, including a summer invitational institute at USD, partnerships with three South Dakota schools, and professional development for school districts.
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Emily Haddad presented a paper, “Reciprocity or Hegemony?: Intercultural Exchange in Kipling’s Empire,” at the Northeast Modern Language Association conference, Pittsburgh, PA, on March 5; the paper was part of a panel on “The Economics of Being British” that she organized and chaired. Emily also received a Richard and Sharon Cutler Award in Liberal Arts (Humanities Division) from the USD College of Arts and Sciences on April 13.
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Barb will be out of the office April 23-May 17. She is having shoulder surgery. Good luck!
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If you have not yet purchased your English Department banquet ticket(s), you should do so soon. Tickets are $10 each; the banquet will be held at the Buffalo Run Winery on Sunday, April 25, with socializing at 5:30 p.m. and the dinner and awards at 6:00 p.m.

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Be sure to buy VLP rockfest tickets and photo raffle tickets from Barb in Dakota 212 in anticipation of our VLP rockfest event on Sunday, April 18, 2-5 p.m., Coffee Shop Gallery, 24. W. Main Street. Local bands Poison Stream and Bihn and musician/poet Craig Arnold will perform.
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Allison Adelle Hedge Coke will present a reading of her poetry and prose at 7:30 on Wednesday, April 21 in Farber Hall. The Oyate Singers will also be featured. A reception and book signing will follow the reading. Students are also invited to a reading and discussion of Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer from 11-11:50 in Old Main 309 and a reading and discussion of her poetry from 2-2:50 in Old Main 213.

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Chris Bloss, Dan Jones, and Phil Postma presented papers at the Southwest Texas American Culture Association/Popular Culture Association Conference in San Antonio. “Shriner’s Ball” was presented by Chris, “You need a mother’s care, my child: Inverted Love Triangles in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds” was presented by Dan, and “Men’s Business: The Assertion of Masculinity in the Coen Brothers’ Fargo and The Man Who Wasn’t There” was presented by Phil. Chris also served as Chair for five panels.

Cecilia Ragaini will present “Elizabeth Cook-Lynn: The Missouri River, “Blood Flowing from Your Arm”” at the Thirty-sixth Annual Dakota Conference on Northern Plains History, Literature, Art & Archaeology, April 23-24, at Augustana College.

Phil Postma will be entering the PhD in English program at the University of Kentucky this fall, where he will hold a teaching assistantship and has won a fellowship.

Jami Olson and Renee Della Fave presented papers at the College English in the New Millenium Conference in Pocatello, Idaho. Renee presented “Using Online Components for English Composition Instruction: An Advantage in the Classroom” and Jami presented “Transference and the College Writing Classroom.”

Keith Collett, PhD student, has been offered a tenure-track job in developmental writing at South Suburban College, a community college in the Chicago area.

Jennifer Conrad Miller, MA student, gave birth to a healthy baby boy on March 23, 2004. Welcome, Wyatt!

Deanna Langle, a former TA with the English Department, is now a campus pastor at Luther College in Decorah, IA, a college of the ELCA.

Melissa van Vuuren (BA 2002) will receive her MA in English from the University of Nevada, Reno, this spring. She will pursue a second master's degree at Indiana University's School of Library and Information Science next year.



Vermillion Literary Project news…

VLP Reception and Authors' Reading Thursday, April 29, 7:00 p.m., Coffee Shop Gallery, 24 W. Main Street, downtown Vermillion. This event celebrates the publication of the 2004 magazine and marks the "official" end of the VLP's 2003-04 school-year activities. This is a key event for VLP; we hope you'll be there!

The Vermillion Literary Project held its most successful poetry reading and slam yet on April 1 at the Coffee Shop Gallery, with Luke Warm Water as the featured poet and nineteen poets participating in the poetry slam. Melissa Houghton won first place in the slam; Lutwan Hughes received second place.





posted by Anonymous at 8:49 AM

VLP ROCKFEST—A FUNDRAISER FOR THE VLP. Featuring local bands Bihn and Poison Stream and musician/poet Craig Arnold. 2-5 p.m. Sunday, April 18, Coffee Shop Gallery, 24 W. Main Street, downtown Vermillion. Each ticket includes a free drink courtesy of the Coffee Shop Gallery. Purchase tickets in advance for $5 each from the USD English Department, Dakota 212 (by mail: Vermillion Literary Project, Dakota Hall 226, Vermillion, SD 57069-2390) or at the Coffee Shop Gallery, 24 E. Main Street, Vermillion. Tickets can also be purchased for $6 at the door the day of the event. This fundraiser will help the VLP to pay for its annual literary magazine and other activities.

About our performers. . . . Bihn is a band of high school musicians from Vermillion, who play mostly original songs with an "emo" (emotional punk rock) sound—Ben Rogge, Justus Meyer, Anthony Rath, and Glen Foltz. Poison Stream is an eclectic rock band of professors (yes, teachers can rock!), including USD English professors Skip Willman, Dennis Sjolie, and John Dudley; UNL English professor Tom Gannon; and Northeast College (Norfolk, NE) biology professor Jim Batt. Musician and poet Craig Arnold, a visiting professor in the USD English Department, will also perform. This is a unique opportunity to hear all of these musicians at once and show your support for the VLP. We hope you'll come.

In addition, Ron Johns, a local, award-winning photographer, has donated one of his beautiful black-and-white photographs to the VLP for a raffle. This photograph, "Buddhist Prayer Beads," was taken in Hemis Gompa, Ladakh,
India, in 1990. The photograph is 16" x 20", matted and framed. Tickets for this photograph are being sold for $2 each or three for $5 (also in Dakota 212 or at the Coffee Shop Gallery). The winner will be announced at the April 18th fundraiser, although the winner does not need to be present to win.
posted by Michelle Rogge Gannon at 7:16 AM