News of Faculty
 

Catherine S. Cox's article "Water of Bitterness: The Pardoner and/as the Sotah" appears in the current issue of Exemplaria: A Journal of Theory in Medieval and Renaissance Studies.  Her paper on "Women and Work" has been accepted for presentation at the Medieval Feminist session of the annual Modern Language Association (MLA) convention in the fall.

Michael W. Cox gave a paper on March 20 at the annual meeting of the Pennsylvania College English Association (PCEA), in Scranton, entitled "The Foucauldian Gaze and the Carnivalesque in Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"  He recently became a reviewer of short fiction and creative nonfiction for Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, and will be reading from his own creative prose at Bottle Works in the Cambria City section of Johnstown on April 15th.

Susan Dawkins and Jim Scofield participated in a panel discussion (along with UPJ Social Sciences faculty Monica Frolander-Ulf and Dan Santoro) of Nickel and Dimed for the first "One Book, One Community" event in Cambria County, on 1 April.

Alessandra Lynch's poems have been accepted in current or upcoming issues of the American Poetry Review, Denver Quarterly, and Sow's Ear Poetry Review.  She was the featured poet on a March 16th broadcast of "Prosody," WYEP's weekly poetry show.  She has recently given poetry readings at "Readings Between A and B" in New York City and Barnes and Noble in Pittsburgh.  A short paper, "Imaginative Voyages into Vocabulary," was published in the AWP's Creative Writing and Teaching Pedagogy Papers as part of the annual conference which she attended in Chicago; while in Chicago, Alice James Books, publisher of her first book of poetry, featured her during a book signing.  Through a grant from the PA Humanities Council, she has been leading a book discussion group at the Cambria County Library.

David Magill presented three papers during this academic year: "Modernism's Hard Bodies" at the Northeast Modern Language Association (NEMLA) annual meeting, in Pittsburgh; "Modernism's Ghostly Men: The Great Gatsby and Nostalgic Fraternity" at the annual 20th Century Literature Conference, in Louisville; and "Celebrity Culture and Racial Masculinities: The Case of Will Smith" at the American Culture Association annual meeting, in San Antonio.

Michele L. Mock has two forthcoming reviews: a book review on Anne M. Ousterhout's The Most Learned Woman in America: A Life of Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson (2004) for Pennsylvania History, and a film review of Against the Ropes (2004) for Aethlon: A Journal of Sports Literature (Joe Dewey, book review editor).  She also served as a "Featured Special Guest Presenter" and discussion leader for the 1998 film American History X, sponsored by Hemlock Hall's "Diversity Film Week," February 23-26.

Diane Nicodemus's article, "Mobilizing Information: Local News and the Formation of a Viable Political Community," will appear in May's edition of the journal Political Communication.

John Ritz's creative nonfiction essay "Verse Chorus Bridge," which originally appeared in Cimarron Review, has been nominated for a 2004 Pushcart Prize.  "A Simple Place, A Quiet Melody," a short story, appears in the current issue of Passages North.  He presented a pedagogy paper on "The Revision Toolbox" at the recent AWP conference in Chicago, and will be giving a reading with Michael Cox at the Bottleworks Ethnic Arts Center on Thursday, April 15.  He also contributed a brief piece on The Simpsons for the inaugural issue of "The Green Piece," a newsletter published by  UPJ's chapter of Campus Greens.

Denis Robitaille and Ron Reinbold hosted and coordinated the 15th Annual Appalachian Language Educators' Society's (APPLES) Foreign Language Festival hold on April 3rd.  This was the fifth year that UPJ hosted the event.  The festival brought together over 350 secondary school students and teachers for a Saturday of academic and non-academic competitions in French, German, and Spanish.  Mike Bodolosky, Charles Darr, Patty Derrick, and Jeff Webb judged non-academic competitions; Jon Gonder welcomed the students and teachers; Maria Cristina Saavedra tested Spanish students in speaking proficiency. Linda Coyle prepared the programs for the festival.

Maria Cristina Saavedra will again be directing the “Pitt in Cuba” summer study abroad program in 2004. This year’s program will take place at the Fundación del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano [Foundation for New Latin American Cinema] in Havana and will offer students two courses: “Latin American Cinema,” and “Cuban Culture Through Film.”  The four-week program also includes a weekend visit to the internationally renowned Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión [International School of Film and Television] and another short trip to one of the cities on the southern coast of Cuba, Cienfuegos.  Several UPJ students will be joining us  this summer in what promises to be one of the most exciting academic opportunities of the "Pitt in Cuba" program to date.

Eric Schwerer's poems have been accepted in current or forthcoming issues of The Laurel Review, The Journal, and Third Coast.  A short paper, "Line-Making Animals," was published in the AWP's Creative Writing and Teaching Pedagogy Papers as part of the annual conference which he attended in Chicago.

Kamal Verma attended the annual convention of the Modern Language Association of America held in San Diego, December 26-30, 2003.  He presided over a session "Anglophone Interjections II:  Old-New Discourses" organized by MLA Division 33 (English Literature other than British and American).  He also attended the annual convention of the South Asian Literary Association, an allied organization of the Modern Language association of America.  At the SALA conference, he presented a paper "Ethics of Globalization" that focused on the ethical vision of universal good in the works of Shelley and Aurobindo arguing that the modernist and postmodernist discourse on Globalization (Friedman, Anderson, Appadurai, Bhabha, et al) has been confined mostly to socioeconomic and sociopolitical ideologies and has not taken into account the ethical and moral issues of universal good and human progress.  At this conference, he also presided over a session "Cosmopolitanism and Multiculturalism."  He has been invited to speak at the South Asia Seminar organized by the Department of English, George Washington University.  He is editing the 2004 Special Topic issue of the South Asian Review, volume 25, number 1, devoted to Colonial Studies 1880-1947 with a concentration on South Asia.
 

News of Students and Alumni

Michelle Blaney (Communication, 1999) has completed a Master's degree in Intercultural Communication at the University of Kentucky.

John Damian Dressick (Creative Writing, 1991), the editor of "Backroads" for more than two years, did his graduate work on the University of Pittsburgh's main campus and was awarded an MFA in 1995.  He has recently moved to the Johnstown area in order to work on his book dealing with the coal miners of this area.

Nicolette Fairman (Communication, 2004), who served as an intern with the WJAC-TV News Department during the Spring 04-2 term, has been hired for a fulltime position with WJAC-TV's Creative Services Department beginning in May, 2004.

Kimberly Hengst (Communication, Dec. 2003) is employed by Chestnut Ridge School District (Bedford County) as a Successful Student Program Coordinator.

Laura McMaster (Communication, 2004) has been accepted to the Master's degree program of the Grady School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.

Christine Fox Strugala (Communication, 2000), a former on-air personality for WWCP-TV and WGLU-FM, and currently pulic relations director with the Railroaders Heritage Corp. in Altoona, has been hired by Ebensburg borough as their new community development director.

Lynn C. Svonavec (Communication, 1992) has just been accepted into West Virginia University's School of Law, Class of 2007.

Giva Wilkerson (English, 2004) has been accepted into the graduate program at Texas A&M University, and has been awarded a teaching assistantship.

On Wednesday, April 7, 15 UPJ students read their creative work on the bottom floor of the LLC as part of the Symposium for the Promotion of Academic and Creative Enquiry. Michael Cox, Jon Ritz, and Eric Schwerer served as  Supervising Faculty Mentors for: Ryan Dempsey (Creative Writing, senior); Anthony Pietromonaco (Communication / Business, sophomore); Lance Harshbarger (English Literature, senior); Allison Kaharick  (Communications, sophomore); Jimmy DiRado (Creative Writing, senior); Denise Young (Creative Wrt / Communication, junior); Matt Vrabel (Creative Writing, junior); Kristin Baxter (English Literature, senior); Julie Lamm (Creative Writing, senior); Nick Dunmire (Composite Writing, senior); Tiffany Baer (Creative Writing, senior); Chris Stanchek (Secondary Ed. English); Kelly Geier (Communication, senior); Mark Crouse (Creative Writing, junior); Wendy Engelberg (English Literature, sophomore).  The 15 students read from their creative work, which covered a variety of genres, including poetry, short fiction, and personal essays.  Student presenters had worked one-on-one with English Writing faculty and / or taken English Writing courses.

The English Writing faculty is pleased to announce this year's seven student winners for our annual awards: Denise Young, The Humanities Poetry Award for “Night Has Sharp Hands”; Ryan Dempsey, The Claire R. Garber Creative Writing Award for "The Roofer's Son"; James DiRado, The Humanities Prose Writing Award  for "Recycled Thoughts"; Lance J. Harshbarger, The Humanities Prose Writing Award  for "Bolivia," "Anne Frank," and "Corporeal Letters"; Julie Lamm, The Louise Letizia Miele Award for  “Breathing Through the Pain”; Pamela L. Rodgers, Carroll Grimes Award for Writing in the Humanities for "Goblin Market: A Struggle Between Self and Soul"; Kevin Stock, The Walter J Krebs Award for  "The Birthday," "Censorship of Twain," and  "The Effect of Gravity Upon Ice Cubes."

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