Last Update: 5/6/13
Faculty and Student Achievements
| Good news from graduates of SDSU's 2005/2006 MFA Program in Poetry: | |
| SDSU Lecturer Piotr Florczyk has just published his fourth translation of Polish poetry and has another forthcoming next year. They are The Day He’s Gone: Poems 1993-2013 by Paweł Marcinkiewicz (Spuyten Duyvil, 2014), Froth: Poems by Jarosław Mikołajewski (Calypso Editions,2013), The Folding Star and Other Poems by Jacek Gutorow (BOA Editions, 2012), Building the Barricade and Other Poems of Anna Swir (Calypso Editions, 2011), and Been and Gone: Poems of Julian Kornhauser (Marick Press, 2009). |  |
| Tana Jean Welch received her Ph.D. in 2013 from the Florida State University, specializing in American poetry and poetics. She is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Literature and Medicine at Florida State University’s College of Medicine. Her poetry has appeared in The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, Best New Poets, and other national literary journals. |  |
| Timothy Daniel Welch received his Ph.D. in English from Florida State University in 2012 and for 2013-14 he will be The Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow for the University of Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. His poetry can be found in Arts & Letters, Rattle, and Best New Poets 2012. |  |
| Congratulations to Harry Polkinhorn, director of SDSU Press, and Bill Nericcio, designer for its Hyperbole imprint, publishers of Amy Sara Carroll's, Secession, a book of poetry, art, and theory, recipient of the 2013 Bredvold Prize. View the book image |  |
| Professor and Chair Joanna Brooks's newest book Why We Left: Stories and Songs of America's First Immigrants is just out from University of Minnesota Press, and is hailed by historian Marcus Rediker as "surprising, bold, and altogether brilliant." |  |
| Sarah Redden presented a paper at the RMMLA conference in October 2012, and was nominated for the 2012 RMMLA Outstanding Graduate Student Presentation. She is also the winner of the English Department's 2012 Roberta Borkat Essay Contest. | |
| With the support of our Graduate Director Professor June Cummins, many of our MA students are presenting their work in professional conferences. This year, Brianna Kuhn, Sarah Burns, Arafiena Akbar, Charlotte Morris, Molly Hatay, David Penn, Alya Hameed, Alixandria Lombardo, Paris Brown, Kelli Magargal, Grace Crawford, Megan Parry, Lauren Benard, Alyssa Fechner, and Jill Coste have presented at the Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association, Northeastern Modern Language Association, American Conference for Irish Studies, Popular Culture Association, Sylvia Plath Symposium, Western Jewish Studies Conference, and the USCD Graduate Student Gender Studies Conference. MA student Paris Brown was accepted into University of California at Riverside’s Ph.D. program in English and Ed Ortiz was accepted into the doctoral program in literature at UCSD. | |
| Our MFA students also continue to excel. Erin Rodoni, a third-year MFA student, won an “Intro Journals” award from the Association of Writing Programs for her poem "Leaving Labor and Delivery." Erin's poem will be published in the Colorado Review. | |
Professor Marilyn Chin reads her poetry at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., May 1, as part of the “Necessary Utterances: Poetry as Cultural Force Conference.” Professor Chin has been the recipient of many notable awards including Pushcart Prizes for her poetry and fiction. Her newest book, Hard Luck Province, will appear from Norton in 2014. |
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| Professor Bill Nericcio has been on a coast-to-coast speaking and exhibit tour for Mextasy: Seductive Hallucinations of Latina/o Mannequins Prowling the American Unconscious, an extended exploration of territories mapped in his book Tex[t]-Mex: Seductive Hallucinations of the Mexican in America (University of Texas, 2007)--visited sites include the University of Washington, NYU, SVA/D*CRIT, and the Observatory Room. Follow the project on Twitter: @eyegiene. |  |
| Jenny Minitti-Shippey’s chapbook of poetry, Earth's Horses & Boys appeared with Finishing Line Press in February 2013. Professor Minitti-Shippey teaches our “Literary Editing and Publishing” course for undergraduates, which has fostered the launch of five student on-line publications this year. |  |
| Professor Sandra Alcosser is a leading figure in the nationwide Language of Conservation project, which explores the intersection of literature and sustainability by placing poems in zoos and libraries. A book of essays on the project Creating Transformation: The Language of Conservation is being published this year. |  |
| Poems from Professor Ilya Kaminsky’s highly anticipated new book Deaf Republic received Pushcart and Poetry magazine’s Levinson prizes this year. | |
| Professor Jeanette Shumaker’s article on the Irish writer Mary Lavin will be published in 2013 by the Irish Academic Press in Dublin. Also, her article on novels by contemporary Irish writers Mary O'Donnell and Susan Knight recently appeared in the South Carolina Review. |  |
| Professor Hal Jaffe's book of essays and "quasi-essays" entitled Revolutionary Brain was published in January 2013. His 1983 novel Dos Indios will be translated into French and published by 13e Note editions (Paris) this fall. |  |
Professor Alida Allison was honored in Spring 2012 with the SDSU College of Arts and Letters Award for Outstanding Service. Professor Allison and Professor Laurie Edson also received Mortar Board Society Outstanding Faculty Awards. Edith Frampton received a Teaching Excellence Award from the College. |
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| Congratulations to Most Influential Faculty members Clare Colquitt and Emily Hicks. Outstanding Graduating Senior for the English major, Megan Laddusaw, selected Clare Colquitt; Outstanding Graduating Senior for the Comparative Literature major, Ashanty Vicite, selected Emily Hicks. | |
| Peter Herman, Tracy Cummings, and Katie Farris are the recipients of the Department's inaugural Teaching Innovation Awards. Peter and Tracy have integrated the iClicker system in their large 220s, while Katie has developed a terrific site-based ecocritical pedagogy at Mission Trails Regional Park for her environment and literature course. | |
| CONGRATULATIONS to SDSU MA / Children's Lit student Jill Coste, whose essay "Coping with Compulsion Through Fantasy in _Harriet the Spy_, _Dangerous Angels_, and _Wintergirls_" has won the Children's Literature Association 2012 Graduate Student Essay Award! |  |
| Professor Joseph Thomas published essays on Shel Silverstein in the Children’s Literature Association Quarterly and Poetry International: both belong to his highly-anticipated book about the beloved and wily children’s poet. Professor Thomas is the director of our National Center for the Study of Children’s Literature and The Lion and The Unicorn’s first poetry editor. |  |
| David Matlin's novel A HalfMan Dreaming is now available. It's being praised as a "hypnotic," "harrowing," and "absorbing" exploration of "haunted" American landscapes of race and violence. Please visit his new website matlinwriter.com to learn more. |  |
| Stephen-Paul Martin has published his short story "Exhaustion Therapy" in the Fall / Winter Quarterly West. |  |
| Quentin Bailey's essay "Wordsworth, Baudelaire, and the Limits of Poetic Insight" is forthcoming in Comparative Literature. His book Wordsworth's Vagrants: Police, Prisons, and Poetry in the 1790s, is now out from Ashgate. |  |
| Congratulations to Michael Borgstrom on Minority Reports: Identity and Social Knowledge in Nineteenth Century American Literature (Palgrave, 2010). |  |
| Yetta Howard's article "Politically Incorrect, Visually Incorrect" is appearing in the Journal of Popular Culture, February 2012, 45.1. |  |
| Congratulations to Hal Jaffe on the publication of his latest book, OD, featured on the SDSU NewsCenter. |  |
Commencement 2013
The College of Arts and Letters will honor all College graduates on Sunday, May 19, from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00p.m. in Viejas Arena.
The Department of English and Comparative Literature will honor English and
Comparative Literature graduates on Saturday, May 18, at 8:30a.m. at the Peterson Gym. (Please note the location has been changed)
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While every effort is made to ensure that this information is up-to-date and accurate, official information can be found in the university publications.