A Newsletter for UMW Faculty and Staff
Professor of English Antonio Barrenechea
Antonio Barrenechea, Professor of English, recently published the award-winning essay “Hemispheric Studies beyond Suspicion/Estudos hemisféricos além da suspeita” in Revista Brasileira de Literatura Comparada, the premier journal of comparative literature in Latin America: http://revista.abralic.org.br/index.php/revista/article/view/552/753
Assistant Professor of Communication Adria Goldman
Adria Goldman, Assistant Professor of Communication, was recently quoted multiple times as an expert in African American women and popular culture in the opinion piece “Is Gabrielle Union’s truth really that different from Julianne Hough’s?” in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
https://www.ajc.com/lifestyles/gabrielle-union-truth-really-that-different-from-julianne-hough/apuKsK3NXBpXvrPqUKayVJ/
Assistant Professor of Communication Adria Goldman
Last Friday, November 15, Adria Goldman, Assistant Professor of Communication, presented at the National Communication Association’s 105th Annual Convention in Baltimore, MD as part of the session “Beyond the Journal: Discussions of Media Narratives about Youth and Race and a Call for Media Literacy.” Her presentation, titled “From Cartoons to Reality Television: Examining Images of Young Black Females in Reality Programming,” was a review of her analysis of two competition reality shows with child/adolescent casts–Bravo’s Top Chef Jr. and Lifetime’s The Rap Game. In her dissertation research, she found that representations of Black women in reality television were more flattering when the cast was predominately Black. The goal of the current study was to (1) identify how young Black females are presented in reality television programming and the implications of such, (2) identify similarities and differences between the two competition shows, noting the different racial background of each show, and (3) use the findings to recommend media literacy practices and activities or young audiences. It was a great session, and she reports that it was also exciting presenting alongside fellow UMW Assistant Professor of Communication Emily Deering Crosby and with Elizabeth Johnson-Young, also a UMW Assistant Professor of Communication, as their chair.
Assistant Professor of Communication Emily Deering Crosby
Emily Deering Crosby, Assistant Professor of Communication, presented her research last Thursday and Friday at the National Communication Association Conference in Baltimore, MD. The title of her research presentation in the Feminist and Women’s Studies Division was “‘She went too far’: Exploring Patriarchal Critiques of Feminist Comedians Michelle Wolf and Samantha Bee,” which discussed patriarchal themes of manufactured catfights, double standards, and protection in critiques of feminist comedy. Crosby’s second presentation was titled “Framing Racial Innocence: Media Literacy and the Cases of Brock Turner and Owen Labrie” in the African American Communication and Culture Division, which used visual rhetoric scholarship to analyze news media bias and call for media literacy in communication and digital studies curriculum. Her second presentation was alongside leading panelist and fellow UMW faculty member Adria Goldman, Assistant Professor of Communication. Their well-attended panel was expertly chaired by fellow UMW faculty member Elizabeth Johnson-Young, Assistant Professor of Communication.
Assistant Professor of English Rachel Levy
Rachel Levy, Assistant Professor of English, recently presented an excerpt from a novel in progress at The Bitter Laugh, a featured event at the 2019 Lambda Lit Fest in Los Angeles, CA. The Bitter Laugh showcased queer/trans writers of dark comedy, including Ryka Aoki, Charlie Jane Anders, and Megan Milks. In addition, Levy’s short story “Severin,” a satire of Venus in Furs scholarship, is published in the current issue of The Account. And today, alongside co-editor Lily Duffy, Levy launched Issue Eighteen of Dreginald Magazine.
Professor of Communication Anand Rao
Anand Rao, Professor of Communication, presented last Friday at the National Communication Association conference held in Baltimore, MD. The title of his presentation was “Helping Speech Anxious Students Survive and Thrive” and was part of a panel about speech apprehension and the basic course. In the presentation, he discussed what UMW has done to help address communication apprehension for first-year students at UMW through the FSEM, as well as the special sections of COMM 205: Public Speaking that he has offered for highly apprehensive students. Anand reports that the panel had a great turnout–approximately 35 in attendance–and a wonderful discussion after the panel.
Professor Linda Gregerson
The Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Program presents
A POETRY READING
Professor Linda Gregerson
Linda Gregerson is the Caroline Walker Bynum Distinguished University Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Michigan. She is co-editor of Empires of God: Religious Encounters in the Early Modern Atlantic and author of The Reformation of the Subject: Spenser, Milton, and the English Protestant Epic, as well as six books of poetry and a volume of essays on the contemporary American lyric. Her essays on Milton, Spenser, Shakespeare, Wyatt, and Jonson appear in numerous journals and anthologies. She has received awards and fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Poetry Society of America, the Modern Poetry Association, the Institute for Advanced Study, the National Humanities Center, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim, Mellon, and Rockefeller Foundations. She is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Professor Gregerson will read from a range of her poems and offer commentary, followed by a question-and-answer session.
Thursday, November 14, 2019 at 5 p.m.
Combs 139
For more information, contact Professor Gary Richards at (540) 654-2365 or grichard@umw.edu.
Co-sponsored by Phi Beta Kappa’s Kappa of Virginia and the Department of English, Linguistics, and Communication and generously funded by the Wendy Shadwell ’63 Program Endowment in British Literature
Associate Professor of English Colin Rafferty
Colin Rafferty, Associate Professor of English, recently published an essay on Claude Lanzmann’s Holocaust documentary Shoah in the new issue of Wig-Wag, a literary magazine on film edited by UMW graduate Brad Efford.
Rafferty also gave a talk on “Writing the Travel and Food Essay” at this past weekend’s Rappahannock Writers Conference, sponsored by the Central Rappahannock Regional Library and held at UMW’s Stafford Campus.
Professor of English and ELC Chair Gary Richards
Gary Richards, Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English, Linguistics, and Communication, led the group discussion of Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memory at the One Book, One Festival program of the Louisiana Book Festival held in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Saturday, November 2, 2019. One of Capote’s most beloved pieces of writing, the autobiographically-inflected story was published in 1956 in Mademoiselle and later reissued as a slender stand-alone volume. This particular program was made possible in part by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.
Sushma Subramanian, assistant professor in the Department of English, Linguistics, and Communication
Sushma Subramanian, journalist and assistant professor in the Department of English, Linguistics, and Communication, has published a story in The Atlantic about an emerging form of depression in Japan, colloquially called “modern-type depression.” In her piece, she explores the work of Japanese scientists studying the social changes that have contributed to this condition: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/10/modern-type-depression-japan/600160/.
