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Welcome to the Winter 2000 edition of NewsNotes

MLA Special Issue

In this issue:

     Welcome to the Special MLA issue of MELUS NewsNotes.  In addition to several descriptions of other upcoming events, including the MELUS 2001 Conference in Knoxville, Tennessee, you will find in this issue of NewsNotes information about the December MLA conference in Washington, DC.  As listed in Announcements, MELUS will sponsor two sessions during MLA; we feature abstracts from the panelists in a separate section of this issue.  Please note also the many interesting Calls for Papers and Articles, grouped together at the beginning of the Announcements section.

 In addition, we hope that you plan to attend the annual MELUS dinner at MLA, also described in its own entry.  Happy holidays!

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    If you have ideas for ways to enlarge our Table of Contents, send suggestions to: Dr. Katharine Rodier, Associate Professor of English, Marshall University, 400 Hal Greer Blvd., Huntington WV 25755-2646, rodier@marshall.edu.  Monica García Brooks, Associate Dean of Libraries and our Technical Editor, has outlined subscription information for future issues. If you would prefer to receive NewsNotes in print copy or in another format, please let us know.

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

On Our 15th Annual Conference (Knoxville, March 1-4, 2001)
from Bonnie TuSmith, MELUS President

In anticipation of the upcoming 2001 MELUS conference in Knoxville, Tennessee, permit me to share some thoughts with you.  For openers, I believe that a conference dedicated to “taking stock” of our field is especially timely.  For those of us who have committed a significant part of our professional lives to the study of ethnic American literatures, the conference enables us to articulate what the attraction has been.  We might ask ourselves, why do we devote so much time and energy to the artistic creations of a handful of culturally and racially identified writers?  To what extent is the study of multiethnic literature of the US central to the greater educational enterprise?  For the relative newcomer a slightly different question might pose itself: Should an interest in a body of ethnic works become one’s career?  Our fifteenth annual conference offers an opportunity to ask such hard questions; it invites us to share our thoughts with colleagues from across the nation and abroad.

My hope for this conference is that we choose to be brave.  Academics are not known as great risk-takers.  However, taking part in a MELUS conference does put us ahead of our more traditional colleagues in this respect.  After all, “multiethnic” is cross-cultural, and crossing cultures is risky.  After the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s, we would like to think that we now live in a “colorblind” society.  The literatures that we create and study, however, often contest this notion.  The expectation from certain quarters that our racial profiles match the literature that we study makes things even more complicated.  And so on and so forth . . .

To address these and other issues let us take the 2-3 days that we steal from our other commitments to really engage one another both intellectually and personally.  I have always liked the title of Gregory Jay’s essay, “Taking Multiculturalism Personally.”  And why not?  Becoming personal is caring enough to engage each other in honest dialogue.  It is a sign of health in our profession.  Learning to listen to one another is even healthier.  The speakers, readers, and facilitators we have lined up for this conference (John Wideman to read and keynote on the conference theme, LaVonne Ruoff to facilitate a roundtable discussion, Shay Youngblood to conduct a writing workshop and address the Women of Color Caucus—to name a few) will help steer us in the right direction.  As MELUS President, I will also share the responsibility of shaking things up a bit in my presidential address.  Shay’s use of the down-home term, “shakin’ the mess out of misery,” identifies my open agenda for this conference.  I believe that the expansive and inclusive philosophy at the core of MELUS offers a positive and constructive model of interaction.

Professor Donna Sherwood and Vice President Ron Bailey of Knoxville College are both doing an outstanding job of ensuring a memorable—and fun!—conference.  Please, everyone—remember that we are all—MELUS officers and conference conveners, faculty and administrators—volunteering our time for a common cause.  If you see something that needs to be done, pitch in and do it!  I would not have written a book on “community in ethnic literatures” if I didn’t believe that building community was possible.

For those of you who can’t make the conference, please send someone in your place!

PS:  If you think your department or institution might like to support the organization by becoming a MELUS Patron, please email me at < btusmith@hotmail.com >.  I have a letter of invitation to Patrons ready to go!  I also have an 8-page “Guidelines for Hosting a MELUS Conference” document available upon request.

CONFERENCE 2001

THE 15TH ANNUAL MELUS 2001 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
RADISSON SUMMIT HILL HOTEL
Knoxville, Tennessee
PH: 865/522-2600  FAX: 865/523-7200
March 1-4, 2001

 The Society for the Study of Multiethnic Literatures of the United States will hold its 15th annual conference in Knoxville, Tennessee, March 1-4, 2001.  The MELUS 2001 International Conference will be hosted by Knoxville College.  Vice President of Academic Affairs Ron Bailey will preside as convener and Professor Donna Sherwood of the English Department will chair the conference steering committee.

Conference Theme:
The theme of the conference is “Taking Stock of Multiethnic Literatures.”  Gaining recognition for the study of U.S. ethnic literatures and cultures has been an ongoing struggle built upon personal commitment and honest and open dialogue.  The first wave of this revolution involved putting neglected authors and works in print and making room for all populations within our institutions.  This immensely important work of establishing and defining the field will continue for the foreseeable future.  The second wave must be equally passionate and ongoing: assessing the value of these texts and sharing our judgments about them through our roles as teachers, scholars, students, activists, writers and readers.

We invite paper abstracts and complete panel, workshop, and roundtable proposals on all aspects of multiethnic literatures of the United States, but especially ones that discuss or engage in evaluation—of texts, authors, traditions, ideas, pedagogies, institutions, hierarchies, policies, methods, theories, styles, and so forth.  Some questions to consider (but not be limited by):
  What constitutes “great” or “significant” multiethnic texts and why? Who determines literary value today—editors, teachers, students, the reading public? How important is a shared tradition?  To whom and why?  When a homogenous culture cannot be taken for granted, what can take its place? With the proliferation of diverse texts for study, are common criteria possible? When the primary goal is greater inclusiveness, is evaluation desirable? Does opening up the canon promote the deterioration of standards?  If not, why has the charge gained currency? Assuming that literary standards are still necessary, how do we go about establishing them? Is postmodernism about eliminating all standards and judgments?


For information, please contact:

Please include full contact information and mail or fax to:
Prof. Donna Sherwood, Chair
MELUS 2001 Conference Steering Committee
English Department, Knoxville College
901 Knoxville College Drive
Knoxville, TN 37921
Phone (865) 524-6665
Fax (865) 524-6631
Email: sherwood@utkux.utcc.utk.edu

MELUS - MLA Panel Preview

MELUS Sessions at 2000 MLA Convention

Thursday, 29 December, 12 noon-1:15 p.m. Session 221

"Ethnic Communities and Urban Spaces," Park Tower Suite 8217, Marriott Wardman Park.

Presiding: Bonnie TuSmith, Northeastern University

Panelists:  Reginald Scott Young, Wheaton College

"Angels All Around: The Hood as Domestic Space in Jess Mowry's Way Past Cool"

Abstract:

    There is a growing tendency influenced by the economic prosperity of recent times to view the plight of the poor and undereducated in the nation's ethnic and minority communities with decreasing sympathy. In Way Past Cool, which has, so far, been largely overlooked by the gaze of scholars, Jess Mowry explores such a community, one where urban youths are forced to play out their lives in a dark and restricted space that makes each of them feel trapped with no real means to escape.  As one character puts it, they are "caged and dying slowly, and not caring any longer to test the bars."  Few at the top of the social pyramid that the novel depicts are willing to look at the lives of these characters with a sympathetic eye, as they react with indignation at the single paragraph stories in the local newspapers about the so-called senseless violence that takes place daily in
the inner city.

    In my paper, I will examine the domestic space portrayed in Mowry's novel as the "hood," where kids, for their own well being and protection, are forced to find bonds of kinship in city streets and not in the shelter of upscale high-rise apartment buildings or single-family suburban houses.  As virtual orphans and members of highly dysfunctional families in the most feudalistic sector of American society, the members of the Friends, a non-stereotypical inner-city gang, regard their turf as both the psychic and physical space that they identify as home-an environment that offers potential security and relative happiness.   I will argue that the deadly battle waged by the Friends, along with their allies the Crew, against a diabolical sixteen year-old  drug lord who wants to take over their space is an act of righteous resistance and not senseless urban violence because the boyz are attempting to resist the invasion of one who would subjugate the hood with a slavish addiction that no one from the outside world would be willing to help them overcome.  Jaye T. Darby, University of California, Los Angeles   "(Re)Locations in Native Theater:  Negotiating and Performing Native Landscapes within Urban Spaces"

Abstract:

    Beginning in the 1950's with governmental termination and relocation policies, large numbers of Native Americans were displaced from their lands, homes, and traditions and relocated in urban areas, where today over sixty-five percent of Native Americans live. Taking an ecological view, based on Native conceptions of home, this paper looks at how recent Native drama both negotiates and performs relocation as displacement from the land and as an opportunity to redefine Native landscapes - geographic, political, cultural, and spiritual. The first section of the essay suggests that a growing body of work in Native theater contests the devastating consequences of relocation policies and the subsequent forced assimilation, and performs an alternative, what I call a creative process of (re)location - Native resistance, reclamation, recovery, and renewal on stage. By way of example, the paper analyzes two works by leading Native playwrights: Foghorn by Hanay Geiogamah, Kiowa-Delaware, and SongCatcher: A Native Perspective on Frances Densmore, Ethnomusicologist, by Marcie Rendon, White Earth Anishinaabe. In my analysis of the two plays, I suggest that while Foghorn and SongCatcher approach relocation from different perspectives, the first through pan-Indian political activism and the second through Ojibwe spirituality, they both perform homecomings and in doing so stage Native (re)locations.

Mary Paniccia Carden, Southeastern Oklahoma State University

"'If the City was a Man': Founders and Fathers, Cities and Sons in John Edgar Wideman's _Philadelphia Fire_"

Abstract:

    In John Edgar Wideman's _Philadelphia Fire_, the American city appears as map and metaphor for the colonial past and (post)colonial present that materialize black men as the dispossessed sons of white fathers. Wideman underlines the centrality of colonial discourses in contemporary lives when he situates William Penn's founding vision of Philadelphia as "a green Country Town, [which] will never be burnt, and always be wholesome" beside what he considers the defining moment of Philadelphia's recent past: the 1985 fire-bombing of the townhouse occupied by the African American communal group MOVE. The novel's multiple narrators construct and reconstruct city spaces as they intersect with black male identity.  Philadelphia's raced spaces maintain and extend, resist and rearrange colonial hierarchies.  The city embodies Penn's colonial order, the "perfect understanding between parts" that proposes the mythic security of citizenship. MOVE, however, creates an alternate "green garden" of brotherly love; the narrators experience contemporary Philadelphia as immobile and impotent, "a sure-enough patient laid out on a table," as a jungle, a "garbage dump," and the "Third World."  I will draw on the work of Homi K. Bhabha and Wideman's Fatheralong to explore this shifting and layered locale in which the narrators share the pain of interrupted father-son relations. Historical discourses of citizenship and productions of city space are implicated in the white nation's intervention between black fathers and sons, but _Philadelphia Fire_ posits the refusal of amnesia around colonial events and narratives as a form of apocalypse, as the new founding vision capable of "dreaming the city" into a renewed racial order and thus of "changing the world."

Saturday, 30 December, 10:15-11:30 a.m. Session 754

"The 'New Negro' Away from Harlem," Park Tower Suite 8218, Marriott Wardman Park.

 Presiding: Amritjit Singh, Rhode Island College

Panelists:  Marcy L. Tanter, Tarleton State University

"Paul Robeson: An Image of the 'New Negro'"

Abstract:

    This paper discusses Paul Robeson as the epitome of Alain Locke's image of the New Negro and how Robeson even exceeds the image with his concern for all citizens of the world, especially the oppressed.  The significance of Robeson's connection to Locke is that while Locke was looking within the Harlem community for artists to continuing lifting Dubois's veil, Robeson stepped out of Harlem and the entire world looked to him with respect. Robeson's writings became inspirational for several generations, particularly with young black men, despite the United States government's fear of Robeson's quest for equality among all people.  Robeson studies have been revived in the last several years and he is being appreciated as never before.

Katharine Capshaw Smith, Florida International. University

"Southern Sisters of the New Negro Renaissance:  Finding a Voice through Children's Literature"

Abstract:

    As the black intellectual and creative elite constructed an innovative cultural identity during the "New Negro Renaissance," it did so in opposition to stereotypes handed down from a racist southern literary tradition.  While the "Old Negro" was illiterate, the New Negro was exceptionally well-versed in literary tradition, like Countee Cullen who modeled his work on John Keats; while the "Old Negro" was obsequious and childlike, the New Negro wrote passionate political protests against lynching and Jim Crow laws, as did Du Bois in _The Crisis_; while the "Old Negro" was provincially southern, the New Negro was cosmopolitan and progressive in taste, as was the well-traveled Alain Locke.  Urbane, northern, sophisticated, and largely male, the New Negro Renaissance, particularly in Harlem, forged a specific and somewhat exclusive sphere of influence.  However, throughout the South, female writers with familial and ideological connections to the Harlem movement articulated their own visions of modern black cultural identity and achievement. Unlike some of their northern counterparts, female writers celebrated connections to southern agricultural labor, extended family, and folk culture.  As members of one of the few professions open to educated black women, teaching, these writers passionately served the newest of Negroes and the best hope for extended political and social change: African American children.  Women writers in the South maintained, as did Carter G. Woodson in _The Mis-Education of the Negro_ (1933), that teachers should "revolutionize the social order for the good of the community."  By addressing children, women in the South asserted their voice within the national debate over black literary and social progress, a feminist and "childist" voice unfortunately elided by literary history.

    This paper will examine the intersecting visions of three female writers who address children: Effie Lee Newsome, Rose Leary Love, and Bessie Woodson Yancey.  While to scholars Newsome remains an unknown figure, readers of _The Crisis_ had been exposed to her work since 1915 in frequent publications of poetry and prose for children.  In fact, Du Bois's 1923 yearly list of race "Debit and Credit" cites four important African American poets: "Hughes, Cullen, Lee-Newsome and Toomer." The fact that in her day Newsome numbered as the only woman among the three most commemorated poets of the New Negro Renaissance speaks to her contemporary impact within the black literary community and her formative influence on a child readership.  Writing _The Crisis_'s monthly "Little Page" from March 1925 to November 1930 from Birmingham, Alabama, Newsome at first glance appears to construct the natural world as a rustic retreat from racial contention and social issues. However, Newsome often punctures her idyllic descriptions with images of social discord; through metaphors from the natural world, Newsome combats prejudice by instilling racial pride in her child audience.  Rose Leary Love also valorizes the southern terrain and its potential to transform the black child's self image in _Nebraska and His Granny_ (1936).  With relatives like Hiram Revels, the first African American to join the U.S. Senate, uncle Lewis Sheridan Leary, who died in John Brown's 1859 raid on Harper's Ferry, and cousin Langston Hughes, Love certainly was familiar with black literary and political accomplishment.  But as a southern woman, Love had fewer opportunities than her male relatives. Instead of travel or political action, she turned her social and artistic energies toward the children of Charlotte, North Carolina, where she lived and taught for thirty-nine years.  In Nebraska, Love reveals her faith in the integrity of southern agricultural life by identifying a strong and healthy child with the vitality and significance of his farm, a linkage which inextricably binds the black child to the southern landscape, and invests both with the dignity of the other.

    Similarly, historian Carter G. Woodson's sister, Bessie Woodson Yancey, spent time as a teacher in Appalachia.  Her poetry in _Echoes from the Hills_ (1939) acknowledges the vexed social situation of black children in Huntington, West Virginia, during the 1930s. Yancey's poetry bridges the gap between literate children and unschooled adults by conjoining signifying "schoolbook" poetry with dialect verse which honors black oral and ritual traditions, such as storytelling, courting, and cooking.   For Yancey, the New Negro child is multiply literate, able to negotiate the demands of the classroom without sacrificing the cultural identity of the home.  Yancey writes against the invisibility modern critics like Edward J. Cabbell still witness in the black Appalachian community, presenting self-definitions which play against each other, offering layer upon layer of counter-discourses to any simplistic definition of Affrilachia.  Perhaps the earliest example of Affrilachian children's literature, Yancey's volume both celebrates and questions the contributions of black West Virginians to its railroads and mines; her child characters straddle the border between veneration of emancipated work and the pointed avoidance of physical labor through literacy and escape into a joyous immersion in nature. By offering alternative visions, Yancey comments on the impossibility of offering a uniform identity for a richly-diverse region in flux and reveals her sensitivity to the black Appalachian child's complicated racial and regional identities.  Exploring the multiple achievements of southern children's literature, the essay helps revise constructions of the New Negro Renaissance which emphasize adult and northern urban literatures.  By attending to Newsome, Love, and Yancey, we begin to hear the lost voices of New Negro Renaissance in all of their keys and cadences.

MELUS - MLA Abstracts

American Indian Theater in Performance: A Reader. Edited by Hanay Geiogamah and Jaye T. Darby. Los Angeles: UCLA American Indian Studies Center, 2000. $20 paper (ISBN 0-935626-52-2), 414 pages.

    “American Indian Theater in Performance: A Reader is the first comprehensive volume to present the views of leading playwrights, directors, scholars, and educators in contemporary Native theater. This groundbreaking collection of recent and earlier writings serves as both an overview of the field and a source book for further study and performance. Locating Native theater within the rich contexts of Native communities, tribal sources of creativity, performance traditions, and artistic innovations, the articles and interviews in this reader provide historical context and offer perspectives on directing, dramaturgy, and new play development in Native theater.”

    Contributors include Paula Gunn Allen, Kent R. Brown, Duane Champagne, Jaye T. Darby, Hanay Geiogamah, Diane Glancy, Ann Haugo, Sally Ann Heath, Jeffrey Huntsman, Donald L. Kaufmann, Bruce King, Kenneth Lincoln, Ed McGaa, Eagle Man, Lloyd Kiva New, Annamaria Pinazzi, Paul Rathbun, Randy Reinholz, Jean Bruce Scott, Drew Hayden Taylor, Elizabeth Theobald, and Don B. Wilmeth. Interviews include Hanay Geiogamah, Bruce King, Lisa Mayo, and William Yellow Robe, Jr.

Stories of Our Way: An Anthology of American Indian Plays. Edited by Hanay Geiogamah and Jaye T. Darby. Los Angeles: UCLA American Indian Studies Center, 1999. $20 paper (ISBN 0-935626-50-6), $60 cloth (ISBN 0-935626-49-2), 503 pages.

    “Stories of Our Way is the first anthology of its kind to span more than thirty years of American Indian theater, including the 1930s classic The Cherokee Night. This distinguished group of twelve plays draws on a rich range of tribal experiences— Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Kiowa, Navajo, Oneida, Otoe-Missouria, Rappahonack, and urban. They treat the diverse stories of Native people's ways with gritty integrity, uncompromising honesty, and deep respect, balanced with an awareness of the challenges and responsibilities to renew, and a commitment to an evolving American Indian theatrical aesthetic. These playwrights invite audiences to probe the often painful past, share the enduring values of family, community, and tribe, and celebrate humor and spirituality.”

    Featured plays include The Cherokee Night by Lynn Riggs, Foghorn  by Hanay Geiogamah, Coon Cons Coyote  adapted by the Native American Theater Ensemble with Hanay Geiogamah, Butterfly of Hope (A Warrior’s Dream)  by Ray Baldwin Louis, 49  by Hanay Geiogamah, At the Sweet Gum Bridge  by Wallace Hampton Tucker, Sun Moon and Feather  by Spiderwoman Theater, Grandma  and Grandpa  by Hanay Geiogamah, The Truth Teller  by Diane Glancy, Evening at the Warbonnet  by Bruce King, and Hokti  by Annette Arkeketa.

    These two books are part of Project HOOP (Honoring Our Origins and People through Native Theater, Education, and Community Development), a program, initiated by the UCLA American Indian Studies Center in 1997 and funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, to advance the development and study of Native theater. Both volumes are appropriate for literature, theater, and humanities courses. They can be ordered from Publications, UCLA American Indian Studies Center, 3220 Campbell Hall, Box 951548, Los Angeles, California  90095-1548, (310) 206-7508, aiscpubs@ucla.edu or through amazon.com.

Jaye T. Darby is an assistant professor in the College of Education at San Diego State University and a founding co-director with Hanay Geiogamah of Project HOOP.


 

ANNUAL MLA DINNER

6:30 p.m. Friday, December 29, 2000
Program begins at 8:00 p.m.

Mamma Ayesha's
1967 Calvert St. N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20009
(202) 232-5431
Host: Mr. Samir Hawa
 

  • Location: Adams Morgan Section of D.C.: Across the Ellington Bridge from the Sheraton and within walking distance from the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel--the English language and literature hotel this year.  We will have our own space in the restaurant.

    •  
  • Dinner: Middle Eastern food served family style (menu includes meat, vegetarian, and low fat items as appetizers and entrees).

    •  
  • Cost: $35 per person.  This price includes food, beverage (non-alcoholic), tax and tip.

    •  
  • Program: 2000 Lifetime Achievement Awardee: Helen Barolini, author, Umbertina, Love in the Middle Ages, Chiaro/Scuro; editor, The Dream Book.

    •  
  • Literary Reading: Wendy Law-Yone, Burmese/American writer and author of Irrawaddy Tango, a novel (Knopf, 1994), The Coffin Tree, a novel (Knopf, 1983) and more.

    • ANNOUNCEMENTS

    MELUS Sessions at 2000 MLA Convention
    Thursday, 29 December, 12 noon-1:15 p.m. 221

    "Ethnic Communities and Urban Spaces," Park Tower Suite 8217, Marriott Wardman Park.
    Presider: Bonnie TuSmith
    Speakers: Reginald Scott Young, Jaye T. Darby, Mary Paniccia Carden
    Saturday, 30 December, 10:15–11:30 a.m. 754

    The “New Negro” Away from Harlem, Park Tower Suite 8218, Marriott Wardman Park.
    Presiding: Amritjit Singh, Rhode Island Coll.
    1.    “Paul Robeson: An Image of the ‘New Negro,’” Marcy L. Tanter, Tarleton State Univ.
    2.    "Southern Sisters of the New Negro Renaissance,” Katharine Capshaw Smith, Florida Intl. Univ.

    From Margaret Rozga, mrozga@uwc.edu
    *Deadline for proposals - December 31, 2000

    Call for articles:  For a collection of essays on teaching multi-ethnic literature, I seek 500-750 word proposals by December 31, 2000.  Rather than essays about teaching courses on the literature of a single ethnic group, this collection will be focused on such issues as the rationale, the pedagogy and the literary and political implications of teaching courses that combine works by writers of several ethnic groups in the United States. The proposals should be detailed abstracts for papers that, when completed, would be about 3,000 to 6,000 words.  Please send proposals to:

    Margaret Rozga
    Professor of English
    University of Wisconsin--Waukesha
    1500 University Drive
    Waukesha, Wisconsin 53188

    Revised Call for Papers: A Symposium in Rhetoric, The Federation of North Texas Area Universities' annual Rhetoric Symposium will be held on the campus of Texas A&M University-Commerce, Saturday, February 10, 2001.
    *Deadline for proposals - January 4, 2001

    The Symposium will involve online components before and after Feb. 10, plus the face-to-face meetings that day.  Participation may be online only, on February 10 only, or both.  Papers for the online portion will be clustered into "panels" with panel-specific listservs for discussion.

    Keynote Speakers: Professors Timothy Crusius and Carolyn Channell, Southern Methodist University

    The theme is "Rhetorical Theory: Applications, Implications, and Evaluations."

    Proposals for papers, presentations, and Web contributions are invited on any aspect of that theme.  Papers for oral presentation should be 7 - 10 pages of text (double-spaced).  Web materials may run to 15 pages.

    Send a 250-word abstract of your proposed contribution  ** by January 4, 2001 **  to the Symposium Director.  Indicate whether it is for the face-to-face event or the on-line portion.

    Professor Richard Fulkerson, Symposium Director
    Department of Literature and Languages
    Texas A&M University-Commerce
    Commerce, TX 75429
    dick_fulkerson@tamu-commerce.edu

    Prizes will be awarded for: (1) the best Web contribution ($250), and  (2) the best oral paper submitted by a graduate student from a Federation university (Texas Woman's Univ., Univ. of North Texas, or Texas A&M-Commerce Univ.) ($250).

    To be eligible for awards, the complete papers and Web contributions must be submitted by **January 25, 2001**  to allow time for judging.  McGraw-Hill is sponsoring the awards.

    Registration Fee:

  • General participants:  $25.00  (includes both online and face-to-face segments, plus lunch)
  • Federation graduate students:  free registration (plus $10 for lunch)
  • Federation faculty members:  $10.00 (includes lunch)

    • Call for Papers:  “Race in the Classroom”
    *Deadline - Abstract postmarked by January 15, 2001

    Did affirmative action programs solve the problem of race on American college campuses?   If so, why does talking about race in anything more than a superficial way make so many students uncomfortable?  The editors have observed such student discomfort year after year and believe that, nationwide, it is affecting both classroom practices and professional lives.  We are planning a book of collected essays that explores the issue of race in the college classroom.  We invite proposals that directly respond to the question: What are the challenges facing a college or university teacher in the humanities and social sciences who believes that teaching responsibly requires an honest and searching examination of “race”?

    We are particularly interested in essays that consider the author’s own subject position in relation to teaching about race and encourage potential contributors to examine that subject position in as much complexity as possible.  Specific questions to consider are:
     

  • How is the classroom environment structured by race?
  • Does student discomfort with race affect pedagogy?  If so, what are its implications for the college teacher’s course objectives?
  • Do faculty members retreat from challenging students about race when faced with student hostility and the possibility of reprisals (in the form of complaints or negative evaluations)?
  • Does student discomfort with race affect standardized course evaluations?  If so, what are the implications of using such evaluations in faculty assessment for merit pay, tenure, promotion, and other rewards?
  • Are faculty of color and white faculty differently impacted by teaching about race?
  • How does student discomfort with race affect a teacher’s options and opportunities as a professional (e.g., field of expertise, teaching assignments, text selections, areas of scholarship)?
    • Please write a 1 ½-2 page abstract (500-700 words) and send one copy, along with your c.v., to either one of us:

    Professor Bonnie TuSmith                                      Professor Maureen Reddy
    English Department                                               English Department
    406 Holmes Hall                                                   Craig Lee 262
    Northeastern University                                         Rhode Island College
    Boston, MA 02115                                                Providence, RI 02908
    btusmith@hotmail.com                                         mtrri@aol.com
    fax: 617-825-0224                                               fax: 401-456-8379

    Deadlines:

  • Abstract postmarked by January 15, 2001.
  • Completed essay of 15-20 pages (5000-7000 words, double-spaced, 12cpi font, including citations, Chicago Manual of Style) postmarked by May 1, 2001.  [Note: Although we prefer original essays, previously published articles will be considered.]

    • From: Avis Payne, akpayne@zianet.com
    MELUS Cookbook
    *Deadline - February 1, 2001

    Call for Recipes

    Please keep sending in recipes, anecdotes, poems, remembrances, short stories.  The tentative deadline is now February 1, 2001.  We'd like to fill in a few gaps in the compilation.  For example, more vegetable recipes, both raw and cooked, would be great.  We need a lamb recipe, a shellfish recipe (shrimp, not squid, got squid recipes already), a chocolate cookie recipe, some vegetarian main dish recipes, more appetizer and snack recipes.  If you'd like to discuss possibilities, please contact me at <recipes@zianet.com>.  If you'd like to test a recipe or two, please let me know.  I especially need someone to try out a  homemade wine recipe that doesn't call for any fancy equipment.  Hope to hear from you, Avis Payne.

    ROMANIA AND CENTRAL EASTERN EUROPE: BUCHAREST, BUDAPEST, PRAGUE, BRATISLAVA AND CLUJ
    JULY 3-31, 2001
    *Application deadline - February 5, 2001

    The third annual ASU Summer Program in Romania is a four-week session at the Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, designed to give participants a comprehensive view of the rich and unique cultural history of Pre/Post Communist Central Eastern Europe.  It combines features of a traditional study abroad program and  excursions, with emphasis on language, history, politics and cultural studies.  The classroom work is complemented by an intensive program of guided visits to museums, historical sites, and other outstanding centers of Eastern European cultural heritage and by a one-week cultural
    trip to the capitals of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire.

    LOCATION
    The capital city of Transylvania, Cluj-Napoca, where the ASU program is located, is a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural city of about 400,000.  Situated in the northwestern part of Romania, Cluj is built on the site of a Roman castrum, half-way between Bucharest, the capital city of Romania, and Budapest, the capital city of Hungary.  It holds Gothic and Byzantine style churches, nearby monasteries, and an old downtown area, with medieval, Baroque and turn of the century buildings.  In addition to Cluj, the program will include visits to other cities of Transylvania, such as Sighisoara (the birthplace of Dracula) and Bran, to visit Dracula’s castle.  Also included is a two-day stay in Bucharest, the capital of Romania, to visit Ceausescu’s People’s Palace, the largest building in the world.

    CULTURAL TRAVEL
    An essential part of the academic program, the cultural trip will include guided visits to the former capitals of the Austro-Hungarian empire: BUDAPEST, sight-seeing tour of the Hungarian capital, the Buda and Pesta sides, along the Danube River PRAGUE, a three-day visit of the city, with sight-seeing/walking tours of the Old Town Square, Mala Strana (The Little Quarter), Charles Bridge, etc. BRATISLAVA, sight-seeing tour of the new Slovak Repbublic’s capital

    ELIGIBILITY
    The program is opened to qualified students interested in Romanian language and the culture and politics of Central Eastern Europe who desire to study, travel and experience different customs, foods, and ways of life.  Students from other universities in the USA are encouraged to apply.  Application deadline is February 5, 2001, when deposit of $150 and the first installment of $ 1,000 will be due.

    ACADEMIC PROGRAM
    Classes are offered Monday through Friday.  Students will receive six or seven ASU credits from the following courses: ROM  101  Beginning Intensive Romanian (I) (5 credits) ROM 201  Intermediate Intensive Romanian (II) (5 credits) ROM 313  Romanian Composition and Conversation (I) (3 credits) ROM 314  Romanian Composition and Conversation (II) (3 credits) ROM 494  Advanced Romanian (3 credits) FLA 598  Advanced Romanian (3 credits) ENG/FLA 494/598  Literature and Politics in Pre/Post Totalitarian Europe (3 credits) POS 494  Politics of Transition in Pre/Post Totalitarian Europe (3 credits) CHS/HUM 498/598 Comparative Ethnic Cultures (3 credits)

    LIVING ACCOMMODATIONS
    Housing is based on double occupancy in traditional dormitory rooms with private bathrooms.  During in-country excursions in Romania to visit medieval painted monasteries students will spend two nights in the village homes of rural families.

    COST OF THE PROGRAM
    The cost of 1,900 (subject to possible change) includes: housing, meals, and organized cultural travel.  Not included: registration fee ($119 per credit hour), airfare (approx. $800).

    From Mary Thomas, csega@marsall.edu
    *Deadline for completed applications - February 15, 2001

    The Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Gender in Appalachia at Marshall University invites humanities scholars to apply for a resident fellowship funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.  Proposals must fit our focus, which is to examine the intersection of gender, ethnicity, and region (Appalachian) with a primary goal of developing a research database to undergrid paradigms that encompass multiple aspects of identity.

    Candidates should have the doctorate or equivalent professional experience. Awards will be a maximum stipend of $17,5000 per semester, housing stipend, travel allowance, and health benefits.  Complete applications, including letters of reference, are due by February 15, 2001 for a fellowship in the fall 2001 or spring 2002.
    For information contact:
    Mary Thomas, CSEGA,
    400 Hal Greer Blvd.,
    Huntington, WV 25755
    csega@marsall.edu or visit our website at http://www.marshall.edu/csega.

    NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR ETHNIC STUDIES
    Twenty-ninth Annual Conference
    29-31 March 2001
    New Orleans, Louisiana

    For information about NAES and its conference, please visit:  http://www.ethnicstudies.org

    The Latino Studies Section (LSS) of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) announces its 2001 Research and Dissertation Award and invites nominations and submissions.
    *Deadline for nominations - May 1, 2001

    The LSS Research and Dissertation Award is given for the best  doctoral dissertation, in English or in Spanish, that focuses on
    Latino communities, issues, and topics. Preference will be given to dissertations that apply a comparative approach within national, hemispheric and/or international contexts to enhance our understanding of the Latino experience. The work may be grounded in any disciplinary field. The competition is open to Ph.D.'s from institutions in the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean who completed their dissertation in 2000-2001.

    The award will be presented at the 2001 LASA meeting to be held in Washington, DC, on September 6-8, 2001.

    Procedure for Nominations: The submissions will be read by a committee of LSS officers. All those interested in submitting entries for consideration should send three copies of the dissertation, one each to the three committee members listed below.

    All nominations for the award must be received by May 1, 2001.

    Iraida López
    Ramapo College
    American and International Studies
    505 Ramapo Valley Road
    Mahwah, NJ 07430-1680
    E-mail: LunaMaga@aol.com

    Roberto Marquez
    Latin American Studies
    Mount Holyoke College
    South Hadley, Ma. 01075
    E-mail: rmarquez@mtholyoke.edu

    Vilma Santiago-Irizarry
    Cornell University
    265 McGraw Hall
    Ithaca, NY 14853
    E-mail: vs23@cornell.edu

    From: HNatalyaH@cs.com
    Subject: Summer Literary Seminars, Dominican Republic <sumlitsem.com/dr>
    *June 3-13, 2001

    This year's faculty includes, Ruth Behar, Virgil Suarez, Richard Blanco, and many others, including many leading Domincan writers. For information go to the website (above) or email Nathalie Handal, Program Director <hnatalyah@cs.com>.

    From Batya Weinbaum, batyawein@csuohio.edu or batyawein@aol.com

    I am proposing a Multicultural Lit, Multiethnic Lit of the US, or Ethnic Lit concentration to my Dept of English where I work as an assistant professor. Can anyone help by sharing known existing models for such an idea currently at work elsewhere? Or by sharing your experience in setting one up? Various issues have emerged--can it be departmentally based; how many courses outside of the dept might be required as core or allowed; whether it should be global/postcolonial or just US ethnic; whether courses on pure culture or psychology of prejudice, separate from lit, can be included; whether such a minor might stifle further directions of an interdsciplinary studies program of multiculturalism in general and hence would be negative as an initial step in a conservative environment; or might it feed into launching a broader university-wide curriculum development?

    FEMSPEC is looking for some writing by Native American women writers who challenge gender through speculative techniques--science fiction, magical realism, mythical "tribal realism," surrealism, etc. We have organized a special issue which we think will be a useful contribution to the field, but it is heavily weighted towards criticism. We would like more art, poetry and fiction as well. Does anyone have any leads for us to follow up on, or could you spread the word?

    From Anita P. Hodges, PhD, anitah@hawaii.edu

    A SEMESTER ALMOST ABROAD wishes to update you and your students regarding opportunities for students to enhance their academic experience through the University of Hawaii's specialized curriculum and multicultural environment.  Because of its unique geographic location and history of Asian/Pacific Island immigration, the University of Hawaii` has evolved an unparalleled Asian/Pacific curriculum.  We currently teach over 450 courses with specific Asian/Pacific focus, including 19 Asian languages.

    Students from elite private colleges as well as those from state universities and smaller colleges have supplemented their academic experience by participating in the A  SEMESTER ALMOST ABROAD program. Courses unavailable at their home institutions and experiences unique to Hawaii's ethnic diversity have earned high praise from students who have attend this program. In addition, students have traveled to the neighbor islands on course-sponsored or wilderness-type trips to explore Hawaii's volcanos or observe ocean and Pacific Island eco-systems. Dorm space and meal plans are available for participating students, and ASAA students are free to enroll in any course offered at UH.

    If you have students who you believe would benefit from additional exposure to the richness of Asia and Pacific cultures, A Semester ALMOST Abroad will provide a stimulating option within their academic program.  Additional information regarding this unique program is available on the A Semester ALMOST Abroad website located at http://www.hawaii.edu/almost/ or via email at anitah@hawaii.edu.
    Anita P. Hodges, PhD
    University of Hawai`i at Manoa
    College of Arts & Humanities
    John A. Burns Hall 4030
    1601 East-West Road
    Honolulu, HI 96848-1601
    Phone: (808) 956-6052;
    FAX: (808) 956-9085
    Email: anitah@hawaii.edu

    From Batya Weinbaum, batyawein@csuohio.edu or batyawein@aol.com

    I would like to announce the publication of my book which started out as a dissertation with Dr. Joseph T. Skerrett, Jr. at UMass Amherst in the American Studies Program. Margo Culley, another MELUS member, was on the committee.  The book, called Islands of Women and Amazons: Representations and Realities, just came out from U of Texas Press. It can be shipped in 24 hours from amazon.com, and contains photographs of popular art in Mexico in contrast to traditional glyphs. It might especially interest those who are exploring the changing representations of gender in Fourth World art.

    The book jacket states: "From the beginning, myths have told of women who lived apart from men-the Sirens who sang on the Aegean rocks, the Amazons of the Brazilian jungle, the self-reproducing women on islands in Polynesia, to mention only a few. As this theme emerged in her own fiction, Batya Weinbaum became intrigued by its persistence across time and cultures and began tracing it in literature and mythology, as well as in actual locales that are or were said to be islands of women. In this fascinating, interdisciplinary book, she explores how the myth of Amazons has served varying psychological needs in different cultures over time. Weinbaum first analyzes various historical interpretations and uses of the Amazon archetype, some designed to empower women, others created by men to disempower them. She next turns to the original Greek context, in Homer's epics and other aspects of Greek culture, and then traces how Amazons eventually evolved into negative representations of paganism. Moving from Rodriguez de Montalvo's fifteenth-century Sergas de Esplandian, which imagined an island of women in the New World, Weinbaum concludes with revealing fieldwork she conducted on Isla Mujeres (Island of Women) off the Yucatan Peninsula, which included giving birth with the participation of a native Maya midwife."

    From: Nathalie Handal, NatalyaH@compuserve.com

    The Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary Anthology edited by Nathalie Handal, published by Interlink, Massachusetts, ISBN 1-56656-374-7   $20, To order contact  www.interlinkbooks.com

    This anthology was prepared to eradicate invisibility: to provide an introduction to Arab women poets, to make visible the works of a great number of Arab women poets who are virtually unknown to the West, to make visible many Arab-American women poets who are marginalized within the American literary and ethnic scenes, and to demonstrate the wide diversity of Arab women's poetry, which extends to other languages besides Arabic and English (as in the case of Arab women poets writing in French and Swedish). This anthology seeks to unite Arab women poets from all over the Arab world and abroad, regardless of what language they write in and whether they were born in an Arab country or not. Its aim is to bridge the religious, linguistic and geographical spaces existing among Arab women worldwide. With the exception of Oman and Sudan, every Arab country has been represented in this volume. Included are Arab women in exile or living in non-Arab countries, and women poets of Arab descent from Europe and North America. The volume incorporates the most accomplished Arab women poets of the twentieth century, including those of the distinctive new generation. It opens a door to a new and fast changing world where women are an extremely vital force in both literary and social terms. The introduction provides a historical overview for understanding contemporary Arab women's poetry, including the singularity as well as the shared trends and movements in the work of these poets. Translated by distinguished translators and poets from around the world, The Poetry of Arab Women showcases the work of 83 poets, among them: Elmaz Abi-Nader, Fawziyya Abu-Khalid, Etel Adnan, 'Aisha Arnaout, Andrae Chedid, Nada al-Hage, Hoda Hussein, Salma Khadra Jayyusi, Joanna Kadi, Fatma Kandil, Vnus Khoury-Ghata, Nazik al-Mala'ika, Houda al-Na'mani, Lisa Suhair Majaj, Zakiyya Malallah, D.H.Melhem, Naomi Shihab Nye, Amina Said, Munia Samara, Lina Tibi and Fadwa Tuqan.

    Nathalie Handal divides her time between Boston and London, where she is a researcher in the English Department at the University of London. She is the author of a book of poetry, The Never Field, and a poetry CD, Traveling Rooms.

    From Bonnie Tu Smith, btusmith@hotmail.com

    American Family Album: 28 Contemporary Ethnic Stories by Bonnie TuSmith and Gerald W. Bergevin.  Fort Worth: Harcourt College Publishers, 2000.  384 pages.

    American Family Album: 28 Contemporary Ethnic Stories is a compact anthology of American short fiction that explores an expanded idea of family. Written by American writers of 16 different ethnic backgrounds, these 28 stories offer readers an intimate look at contemporary American family life as they explore a variety of family relationships. American Family Album is designed for courses in introduction to fiction, multiethnic literatures of the United States, contemporary short fiction, and contemporary American fiction, as well as composition, writing about literature, and creative writing.

    Within American Family Album, readers will find numerous pedagogical aids: an introduction that alerts the reader to issues in the story; a career biography of the author; "Let's Talk about the Story: A Guided Tour for a Second Reading" that asks thought-provoking questions; "Considering the Story's Broader Context" that discusses a story's significant historical and cultural contexts; summary questions at the end of each chapter that make connections among the chapter's four stories; and a glossary of literary terms.

    Instructor’s Resource Manual:  In addition to the main text, instructors will find a useful manual that includes:  “Memory Joggers” for each story; specific strategies for using "Let's Talk about the Story"; selective essays by experienced teachers on teaching multiethnic literatures; explanations of cultural and linguistic issues likely to arise in class; recommended additional texts, such as novels, to complement the story collection; a bibliography of resources to supplement the commentary on individual stories; and a sample syllabus with suggestions for scheduling reading assignments and managing classroom activities.

    For orders and examination copies of American Family Album (ISBN 0-15-507331-1), please call 800-782-4479  (Harcourt College Publishers, 6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, FL 32887-6777).

    From Lisa Suhair Majaj, lmajaj@earthlink.net

    Going Global: The Transnational Reception of Third World Women Writers. Edited by Amal Amireh and Lisa Suhair Majaj. New York and London: Garland Publishing Inc., 2000.

    This book explores the problematic of reading and writing about third world women and their texts in an increasingly global context of production and reception. The ten essays contained in this volume examine the reception, both academic and popular, of women writers from India, Bangladesh, Palestine, Egypt, Algeria, Ghana, Brazil, Bolivia, Guatemala, Iraq/Israel and Australia. They focus on what happens to these writers’ poetry, fiction, biography, autobiography, and even to the authors themselves, as they move between the third and the first worlds.

    In tracing the production and transformation of textual meanings within shifting contexts of reception, the essays implicitly and explicitly participate in on-going discussions about the politics of location, about postcolonialism and its discontents, and about the projects of feminism and multiculturalism in a global age. Among the questions considered in the collection are the following: How do these texts get to “travel” in the first place? Who selects, translates, publishes, reviews and teaches them, and what politics are involved in these activities? How do the publishing, circulation, and teaching of texts in both the first and the third worlds reproduce, challenge or alter the asymmetries of power among different groups of people? How are third world women themselves constructed in the process of transnational mediation? How do the politics of inclusion and exclusion shape the formation of multicultural, feminist and postcolonial canons?

    Contributors include: Eva Paulino Bueno, Patricia Geesey, Bishnupriya Ghosh, Mohja Kahf, Jeanne Kattan, Alpana Sharma Knippling, Marnia Lazreg, Sally McWilliams, Therese Saliba, Ella Shohat, Jennifer Wenzel.

    From Timothy B. Powell, tipowell@arches.uga.edu

    The University of Georgia has recently made available to the public a digital version of the Cherokee Phoenix (www.galileo.peachnet.com).  The Phoenix, which began in 1828, is the first Native American newspaper.  The publication of a fully searchable electronic version of the newspaper constitutes a major research development in the field of Multicultural Studies.   Jace Weaver, one of the leading Cherokee scholars in the country, officially opened the digital archive on October 17th.  Weaver, an Associate Professor in the Religion department at Yale University, stated that "The Cherokee Phoenix is one of the greatest landmarks of American Indian intellectual history.  Using the syllabary developed by Sequoyah (the only written language ever created by one individual), the Cherokee published the first bilingual Native newspaper.  Its life spans one of the most crucial periods in U.S. history-- the era of Indian Removal." The Cherokee Phoenix project is sponsored by Galileo, the Digital Archive of Georgia, and the Multicultural Archive of Georgia www.arches.uga.edu/~amitchel/msis.htm.  Other materials include "The Colored Tribune," an early African American newspaper from Savannah, Georgia; the Williams Collection of Photographs from the Hargett Library; and letters, treaties, and other documents related to Native American life in colonial Georgia.

    Timothy B. Powell, Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of Georgia, Athens GA 30602

    From Batya Weinbaum Dept of English Cleveland State Unievrsity

    I am working on a paper on Institutionalized Racism in Token Hires in Anglo-American Dominated Departments of English. Can anybody send me tidbits,  information, pieces of stories that are too painful to sit down and write all at once? I intend this account to be ethnographic, with a discussion of  institutional resistance to change. Any materials provided can be kept confidential or duly credited, as desires. Batya Weinbaum Dept of English Cleveland State Unievrsity Cleveland OH 44115 batyawein@aol.com

    Women in Chains: The Legacy of Slavery in Black Women's Fiction by Venetria K. Patton.  New York: SUNY, 2000. 194 pages. ISBN 7-7914-4344-2, $16.95 paperback available at www.sunypress.edu or www.amazon.com

            Using writers such as Harriet Wilson, Frances E. W. Harper, Pauline Hopkins, Toni Morrison, Sherley Anne Williams, and Gayl Jones, the author highlights recurring themes and the various responses of black women writers to the issues of race and gender.  Time and again these writers link slavery with motherhood--their depictions of black womanhood are tied to the effects of slavery and represented through the black mother.  Patton shows that both the image others have of black women as well as black women's own self image is framed and influenced by the history of slavery.  This history would have us believe that female slaves were mere breeders and not mothers.  However, Patton uses the mother figure as a tool to create an intriguing interdisciplinary literary analysis.

            "Women in Chains establishes the liberational context of black women's fiction through close and careful readings of archetypal text and through the application of sophisticated literary analysis grounded in the living legacy of our own 'talking books.  In this book, Patton walks a weary mile in the shoes of her chosen foremothers and finds her own place in the tradition." --Joanne M. Braxton, The College of William and Mary Venetria K. Patton is Coordinator of African American and African Studies and Assistant Professor of English at the University of
    Nebraska-Lincoln.

    From Prof. Arturo Aldama at (480) 727-6091; aaldama@asu.edu

    A Seminar on Diaspora, Subalternity and Globalization that compares Chicana/o and Gypsy (Rom) struggles for representation will be offered in Romania, Summer 2001, The course will consider issues of diaspora, mestizaje, gender, subalternity and sexuality in Chicana/o and Gypsy cultural productions: We will examine a variety of films (Time of the Gypsies, El Norte, Latcho Drom, Gadjo Dilo) and texts (Dead in their Tracks, Across the Wire, Bury Me Standing, Ana Castillo, Montserrat Fontes) to understand the fracturing of identities in nation states, genocide, war, as well as cultural resilience and travel. The course will be a theoretically informed interdisciplinary inquiry that would be great for students in literary, filmic and cultural studies with a specific interest in ethnic and gender identities. Graduate/ adv. undergraduate students in Spanish, Humanities, Literature, Ethnic Studies, American Studies and Women Studies, Performance Studies are especially encouraged to attend and we will work on developing a publishable scholarly essay. (Stipends may be possible).

    Please consider the program overview below and please contact Prof. Arturo Aldama at (480) 727-6091; aaldama@asu.edu


     

    MELUS COOKBOOK

    Deadline for recipes: February 1, 2001

    So far, I've received 30 recipes with the certainty of another 10 coming in.  I'd like to have many more before going to press with the cookbook.  I would especially like more recipes for appetizers, snacks, soups, salads, cooked vegetables, cookies, a pie or two, and beverages in order to offer a balanced collection, but I would welcome any recipe at all from you. Recipes with a distinct ethnic or regional origin accompanied by brief or lengthy anecdotal material are especially appealing because the cookbook should reflect the diversity of our MELUS "family."  Some of the most engaging contributions have come from India, Japan, and the South.  But please just send me a recipe.  Do not feel you must include an anecdote. I'll contact you if any clarification of ingredients or instructions is necessary. Please write me if you'd like to discuss your recipe or other contribution, such as a short story or a poem, to the collection.  If you've already sent me a recipe, please urge your friends to do so, too.
                                    Avis Payne
                                    recipes@zianet.com

    Lahaina Ice Cake--4-6 servings

    This recipe makes a simple, refreshing desert.  In the 1940's and 1950's, kids in Lahaina (Hawaii) came home to an ice cake snack.  The tinned milk is a giveaway that this recipe comes from the tropics.

    Bring to a boil:
    1/2 cup water
    1 cup sugar
    Add:
    2 cups water
    1/3 cup canned evaporated milk
    1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

    Mix well and freeze at least 4 hours.  Break the ice cake into chunks before serving.

    Maui Mochi (Japanese Ricecakes Maui Style)--8-12 servings

    Japanese ricecakes make a non-fat or low-fat snack, depending on ingredients, that goes well with tea.  They can be served as a dessert. This recipe, whichoriginated on the island of Maui, resembles the Filipino pudding called "bibingca."

    3 3/4 cups (1 pound) mochiko (sweet rice flour)
    2 cups sugar
    1 teaspoon baking powder
    3 cups coconut milk (low-fat or regular)--one can (13 1/2 ounces) coconut milk plus regular milk (skim or whole) to make 3 cups
    1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

    Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Butter or oil a 9- by 13-inch baking pan. Mix the dry ingredients well.  Add the milk and vanilla gradually, stirring well to make the batter smooth.  Pour batter into pan.  Cover tightly with aluminum foil.  Place pan on the top rack of oven.  Bake 1 hour.  Turn off heat.  Let stand at least 8 hours. Cut into squares with a plastic knife.

    Comments:  Mochiko is available at Asian food markets and in the gourmet section of supermarkets. Maui mochi may be kept up to two days at room temperature if it is tightly covered with plastic wrap. The mochi freezes well if it is cut into squares and wrapped in airtight plastic bags.  To soften frozen mochi, microwave it at a defrost setting for 10 to 20 seconds per serving. If you don't have a plastic knife (and they are readily available at fast food outlets), wet your knife blade before making each cut into the mochi. You can easily vary the flavoring of Maui mochi by creating different combinations of fruit and milk, e.g., passion fruit or raspberry juice and skim milk.  You may add a drop or two of food coloring to make the mochi look more interesting. Maui mochi may be baked late at night and left in the oven to cool until morning.