CALENDAR OF EVENTS

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

BOOK FAIR

Wednesday, November 1, 2006

9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Clemens Third Floor Lobby

Poetics Plus, Talk and Reading

Aaron Shurin and Susan Gevirtz

Friday, November 3, 2006……7:00 p.m.

Big Orbit, 30D Essex Street

Lecture - Beckett, Modernism, and Minimalism Event

Damien Keane

“Catalogue, Index, Transcription: Beckett’s Paperwork, 1936-1946”

Tuesday, November 3, 2006…………7:45 p.m.

Albright-Knox Art Gallery

Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis & Culture

Jelica Sumic (Ljubljana, Slovenia)

“On Lacan and Rhetoric”

Tuesday, November 7, 2006……..4:00 p.m.

830 Clemens Hall

Buffalo Film Seminars

Tuesday, November 7……………7:00 p.m.

Emile de Antonio IN THE YEAR OF THE PIG 1969

Juxtapositions lecture: Meredith McGill (Rutgers)

“The Traffic in Poems: Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Transatlantic Exchange”

Thursday, November 9, 2006……4:00 p.m.

830 Clemens Hall

Poetic Plus, Reading

Laura Mullen (Louisiana State)

Friday, November 10, 2006……8:00 p.m.

Rust Belt Books

Buffalo Film Seminars

Tuesday, November 14……………..7:00 p.m.

Bob Rafelson FIVE EASY PIECES 1970

Poetics Plus, Talk and Reading

Dale Smith

Tuesday, November 14, 2006…..2 and 4 p.m.

Poetry Collection, 420 Capen Hall

Early Modern Reading Group Seminar

Christopher Kendrick (Loyola)

Wednesday, November 15, 2006…..3:00 p.m.

318 Clemens Hall

The 2006 Oscar Silverman Reading

Billy Collins

Friday, November 17, 2006……8:00 p.m.

Slee Hall

Buffalo Film Seminars

Tuesday, November 21…………7:00 p.m.

Nicolas Roeg THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH 1976

English Faculty Seminar

Damien Keane

“Weird and Useless Books: Black Propaganda and Irish Information”

Tuesday, November 28, 2006…….2:00 p.m.

436 Clemens Hall

Buffalo Film Seminars

Tuesday, November 28……………….7:00 p.m.

Spike Lee DO THE RIGHT THING 1989

Faculty activity

Last June, James Bunn read a paper called "Attending to Fractals in Walden's

Sandbank," at the New-CUE Writers' Conference in Boothbay Harbor, Maine.

Joan Copjec was invited to Tokyo at the beginning of October by the University of Tokyo (Komaba); the woman’s university, Ochanomizu; and Seikei University. She gave two lectures: “The Descent into Shame” and

“Imaginal World: Between Paris and Tehran,” and held several discussions with faculty and students. Also in October, Joan delivered a paper on Kiarostami and the modesty system at

the UC, Berkeley Art Museum at a day-long event “Unveiled: Shame, Identity, Gender and Iranian Cinema.” During the first weekend in

November she gave a paper titled “On Angels: Paulinian and Persian” at the “Rhetoric, Affect and Democratic Subjectivity” conference at Northwestern University.

Carl Dennis did a poetry reading and book signing at Canisius College on November 14. He read from his book New and Selected Poems (2004).

Stacy Hubbard's review of Geraldine Brook's Civil War novel, March, appears in the Fall issue of Michigan Quarterly; and her essay entitled "'A Splintery Box': Race and Gender in the Sonnets of Gwendolyn Brooks," has been reprinted in the new MLA volume, Diversifying the Discourse: The Florence Howe Award for Outstanding Feminist Scholarship, 1990-2004. Early Works of Edna St. Vincent Millay, for which Stacy wrote the introduction, was published in September. This month she will be presenting a paper entitled "Suicide, Sororicide and Fratricide in the Writings of Louisa May Alcott" at the meeting of the Society for the Study of American Women Writers in Philadelphia.

Bruce Jackson has been appointed to a three-year term on the SUNY Distinguished Faculty Council, which evaluates all SUNY

Distinguished Professor nominations before they are submitted to the University Provost and Board of Trustees.

Arabella Lyon gave a talk titled “Why do the Rulers Listen to the Wild Theories of Speech Makers? Or, Rhetoric, The Law, and Ancient China,” on November 10 as part of the Asia at Noon lecture series, which is sponsored by the Asian Studies Program.

In 2006, Carine Mardorossian's essay "Cannibalizing the Victorians" appeared in Changing Currents: Anglophone, Francophone, and Hispanophone Literary and Cultural Criticism. Ed. Akilah Emily Williams. Africa World Press. Her essay "Rewriting the Postcolonial: Maryse Condé's Windward Heights" [based on a chapter of her book Reclaiming Difference (2005)] was published in Emerging Perspectives on Maryse Condé. Eds. Sally Barbour and Gerise Herndon. Africa World Press (2006). A third essay on the Guadeloupean writer Maryse Conde's latest fiction, "Race as Proxy in Maryse Condé's La Femme Cannibale and Célanire Cou-Coupé," just appeared in Feasting on Words: Cannibalism in Caribbean Fiction. Eds. Nicole Simek, Vera Broichhagen, and Kathryn Lachman, Princeton University Press (2006). In addition, "Racial Vagaries in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights" was commissioned and published by the editors of Approaches to Teaching Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, Sue Lonoff and Terri Hasseler. New York: Modern Language Association, 2006.

Her essay "The Medicalization of 'Natural Childbirth': Laboring Women, Coaching Men" which originally appeared in Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy was recently reprinted in Gendered Bodies: Feminist Perspectives, 1st Edition. Eds Judith Lorber and Lisa Jean Moore (2006).

In addition, Professor Mardorossian was the recipient of the Humanities Institute Fellowship in the context of which she gave a lecture on her second book What is Left of Radical Feminism? Victims and Victimology in the Contemporary United States. In Spring 2006, she also presented her work in progress at the Northeast Modern Language Association in Philadelphia (March 2006) where she gave a paper entitled "African Literature, Postcolonialism, and Higher Education" on the Special Event panel. She was also a guest speaker at the Urban Education Multiculturalism Symposium at D'Youville College in Buffalo on 22 April 2006. Professor Mardorossian is currently President of the Northeast Modern Language Association and has been actively involved in bringing the NEMLA convention to Buffalo in April 2008. She is also a founder and Board member of the newly established K-6 Elmwood Village Charter School in Allentown.

A Note from Steve McCaffery on the Robert Creeley Conference held last month…

AGAINST ADVERSITY

Dear Colleagues:

Below is a succinct account for those of you who would like and did not receive an account of the “fate” of “On Words: A Conference on the Life and Work of Robert Creeley.” All but two invitees arrived and participated. (Charles Bernstein and Majorie Perloff had plan to arrive on Saturday morning but cancelled). The Thursday reception at Trinity Church took place according to schedule with approximately 55 people in attendance. (Invitations were sent to 50.) After a short introduction and a brief comment from Pen Creeley the first readings (by Rosmarie Waldrop and Robin Blaser) took place to a receptive audience of close to a hundred. One of a catena of memorable events was the punctuation by loud thunder and lightning of Robin’s reading in front of the alter. The only seriously disrupted day was Friday. In light of the closure of the University, the five planned presentations were held downtown in a conference room at the Hampton Inn (which generously provided it free of charge). About 60 people were in attendance by the afternoon sessions. All Saturday events were scheduled for downtown at Trinity and took place on time. Naturally, with the breakdown of communication and UB’s closure information on the Friday shift did not make it to everyone, in the light of which I find it remarkable that so many people found out by word of mouth and turned up for all sessions. I would estimate that the anticipated audience of around 600 for the readings was drastically truncated to an estimated 75 to 100 each evening, but the large attendance for papers was gratifying. One sad note was the inability to open Friday events on campus in the Poetry Collection. Mike Basinski did yeoman work for days in mounting a splendid exhibition of Bob’s books, correspondence and manuscripts. It was sad too that Harvey Breverman’s three pastels featuring Creeley and Company (hung in the poetry collection) were not seen by participants. But on a happy note the exhibition was kept intact for the Humanities Institute Conference reception. A final note on documentation: all readings were audio and visually documented and the quality is good. I’ll be eventually transferring these to DVDs and depositing them in the Poetry Collection. As for the papers presented, I’ve secured a university press to publish them with the promise of a speedy publication.

On October 22, Cristanne Miller became the President of the Modernist Studies Association. Her term extends until the end of next fall’s MSA conference in Long Beach, CA, November 1-4.

Howard Wolf has just published in India a group of three stories as a novella: The Education of Ludwig Fried. These stories deal with American and European history in a semi-comic fashion. Howard’s essay, “A Place in Time,” will be published by Lifewriting Annual (Philadelphia) in the spring. Howard will be on Research Leave in the spring when he’ll be a Senior Academic Visitor (SAV) at Wolfson College, Cambridge University, during their Easter Term (April-June). While in England, he’ll work on a collection of his recent essays: Looking for America: The Autobiographical Imperative. After returning from England, Howard will teach part-time in the department for a few years as a Senior Fellow. So, it’s sans adieu, rather than farewell.

emeriti activity

In November, Irving Massey spoke at the SLAS Conference in NYC on “Criticism, Evolution, and the Science of Mind.”