“Surviving Slavery: Dealing with a Post-Abolition Cul-ture in Toni Morrison‘s ‘Beloved,’” and Dolores Kimball, president of Schreiner’s English Honors chapter, with “‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’: A View of Capitalist Patriarchy.”

The conference is held in beautiful Ogden, Utah, at Weber State University between March 31-April 3.

Schreiner’s English majors outdid themselves (as ever) by taking this year’s National Undergraduate Literature Conference by storm.

Christopher Fuqua pre-sents a short fiction work: “Operation Iraqi Freedom”; Katie Wright and Katie Stout were both selected to present their poetry; Katie Stout is also sched-

uled to present her paper, “A Psychoanalytic Examina-tion of Lawrence Selden in ‘The House of Mirth.’”

She is alongside other ma-jors presenting literature research, including Heather Stevens-Shaffer with “Seriously, It‘s Not About Puritans,” Bri Ham-lyn, excited to “spend a few days with other lit nerds like me” with

Over-achieving undergraduates: David Mulry

Music Notes: Kathleen Hudson

The Texas Music Coffee-house is providing a place for writers to emerge and be heard. The student par-ticipation keeps growing with over 100 students attending the February Coffeehouse featuring a tribute to Black History Month. March 3 honored Women’s History Month and featured Shelley King, and April 7 is Spoken Word with slam poetry and Thom

Moon the poet. This project is produced by the Texas Heritage Music Foundation (started in 1987 by Kath-leen Hudson), along with student activities and the Center for Innovative Learning. Events start at 7 with an open mike, feature a special guest at 7:30 and end with another open mike. The list of student performers just keeps growing. Hudson says, “As

the Cactus Café is closing on the UT campus in Aus-tin, the premier listening room for songwriters in the state, there’s a possibility for our own Lion’s Den to fill that space.” Hudson, a noted authority on Texas music, will be teaching a course on it next fall, along with two freshman compo-sition courses on the singer/songwriter in Ameri-can music.

Schreiner University

March 12, 2010 Volume 6, Issue 4

The English Major

• Needed: team of Schreiner students to do spring plan-ning for Living History Day, held on September 24, 2010. Call Hudson at ext. 7409 to participate!

• June 24-26, Young Rhetori-cian’s Conference in Mon-terey, California. Hudson co-chair and working with Schreiner student on re-search for a panel. Past par-ticipants from Schreiner are Dolores Kimball and Dianne Robertson.

Inside this issue:

Undergrad Research 1

Music Notes 1

Bossing the Jersey Shore 2

Texas Writer’s Conference 3

The Tutors 3

Poetic Modes 4

Evolving Research 4

Data Day 2

Liebestänze 1

Liebestänze: Silke Feltz

In April, Silke Feltz will read several of her poems at the CSUF Creative Writing and Composition Conference in Fullerton, CA.

This is the first time she shares her creative work

with published poets and creative writing professors.

Her collection, called Lie-bestänze, is comprised of poems that focus on love and relationships.

Feltz regularly leads a Stammtisch or discussion table for Germanophiles on campus. Contact her at sfeltz@schreiner.edu for more.

alongside leading music and popular culture scholars in the nation, and then of course, to hang out in the same neck of the woods where Bruce got his start."

According to the official Web page, Springsteen’s influ-ence "extends from the stage into the classroom, and his works have turned up in the syllabi of courses across the United States and around the world.”

Woods’ paper focused upon the cartoon character of Larry Underwood in Marvel Comic’s new series, “The Stand” and his links to ‘The Boss.’

“Talk about a perfect storm coming together,” said Woods. “With this paper I was able to combine my love of graphic novels and rock and roll music with some literary criticism of one of my favorite authors, Stephen King.”

According to Woods, the paper came out of IDST 3260 Aesthetics last sum-mer. “We focused upon the incredible artwork out there in some comic books these days, using Scott McCloud’s

that reinforce both. The initiative has been a par-ticular success and student data has been gathered throughout the last aca-demic year in order to sup-port and refine their theory supporting Writing Center

been collaborating to inte-grate Writing Center tutoring into freshman English class-rooms, and workshops, be-lieving that deep learning occurs by balancing class-room discussion, individual feedback and workshops

Bossing The Jersey Shore: William Woods

Data Day Research: Silke Feltz

For a lifelong Bruce Springsteen fan, it was a dream come true.

Last semester, Dr. Woods, dean of the School of Liberal Arts and English department faculty member, made the pilgrimage to the Jersey Shore in order to present his paper, “Bruce Springsteen and the End of the World: An Examination of Mar-vel Comic’s ‘The Stand’” at the 2009 Glory Days: A Bruce Springsteen Symposium co-sponsored by Virginia Tech and Monmouth University.

"What a treat," said Woods. "First just the excitement of having my paper accepted,

“a perfect

storm...graphic

novels and

rock and roll

music.”

Page 2

The English Major

work as a key part of the learning environment in composition classes (and other classes across the curriculum). They will dis-cuss their collaborative work and data with college English professors

presentations, the sympo-sium was covered by na-tional and international press, including The New York Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education and the BBC.

Woods’ research and schol-arly interests have long been tied to the field of popular culture studies. He is the founder and coordi-nator of the annual Schreiner University Popu-lar Culture Symposium.

In March, Dr. Kirsten Komara, the Writing Center Director and Silke Feltz, a new English faculty member, will present their re-search at the Conference of Col-lege Teachers of English (CCTE) in Beaumont, Texas. Since spring 2008, Komara and Feltz have

Understanding Comics’ and David Carrier’s ‘The Aesthet-ics of Comics’ as a starting place.”

As his students began writ-ing about graphic novels, Woods began examining the Marvel Comic “The Stand.”

Woods says he felt “honored” to be at a gather-ing of so many intellectuals and theorists who also hap-pen to be Boss fans.

“It’s funny, because we were engaged in some heavy-hitting academics; I was in rooms with some remarka-bly bright scholars, but dur-ing the break-out sessions, we all quickly reverted to geeky Springsteen fans."

And although sadly for Woods Bruce never showed up—despite rumors that he might—he says he wouldn’t have traded the experience for anything in the world. “Just to be at the legendary Stone Pony nightclub where Bruce first stepped on stage, or to be standing on the Asbury Park boardwalk next to Madam Marie’s or all the other spots Bruce sings about, well, what a kick.”

With more than 300

Tim Hazell is returning as our School of Liberal Arts Artist in Residence for the week of March 22-26. He is sched-uled to meet with Spanish classes, aesthetics classes, education classes, English classes and art classes. See www.tim-hazell.com for more information on this Swedish-born artist/writer living in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. He has interacted with the IDST classes that Dr. Hudson takes to San Miguel from Schreiner, and he has had a book of poetry printed at Schreiner as a result of his last residency.

Truly Renaissance in his ap-proach to life, Tim paints, writes, composes and con-sults on education programs at universities in Mexico. If anyone has interest in a pri-vate consultation with Tim (writing, research, composing, art), please schedule with Dr. Hudson at ext. 409.

April 22 is the date for our annual Texas Writers Confer-ence, a CIL project. This year the featured guest is Gabriel Rico, author of several books on writing and revered as a

mentor for many writers and teachers. Her book, “Writing the Natural Way,” celebrated a 25th anniversary several years ago, and has changed the way we view the teaching of composi-tion. Hudson uses her methods in all her own classes and at-tended a workshop with Rico in San Jose last year. Recreations is a book that points to a spe-cific technique that helps all people write what is bubbling inside.

According to her Web site: “Dr. Rico, a professor of English and Creative Arts at San Jose State University, lectures widely on the application of brain re-search to writing, to learning, and to creative process—most recently on the roles of improvi-sation, play, and human time-consciousness in creativity. Focusing on creativity, split-brain research, and the writing process, she developed cluster-ing in her doctoral dissertation at Stanford University in 1976. Honored as President’s Scholar in 1986, she was selected Teacher/Scholar in 1993. In 1992 she held an Endowed Chair at Notre Dame in Bel-

mont, CA. Her classic ‘Writing the Natural Way,’ which sold over half a million copies, is out in a newly re-vised second edition (March, 2000).”

In other news from the Writer’s Conference, Dos Gatos Press will provide a workshop at 1 p.m. with a look at poetry and publish-ing. Rico’s workshop will cover finding the creative voice and will be from 3-4:30 p.m. Display tables will feature work from the Hon-

ors Program, Sigma Tau Delta, “The Muse,”` Chil-dren’s Literature, and local authors. The evening per-formance will start with a student reading at 7 p.m. followed by a presentation by Gabriele Rico.

The public is invited at no charge. The list of past fea-tured writers includes James McMurtry, Tish Hinojosa, Robert Flynn, Naomi Shihab Nye, Sandra Cisneros, Elmer Kelton and Kinky Friedman.

The Creative Voice: Kathleen Hudson

The Tutors: Kirsten Komara

proach writing as a process, and help other writers work on paper issues, such as focus, organization, development, and tone. (And, yes, we show stu-dents how to use grammar handbooks and on-line gram-mar sites.)

Prospective tutors should be people who really want to listen to their peers in order to help them develop ideas in a way

that will effectively commu-nicate purpose.

For more information about being a Writing Cen-ter tutor, check out our Writing Center Web site at www.schreiner.edu/academics/writing/index.html, or contact Dr. Komara at kko-mara@schreiner.edu.

No, not the HBO series. Even better than that.

Do you enjoy writing? Do you enjoy talking about writing? Do you want to work on im-proving your own writing? Are you a good listener? If you answer yes to these questions, then perhaps you should con-sider applying for a position as a Writing Center peer tutor.

SU Writing Center tutors ap-

“Consider

applying for a

position as a

Writing Center

peer tutor.”

Page 3

Volume 6, Issue 4

Left: Tim Hazell (and friend); Right Gabriele Rico’s new book “The Power of Story.”

Dr. David Mulry, Editor The English Major Department of English 2100 Memorial Blvd Kerrville, TX 78028

Phone: 830 792 7402 Email: dmulry@schreiner.edu

Schreiner University

Online, Mulry has set up a website that focuses on audio criticism of Joseph Conrad—his major research interest.

“Vox Et…” the online audio journal is being supported by and is affiliated with the Jo-seph Conrad Society (UK) and features prominent Conra-dian scholars: find it at, www.conradpodcast.org.

The most recent addition to the site is a radio documen-tary originally produced for Radio Netherlands by David Swatling, on Conrad’s “The Secret Agent,” featuring Mulry being interviewed alongside internationally renowned Con-rad scholars Keith Carabine and John Stape.

In other news, Mulry has just presented a paper called

David Mulry recently targeted the undergraduate favorite journal, Explicator, for an article on one of (he argued) Wordsworth’s most interest-ing poems, “To the Cuckoo.” His article “A Voice, A Mys-tery”: Wordsworth’s Cuckoo.” examines the bird as an im-age of transition and change in Romantic poetry. He wrote the piece to compliment his British literature class, and provide a useful compact model research paper for English majors and writing students.

Another piece, on working in a Community College setting, is scheduled for publication in April in the academic trade paper, “The Chronicle of Higher Education.”

Evolving Research: David Mulry

Dr. David Mulry, Editor The English Major Department of English 2100 Memorial Blvd Kerrville, TX 78028

Phone: 830 792 7402 Email: dmulry@schreiner.edu

Poetic Mode: Sally Hannay

Sally Hannay presented poems from a collection she calls, “In the Great Big Mid-dle,” at the 2010 Angelo State University Writers Con-ference in San Angelo, Texas, in late February.

The conference was in honor of much loved Texas writer, Elmer Kelton, and the fea-tured author was best-selling memoirist and poet, Mary Karr.

Hannay enjoyed the opportu-nity to read with, listen to and commune with dedicated and

accomplished writers, espe-cially since there continues to be a great interest in Creative Writing at Schreiner. In fact, Hannay will be teaching the new advanced Creative Writing class this fall for the first time—a class that she recently designed and brought forward in response to student inter-ests in the English program.

Hannay also presented poems from the same collection at the 2010 Conference for Col-lege Teachers of English in Beaumont, Texas in early March.

You Can Quote Me On this: “I want everyone to know my name. Not like you. You carry your name like a man with a knife hidden in his boot. You should wear your name like a red bow tie.” (Christopher Moore, “Coyote Blue”)

“Atavism, Recidivism and De-generacy: Conrad and the evo-lution of the Fin de Siècle di-vided self,” during the Conrad Session at the MLA, Philadel-phia.

The paper examines Conrad’s treatment of patterns of de-cline and the divided self—as a revision of late nineteenth cen-tury doppelganger fantasies like Stevenson’s “Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” That paper was well-received and work is ongoing for publica-tion possibly in book format.

Mulry has also been selected to present, as has one of his stu-dents, English major, Heather Stevens-Shaffer, at the Interna-tional Conrad Conference in Paris, 2010, hosted by the So-cieté Conradienne Français.

His paper on “Turgenev’s ‘Twin Antitypes:’ Duality in characterization in Conrad’s ‘Under Western Eyes,’” is about Conrad’s Secret Shar-ers and Turgenev’s influential critical essay ‘Hamlet and Don Quixote.’

Stevens-Shaffer’s paper, actu-ally much more interesting, and currently being developed under Mulry’s supervision as her senior project, is a fasci-nating look at the treatment of women in the novel, ‘The Se-cret Agent,’ and mass-culture influences (including primary research in the magazine print culture of early serializa-tion) that helped shape some evolving textual shifts and changes in their characteriza-tion.

This conference welcomed presenters in composition, literature, creative and educa-tional—process, pedagogy and creative writing, and the diver-sity made it a most rewarding, friendly and educational con-ference—even without the Cajon cuisine.

Hard on the heels of her re-cent Hosler award, Hannay won the Creative Writing award for Poetry at the conference, and a few of her poems will be published in the 2010 journal “CCTE Studies.”