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Welcome!

Welcome to the UMass Amherst English Graduate Organization website! Here you can learn more about the graduate program, connect with current students, read academic advice from other grad students, and get survival tips for living in the Happy Valley.

What is EGO?
The UMass Amherst English Graduate Organization (EGO) is a student-run organization dedicated to enhancing the academic experience of all English graduate students here at UMass. The goals of EGO are advocacy for graduate students with and to the faculty, enhanced communication within the graduate student community, and better outreach and communication.

New to the EGO website?
The UMass English grad website is a wiki site — meaning that it is controlled and edited directly by its members. Any UMass English grad student or alum can become a member. You can use the site to find out about what's going on in the department and get advice on surviving grad school. As a member, you have the ability to shape the site in any way you want!

Check out our Quick Start Guide to learn the basics.

Writing Program TOs with the director of the Writing Program, David Fleming
Writing Program TOs with the director of the Writing Program, David Fleming

feed-icon-14x14.png News and Events! feed-icon-14x14.png Site Updates feed-icon-14x14.png Blog

2012-2013 Dates to Keep in Mind
*This Friday, 9/14, at 7pm*

Welcome Back Event! Join us for drinks and pizza at Ye Olde Watering Hole in Northampton.

*Future EGO Meetings*

FALL: 9/10, 10/9 (Tuesday—> Monday Schedule), 11/5, 12/3
SPRING: 1/28, 2/25, 3/25, 4/29

*Professional Development Seminar (provisional dates)*

FALL: 9/24, 10/22, 11/19
SPRING: 2/11, 3/11, 4/17 (Wednesday—> Monday Schedule)

2012 Conference Registration
The 2012 Graduate Interdisciplinary Conference, "Forces at Play: Bodies, Power, and Spaces," will be opening registration, starting February 9th, 2012.

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.

2012 UMass Graduate Conference: Bodies, Power, and Spaces

Forces at Play: Bodies, Power, and Spaces

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.

UMass EGO Minutes 10/11

Graduate Studies Committee

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.


post news and events...

Waltman, Anna
Originally from the barren marshes of southern New Jersey, Anna received her BA in 2008 from Goucher College in Baltimore, MD, where she double-majored in Political Science and English Literature. She recently finished her third year in the MA/PhD program. Anna primarily studies the politics of contemporary American poetics; her work draws heavily on Marxist and post-Marxist criticism, as well as feminist theory and queer theory. She also has an interest in transnational and post/colonial interpretations of American literature and culture. Outside of class, Anna enjoys experimenting with bread baking methods, running, knitting needlessly complicated hats and shawls, loafing with her two exceptionally lazy housecats, playing the mountain dulcimer, and occasionally making glass marbles and jewelry with some Pyrex rods and a bench-mounted propane torch.

Faculty Suggested Reading
Joselyn Almeida-Beveridge
[[collapsible show="Romanticism" hide="Romanticism"]]

  • Fulford, Tim and Peter Kitson. Romanticism and Colonialism: Writing and Empire, 1780-1830. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998.
  • McGann, Jerome. Social Values and Poetic Acts: the Historical Judgment of Literary Work. Cambridge, Harvard UP, 1988.
  • Mellor, Anne. English Romantic Irony. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1980.
  • Nemoianu, Virgil. The Taming of Romanticism. Cambridge, Harvard UP, 1984.
  • Wolfson, Susan and Marshall Brown. Reading for Form. Seattle: U of Washington P, 2006.

2012 Forces at Play Conference Schedule
8:00-9:00am
Registration, Coffee, Breakfast
(provided with conference admission)
Bartlett Hall Lobby

Teaching Resources
UMass Center for Teaching and Faculty Development
The CTFD is dedicated to supporting faculty in their careers, especially in their work as teachers. There is some specific programming for graduate students here. They also have articles and offer teaching consultations. In addition, they can be very helpful as you are putting together a teaching statement to go on the job market. The CTFD also produces a Handbook for New Instructors, edited in 2011 but not currently available online; it's a reference book covering everything from writing a syllabus to diversity in the classroom to helping students in distress. Swing by the Center (Goodell 301) to pick up a free copy.

UMass English Graduate Conferences
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Each year, UMass English graduate students host a day-long conference featuring academic panels, creative presentations, round-table discussions, and a reception. The conference has grown from a smaller, department-based showcase of graduate student work and interests to a larger, interdisciplinary conference bringing together graduate students from outside departments and universities.

Officers
Co-Chairs
Neelofer Qadir
Kate Marantz

Officers 2009-2011
Co-Chairs
Amy Brady
Neelofer Qadir

Contact
For questions about the conference, please contact the conference organizers:
moc.liamg|fnocgnessamu#moc.liamg|fnocgnessamu.


see all site updates....

Welcome to the EGO Blog! Blog about academia, the department, life in the Valley, or anything else here. Any site member can contribute.

EGO minutes 12/5/11
-Smoking ban all over campus for all tobacco products. Student government proposed alternate plan: smoking gazebo, etc? input from different grad orgs welcome
-Senate approved funding for grad conference!
-Healthcare subcommittee investigating the recent changes in policy; a lot of official support from graduate program directors across the board regarding the effects of healthcare changes on the graduate student population (talking points specifically regarding English graduate students: significant financial burden spec for Eng grads, due to the stipend rate, which is one of the lowest on campus; recent increase in workload, teaching in the dorms)

EGO minutes 11/7/11
Spring 2012 PDS topics

  • Advisory Session PDS, Areas PDS, Job Market PDS (spearheaded by Joe Black and Jocelyn Almeida-Beveridge), Summer Jobs PDS, Managing Research PDS
  • Department-sponsored (mixed faculty/grad students) or regular PDS format (only graduate students)? A PDS-like “supersession” workshop, co-led by students and professors: trying to get department to provide a space for talking about important department issues applicable to all.
  • CO-DEPT/EGO SUPERSESSION TOPICS: advisory session and areas, job market, a day in the life of a professor

2012 UMass Graduate Conference: Call for Papers
Check out the CFP for the EGO Conference we're hosting March 31st, 2012!

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


read more....

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