A different kind of English Department (spring 2002)
At Clark, English isn't just literature--it's a community
By Judith Jaeger
| | Clark's English Department:
(standing from left) Matthew McAllester M.A. '02, department work-study Sarah Nelson '05,
Professor Louis Bastien, Professor Virginia Mason Vaughan, Professor Imraan Coovadia, staff
member Terri Rutkiewicz, Professor James Elliott and Professor Heather Roberts; (seated from
left) staff member Edie Mathis, Professor Fern Johnson, Department Chair SunHee Kim Gertz and
graduate student Georgia Rushing. Photo by Arthur Carvalho |
More about the English Department faculty What do
Shakespeare, 19th-century British novels or ante-bellum American literature have to do with the
"real world?" Everything, says SunHee Kim Gertz, chair of Clark's English Department.
"When you study literature," Gertz says, "it not only equips you with skills--how to communicate,
how to analyze--its aesthetic and communicative power opens up worlds, provides contexts
and solace for tragedies such as Sept. 11, and allows us to be more fully aware members of our
various communities." The English Department's nine tenure-track faculty and 12
instructors help undergraduates discover how studying literature can enrich their understanding
of the world and their own lives. (Read more about Professor Gertz's research.) Gertz is guiding the department through a period of
rejuvenation that builds on its tradition of innovative scholarship and teaching. The result is
a committed English Department, a close-knit community of dedicated students and scholars.
Dedicated teacher-scholars Of particular note is
the English faculty's impressive publishing record. In the last two years, every tenure-track
English faculty member has published a book, has a forthcoming book, or has a book in
progress—a rare achievement.
"In my experience, this is simply phenomenal," Gertz
says. "There's not one faculty member not actively doing scholarship. Our scholarly energy
creates a highly dynamic department, and students are attracted to that." "The Wedding,"
the first novel by Imraan Coovadia, is one of the most recent books by an English faculty
member. It was released last fall to a flurry of media interest, with reviews in the Boston
Herald, the Boston Globe, New York magazine, the Washington Post Book World, the Baltimore Sun
and the Los Angeles Times. "The Wedding" was also featured on NBC-TV's weekend "Today" show.
Coovadia joined Clark last September and describes the English Department as a "peculiarly
warm environment." For example, it's not typical for literature scholars to publish novels or
other creative work. But at Clark, Coovadia says, his colleagues are supportive of both his
scholarly and creative work. "Clark's English Department is unlike any other English department
I know," he says. The English faculty are dedicated teachers who take Clark's
elbow-teaching philosophy seriously, Gertz emphasizes. Majors are divided equally among the
English faculty for advising, professors often volunteer to work one-on-one with students, and
professors help students give talks at national conferences. In return, the students
approach their courses with enthusiasm and dedication. "None of them act like they 'have to' be
here," Coovadia says. "It's very inspiring and it makes teaching very pleasant." International perspectives Graduate students infuse the
department with global perspectives, Gertz says. Nine of the department's 16 graduate students
are international, hailing from China, Nigeria, Jamaica, Russia and Germany. The four students
from Germany are: a Cusanus Scholar, a DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) scholar; and two
Fulbright scholars. Voices from different cultural backgrounds deepen the appreciation
of literature, Gertz points out, as different perspectives shed new light on familiar topics.
Graduate students, as well as majors, tell her they thrive on the exposure to new
perspectives. "Some majors seem a little shy around the graduate students, but others
love it. They're in candyland," says Gertz, who has brought international students to the
department through recently established academic agreements with the JFK Institute of Berlin,
the Centre Universitaire in Luxembourg, the DAAD and the Fulbright Commission in Germany.
Engaging undergraduates Many of the department's
recent initiatives build on the close interaction among undergraduates, graduate students and
faculty. Gertz invites English majors and minors to department teas twice a month, for example,
and has appointed junior and senior representatives to the chair, who help develop department
activities. As a result, the basement of Anderson House, home of the English Department, was
transformed into a student lounge this year. English majors plan to hold poetry readings in the
new lounge and are also putting together a publication of undergraduate, award-winning
writing. Likewise, the department's Shakespearean expert and the Klein Distinguished
Professor, Virginia Mason Vaughan, organized an undergraduate Shakespeare conference at Clark in
April (Read about the conference and Professor Vaughan's reesearch). Students from Clark and across the
region presented their research at the conference, providing yet another venue for the English
Department's community to come together. "As majors, we're getting more personal
attention, and things are being done with our overall sense of comfort in mind," says Christina
Rizzo '03, who serves as the junior representative to the English Department chair.
Rizzo offers high praise for her adviser, Stanley Sultan, describing him as "amazing." She says
Sultan not only helps her choose courses each semester, but also reads her poetry. "With
Stanley around, you don't need to be your own best critic. He takes care of that for you," says
Rizzo, who adds that she also enjoys working with the department's graduate students. "They've
helped me so much in the way that I formulate ideas and in the way that I see the world. They
come from all different backgrounds and all different influences, and they constantly challenge
me intellectually in every class I've had with them." A close
learning community Rizzo is particularly pleased with student attendance at
events sponsored by the English Department and the increasing interest in poetry and creative
writing. She is looking forward to the poetry readings and student publication and hopes more
students become involved with department activities. "The English Department is a
community, and I hope that as a community we can become a lot closer," Rizzo says. "sI hope that
with SunHee's enthusiasm and concern, we can get everyone involved in some part of the English
Department that they love, whether it's the readings, the writing workshops, the student
publication or just hanging out in the lounge."
SunHee Kim
Gertz, Ph.D., chair: Chaucer, medieval literature, comparative literature, semiotic theory
and women's studies. "From Chaucer to Shakespeare, 1337-1580," Palgrave Press. Gertz
examines the 250 years thought to divide English history between the Middle Ages and the Early
Modern Era as a much more fluid period. Using semiotic and rhetorical theory, she examines art,
education and various literary genres, showing their links to the past as well as to other
European literatures.
John Conron, Ph.D.: American literature, American landscape, American culture
and fine arts. "American Picturesque," Pennsylvania State University Press. Conron defines
the picturesque aesthetic and examines how it influenced American culture in the 19th century.
He explores this theory through landscape, topographical and genre painting, architecture and
gardens, and the writings of James Fenimore Cooper, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne,
Frederick Douglass, Harriet Wilson, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, among
others.
Imraan Coovadia, Ph.D.: 18th- and 19th-century novel and poetry, creative
writing and literary history. "The Wedding," Picador USA. For Ismet Nassim from Bombay, a
clerk of modest prospects and generous girth, everything turns on the moment when, from the
window of a train, he spies a young woman standing next to a village well. And not just any
woman, but the most beautiful woman in the world.
James Elliott, Ph.D.: American literature, literary theory and textual
editing. "The Spy," AMS Press. This is the 18th volume in the "Editions of the Writings of
James Fenimore Cooper," a project Elliott has been associated with as chief textual editor for
30 years. Elliott wrote the "Historical Introduction" for this volume and collaborated with two
other scholars on the intricate editing. "The Spy," published in 1821, was Cooper's second novel
and immediately became America's first 'best-seller,' as it was the first American novel about
the Revolutionary War.
Fern Johnson, Ph.D., Communication and Culture program director:
sociolinguistics, feminist linguistics, communication and culture. "Speaking Culturally:
Language Diversity in the United States," Sage Publications. Johnson examines the cultural
dimensions underlying discourse in the United States and places language in the context of the
histories and cultural themes that influence the people who use it.
Winston Napier, Ph.D.: African-American literature and critical theory.
"African American Literary Theory: A Reader," New York University Press. Napier documents the
central texts and arguments in African-American literary theory from the 1920s through the
present. He covers the rise of black aesthetic criticism, the Black Arts Movement, feminism,
structuralism and post-structuralism, and the rise of queer theory, focusing on the key
arguments, themes and debates in each period.
Heather Roberts, Ph.D.: American literature, popular culture and gender
studies. "Taking it to the Streets: Encounters with the City in Antebellum American Women's
Writing," in progress. Roberts focuses on the urban writings of Lydia Maria Child, Margaret
Fuller, Sara Parton ("Fanny Fern") and Elizabeth Oakes Smith, all of whom lived in New York City
during periods that were crucial to their development as writers, social reformers and political
activists. Roberts looks at these writers' gender-specific experiences of the city and their
sharply divergent efforts to use these first-hand encounters to teach their readers how to
interpret, react to and ultimately reform urban life.
Stanley Sultan, Ph.D.: modernist literature, literary theory, politics and
literature. "Joyce's Metamorphosis," University Press of Florida. Using fiction James Joyce
wrote from 1904 to 1906, Sultan traces Joyce's evolution into a mature artist. He argues that
Joyce approached his fiction by making a fictionalized version of himself the subject of his
work.
Virginia Mason Vaughan, Ph.D.: Shakespeare, English Renaissance literature and
post-colonial appropriations of Shakespeare. "The Tempest," Arden Shakespeare, third
edition; co-edited with Alden T. Vaughan. The Arden Shakespeare is the "Cadillac" of Shakespeare
editions. All plays in the series are accompanied by extensive commentary and textual notes,
surveys of the latest scholarship and performance history. Vaughan's edition also includes a
section on the play's after-life and a history of the myriad ways the play has been used and
appropriated by different nationalities and cultures across the centuries and throughout the
world.
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Clarknews Spring 2002
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