The 2019 Boundaries of Literature Symposium, an annual event sponsored by CoLEAGS, will be held on March 20-21, 2019. This year’s speaker is Alex Galloway, Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University. Galloway will give a talk entitled “Uncomputable” on Wednesday, March 20 at 3:30 PM in Toy Lounge, Dey Hall. The following day (Thursday, March 21) at 3:30 PM he will hold a seminar in Donovan Lounge, Greenlaw Hall on “New French Theory.” For more information about the 2019 Boundaries of Literature Symposium, visit the event website.
You know you have incredible things to teach… but first you have to actually get students to pay attention. Luckily humor is here to help. Studies have shown that using humor gets people to listen, improves understanding, and increases long-term memory retention. Not only that, it also helps build relationships (and increase your own personal enjoyment of work). In this 60-minute session, you’ll learn why humor is so valuable and how you can start using it in your classroom today. Light refreshments will be served.
The session will take place on Thursday, January 28, 2016 in Donovan Lounge from 12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m.
About the Presenter
Andrew Tarvin is a computer science engineer turned award winning speaker. He has worked with over 100 organizations, including P&G, Microsoft, and IBM, on how to be more effective using humor. He is a best-selling author, has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, and his TEDx talk has been viewed more than 45,000 times. He graduated from The Ohio State University with a degree in Computer Science & Engineering and has worked with more than 20 universities, including Carnegie Melon, The Ohio State University, and the University of Chicago on how to use humor.
Please be sure to save the date for our second Furst Forum talk of the semester. Professor Janet Downie will deliver a paper on “The City as Material Object in Aelius Aristides’ Smyrna Orations”, Thursday November 19 at 2 pm in Donovan Lounge, Greenlaw Hall. Light refreshments will be served.
Professor Downie’s talk focuses on five orations on the city of Smyrna, in the Roman East, from the second century CE. In the context of the ancient rhetorical tradition, these pieces are remarkable for their persistent focus on the material substance of the city—to the near exclusion of its human virtues, its architectural features, its history or mythology. In this paper Professor Downie discusses the intellectual and political context for Aristides’ unusual perspective on the city, and hopes to stimulate conversation about the symbolic and the material city in other literatures.
Janet Downie is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics at UNC-Chapel Hill.
For those who missed the Grad Forum Panel on Academic Publishing, check out this helpful guide for crafting your article submission’s cover letter created by Doreen Thierauf!
We are delighted to announce a new event in the program of the Furst Forum. On November 5, Thursday 2-3pm, in Donovan Lounge, Greenlaw, the Furst Form will present an information session on writing applications for fellowships and other graduate funding opportunities.November is the time to begin thinking about pre-dissertation and dissertation research, as many applications for graduate fellowships for the following year are due in December and January.
We all know the struggle of presenting ourselves on paper, often to anonymous groups of people, committees and institutions—an art for which few of us possess a natural talent. This roundtable, lead by Professor Jessica Wolfe, will provide graduate students with valuable, practical guidance that can help us turn a decent application into an outstanding one.
We welcome graduate students in the department of English and Comparative Literature, as well as others who might find such a session helpful.
Dear Fellow Graduate Students in English and Comp Lit,
My name is Mark Collins, and I am the CoLEAGS Grad Forum coordinator. I’m excited to announce that our first grad forum of the 2015-2016 academic year will discuss academic publishing. Whether you have a specific seminar or conference paper you are interested in turning into a published article, are wondering how to approach publishing to make you a more competitive job applicant, or are simply curious about the submission process, this panel will be of interest!
The panelists will be Dr. Kimberly J. Stern, Assistant Professor of Victorian literature and Assistant Editor of Nineteenth Century Studies and Dr. Whitney Trettien, Assistant Professor of Early Modern literature and digital humanities as well as advanced graduate students, Jameela F. Dallis, former Consulting Editor of The Southern Literary Journal studying 20th and 21st century American, British, and Southern literature, and Doreen Thierauf, former Assistant Editor of the Keats-Shelley Journal studying Victorian literature and sexuality. Our panelists will offer advice from across their different specialties and from the perspective of both reviewers and submitters.
The panel discussion will be held in Donovan Lounge on November 9th from 3pm to 4pm. Light refreshments will be served.
Thanks,
Mark
(Image courtesy of http://annawrites.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/publishing.jpg)
It’s time to mark your calendars for the Annual Pig Pickin’ Potluck, organized by CoLEAGS and graciously hosted by Professor Todd Taylor!
Please join us on Saturday, October 31st at 2 p.m. at Professor Todd Taylor’s home:
9100 Bent Tree Lane
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
We will supply the pig, traditional sides, and a keg of beer, but we need your help with some extra sides, desserts, and drinks! Please sign up here to let us know what you can bring.
If you would be willing to donate your time additionally for set up or tear down, please sign up on the Google Doc.
We hope you all can make it!
Best,
Carlie Wetzel and Don Holmes
CoLEAGS Social Chairs
cnwetzel@live.unc.edu
don1910@live.unc.edu
Please join us on Saturday, October 31st at 2 p.m. at Professor Todd Taylor’s home:
9100 Bent Tree Lane
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
We will supply the pig, traditional sides, and a keg of beer, but we need your help with some extra sides, desserts, and drinks! Please sign up here to let us know what you can bring.
If you would be willing to donate your time additionally for set up or tear down, please sign up on the Google Doc.
We hope you all can make it!
Best,
Carlie Wetzel and Don Holmes
CoLEAGS Social Chairs
cnwetzel@live.unc.edu
don1910@live.unc.edu
CoLEAGS Forum for English & Comparative Literature Graduate Students
Want to get a job when you finish grad school?
Have no clue what the job interview process looks like?
Please come to our spring semester CoLEAGS forum!
The topic for this informal info session is what to expect from — and how to succeed in — job interviews.
Also, there will be snacks!
Tuesday, April 21, 5-6pm
Donovan Lounge, Greenlaw
For interested parties, please see this nifty run-down of what’s what in CoLEAGs land:
| Services | Events | |
| Mary has been getting in touch with wp organizers and students to understand needs. There may be a poll in the works to get a clearer picture of what the process for teaching selection has been like for those teaching lit. Workshops may also be on the way! | Laura is setting up two professionalization panels (Nov & Apr) on the job search process. Look out for more info for the first one covering interviews with a panel of new professors and students on the job market. Budget for snacks: $25 per event. | |
| Caitlyn shared info from the first GPSF meeting including the new campus-wide orientation fee that is being reworked by the grad school, mandatory sexual harassment training, and grant money for Boundaries for food. | Rae and Doreen have confirmed speaker Dr. Liz Grosz for our April 8 Boundaries event. Funds for honorarium confirmed. Need money for food. | |
| Nora has been developing a lot of resources to help connect DoECL grads connect with various centers on campus that provide important training and support. She is also working putting together a guide for these centers including a possible walking tour. If we can get 20+ people interested, we may also be able to have a group training session in Greenlaw! Money for snacks pending. | Laurel and Anna are gearing up for the second Furst Forum talk with Paul Stapleton on Oct 30th. Also discussed: ideal days for future talks and publicity. Funding for Furst Forum separate and all set. | |
| Michael and Anneke are looking into teaching awards for comp lit students and spearheading a move to make the town halls work for graduate students. Additionally, they encourage all grad students to attend the external review open session. Interested parted should keep an eye out for a group prep-session to organize talking points for grad students to make the most of our 30 minute time slot. | Tyler is planning 1-2 roundtables for participants to circulate work, present for 5-7 minutes, and start a conversation/get feedback. Snack money: $50 total. | |
| We will also eventually host the CoLEAGs constitutions (which we ratified at this meeting!) on this site. | Sam is planning a mentor-mentee mixer to touch base further along in the semester. | |
| We also talked about this little guy and his adorable raindrop-hat:
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Bridget and Susan have kicked off our social calendar with the welcome back lunch, happy hour at Topo, and happy hour at Tru. Much more to come including the Pig Pickin’ on Nov 8th. It’ll need a bigger budget this year ($300), but since the funds from school do not cover alcohol, the $40 in donations we have need to be paired with a BYOB style potluck this year (either bring food or libations to share!). Also, there’s a motion to resurrect Twelfth Night. It will be a voluntary variety show with skits and music bringing faculty and students together. |
Graduate students may feel like chattel, but going to this town hall meeting on Wednesday, September 10 at 4:15 in Donovan may signal an uptick in overall quality of life. Maybe.
