LLC News
December 2011 Archives
Betsy Fetchko - 2012 Graduate Writing Tutor
We are pleased to announce that one of our own, Betsy Fetchko, LLC Cohort 14 will be the new Graduate Writing Tutor for Spring 2012. Betsy brings over 20 years of experience in editing, publishing, writing and multimedia, having worked in print, television, and video production before teaching AP English for over a decade in Howard County. She looks forward to helping students articulate their research goals and intellectual explorations with powerful and precise language, thereby helping to ensure student success and the continued excellent reputation of UMBC Graduate School.
Labor Literature for the NLC Community
Labor & Working-Class Literature
Looking for something to read?
Since we have so many avid readers in
the NLC community, I thought I would
share a few engaging novels that
reflect on labor and work issues.
Whether or not you’re new to the labor
movement and the NLC community,
chances are you may have missed
some of the rich labor literature
currently available. Numerous texts
have been recovered and republished,
offering us the opportunity to enter into
labor experiences in a way that only
Looking for something to read?
fiction can offer. In my labor
literature courses, I argue that
reading labor literature adds depth
to our understanding of the labor
movement and other social justice
causes. Try one of these novels and
see what you think.
Supporting Small Presses
Small publishers like West End Press and
The Feminist Press have been agents of
change for labor literature, recovering
texts from past writers and publishing
new voices. Without West End Press,
Meridel Le Sueur’s The Girl would be
lost. Editor John Crawford worked with
Le Sueur to publish this book in 1978
after it had been blacklisted. A radical
activist in the 1930s, Le Sueur published
in small magazines of the time, and is
best known for “Women on the
Breadlines,” which was published in The
New Masses in 1932.
The Girl shares the rising consciousness
of a young, nameless woman who
seeks work in St. Paul, joining her friend
Clara to work as a waitress at a
speakeasy during the Depression. The
language is lovely, and, while it is
intense in its portrayal of the struggle to
survive, the message is hopeful.
If this novel interests you, please order
from West End directly, http://www.
westendpress.org/store/book/the-girl/.
Voices of the Unknown and Disinherited
When people think of great
Depression-era novels, John
Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath
generally comes to mind. But if you
are looking for novels that offer
alternative experiences, you won’t
want to miss Sanora Babb’s Whose
Names Are Unknown or Jack
Conroy’s The Disinherited.
Gaining an advance from Random
House based on four chapters
submitted in spring 1939, Babb
completed her novel that summer,
blending autobiographical
experiences of growing up in a sod
house on a midwestern dry farm
with her volunteer work at migrant
farmers camps in 1938. Yet the
novel was not published until 2004
because John Steinbeck’s Grapes
of Wrath had appeared, and
Babb’s publishers felt another book on the dust bowl migrations would
not sell.
Conroy’s novel is also a fictional
autobiography, telling the story of
Larry Donovan, who grows up in a
mining village in Missouri, and,
seeking work throughout the
Depression, moves towards class
consciousness through his
experiences in the railroad, rubber,
and auto industries.
• Sanora Babb. Whose Names
Are Unknown. Foreword
Lawrence R. Rodgers. Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press,
2004. Print.
• Jack Conroy. The Disinherited: A
Novel of the 1930s. 1933. Introd.
Douglass Wixson. Columbia:
University of Missouri, 1982, 1991. Print.
A Few Choices from a Rich Collection
A Few Choices from a Rich Collection
Agnes Smedley. Daughter of Earth. 1929.
Foreword Alice Walker. Afterword Nancy
Hoffman. New York: The Feminist Press,
1987. Print.
Marie Rogers stands in for Smedley in this
fictional autobiography that traces her
childhood, travels in search of work,
political activity, and marriages. Marie
reflects on the challenges of being a
working-class woman revolutionary. In
the 1930s, Smedley served as a
correspondent in China’s battlefields
during the Communist Revolution
(http://www.asu.edu/lib/archives/smedforeign.htm)
Labor Arts. "Pyramid of Capitalist System"
issued by Nedeljkovich, Brashick and
Kuharich, Cleveland: The International
Publishing Co., 1911. http://www.
laborarts.org/collections/item.cfm?itemid
=428When people think of great
Depression-era novels, John
Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath
generally comes to mind. But if you
are looking for novels that offer
alternative experiences, you won’t
want to miss Sanora Babb’s Whose
Names Are Unknown or Jack
Conroy’s The Disinherited.
Gaining an advance from Random
House based on four chapters
submitted in spring 1939, Babb
completed her novel that summer,
blending autobiographical
experiences of growing up in a sod
house on a midwestern dry farm
with her volunteer work at migrant
farmers camps in 1938. Yet the
novel was not published until 2004
because John Steinbeck’s Grapes
of Wrath had appeared, and
Babb’s publishers felt another book
If you seek a poem, short story, novel, or other literary
work to illustrate a point in one of your classes, chances
are the idea has been explored creatively. Here are a
few to consider reading:
• Tillie Olsen. Yonnondio: From the Thirties. Introd.
Linda Ray Pratt. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of
Nebraska, 1974, 2004. Print. Olsen is more well
known for “I Stand Here Ironing” and Silences. This
early text, written in her teens and early 20s and
recovered 40 years later, shares a family’s struggle
to survive work exploitations in mining,
sharecropping, and packinghouse work.
• Langston Hughes. Not Without Laughter. 1930.
Introd. Maya Angelou. Foreword Arna Bontemps.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995. Print. Hughes
shares protagonist Sandy’s childhood and
adolescence in this fictional autobiography that
considers how race, class, and gender intensify the
struggle for work and survival.
• Dorothy West. The Living Is Easy. 1948. Afterword
Adelaide M. Cromwell. New York: The Feminist
Press, 1982. Print. West’s semi-autobiographical
novel explores class, race, and gender issues as
Cleo, born to a poor Southern farming family,
becomes part of Boston’s African-American elite
society. In addition to raising challenging social
questions in her own work, West’s editorial career is
fascinating.
• Josephine Johnson. Now in November. 1934. Afterword
Nancy Hoffman. New York: The Feminist Press, 1991. Print.
Johnson won the Pulitzer Prize for this novel, her first. Told
in first-person from middle daughter Marget’s point of
view, the novel reflects on the Haldmarne family’s return
to their family farm, which offers little shelter from the
Depression.
• Mike Gold. Jews Without Money. 1930. New York: Carroll
& Graf Publishers, 1996. A series of tales about Jewish
immigrants and their children living in the tenements of
New York, struggling with anti-Semitism, poverty, and
cultural alienation, Gold’s novel is a fictionalized autobiography.
Job Announcements - CCBC & Morgan
CCBC job postings:
http://chronicle.com/jobs/0000706688-01/?sid=ja&utm_source=ja&utm_medium=en
Morgan postings:
http://chronicle.com/jobs/0000706693-01/?sid=ja&utm_source=ja&utm_medium=en
ESL Position at MICA
Humanistic Studies Special Contract Full-time, ESL/ESP
The Department of Humanistic Studies at the Maryland Institute College of Art invites applications for a 1-year interim replacement position.
Begins: August 2012
Job Description:
The successful candidate will teach undergraduate courses designed for non-native English speakers that include:
Language of Artists I and II (One 3 credit hours each fall and spring, total 6 cr hrs per AY)
ESL Academic Writing Workshop (Two 1.5 credit hour sections each fall and spring, total 6 cr hrs per AY)
Undergraduate 90-hour Summer Intensive English Program (IEP) (Approx Aug. 1-22, equivalent to 6 cr hrs)
Duties include:
Teach courses mentioned above
Additional ½-hour conferences 3 times per semester with students enrolled in Academic Writing Workshop
Attend and participate in department meetings
Participate in student advising and serve on college committees.
Participate in freshman and transfer student writing assessments
Maintain office hours for each course taught.
Minimum Qualifications:
Terminal degree in art education, art history, comparative literature, creative writing, global humanities, humanistic studies, second language acquisition, studio arts or related fields
Experience/certification in TESOL
Experience with assessing ESL competency
Two years teaching and/or tutoring experience in an academic setting
Demonstrated sensitivity to the needs of students, staff, and faculty from diverse cultural backgrounds
Experience working in an art school environment and/or with artists
Successful Candidate will be required to complete a full background check
Preferred Qualifications:
Three years or more years teaching and/or tutoring experience in an academic setting
Coursework/experience in multi-cultural education
Experience living outside of the United States
Experience teaching ESL in an academic setting
Salary: Commensurate with experience and college policy; excellent benefits package.
Apply: The College will review applications as received. Although materials received before January 20, 2012, are best assured of receiving full consideration, the position will remain open until filled. All inquiries, nominations and applications will be held in the strictest confidence.
Application Instructions:
To be considered for the position please apply online through SlideRoom (https://micahr.slideroom.com/)
Once you have navigated to SlideRoom you will be asked to login or create a login. If you are creating an account you will be sent an email with instructions to activate your SlideRoom account. You will not be able to login and apply until you have activated your account.
Once you have logged in please follow these instructions. These instructions will also be posted in SlideRoom as you are applying.
Submit through SlideRoom as PDF documents:
Letter of Application
CV
Statement of Teaching Philosophy
Writing Sample (approx. 20 pages)
3 sample syllabi and/or exercises used in tutoring sessions
Three letters of recommendation, submitted directly by referees via micahr.slideroom.com
Recommendations are collected online via micahr.slideroom.com
Links to live URLs may be submitted as well, but will be considered as a secondary source. No slides, prints, CDs etc. please.
Please note that the MICA cannot accept, review or be responsible for hardcopies or original copies of portfolio materials. Please do not submit supplemental or original portfolio materials, as they will not be considered or returned.
AA/EOE
ATLANTIC GEOGRAPHIES at University of Miami
2nd Announcement: Call for Proposals
The American Studies Program at the University of Miami presents:
ATLANTIC GEOGRAPHIES
A 4-day institute for advanced graduate students and recent PhDs
May 14-17, 2012
The Elena Díaz-Versón Amos Conference Room of the Cuban Heritage Collection
and the 3rd-Floor Conference Room, Richter Library, University of Miami
www.as.miami.edu/ams/atlanticgeographies
Keynote lecture and workshop by Vincent Brown (Professor of History and of
African and African American Studies, Duke University). Public lecture:
Monday, May 14, 4:30 p.m. Closed workshop: Tuesday, May 15, 9:30 a.m.
The field of Atlantic studies has been at the forefront of the spatial turn
in the humanities and social sciences for several decades, challenging
national paradigms for the study of history and culture, embracing
historical geography in groundbreaking projects such as the Trans-Atlantic
Slave Trade Database, and producing a rich body of scholarship that brings
together art, geography, history, literature, and politics in innovative
and fruitful ways. From D. W. Meinig’s Atlantic America, 1492-1800 (1986)
to Nicolás Wey Gómez’s The Tropics of Empire (2008), geographical studies
of the Atlantic world have centrally informed Atlantic history and
transatlantic literary studies. Most recently, Atlantic studies has also
begun to engage the expanded datasets and sophisticated cartographies of
geographical information systems (GIS).
Eager to see what the next generation of scholars brings to this
conversation and how they will change it, we invite applications from
advanced doctoral students and recent PhDs in the humanities and social
sciences who have completed or will complete the PhD between May 2010 and
May 2013. We are interested in all environments, regions, communities, and
countries of the Atlantic world and particularly in the wide array of
discourses, events, and processes that bind them together. We hope that new
maps of the field will emerge from these discussions and that participants
will be able to draw and build on them over the course of their careers.
Participants will discuss their pre-circulated working papers in closed
seminars led by faculty from the University of Miami, Florida International
University, and Florida Atlantic University, all of which share a strong
scholarly tradition in Atlantic studies. The institute will provide several
meals and a $300 stipend for all participants and hotel accommodations for
out-of-town guests. Participants are responsible for their own travel
arrangements and expenses, though we may be able to defray travel costs for
one or two applicants who otherwise would not be able to attend. Although
the common working language of the seminar will be English, we are eager to
discuss a variety of geographic and linguistic areas and encourage
applications from scholars in and of Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin
America.
Please send the following materials in PDF format to
atlantic.geographies@miami.edu:
1. a two-page description of your dissertation or book project;
2. a current CV;
3. a one-page abstract of the paper you wish to present;
4. (only if applicable) a request for partial travel funding.
5. Please arrange for two confidential letters of recommendation to be sent
to the same email address.
Completed applications are due December 8, 2011. We will notify up to
twelve successful applicants by mid-January 2012.
Organizing committee: Tracy Devine Guzmán (Modern Languages and
Literatures), Kate Ramsey (History), Tim Watson (American Studies and
English), Ashli White (History).
The Atlantic Geographies Institute is generously supported by the following
units at the University of Miami: the Program in American Studies, the
University of Miami Libraries, the Office of the Dean of the College of
Arts and Sciences, the Department of History, the Department of English,
the Joseph Carter Memorial Fund of the Department of Modern Languages and
Literatures, the Department of Geography and Regional Studies, the
Department of Philosophy, the Center for the Humanities, the Center for
Latin American Studies, the Graduate School, the Atlantic Studies
Interdisciplinary Research Group, and the Program in Africana Studies.
Deadline Extended - Register until Feb 24, 2012
Call for Papers
“Intersections of Sexuality, Gender, Race and Ethnicity”
2012 Theme: Human Rights: Global and Local”
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD 21251
The Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Morgan State University, in conjunction with B’More Proud, invites scholars and students to participate in a one-day academic symposium. The symposium seeks to explore the complex intersections of sexuality, gender, and human rights, particularly as they relate to LGBTQ themes. Each year’s theme will reflect the dimensionality of intersectional inquiry. The topic for the 2012 symposium is human rights. The symposium is open to scholars and students in every discipline whose work is pertinent to Queer Studies and/or the LGBTQ community.
Submission Deadline: January 9, 2012
(Notification of Acceptance by January 27, 2012)
Submission Guidelines:
We invite one-page abstracts for individual papers and panels. We encourage proposals for alternative formats, including artwork. Students can also submit posters for a juried exhibit with prizes awarded.
Abstracts and proposals should be submitted by email to intersectionssymposium@gmail.com and should be in either Microsoft Word, Adobe PDF, or Rich Text format, and should include the following:
A cover page that contains the following information:
i. Author's name
ii. Title of Submission
iii. Institutional affiliation
iv. Contact information (email, phone number, mailing address)
v. The area of the submission (e.g. economics, English, philosophy, etc.)
Susan Finn Miller
Susan Finn Miller works as an adult literacy teacher and teacher educator in Lancaster, PA. She serves on the expert team for ELL-U www.ell-u.org, a national professional development network for adult ESL teachers, where she designs and delivers online study circles for adult ESL teachers across the nation. She also serves as the ESL Content Specialist for adult ESL teachers in Pennsylvania. Susan teaches graduate courses at the University of Pennsylvania, where she has taught a course in Adult Literacy since 2004, and at Eastern Mennonitie University, where she has been involved in mentoring teachers through the action research process for many years. Susan has published articles and book reviews in the TESOL Quarterly, ESL Magazine, Essential Teacher, and other publications. She is currently collaborating with Jodi Crandall on a book chapter focused on professional development for ESL teachers.
Recent Posts
- Betsy Fetchko - 2012 Graduate Writing Tutor
- Labor Literature for the NLC Community
- Job Announcements - CCBC & Morgan
- ESL Position at MICA
- ATLANTIC GEOGRAPHIES at University of Miami
- Deadline Extended - Register until Feb 24, 2012
- Susan Finn Miller
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