MELUS NewsNotes

NewsNotes: the Electronic Publication for the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States

Summer 2007

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

LINKS

·  Past Issues

·  MELUS Journal

·  Marshall University

 

EDITORS

·  Dr. Katharine Rodier, NewsNotes Editor
rodier@marshall.edu

·  Dr. Monica Brooks, Technical Editor
brooks@marshall.edu

 

Announcements

Hello, MELUS Members,

Welcome to the Summer 2007 Issue. We hope our blog format provides a more dynamic publishing environment for the sharing of announcements and information among MELUS members. With the blog format, users may also post items and comments for others to view and/or may post time-sensitive items such as CFPs or job announcements. Please limit comments to topics relevant to MELUS or NewsNotes. The editors reserve the right to edit or delete postings.

If you have questions feel free to contact Dr. Katharine Rodier, Professor of English & Director of Graduate Studies, Marshall University, 1 John Marshall Drive, Huntington WV 25755-2646, rodier@marshall.edu or Dr. Monica García Brooks, NewsNotes Technical Editor and Associate Dean of Libraries, Marshall University, brooks@marshall.edu. If you would prefer to receive NewsNotes in print copy or in another format, please contact Monica.

The NewsNotes archive is still located on the main page for the e-publication: http://www.marshall.edu/melus/newsnotes/

Dear Friends:

Please note that this year MELUS will present *two* Lifetime Achievement Awards at the 21st Annual MELUS Conference, March 22-25, 2007, atCSU-Fresno.

Dr. Thadious Davis, the Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American SocialThought and Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania, and Dr.Amritjit Singh, Ohio University, will be honored. Davis, an expert inAfrican American and Southern literatures, has published Games ofProperty: Law, Race, Gender, and Faulkner's Go Down, Moses (2003), NellaLarsen, Novelist of the Harlem Renaissance (1994) and Faulkner's"Negro": Art and the Southern Context (1982); she has edited numerousreference texts, including the Penguin Classic editions of NellaLarsen's Passing (1997) and Quicksand (2002), and co-edited Satire orEvasion: Black Perspectives on Huckleberry Finn (1992).We hope that you will join us as we celebrate Dr. Davis' and Dr. Singh'scontributions to the field of multiethnic literatures later this month.

Sincerely, Dr. Melinda Luisa de Jesús
Associate Professor of Critical Studies and Diversity Studies California College of the Arts http://people.cca.edu/mdejesus

President, MELUS (2006-2009)
https://outlookweb.marshall.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.melus.org

Amritjit Singh, Langston Hughes Professor of English and African American Studies at Ohio University, will receive the 2007 MELUS Lifetime Achievement Award at the 21st Annual MELUS Conference, March 22-25, 2007, at Fresno, CA.

In her letter to Professor Singh of January 24, 2007, Melinda L. de Jesus, the current MELUS President, noted that the MELUS Executive Committee had a particularly difficult time making their decision in view of many terrific nominees in the field of US multiethnic literature. MELUS Lifetime Achievement Awardees receive a MELUS lifetime membership, as well as a plaque commemorating their achievements in ethnic American literary scholarship. Past MELUS Lifetime Achievement Awardees include scholars such as Barbara Christian, Nellie McKay, Blyden Jackson, Dan Walden, John M. Reilly, Eric Sundquist, as well as poet Michael S. Harper and novelist John Edgar Wideman. When asked how he feels about the award, Dr. Singh said he feels both honored and humbled to be in such distinguished company. MELUS (Society for the Study of Multi-Ethnic Literature) is a national organization of college and university professors committed to expanding the definition and canon of American Literature through “the study and teaching of African American, Latino/a American, Native American, Asian American, and ethnically-specific European American literary works, their authors and their cultural contexts.” Founded in 1973, MELUS, its annual conference and its journal have become major forums for scholarship on ethnic American literatures. Professor Singh served as MELUS President from 1994 to 1997, as the Deputy Editor of its journal from 1987 to 1999, and as its Program Chair from 1988 to 1990. During his leadership, MELUS chapters were launched in Europe and India and those two organizations have had several successful international conferences. His scholarship includes several books on the Harlem Renaissance, two influential co-edited volumes on the uses of memory in ethnic American literature, and a pioneering co-edited volume, Postcolonial Theory and the United States (2000), which explores the relationship between postcolonial studies and ethnic American Studies. In 2004, he co-edited with Professor C. Lok Chua, a 600-page special double number of MELUS focused on “Pedagogy, Canon, and Context” to honor the legacy of MELUS Founder, the late Katharine D. Newman.

 

Link to the official MELUS Conference site: http://webspace.ship.edu/kmlong/melus/  

SAVE THE DATE: the 2008 annual conference will be held at Ohio State University from March 28-30.

2007 CONFERENCE
MELUS--Society for the Study of
the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the U.S.

Theme: "Work, Migration, and Globalization: Contested Journeys in Multi-Ethnic US Literature"

21st Annual Conference

22-25 March 2007
Fresno, California

 

Keynote speaker: Luis Valdez

Host: College of Arts and Humanities,
California State University, Fresno

posted by Dr. Monica G. Brooks at 7:54 AM | 0 Comments   

MELUS EC Minutes

MELUS Executive Council Meeting
MLA Convention
Philadelphia, PA
December 29, 2006

Convened: 6:00pm
Present: Martha Cutter, Melinda De Jesus, Wenxin Li, Kim Long, Derek Royal, Steve Tanaka, Jose Torres Padilla.
1. Membership Chair Report
1.1 Membership numbers down 6.75% from last year.
1.2 Significantly lower complaints about website membership.
1.3 Membership deadline is December 31st of every year.
1.4 See reports attached.
2. Journal
2.1 Raised subscription rates for Institutions: $80 domestic; $90 international.
2.2 Summer and Fall issues coming out; catching up on backlog.
2.3 Taylor and Francis proposal: EC will continue studying it and proposes to reach a decision at Fresno.
3. Conference at Fresno
3.1 Lifetime Achievement Awards will be presented at luncheon.
3.2 EC approved presenting Awards at annual MELUS conference, rather than MLA.
3.3 Award recipients to be decided at annual MLA EC meeting.
3.4 EC breakfast meeting at Fresno will be on Friday, 23rd, 2007.
3.5 EC voted down travel grants for international scholars.
3.6 Discussion ensued regarding possible future conference sites, especially for ’08.
The following possible sites were suggested:
University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras
Miami University (Ohio)
Pennsylvania Consortium
Washington State
SUNY Plattsburgh (for 2010)

4. MELUS Panels
4.1 First time MELUS had a panel at the American Fiction Symposium in San Diego, CA, September, 2006.
4.2 One panel scheduled at the 20th Century Literature Conference in Louisville, KY, February, 2007.
4.3 Call for papers for two panels at ALA conference in Boston , May, 2007. One open call; the other is on graphic narrative.
4.4 Two sessions for MLA ‘07: 1) Translation/Nation and 2) Eco Feminism and Multiethnic Lit. Call will appear in MLA newsletter.
5. Treasurer’s Report
5.1 Society is solvent; see report attached.
6. Election Guidelines
6.1 Final decision on proposal to revise election guidelines tabled until Fresno.

7. Graduate Student Representative
7.1 Discussion ensued on the Graduate Student Travel award. Topics included number of awards and amounts; who will do the work selecting the winners; criteria and mechanism; start date.
7.2 MELUS will offer $500 for two travel grants for first-time grad students at $250 each.
7.3 Steve Tanaka will draw up criteria based on 4C’s Scholar of the Dream Award.
He and former Grad Student Reps to evaluate the submissions along with perhaps another EC member.
7.4 The goal is to offer the first awards in 2008.

Adjourned: 7:50 pm.

Respectfully submitted by
Jose L. Torres Padilla
Secretary

Membership Chair’s Report & Agenda Items
Prepared by Derek Parker Royal, December 2006
Reports, Accomplishments, and Issues since MELUS Conference in April

Year end membership numbers are down 6.75% from what they were in 2005 (see separate sheet with membership statistics)

As of December 26, we already have 145 members for 2006
o Of that number, 92 have joined since 1 November, 51 are lifetime members, and 2 are institutional members
o At this time in 2005, we had 130 members joining for 2006
Last printing of the MELUS brochure was December 2006. Enough copies (100) were printed for the MLA Convention. There will be minor changes in the MELUS brochure in time for the March 2007 conference.
o As with last year, I feel that not enough brochures are going out to different conferences. I’ve tried to have individual MELUS members to carry brochures to the various conferences that they attend, but this doesn’t seem to be working. We need to devise other means of distributing brochures at conferences and similar events.
Other societies use bookmarks to advertise. Is this something we might want to look into?
Membership and the MELUS Web page
o I have experienced significantly fewer membership complaints or problems since the MELUS Web page was redesigned by Kim Martin Long and JoAnne Rivoli. This is a very good thing.
o I’ve not only updated the online membership application, but I’ve changed the layout to be more streamlined and more readable
Membership and the Annual Conference
o I am still hearing about problems spawned by last year’s conference host, FAU. Even as late as November, 2006 members who sent their membership fees/forms to the host university were still reporting that they weren’t getting their issues of the journal.
o Over the past few months I have been in constant contact with Lok Chua about membership issues and the Fresno conference in March. He has worked with me on making sure that attendees at the conference know that MELUS membership and conference fees go to two different places.

In both 2005 and 2006, waiving or reducing conference fees for graduate students significantly increased membership numbers. As I did last December, I recommend that this be something we consider on an ongoing basis, that is, if the option continues to be financially feasible.
This year there has been an increase in the number of MELUS members who have had questions surrounding early membership (i.e., those joining later in the year not being sure whether membership is for the calendar year or for 12 months since the time of joining). As per our constitution, membership runs the calendar year from January 1 to December 31. And, as in the past, I count all membership fees coming in after November 1 toward the next calendar year. Still, there are members who are unsure about (or unhappy with) our current year-end policies concerning membership, and along with that, journal subscription. This is something that Martha Cutter and I have discussed, since these issues affect the journal as well as membership, and I would like for us to discuss the possibility of changing our membership policies.

posted by Dr. Monica G. Brooks at 7:48 AM | 0 Comments   

Calls for Papers & Presentations

Native American Literature: "Traditional Stories / Literary Stories." What happens when Native Americans shift from traditional oral story-telling to writing narratives in various literary styles? How do works influenced by non-Native stylistics portray or depict Native American cultures, values, attitudes, visions, and philosophy? Is, for example, Native American autobiography a contradiction in terms? What are the effects of blending cultures in Native American writings? What are the gains of literacy (the written word)? What are the losses?

Cambridge Scholars Publishing is interested in a collection of essays about Native American stories and story-telling from a variety of areas, including biography, autobiography, fiction, video, traditional story-telling and legend, etc.

If you are interested, contact Janet LaBrie or Peggy Rozga, University of Wisconsin-Waukesha, jlabrie@uwc.edu or Peggy Rozga, mrozga@uwc.edu about your focus and the type of stories you would be working with.

Deadline for proposals – April 21, 2007
Deadline for completed essays – August 1, 2007.

Janet LaBrie & Peggy Rozga
UW-Waukesha
1500 North University Drive
Waukesha, WI 53188-2799


Announcing the 23rd Annual Symposium on
African American Culture & Philosophy
Held in conjunction with the
Annual Meeting of the Alain L. Locke Society
Harlem Renaissance: Aesthetics, Values, and Identity
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Arnold Rampersad
Stewart Center • Purdue University • West Lafayette, Indiana 47906
November 1-3, 2007

We are seeking individual papers and panel submissions on topics related to the Harlem Renaissance. We particularly welcome complete panel submissions with discussants. We also encourage alternative formats such as roundtables, performances, and “author meets critics” discussions of new scholarship in Harlem Renaissance Studies. Possible topics include, but are not limited to the following:

v Anthologizing the Harlem Renaissance
v Sites and Sounds of Harlem
v Intersections between the Harlem Renaissance and the Chicago Renaissance
v The Role of Community Institutions during the Harlem Renaissance
v The Politics of Identity vs the Politics of Class
v Gender/Sexualities and the Harlem Renaissance
v Questions of Patronage and Ownership of the Cultural Voice
v The Aftermath/legacy of the Harlem Renaissance

In addition to papers on various aspects of the Harlem Renaissance, we seek papers and panels focused on Alain Locke. Possible topics include, but are not limited to the following:

v Value Theory
v Reconciliation, Respect, and Tolerance
v Reciprocity and Cosmopolitanism
v Aesthetics: Literature, Art, and Sculpture

Individual abstracts should be 250 words or less and panel abstracts should be 750 words or less. Abstracts should be submitted by Tuesday, May 1st, 2006. Please include institutional and e-mail addresses for all participants.

Send Harlem Renaissance Submissions to:
AASRC 23rd Annual Symposium
Beering Hall, Room 6182
100 North University Street
West Lafayette, IN 47907
aasrc@purdue.edu
(If sending by electronic mail, please use Symposium Abstract” as the subject line)
For additional information about the Center visit our website at:
http://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/idis/african-american/

Send Alain L. Locke Society Submissions to:
Arnold Farr
St. Joseph's University
Department of Philosophy • 5600 City Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19131
farr@mailhost.sju.edu
(If sending by electronic mail, please use “Locke Abstract” as the subject line)
For additional information about the Alain Leroy Locke Society visit our website at:
https://outlookweb.marshall.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.alainlocke.com/


Abstracts are invited for the Seventh Native American Symposium to be held November 1-2, 2007 at Southeastern Oklahoma State University in Durant, Oklahoma.

Our last symposium in 2005 featured over 75 presentations from across the United States, Canada, Russia, and Taiwan. We are hoping to attract even more this year. The symposium theme is The Oklahoma Centennial: Sixty-Seven Nations and Counting, but papers, presentations, panel sessions, and creative productions addressing all aspects of Native American studies are welcome, including history, literature, law, medicine, education, religion, politics, social sciences, and fine arts. The keynote speaker will be Rennard Strickland, a distinguished expert in Native American legal issues. All papers presented at the symposium will be eligible for inclusion in a volume of published proceedings. Send abstracts of 250 words or less by June 15, 2005 in either electronic (preferred) or hard-copy form to Dr. Mark B. Spencer, Department of English, Humanities, and Languages, Box 4121, Southeastern Oklahoma State University, Durant, OK 74701-0609, mspencer@sosu.edu.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS FOR A SPECIAL ISSUE
Teaching Material Culture
Deadline Extended: 30 April 2007

The editors of Transformations seek articles (5,000 – 10,000 words) and media reviews (books, film, video, performance, art, music, etc. – 3,000 to 5,000 words) that explore the significance and uses of material culture in a variety of contexts, pedagogical—from the classroom to the museum—and disciplinary—literature, women’s and gender studies, anthropology, folklore, history, psychology, sociology, art, photography, geography, religion, working-class studies, ethnic studies, cultural studies, science, and others. Essays should raise questions concerning, for example, authenticity, art, craft, tradition, community, or authority in relationship to the teaching of material culture Multidisciplinary approaches that focus on—or include—discussions of non-Western cultures are especially encouraged. Autobiographical criticism, narrative scholarship, photo-essays, and experimental work are welcome.

Topics might include: teaching material culture in K-12 and higher education; museums and the appropriation and transformation of material culture; gender and technology; the politics and pedagogy of the archive; material culture and folklore; artifacts and identities; material culture and family/domesticity; food rituals/celebrations; the transmission of material culture in diasporic communities; history and interpretation of public spaces; intersections and manifestations of identities; clothes, costumes, fashion, and body politics; religious practices; music and performance; practices and politics of memorializing; the material construction of public events; make-overs and reality television; class and taste; globalization, tourism, and transnationalism.

Send a hard copy in MLA format (6th ed.) and a 250-word abstract to: Jacqueline Ellis and Edvige Giunta, Editors, Transformations, New Jersey City University, Hepburn Hall Room 309, 2039 Kennedy Boulevard, Jersey City, NJ 07305 OR email submissions and inquiries to: transformations@njcu.edu. Email submissions should be sent as attachments in MS Word or Rich Text format. For submission guidelines go to www.njcu.edu/assoc/transformations.

Published semi-annually by New Jersey City University

Nuestra América in the US? A US Latina/o Studies Conference

Plenary Speakers include: Helena María Viramontes, Under the Feet of Jesus and Their Dogs Came With Them; Emma Pérez, Gulf Dreams and The Decolonial Imaginary: Writing Chicanas into History; Juan Flores, From Bomba to Hip Hop: Puerto Rican Culture and Latino Identity and Divided Borders: Essays on Puerto Rican Identity; Roberto Suro, Strangers Among Us: Latino Lives in a Changing America and Watching America's Door: The Immigration Backlash and the New Policy Debate

According to the results of the 2000 census, Latinos are now the largest minority "group" in the US. This interdisciplinary conference seeks to explore the implications for communities, labor, politics, education, and cultural production of the latest waves of Latino immigration. Themes of interest include immigration, transnationalism and transnational behaviors, pan-ethnicity, immigrant children in the educational system, the (re)formulation of racial and ethnic identities, Latinos and labor practices, marketing to Latino/a consumers, Latino/a media, Latinos and the law, political activism and coalition, immigrant rights efforts, community organizations serving Latino populations, and the impact of "Latinization" on US culture. Papers in all disciplines will be accepted. Please see website for more detailed information coming soon: https://outlookweb.marshall.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.continuinged.ku.edu/programs/latino_studies/ .

Send 200-word abstracts (by September 15) and inquiries to:
Prof. Marta Caminero-Santangelo English Department, 3116 Wescoe Hall 1445 Jayhawk Blvd University of Kansas Lawrence, KS 66045 camsan@ku.edu; (785) 864-2394
Deadline September 15, 2007

MARGINALIZING THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION.

In its own time the Haitian Revolution (1791-1803) was a cataclysmic event that rivaled the French Revolution in its impact upon the Americas and Europe. But has it received the same literary treatment as that contemporary European event? What did the Haitian Revolution mean in the early nineteenth-century, and what does it mean now? Has its significance been repressed by black Atlantic and/or Western writers?

Proposals from scholars are invited for 20-minute papers on this topic at a Special Session of the 2007 South Atlantic Modern Language Association Convention to be held in Atlanta from Nov. 9-11, 2007. Please send 250-word abstracts by June 1, 2007, to Christine Gallant, Professor, Department of English, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia, 30303, at cgallant@gsu.edu. Dr. Christine GallantProfessor of EnglishGeorgia State Universityphone: 404-654-6135fax: 404-651-1710email: cgallant@gsu.edumailing address: Department of EnglishP.O. Box 3970Atlanta, GA 30302-3970

posted by Dr. Monica G. Brooks at 7:07 AM | 0 Comments   

Book Announcements

Oz in Perspective: Magic and Myth in the L. Frank Baum Books.

In it, I treat all fourteen of Baum's full-length Oz books in chronological order. I also have some general chapters on Baum's Oz books. I give close readings of each, examining the works in terms of patterns within them, especially mythic patterns. I also place many of the books in terms of their contexts in American literature, world literature, Baum's other works, and the times in which they were written. My readings tend to produce a darker vision of Baum's Oz books than most critics see. In the course of the book, I also examine Baum's racism.

The book costs $35.00. It can be ordered from McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, Box 611, Jefferson, NC 28640 https://outlookweb.marshall.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.mcfarlandpub.com.

Richard Tuerk
rtuerk250@earthlink.net

BEYOND LITERARY CHINATOWN
Jeffrey Partridge(University of Washington Press, May 2007, $24.95 paper)

The phenomenon of “literary Chinatown”--the ghettoization of Chinese American literature--was produced by the same dynamics of race and representation that ghettoized the Chinese American community into literal Chinatowns. Jeffrey Partridge examines the dynamic relationship between reader expectations of Chinese American literature and the challenges to these expectations posed by recent Chinese American texts. Arguing that authors like Kingston, Li-Young Lee, Gish Jen, Shawn Wong, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, and David Wong Louie are aware of their readers' horizons and write to challenge those assumptions, Partridge demonstrates how their writings function as a potent medium of cultural transformation.

For more information about the book, including the table of contents, please visit: http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/PARBEY.html

-- Beth DeWeeseDirect Marketing Manager

University of Washington Press
PO Box 50096
Seattle, WA 98145-5096
206-221-5890
206-543-3932 (fax)
edeweese@u.washington.edu
Sign up for our e-mail notification program at:
www.washington.edu/uwpress
Order by phone: 1-800-441-4115 (or 206-543-8870)
Order by fax: 1-800-669-7993 (or 206-543-3932)

posted by Dr. Monica G. Brooks at 7:06 AM | 0 Comments   

A Tribute to Fred Gardaphé

The Sway of the Long ‘E’ Pronounced ‘A’;
or Mustache Fred Takes over the Letters Racket

An Extraordinarily Modest Tribute to Fred Gardaphé on the Occasion of his Stepping Down as President of MehLUS, I mean MeeLUS, I mean MayLUS.

In a backroom, the goombahs, the gangsters, the toughs
tried to cook up a racket – they hadn’t enough.
Said one sage old elder, palsied but game,
"I know a young guy – I’ll tell you his name.
He’s that kid with the mustache – you know how he looks –
the one who keeps reading all of those books.
You know, thing of ours, whom I’m going to say:
If we want a new racket, think Fred Gardaphé."

"Hmmm," said one capo. "Not bad," said a boss.
"What’s the gig," said another. "How much will it cost?"

"It’s new," said the old one, in a voice full of money.
"It’s never been done and might strike you as funny.
You all know quite well where the big dollars come:
There is bootleg and sharking – they make a small sum
There is fencing, extortion, and RICO offenses,
and they’re not all bad for the dollars and centses.
But as you all know, unless you have slumbered,
the best of them all is control of the numbers."

Then he paused for effect and all sat still in their chairs.
They offered respect with their silence and stares.

"With this Gardaphé on board, we can do it one better –
With Fred in the mob, we can move into letters."

They jumped up and applauded; the room fairly shook.
But that’s how it started, a prof who made book.
From that fateful start, Fred started to rise;
soon hanging out with Wise Men and Wise Guys.
His successes were many; he knew no defeats.
He moved in quite soon on old Mustache Pete.

But the job they remember – they still talk about it –
is the way that he muscled on multi-eth-lit.
"It’s so simple," he said over grappa one night.
"We can own the whole show if we handle it right.
As a kid I was no one – please don’t all laugh.
My name in those days was just Fred Gar-daph.
Then I discovered the long ‘e’ pronounced ‘a’.
That’s how I transformed into Fred Gardaphé.
This outfit I know of is ripe for the same.
The dopes who are in it keep mangling the name.
They’re so much pushovers, they almost compel us –
They use a short ‘e’ and pro-nounce it MehLUS.
The first step we take – it’s simple, you’ll see,
is to force them to pay to use the long ‘e’.
There’s nothing to it, no wild card to deal us.
We get them to think they must call themselves MeeLUS.
We’ll soak them for two years until they are paid up,
then tell them again that their accent is made up.
With this racket of ours, we again make them pay
and collect more than double once they change to long ‘a’.
It’s perfectly legal – no way they could jail us.
We make our millions when they call themselves MayLUS."

With a cackle he wrapped up, and just as he said,
the multi-eth-lit gang took Fred as its head.

Now three years later, his fortunes are made.
The mob’s in the clear, and no one’s afraid.
The grand juries are wrapped up, the DAs are retired.
"There weren’t no crimes here – nothing transpired."

Again in that backroom, the gangsters and toughs
are talking together and making things up.
But one thing they all know, they’ve all gladly said:
"We owe all our insights to Professor Fred.
He’s a writer, a teacher, a scholarly crook,
and he’s safe in his hideout in old Stony Brook."

So as we look now to a new MELUS day,
we thank our Godfather, Fred Gardaphé.

-- Joe Kraus
The University of Scranton

posted by Dr. Monica G. Brooks at 7:02 AM | 0 Comments   

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http://www.ship.edu/~kmlong/melus/
NewsNotes@Marshall University
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Brooks@marshall.edu (c) 2007 by MGB