Aikau's A Chosen People, A Promised Land

Hokulani Aikau, PhD '05, published her book A Chosen People, A Promised Land: Mormonism and Race in Hawai'i (University of Minnesota Press, 2012). Click here for more info.

For Alumni & Those Soon to Receive PhDs: ACLS Public Fellows Program

NEW OPPORTUNITY FOR ALUMNI AND THOSE SOON TO RECEIVE PHDS: The ACLS invites applications for the second competition of the Public Fellows program. They seek applications from PhDs who have received their degrees in the last three years and who aspire to careers in administration, management, and public service by choice rather than circumstance. Competitive applicants will have been successful in both academic and extra-academic experiences. Awards range from $50,000 to $65,000 per year dependent upon position. Application deadline: March 21, 2012 6pm (EDT). For full requirements and more information, please click here.

Procedure for Requesting the use of American Studies Department Funds for Research and Conference Travel

Grad Students are able to request the use of Department funds for research and conference travel on an on-going basis. Continue reading for more information and the procedure for requesting the use of funds.


All American Studies graduate students are provided up to $1500 in department Research and Conference Travel funding over the course of your graduate career. Requests are limited to $500 per instance. Because the funds are limited, you are encouraged to apply for outside sources and to rely on this department funding only when you are unable to secure outside funding. Good sources include conference organizations and "best paper" competitions. The following is a list of several University web sites with information about additional funding opportunities:
http://www.grad.umn.edu/prospective_students/Financing/other.html
http://www.gapsa.umn.edu/grants/travel.htm
http://www.cogs.umn.edu/awards.html
http://global.umn.edu/funding/grad.html
http://www.grad.umn.edu/gradwriting/funding.html
You may request funding as soon as the criteria for each allocation are met. The typical response time in which you will receive a reply indicating whether or not your request has been approved is two weeks. Note: Funds are distributed after the travel takes place in the form of a reimbursement for specific expenses incurred. Please review the specific processes below and contact Melanie Steinman if you have any questions.
Requesting Funds for Conference Travel
******************************************************************************
American Studies grad students in active status may request funding to
travel to scholarly conferences to present a research paper. We will
not provide funds for presenting the same paper at more than one
conference.
Criteria for conference travel funding:
• You are in good standing
• You have been accepted to present research at a conference
• Your total claim from the research and conference travel funds has
not exceeded $1500
To request conference travel funds, email Melanie Steinman, stein196@umn.edu, with the following:
• Student ID# and name of adviser(s)
• Proof of acceptance to present at conference
• Paper title and conference name, date, and location (if not indicated on proof of acceptance)
• Amount requested (not to exceed $500) with detailed budget proposal
• For students traveling internationally: Proof of University-issued international insurance OR approved waiver
Please note, we prefer, as proof of acceptance to present at conference, a PDF of the conference program page showing the session in which you will participating. However, a forwarded email from the conference organizers or hard copy acceptance letter will also suffice.
Requesting Funds for Research Travel
******************************************************************************
American Studies grad students in active status may request funds to cover expenses related to dissertation research. Covered expenses include travel costs and reproduction of essential documents and images.
Criteria for research funding:
• You are in good standing
• You have successfully completed the preliminary portfolio exam
• Proposed research is clearly connected to dissertation
• Proposal clearly establishes a justification for research (e.g. travel to an archive to investigate materials not otherwise available)
• Proposal sets out a sound research design
• Your total claim from the research and conference travel funds has not exceeded $1500
To request research travel funds, email Melanie Steinman, stein196@umn.edu, with the following:
• Student ID# and name of adviser(s)
• One page description of your project, including title
• Up to a one page research proposal clearly describing in detail the research you will undertake (be as specific as possible about the use of archives, libraries, interviews, etc)
• Amount requested (not to exceed $500) with detailed budget proposal
• For students traveling internationally: Proof of University-issued international insurance OR approved waiver

New York Public Library fellowship opportunity

The New York Public Library is delighted to announce the availability of short-term fellowships to support visiting scholars conducting research in the Library's unique research and special collections. Fellowships stipends up to $4,000 are available to scholars outside the New York metropolitan area engaged in graduate-level, post-doctoral, or independent research. Application deadline: March 18, 2012. Click here for full requirements and application instructions.

Literacy and Rhetorical Studies Research Series 2/17/12

The Center for Writing is pleased to announce the Spring 2012 Literacy and Rhetorical Studies Research Series "embodied literacies: voice, performance, and space" on Friday, February 17, 2012 from 12:00-1:30pm in room 12 Nicholson Hall. Lunch will be provided.

An interdisciplinary discussion featuring work in progress by:
Richard Graff (Associate Professor, Writing Studies)--"Greek Rhetoric In Situ"
This presentation will tour through a selection of digital models being produced as part of a larger study of ancient Greek sites of oratorical performance, with discussion of the on-site investigations and interdisciplinary collaborations involved and of the expanding vistas for the project as it creeps into the realms of the digital and virtual.
Judi Petkau (Ph.D. Candidate, Curriculum & Instruction)--"Pedagogic Address in Art Space"
Exhibition or art installation spaces often provoke audiences into embodied practices of meaning making. This study of an encounter by a teen and his teacher within the Weisman Art Museum offers insights into this discursive space, which is both critical and aesthetic.
Candance Doerr-Stevens (Ph.D. Candidate, Curriculum & Instruction)-- "Appropriating a Media Voice: Multimodal Struggle in Digital Media Composition"
This presentation examines the digital media composition process of collaborative groups, focusing specifically on the multimodal struggle that occurs among peers as they gather, select, and edit media. Of particular interest is how students appropriate media to express individual views in a collective text.
Lunch will be provided. Please register at myC4W (http://writing.umn.edu/myc4w). If you are not affiliated with the University of Minnesota, send an email to writing@umn.edu to register.

PCard Receipts Due

Please submit receipts for all January PCard purchases to Laura by Wednesday, February 1st.

COVERSHEET generic-1.xlsx

Digital Arts & Humanities Participants Wanted to Help UMN Libraries

The University of Minnesota Libraries are looking for people currently working or plan on working in the digital arts and humanities who might be interested in helping the libraries set up future services in this area. They are planning some type of survey as well as other research and are looking for people willing to include their voice and experience.

Please read full e-mail from Nancy Herther:
--------------
Hello!
Are you actively working in the digital arts & humanities area today - or plan to in the near future? Are you interested in helping shape the Libraries' future services in this area?
Then, we are looking for YOU!
Many universities have already established support centers and collections focused on these budding areas of research (for more information, see http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/) and the University Libraries are now beginning a study of what is currently happening on our campus, and hope to glean information on future needs as well.
If you have an interest or current involvement in these areas, please let me know and I will pass your name along to the group. I know that they are planning some type of survey as well as other research. We want to include your voice and experience in this!
Thank you, in advance, for your consideration!
Nancy Herther
University Libraries
herther@umn.edu

IHRC Events for Spring

Join the IHRC for the opening of "Siberian Estonians" collection in the 2nd and 3rd floor Gallery of the Elmer L. Andersen Library on Friday, January 27th at 3:30pm. The collection explores the thriving diaspora communities constructed by those who chose to stay in new lands of promise, documenting people as warm as the winter of Siberia is cold.

--
"Siberian Estonians"
January 9-March 7, 2012
2nd/3rd Floor Gallery, Elmer L. Andersen Library
In the minds of many people, Siberia is a forbidding environment and the harsh destination for deportees. Most Estonian prison camp survivors from the 1940s returned to their homeland, but some built new lives in Siberia or in the United States. "Siberian Estonians" explores the thriving diaspora communities constructed by those who chose to stay in new lands of promise, documenting people as warm as the winter of Siberia is cold.
IHRC Program Director Haven Hawley will provide a guided tour of the exhibition and discuss IHRC archival collections documenting Siberian experiences. Refreshments will be provided.
For a full list of upcoming spring 2012 IHRC events, click here.

ICGC Brown Bag: "The Sky is Falling"

"The Sky is Falling: Architectural Ruin and Daily life in Havana: The New Art of Making Ruins" presented by Cecilia Aldarondo, PhD Candidate in CSCL, on Friday, January 27th at 12:00pm in 537 Heller Hall.

This paper explores the widespread ruination of inhabited buildings in contemporary Cuba, as depicted in the documentary Habana: arte nuevo de hacer ruinas (Havana: The New Art of Making Ruins, 2006). The architectural precarity of many of Cuba's buildings is extreme: at best, the plaster falls from the ceiling and the plumbing is shot, and at worst, the entire building is susceptible to collapse at any moment. At the same time, renewal juxtaposes ruination in Havana. Since the Cuban government's turn to free-market policies in the 1990s,the state agency Habaguanex has invested millions of dollars in foreign capital to restore 'historically significant' buildings across Habana Vieja (Old Havana) for the growing tourist industry. In its attachment to a picturesque ruin aesthetic, I argue that Habana: artenuevo de hacer ruinas disenfranchises its human subjects in precisely the ways it claims that the Cuban government has done, and ultimately facilitates the viewer's voyeuristic experience of ruin-tourism.

CFP: MAASA Deadline Extended

The Mid-America American Studies Association invites proposals for its annual meeting and conference scheduled to be held at Oklahoma State University's Tulsa campus from April 1-3, 2012. The theme of this year's conference is "Re-thinking 'Mid-America' in a Time of Crisis". Submission deadline: February 13, 2012. Click here for more info.

Legal History Workshop/Seminar Schedule for Spring

The Schedule for the Spring Legal History Workshop/Seminar Series has been set, and will be on Wednesdays from 3:35 to 5:30pm in Room 55 of the Law School (Mondale Hall). The first will be on February 1st with Ari Bryen's presentation "Martyrdom, Rhetoric, and the Politics of Procedure".

Schedule of Speakers--Spring 2012
February 1: Ari Bryen, ACLS Faculty Fellow in Rhetoric and Classics, University of California, Berkeley
"Martyrdom, Rhetoric, and the Politics of Procedure"
February 10 (Friday): Adam Kosto, Professor of History, Columbia University 12:15-2:10 p.m. "Medieval Hostages, Contract Theory, and the History of International Law"
February 24 (Friday): Samuel Moyn, Professor of History, Columbia University 12:15-2:10 p.m. From Antiwar Politics to Antitorture Politics"

February 29: Oren Gross, Irving Younger Professor of Law, University of Minnesota
"Words as Power: The Rhetoric of War in Historical Perspective"
March 7: Erickson Lecture, Room 50, 3:30 p.m.
Lauren Benton, Professor of History and Affiliate Professor of Law, New York State University
"The Trial of Arthur Hodge: Petty Despots and the Making of an Imperial Legal World"
March 21: Rebecca Rix, Assistant Professor of History, Princeton University
"'We, the People'? Redefining Representation and 'the Public' in the Progressive Era"
March 28: Sophia Lee, Assistant Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School
"The Workplace Constitution: Race, Labor, and Conservative Politics from the New Deal to the New Right"
April 4: Hendrik Hartog, Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor in the History of American Law and Liberty, Professor of History, Princeton University
"Someday All This Will Be Yours: A History of Inheritance and Old Age"
April 11: Paul Halliday, Professor of History and Law, University of Virginia
"The Courtroom, the Clerk's Archive, and the Judge's Voice: Technologies of Judicial Authority in Eighteenth-Century England"
Click here for schedule with abstracts included.

Center for Jewish Studies Colloquium

Stacy Beckwith of Carleton College will speak on February 9, 2012 on "Between Inquisition and Holocaust Landscapes: Jews in Contemporary Spanish Fiction" at 12:00-1:30pm in 325 Nicholson Hall. Click here for event flyer.

Minnesota Political Theory Colloquium Series for Spring 2012

The Spring Schedule for the Minnesota Political Theory Colloquium is now posted. This year's Colloquium theme is "Capital and Crisis" and will meet Fridays at 1:30pm in the Lippincott Room 1314 Social Sciences Building. The first event will be this Friday, January 27th with a presentation by Dr. Alexis Pogorelskin "Politics for Keeps: The Dynamics of the Soviet Succession Struggle in the 1920s".

SPRING SCHEDULE:
27 January 2012:
Alexis Pogorelskin Department of History, University of Minnesota-Duluth
"Politics for Keeps: The Dynamics of the Soviet Succession Struggle in the 1920s."
24 February 2012:
Keya Ganguly, Department of Cultural Studies, University of Minnesota
"Malady versus Remedy: Critique in/and the Global South"
Abstract:
In his landmark work of intellectual history, Critique and Crisis (1959), Reinhart Koselleck argued that there is a fundamental contradiction between intellectual positions and political action produced by the distance separating critique from circumstances of crisis. This contradiction in turn produces a split between forms of political authority and a private sphere of critical opinion that attempts to revise or transform the public. According to Koselleck, this split originally emerged during the Enlightenment - when a group of uprooted onlookers emerged to comment on political concerns from which they were themselves distant. It has since informed the constitution of critique in bourgeois societies in which intellectuals are, by their structural position as well as nature, out of touch with the very realities they wish to address. The relationship of critique and crisis has thus largely been negative, one that Koselleck describes as a "malady." However accurate this historicization of critique in bourgeois societies, it neglects the specificity of intellectual production in the global South, where the breach between political and theoretical activity is less extreme and where critique is more immediately responsive to the crisis of existence rather than to crises of ideas alone. Here, one often finds a greater articulation of the two, in part deriving from a different reading of theory, particularly the texts of historical materialism, and also from a different understanding of intellectual and political practice. This paper elaborates on the nature of "peripheral critique" by going beyond Koselleck's conservative propositions about the "pathogenesis" of crisis and showing how "antagonism" operates as a mode of both thought and action when theoretical contradictions are understood as part of the social totality.
2 March 2012:
Robert Hullot-Kentor, School of Visual Arts, New York. "A Theory of Sacrifice and Right Wishing"
9 March 2012:
Alex Demirovic, Department of Political Science - Technische Universität Berlin. Paper TBD
30 March 2012:
Cesare Casarino, Department of Cultural Studies, University of Minnesota. Paper TBD.
6 April 2012:
Silvia Lopez, Spanish Department - Carleton College
"Brazil: critique, crisis and politics in the age of indetermination"
Abstract:
This paper will take as its point of departure the relationship between critique and crisis as originally theorized by Reinhart Koselleck, in order to present a reflection on the understanding of politics in the age of indetermination as advanced by a number of Brazilian thinkers, such as Paulo Arantes, Chico de Oliveira and Andre Singer. These thinkers have taken seriously the premise that the emergence of a public sphere always involves a suspension of the Hobbesian state and that its dissolution brings about the return to a state of conflict and of a war of all against all. The relevant case of such a dissolution is the current state of capitalism and its manifestations in Lula's Brazil. The paper will engage the debates surrounding the redefinition of the political and of a specific political realm in contemporary Brazil, and how this redefinition contrasts with the blurred distinction between the political proper and other public realms that Koselleck early on criticized in our modern understanding of politics. The work of the aforementioned thinkers invites us to rethink the relationship between crisis and critique, but this time in dialogue with Marx, Rancière and Habermas, and from the horizon of interpretation of the global south.
13 April 2012:
Linda Zerilli, Department of Political Science - University of Chicago
Paper TBD
20 April 2012:
Joan Tronto, Department of Political Science - University of Minnesota
"Privatizing Neo-Colonialism: Migrant Domestic Care Workers, Partial Citizenship, and Responsibility"
27 April 2012:
Eric Shepard, Department of Geography - University of Minnesota
Paper TBD
4 May 2012:
Antonio V√°zquez-Arroyo, Department of Political Science - University of Minnesota
"Realism, Utopia, and Colonial Enlightenment"

"Questions Without Borders" Forum 2/13/12

"Questions Without Borders: Why Future Research and Teaching Will Be Interdisciplinary" will be held February 13, 2012 at 3:30pm in Coffman Memorial Union Theater.

A forum discussion on the challenges of developing more interdisciplinary research and education in large research universities where the established disciplines have traditionally been dominant.
Moderator: Karen Hanson, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, University of Minnesota
Remarks: Myron Gutmann, Assistant Director, National Science Foundation
Responses and comments: David L. Fox, Department of Earth Sciences, College of Science and Engineering; J. B. Shank, Department of History, College of Liberal Arts; Dominique Tobbell, Program in the History of Medicine, Medical School
Myron Gutmann is head of the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences at the National Science Foundation. Dr. Gutmann is an expert on historical demography and the social, demographic, and economic history of Europe and the Americas.
Organized and hosted by Gary Cohen, Department of History. Sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Study, Department of History, College of Liberal Arts, and Office of the Provost.
Free and open to the public
Click here for event flyer.

Smith Beitiks published in Hastings Center Report

Current Graduate Student, Emily Smith Beitiks, had her article "The Ghosts of Institutionalization at Pennhurst's Haunted Asylum" in the Hastings Center Report. Click here for an online edition.

Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (DDF) Application Internal Deadline: February 15, 2012 at 12:00pm Noon.

Grad School's Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (DDF), which includes a $22,500 stipend, is intended to give the most accomplished final-year PhD candidates, typically those entering their final year or two years of graduate study, an opportunity to complete the dissertation within the 2012-13 academic year. It is expected that Fellows will graduate by the end of spring 2013, but not later than the end of fall 2013. To be considered for nomination by the department, submit your application materials to Melanie (stein196@umn.edu) by the department's internal deadline of February 15, 2012 at 12:00pm Noon

The Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (DDF) program is intended to give the most accomplished final-year Ph.D. candidates an opportunity to complete the dissertation within the 2012-13 academic year by devoting full-time effort to research and writing. The award includes a stipend of $22,500 for the academic year beginning September 2012, academic-year tuition for up to 14 thesis credits each semester, and subsidized health insurance through the Graduate Assistant Health Plan. Summer 2013 health insurance will be included for those who remain eligible.
To be considered for nomination by the department, submit your application materials to Melanie by the American Studies department internal deadline of February 15, 2012 at 12:00pm Noon. Please note: If you are submitting an application but are outside of the guidelines of eligibility, please provide the department with a statement of explanation.
Click here for the Graduate School's complete program and eligibility information and instructions:
http://www.grad.umn.edu/fellowships/DDF/DDFProgramInstructions2012.html

Course Evaluation Distribution Update

Beginning with fall 2011 evaluations, we will distribute the instructor copy of course evaluations electronically. This means we will not provide a hard copy, but instead, you will receive an electronic scan of your evals. As always, this scan will consist of the summary pages and any SRT forms that have student comments. If you have any questions about this change, please feel free to contact Colleen.

CANCELLED: Jan 23rd, The American Studies Workshop

Because we do not have a volunteer presenter, the Monday, January 23rd session of the American Studies Workshop series has been cancelled.

Pate Practice Job Talk

Soojin Pate, PhD '10, will present "Militarization, Gender, and the 'Militaristic Gaze' in Korean Adoption" on Monday, January 30th at 3:00pm in the Scott Hall Commons

CURA Dissertation Research Grant

The Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) Dissertation Research Grant provides one year of support ($20,000) to a doctoral candidate for the purpose of completing dissertation research on a significant issue or topic related to urban areas in the upper Midwest region of the United States. Recipients must have passed the preliminary exam stage and have approved dissertation proposals by March 1, 2012. American Studies internal deadline: Monday, February 6 at 12:00pm NOON.

PURPOSE: The CURA Dissertation Research Grant is intended to support
dissertation research on significant issues or topics related to urban
areas.
PROGRAM: The program provides one year of support ($20,000) to a
doctoral candidate in good academic standing at the University of
Minnesota for the purpose of completing dissertation research on a
significant issue or topic related to urban areas in the upper Midwest
region of the United States. Recipients must have passed the
preliminary exam stage and have approved dissertation proposals by
March 1, 2012. Following completion of the research, recipients are
expected to produce a 3,500-word manuscript suitable for publication
in the CURA Reporter, and to acknowledge CURA support in any other
publications stemming from the dissertation research assisted through
this grant.
HOW TO APPLY: Submit the following application materials (ideally as a
PDF or Word attachment) to Melanie (stein196@umn.edu) by the American
Studies internal deadline of Monday, February 6 at 12:00pm NOON.
1. Research Abstract. The research abstract should provide a
succinct and understandable description of the dissertation research.
The abstract should be no longer than five (5) pages and should
contain the following elements:
Background and statement of the research problem;
Goals and objectives of the research, including main hypotheses;
Research design and methods;
Potential significance of the research;
Timeline for research
2. Letter of Support from the candidate's dissertation advisor. The
letters should specifically speak to the applicant's ability to
conduct the proposed research, the quality of the applicant's
performance to date in the graduate program, and the applicant's
record of progress through the graduate program.
3. Copy of graduate transcript. Unofficial copies are acceptable.
4. Summary of graduate financial support to date. List the source,
amount, and dates of financial assistance received to date while a
graduate student at the University of Minnesota.
SELECTION CRITERIA: Applications will be judged on the following
criteria, in order of importance:
-Quality of the research abstract
-The urban focus of the topic
-The significance of the topic, either for advancing knowledge in
the field or potential for policy/community impact
-Relevance of the topic and the research to urban areas in the
upper Midwest region of the United States
-The potential of the student to complete the dissertation within 18 months
-Student need
CURA Dissertation Research Grant call:
http://www.cura.umn.edu/Dissertation

Interdisciplinary Studies of Writing Summer Research Grant

As you begin planning your summer research projects, please consider applying for an Interdisciplinary Studies of Writing (ISW) research grant from the Center for Writing. ISW grants are designed to support the inquiry of University of Minnesota scholars and teachers into writing and literacy. Grants are awarded depending on merit of proposal and availability of funds, but typically are between $2,500 and $6,000. Letter of intent due: February 6, 2012. Click here for more info.

Torske Klubben Graduate Fellowship: Application deadline: March 1, 2012

The Torske Klubben Graduate Fellowship for Minnesota residents supported by the Torske Klubben of Minneapolis is designed to provide support for students who have an interest in Norway. This award includes a stipend of $15,000. Application deadline: March 1, 2012. Click here for complete information.

Murphy Practice Job Talk

Ryan Murphy, PhD '10, will present "United Airlines is for Lovers: Flight Attendant Activism and the Family Values Economy in the 1990s" on Thursday, January 19th at 2pm in the Scott Hall Commons.

Dr. Ryan Murphy presents a piece of his research on flight attendants and their unions to theorize new directions in queer and labor activism in the late 20th century. In the decades since 1970, traditional "family values" have been cast as organizing principles of society, with marriage promotion initiatives, abortion restrictions, and welfare cutbacks increasingly central to public policy and economic management. But as the "post-industrial" economy has favored jobs that are temporary, flexible, and low paying, fewer and fewer people actually live in a nuclear family or depend on the wages of a sole male breadwinner. Since the airlines' demand for constant travel means that flight attendants have never been able to comply with the mandate for normative domesticity, the needs and desires of non-traditional families have guided flight attendants' activism at work. As he analyzes their leading role in the push for "domestic partner benefits" in the Fortune 500, Murphy demonstrates how flight attendants' longstanding queer critique guided an employee pushback against corporate austerity measures in the 1990s, all while refusing the mainstream LGBT movement's increasingly explicit commitment to middle class values of privatization and personal responsibility.

Notice About Loading Zone Parking Behind Scott Hall

LOADING ZONE PARKING: There have been a number of instances in the past few months in which the loading zone space was being used for longer than 30 minutes, which has impacted our ability to use the loading zone as intended. Because of the impact, we have decided to being reporting extended use of the loading zone space. Please be aware that if you are parking for longer than 30 minutes or without a pass you are subject to ticket and/or tow.

CFP: Tran-scripts online journal

TRANS-SCRIPTS INVITES GRADUATE students to submit their work for publication in "Queer Interventions and Intersections", the second volume of the online journal. They welcome all submissions that engage topics related to the topic and the journal will be published in April. Submission deadline: February 1, 2012. Click here for more info.

Dirksen Congressional Center Grant

The Dirksen Congressional Center invites applications for grants to fund research on congressional leadership and the U.S. Congress. Political scientists, historians, biographers, scholars of public administration or American Studies and journalists are among those eligible. Awards range from a few hundred dollars to $3,500 and will normally extend for one year. Application deadline: March 1, 2012. Click here for full requirements and more information.

LaChance Recognized by CGS

Danny LaChance, PhD '11, wasone of two finalists in the 2011 Council of Graduate Schools / ProQuestDistinguished Dissertation in the Humanities award. Bestowed annually since 1982, this nationalcompetition recognizes recent doctoral recipients who have already madeunusually significant and original contributions to their fields. ProQuest, the world's premier dissertation publisher,sponsors the awards and an independent committee from the Council of GraduateSchools selects the winners.

Spring 2012 Syllabi & Office Hours

To Spring 2012 Instructors: Please submit a copy of your course syllabus electronically to Laura at domin047@umn.edu by Friday, January 13th. Please also include the time(s) and day(s) you will be holding office hours for the upcoming semester.

If you plan to apply for FLAS, notify Melanie by January 13th

If you plan to apply for the Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship, please notify Melanie (stein196@umn.edu) by Friday, January 13th. Melanie will then be in contact with you directly regarding internal application deadlines. Click here for more information about the FLAS.

ICGC Brown Bag Discussion

ICGC Brown Bag "Neo-Liberal Higher Education Reform Processes and their Implications to Learning and Teaching at Makerere University" presented by Andrew Ellias on Friday, January 20 12:00pm in 537 Heller Hall. Click here for more info.

Updated International Travel Policy

From Global Programs and Strategic Alliance (GPS): there has been a change to the University Travel Policy, which now requires pre-travel registration of all staff/faculty international travel for University purposes. Staff and faculty are required to register international travel as of January 1, 2012.

Visit http://www.policy.umn.edu/Policies/Finance/Travel/TRAVEL_PROC04.html to register your travel. Although it is a REQUIREMENT to register international travel, GPS reports that the updated policy will make it easier and more efficient to provide travelers with helpful information prior to departure, and to provide travelers with prompt assistance overseas should circumstances demand it. The full policy on travel is available at: http://www.policy.umn.edu/Policies/Finance/Travel/TRAVEL.html. Please feel free to contact Colleen with any questions.

CFP: MCAD Conference

The Minneapolis College of Art and Design seeks proposals for the conference "The Art of Writing" to be held March 29-30th. Conference organizers seek individual and panel proposals from faculty or graduate students involved in teaching, tutoring, or research addressing any aspect of teaching literature, composition, ESL, and creative and/or professional writing. Submission deadline: February 23, 2012.

Site: Minneapolis College of Art and Design
Keynotes: Composition Keynoter Thur. Lunch; Creative Writing Keynoter Fri. Lunch
The conference theme, "The Art of Writing," provides a forum for college and university English instructors to discuss the nuances, complexity, and creativity in literature, composition, and creative writing. The MnCUEW conference provides a platform for sharing diverse pedagogies and styles in teaching literature, composition, writing center work, ESL, and creative and professional writing.
Categories of topics include the following. Please note that some presentations may fall into more than one category.
Categories
1. Composition--Theory, Practice, and Pedagogy
2. Literature, Arts, and Humanities
3. Creative Writing
4. Writing Centers
5. ESOL (ESL/ELL/NNS/EAP/EFL)
6. Scientific, Professional, Technical Writing
7. New Literacies: Information, Digital, and Media Literacy
8. Other/Combined
Submission Requirements Form
* Submission deadline: February 23
* Please use/copy this form, fill in the following information, and send it to writeplace@stcloudstate.edu .
o Name and address of all presenters:
o School or institutional affiliation:
o Proposal Title and abstract (under 50 words):
o Explanation of time/scheduling problems, if any with Thurs. 3-29 or Fri. 3-30:
o AV request (All regular rooms have a presenter computer, overhead projector and screen, and a plug in for a laptop. If you have other special needs such as computer lab or special equipment, please request them here):
o Indicate which category or categories (from list above) is/are the best fit for your presentation (if "combined," please explain which categories are combined):
Questions?
Please send questions about submitting to writeplace@stcloudstate.edu or to Larry.Sklaney@century.edu.
All other questions may go to Larry.Sklaney@century.edu
This program is made possible through a grant with generous funding from the Office of Faculty Development, Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System Office of the Chancellor.

SOC 8501 Spring 2012

SOC 8501 "Sociology of Families Seminar" will be taught this spring semester by Prof. Kathleen Hull on Fridays from 2:30-5:00pm. Click here for a course description.