MHC English Department Newsletter Spring 2014

FACULTY PROFILES

SPRING 2014 HIGHLIGHTS

Elizabeth Young Specialization: Women writers; Feminist theory; American literature; American Studies; Film; Visual Culture

Guilty Pleasure: Law & Order (any version, any season, at any hour) Favorite Text to Teach: It's hard to pick one. Film: anything by Hitchcock. Short fiction: two nineteenth-century classics, Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper." Novels: two from the 1950s, Gwendolyn Brooks's Maud Martha and Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House.

Friday, April 11-12, 2014: The oldest and

most prestigious intercollegiate poetry

competition was as exciting as ever. Poet

judges Charles Simic, Mark Doty, and

Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon presided over

a wonderful group of finalists who

included our own Anthea Hubanks ’14;

Milo Muise ’14, Hampshire College;

Ryan Kim ‘14, Middlebury; Robert Allen

Parry ‘15, Univ. Southern Maine;

Elizabeth Rowland ‘14, Vassar; and

Rebecca Liu ’14, Columbia. First place

was awarded to Rebecca Liu and second

place to Milo Muise.

Lunchtime Thinkers

This spring’s lunchtime speakers featured bite-sized (30 min) but high calorie presentations on influential scholars working across disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields. Speakers included Nigel Alderman on Fredric Jameson, Kate Singer on Marjorie Levinson, Elizabeth Young on Laura Mulvey, and Donald Weber on Sacvan Bercovitch.

Maecenas et lorem. Ut et nisl id turpis varius faucibus. Integer et

dolor

GLASCOCK POETRY COMPETITION

The Poet Contestants The Winner

The Poet Judges

Nigel Alderman

Specialization: post-1945 British literature and culture, Modernism, Romanticism, and literary theory, especially Marxist aesthetics.

Guilty pleasure: I am a member of the Mug Club at the Moan and Dove. Favorite text to teach: It would be one of Wordsworth's lyrics such as "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," "We are Seven," "Anecdote for Fathers," or "The Two April Mornings." If pushed I would probably choose "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," partly because it exemplifies the type of lyric that the modernist poets I also teach refused ever to write!

Congratulations Class of 2014!!

Upcoming Events

Wednesday, April 30th 4:00 - 5:30 pm Blackstick Review 10th Anniversary party and reading The Cassani Room, 102 Shattuck Hall. Enjoy a tasty treat and listen to the creative writing of Mount Holyoke College’s own short story writers!

Saturday, May 17: 2:00-4:00, Stimson Room:

At-Home reception for graduating students and their commencement guests.

TBA: Exit interviews for

graduating seniors

ENGLISH MAJORS: Lucy Arnerich-Hatch, Biology &English * Rose Birnbaum, Art History & English * Jackie Boudle, Chemistry & English * Tanzy Boyle-Westbrook, English & Psychology* Emily Carduff, Art History & English * Julia Carlaw * Julia Corsetti * Catia Cunha, English & Theater * Caroline D'Amario, English & French * Lara Day * Victoria Day, English & Mathematics * Samantha Doolittle, English & Theatre * Kate Dupuis * Leigh Edwards * Sojourner "Jo" Fletcher * Jordan Gigler * Victoria Helwig * Amanda Hershman * Brenna Hickey * Anthea Hubanks * Simone Koo * Charlotte Kugler, Anthropology and English * Anne Lattner* Dalin “Linda” Liu * Yasmin "Moh" MacDougall * Audrey Maney, English & French * Justine Marks, English & Gender Studies * Bailly Morse * Erica Moulton * Emily Murphy * Brittany Osborn, English & Medieval Studies * Melissa Payne, English & French * Kate Ramstad * Ailsa Sachdev * Abrielle Sanderson, English & Mathematics * Katherine Schlusser, Biology & English * Janice Shiu, Chemistry & English * Angela Sickler, Ancient Studies & English * Sara Elisabeth Siguion-Reyna * Christina Stathopoulos, Chemistry & English * Emma Styles-Swaim * Kate Thomas * Becca Tishler * Mohini Ufeli * Madeleine Veninger * Hannah Weinberg * Lauren Weiss * Kate Westcott * Maria Whelan, English & Religion * Lauren Williams * Edrian Woods * Weizi Zhang

Corinne Demas: Returning to Shore

Published by Carolrhoda Lab Lerner Publishing Group, March, 2014

Recent Faculty Publications

Fourteen year-old Clare is less than thrilled with her mother’s plan to have her spend three weeks on a remote island with her father, Richard. She hasn’t seen him in twelve years, and they only speak on Christmas. Gradually, through walks on the beach, kayaking around the bay and board games, the two find their way toward an honest and loving relationship. Demas’s careful seeding of details about Richard’s life in the years between his divorce from Vera and his re-emergence in Clare’s life is subtle enough that the revelation of what held him back from maintaining any substantive relationship with her will be surprising and ring true to most readers. Their father-daughter bond feels both earned and earnest. A quiet, lovely story with a satisfyingly sentimental ending. -- Kirkus