Upon receiving the acceptance, you may register to present up until February 20th, 2012. Please refer to [http://www.umassenglishgrad.com/2012-conference] for further details.

by EgO at UMass

Cyber bullying, the male gaze in cinema, SlutWalk in Toronto, the canonization of slave narratives, border rhetoric in the classroom – issues such as these take up the ways bodies, power, and spaces converge in a re-seeing and re-interpreting of historical and contemporary social complexities. Investigating this nexus in our discursive and material realities gives us the language for articulating the machinations of power and space that construct and dismantle singular and collective (im)material bodies.

The English Graduate Organization of the University of Massachusetts Amherst invites submissions to our graduate interdisciplinary conference on March 31st, 2012. This year’s conference will push against standardized and finite notions of body, power, and space to explore how these three variables act upon each other to produce layered, complex, and radical permutations. We urge submitters to investigate the systems of regulation and control that maintain power over singular and collective bodies within various spaces. We invite submissions from a diverse range of disciplines, critical perspectives, and time periods; all three terms need not explicitly be examined in the project, though the possibility of convergence is an encouraged angle. Projects may include papers and/or panel presentations, performance pieces, and multi-media approaches on the following topics:

-literary theoretical approaches
-social spaces and institutions
-composition and rhetorical studies
-canonical studies of bodies of literature
-national and communal boundaries (migrant communities, diasporas, refugee camps)
-(post)colonialism and global studies
-gender and sexuality studies
-animal studies
-social thought and political economy studies
-media studies and digital spaces
-visual and performing arts
-pop culture/material culture
-emerging creative projects
-disability studies

SUBMISSIONS:
We accept three different types of submissions:
1. Individual papers/projects: please submit an abstract of no more than 350 words. Include your name, paper title, institution, and email address.
2. Panels: please submit an 800 word proposal for an entire panel of presentations (3-4 presenters). Included in this proposal should be abstracts of all presentations, title of the panel, and information for each presenter (name, paper title, institution, and email address). If you are forming your own panel, you have the option of providing your own chair.
3. Performances and creative presentations/panels: we welcome submission of creative works, including creative writing, visual art, and dramatic performance. Please include a brief description of your project, as well as your name, project title, institution, and email address.

Email submissions to moc.liamg|fnocgnessamu#moc.liamg|fnocgnessamu no later than January 25th, 2011.

by EgO at UMass

Faculty at GSC are discussing what sort of direction grad students would like in the program. What can faculty do to assist with professionalization? Discussion around this followed:

• Open communication regarding EGO Professional Development Seminars (perhaps faculty can give suggestions on what kinds of topics we should be considering and also offer to serve as co-leader with graduate students on those topics).
• We would also like to suggest rethinking of the role of advisors (how are advisors debriefed on interacting with their advisees; how often we meet seems to be based on whether or not our advisors are a match to our interests)
• There's a written archive of alumni that needs to be transcribed/made digital so we can have some sort of alumni list. Grad students are interested in maintaining connections with our alumni.
• Issues with graduate courses: can EGO advertise people interested in pursuing independent studies based either in interests (and a course isn't being offered/hasn't been offered in a while) or to fulfill requirements.
• We will ask Celeste or whomever else can edit the department webpage to include a link to the EGO wiki.

GSS Finances:

AN met with Graduate Student Senate, who is transitioning away from the graduate school to student affairs. This has led to some changes and ultimately may be the reason for the misplacement of funds. However, that process is in recovery. However because of some changes at GSS, EGO will be making changes in how we do reimbursements.

• GSS will only allow a single ad-hoc request per event with the maximum amount of $250. Last year, we requested $300 for the conference so we will be $50 short in that request due to budget changes. Thus, we will keep all conference funds tied to our GSS account.
• GSS also prefers not to do small amount reimbursements so our goal is to take care of all our reimbursements through petty cash. This would include all event-related funds such as meetings, PDS, end of semester party.

GSS General Info:

FA met with a GSS representative so we're all updated on GSS activities for this semester/year. They are encouraging people to attend GSS meetings as they are in the process of negotiating a stronger relationship with the University. The next meeting is on Tue, Oct 18 from 12:15-1:45 in Campus Center 803. They are expecting to vote on changes to the GSS constitution, which can be reviewed in the current edition of VOICE or on the GSS website.

They have three concerns they'd like senators to share with departments:

1. Encourage colleagues in other departments to attend/participate in GSS, especially in math, sciences, and philosophy. Currently, some departments have no representatives. Meetings are from 12:20 - 1:30 one Tuesday a month.
2. Due to budget cuts, organizations such as the Everywoman Center, the Graduate Women's Network, the Student Legal Services, and Family Housing may not be able to maintain their current levels of functioning. Toward this, GSS is proposing an increase of $20 in the Graduate Student Tax we all pay. It would go from $100 to $120. Thus far, it has been very poorly received. GSS is looking for your input on this issue.
3. The English department, due to its size and activity, has two GSS senators. We have been offered the option of selecting an alternate senator in the event that our two senators are unable to attend meetings so that we still have 2 votes in GSS. CH volunteered to do this for us.

by EgO at UMass

• Issues GEO is taking up this semester:
• family housing increased rates
• for some people the birth control pill continues to cost over $10; keep receipts for reimbursement
• remember to enroll in dental/vision: that process is now open. Coverage begins Nov 1
• Linda Haines at Accounts Payable is the person to talk to for reimbursements once you’ve spent over $250 on your prescription expenses.
• For more information on GEO’s work: http://www.geouaw.org/

EGO EVENTS (FALL 2011)
9/26, 2pm: Intro to Professional Development (PDS)
10/11, 2pm: EGO Monthly Meeting
10/24, 2pm: Applying to Conferences (PDS)
11/7, 2pm: EGO Monthly Meeting
11/14, 2pm: Attending Conferences (PDS)
12/5, 2pm: EGO Monthly Meeting
End of semester party: TBA

PDS for the Spring: Looking for a Summer Job, Managing Research Through Tools like Zotero and EndNote, Applying for Fellowships/Outside Funding, Publishing Articles and Book Reviews

Grad Student Colloquia: LS will coordinate schedules/presenters. We might want to talk with Comp folks to see how CompShare works as a model and what we can glean from it. KM and NQ have a meeting with Joe Bartolomeo (Monday, 10 am tentatively) and Stephen Clingman (TBD).

EGO Bulletin/Booster: AW will coordinate a monthly bulletin.

by EgO at UMass

The ride is approximately 12-15 miles between Bartlett and the Bookmill. There is a crew of people who will be returning to Northampton. Car rides back are available, too.

If you don't bike, we'd love to see you via other modes of transportation at the Bookmill by say 3:30 pm.

No spandex required (though it won't be turned away). Spare tubes and inflation devices (compact pump or CO2 cartridges) are recommended, but if "CO2 cartridges" sounds too MacGyver for your leisurely Friday afternoon, no worries: folks will be ready to help with flats. Helmets are strongly encouraged.

This ride is open to English grad students, faculty and staff, their lovers, friends, and frenemies.

Check out the route. Email EGO with any questions.

by lds

This April, ISHA will host three remarkable jazz musicians, Gary Smulyan, Ray Drummond, and Kenny Washington in collaboration with the UMass Amherst Department of Music and Dance and Amherst College for the ‘Beyond Borders’ Residency Program. The Residency will feature a Master Class with the musicians on Friday, April 8th from 4:30-6:30pm at UMass Amherst in Room 44 of the Fine Arts Center, as well as a concert on Saturday, April 9th at 8pm in the Amherst College Buckely Recital Hall, followed by a discussion with the audience. For more information, visit http://www.umass.edu/hfa/isha/Residency.html.

by stacyr

Eighty years after the notorious Scopes Monkey Trial, the powerful Intelligent Design movement continues to claim that evolution is ‘only a theory.’ The ensuing debates go to the heart of what counts as rational and scientific in the public arena. Professor Kenneth Miller was the lead witness in the historic Dover Trial, where his testimony proved instrumental in the judge’s ruling that the local school board had no right to require teachers to offer Intelligent Design as an alternative to evolution. Professor Miller is a bestselling author and repeat guest on The Colbert Report; his books include Only A Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul. The topic of the Annual Lecture coincides with the ISHA theme for the year, on ‘(Ir)rationality and Public Discourse.’

by stacyr

Professor David Northrup, an historian of Africa at Boston College, will give a public lecture, "Who Made English the Global Language?" on Thursday, March 24th at 5pm in 601 Herter Hall. Professor Northrup's work on Africa encompasses economics, labor and culture, and his several books include Beyond the Bend in the River: A Labor History of Eastern Zaire, 1870-1940; Indentured Labor in the Age of Imperialism, 1834-1922; Africa’s Discovery of Europe, 1450-1850; and Crosscurrents in the Black Atlantic, 1770-1965: A Brief History with Documents.

Interested faculty and graduate students are further invited to participate in Professor Northrup's Five-College seminar the following day, Friday, March 25, from 2-4pm in Bartlett Hall 316 University of Massachusetts. Seminar participants will read and discuss Professor Northrup's work on Africans in Atlantic world cities, including nineteenth-century Freetown, Sierra Leone, with background reading from his Africa's Discovery of Europe.

by stacyr

“Reality”—as a state of mind or as an embodied experience—is not a unified or universal plane; from surrealism to social networks to the “real” housewives of New Jersey, we are constantly constructing, confronting, and negotiating diverse realities. These varied and often contending sites of reality are sometimes socially accepted and sometimes labeled “alternative,” but they are always central to our sense of self and our place in the world. What, then, does it mean to locate, or dislocate, a particular kind of “reality”? What are the implications of deeming some realities alternate, or altered? What are the different realities enacted within and through, for example, cybercommunities, the space of the theater, dream states, discourses of identity politics? What are the boundaries of these realities, and what are their purposes?

The English Graduate Organization of the University of Massachusetts Amherst invites submissions to the 2011 graduate interdisciplinary conference. This year's conference will explore multiple realities, how they are formed and demarcated, and the problems inherent in this practice. At question are states of mind, lived experiences, and subcultures that complicate or challenge traditional notions of reality and perceived states of normalcy. We urge submitters to consider the multiplicity of realities and how cultural phenomena impact our experience of those realities.

We invite submissions from a diverse range of disciplines and critical perspectives. Projects may include papers and/or panel presentations, performance pieces, and multi-media approaches.
Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
-Film and television
-The stage, theatricality, theater production
-Literary worlds (dystopias/utopias, science fiction, realism, and fantasy)
-Constructions of gender
-Social spaces and institutions (academia, the classroom, politics)
-Representations of madness
-Digital spaces (gaming communities, social networks, internet sex-industry)
-Drug culture and altered consciousness
-Rhetorical spaces, notions of audience, meaning-making
-National boundaries (globalism, postcolonialism, and migrant communities)
-Visual and performance arts
-Theoretical approaches to reality

SUBMISSIONS:
We accept three different types of submissions:
1. Individual papers/projects: please submit an abstract of no more than 500 words. Include your name, paper title, institution, and email address.
2. Panels: please submit an 800 word proposal for an entire panel of presentations (3-4 presenters). Included in this proposal should be abstracts of all presentations, an abstract of the panel itself, title of the panel, and information for each presenter (name, paper title, institution, and email address). If you are forming your own panel, you have the option of providing your own chair.
3. Performances and creative presentations/panels: we welcome submission of creative works, including creative writing, visual art, and dramatic performance. Please include a brief description of your project, as well as your name, project title, institution, and email address.

Email submissions to moc.liamg|fnocgnessamu#moc.liamg|fnocgnessamu no later than January 31st, 2011.

by EgO at UMass

http://www.ncbsonline.org/student_essay_contest

by EgO at UMass

The English Graduate Organization is pleased to announce our 2011 graduate interdisciplinary conference, "Real Worlds: (dis)Locating Realities" on April 16, 2011. Submissions may include paper presentations, panels, multimedia presentations, and performance pieces. See below for the full CFP.

What you can do to support the conference:

1) APPLY! Last year's conference was a great success, and this year we hope to involve even more students from a range of departments and interests.

2) VOLUNTEER to serve as a panel moderator.

3) SPREAD THE WORD. Mention the conference to colleagues in the department, in other departments, and at other schools. Also, mention it to advisors/mentors to increase faculty interest.

4) ATTEND. Come support your colleagues at panel presentations, hear a faculty roundtable discussion, and celebrate the conference's success at the closing reception.

The deadline for submissions is January 25, 2011. Please email me (ssamu.hsilgne|rofniwse#ssamu.hsilgne|rofniwse) or Ashley Nadeau (ashley.nadeau@gmail) with questions or to volunteer.

Call for Papers: Real Worlds: (dis)Locating Realities, April 16, 2011

From surrealism to social networks to the “real” housewives of New Jersey, it’s no secret that reality is socially constructed. “Reality”—as a state of mind or as an embodied experience—has historically been positioned in opposition to such realms of infinite possibility as dreams, fantasy, and imagination. In fact, far from being a state of stability and sanity, reality is often treated as that which must be escaped. But escape to what?

The English Graduate Organization of the University of Massachusetts Amherst invites submissions to the 2011 graduate interdisciplinary conference. This year's conference will explore multiple realities, how they are formed and demarcated, and the problems inherent in this practice. At question are states of mind, lived experiences, and subcultures that complicate or challenge traditional notions of reality and perceived states of normalcy. We urge submitters to consider the multiplicity of realities and how cultural phenomena impact our experience of those realities.

We invite submissions from a diverse range of disciplines and critical perspectives. Projects may include papers and/or panel presentations, performance pieces, and multi-media approaches.

Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

• Film and television
• The stage, theatricality, theater production
• Literary worlds (dystopias/utopias, science fiction, realism, and fantasy)
• Constructions of gender
• Social spaces and institutions (academia, the classroom, politics)
• Representations of madness
• Digital spaces (gaming communities, social networks, internet sex-industry)
• Drug culture and altered consciousness
• Rhetorical spaces, notions of audience, meaning-making
• National boundaries (globalism, postcolonialism, and migrant communities)
• Visual and performance arts
• Theoretical approaches to reality

SUBMISSIONS:
We accept three different types of submissions:

1. Individual papers/projects: please submit an abstract of no more than 500 words. Include your name, paper title, institution, and email address.

2. Panels: please submit an 800 word proposal for an entire panel of presentations (3-4 presenters). Included in this proposal should be abstracts of all presentations, an abstract of the panel itself, title of the panel, and information for each presenter (name, paper title, institution, and email address). If you are forming your own panel, you have the option of providing your own chair.

3. Performances and creative presentations/panels: we welcome submission of creative works, including creative writing, visual art, and dramatic performance. Please include a brief description of your project, as well as your name, project title, institution, and email address.

Email submissions to umassengconf AT gmail.com no later than January 25th, 2011.

by juliemb

DEADLINE: NOVEMBER 1

by juliemb

(1) Vice-President Pro Tem : We are accepting nominations for the position of Vice-President Pro Tem, a 20-hour paid GEO-eligible assistantship. Nominations are due by Thursday, September 16, 5pm. The position will be filled through a Special Election of the Graduate Student Senate body at the first Senate Meeting on Monday, September 20, followed by open voting all day on Tuesday, September 21, in the Campus Center. More details here:
http://www.tinyurl.com/vicepres

(2) Editor for The Voice : We are accepting applications for the position of Voice Editor, a 15-hour paid GEO-eligible assistantship. Applications are due by Thursday, September 23rd, 5pm. Interviews will be scheduled for the following week. More details are on our website here: http://tinyurl.com/gssvoice

For more information on these positions, please contact us at ude.ssamu.darg|ofni-ssg#ude.ssamu.darg|ofni-ssg. Or, you can also contact your fellow friendly-neighborhood-English-grad-student, hari stephen kumar, who is the GSS Office Manager: ude.ssamu.darg|eciffo-ssg#ude.ssamu.darg|eciffo-ssg.

by albrady

EGO Movie Night and Potluck at Linh Dich's:

When: Wednesday, August 4th @ 6:30.

Where: 629 Main Street, Amherst. Apt. 2.

Movie: Secretary

For more info: moc.liamg|hcidhnil#moc.liamg|hcidhnil

Linh will be providing a main meat dish. Please bring a side, beverages, or movie snacks to share.

by EgO at UMass

Come celebrate the end of the semester with a cookout! Join your fellow grad students at Look Park in Northampton. Brought to you by the English Grad Organization (EGO). Partners, spouses, and children are welcome.

Please bring a side or snack. We will supply burgers, hot dogs, veggie burgers, and beverages. Parking at Look Park is $5, or park at nearby JFK Middle School.

Look Park directions
Facebook Event Page

by EgO at UMass

This Monday, 05/10, from 11:30-1 (room TBA), please join Graduate Director Jenny Spencer and the English Graduate Organization for an important meeting to address some of your biggest concerns this semester. Please RSVP to ude.ssamu.hsilgne|ogessamu#ude.ssamu.hsilgne|ogessamu for lunch.

by juliemb

Attend a panel discussion about the job search process hosted by the English Graduate Program. All English graduate students are invited to attend. Food will be available.

by EgO at UMass

Come to EGO's last Professional Seminar on teaching your own literature class. We'll discuss ways to design and organize a syllabus, build a solid grading rubric, facilitate a discussion for general ed courses, and other relevant topics.

All English graduate students are welcome, whether you have already taught literature courses or plan to do so in the future. Experienced teachers are especially welcome to share experiences with first-time teachers.

by EgO at UMass

Come share your ideas, listen to the work of graduate students, and support the department at the annual UMass English Graduate Conference.

Conference Outline
7:30-8:00 Breakfast
8:00-9:20 Session One
9:30-10:50 Session Two
11:00-12:30 Roundtable
12:30-1:30 Lunch
1:30-2:50 Session Three
3:00-4:20 Session Four
4:45-7:00 Reception

by EgO at UMass

Today’s Tuesday at Four Colloquium features Jane Degenhardt, giving a talk titled “Travel, Imperialism, and the Configuration of Dramatic Space in Shakespeare and Wilkins’ Pericles.” The talk is at 4 p.m. in Bartlett 316, with refreshments, as always.

by EgO at UMass