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2007-2008

English Department Faculty Accomplishments Reported in 2007-2008

April 2008

Karin Wolf attended a Math Across the Curriculum conference at BMCC, and is attempting to implement something here at York regarding this.

Professor Wolf is starting a project called York Reads, and circulated a proposal that she is working on.

Alan Cooper will be participating in the American Literature Conference in San Francisco May 22-25, presenting at a panel on Philip Roth.

Heather Robinson and Michael J. Cripps, together with Daniel Phelps (York Television Studio Manager) and Jose Duran (York Film Club President and Communications Technology major) presented the film Draft My Paper at the 2008 Conference on College Composition and Communication in New Orleans.  The film is a collaboration between the WAC program, the York College

television studio, and the York Film Club.

March 2008

Kelly Josephs will present at the "Theorizing Blackness" conference to be held at the CUNY Graduate Center on April 4.  Her presentation is entitled, "Afrofuturism From a Caribbean Past: The Local Orientation of a Black World Vision."

Alice Lacey presented a paper at the "Ninth National Symposium of Theater in Academe" at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.  Her talk was on the topic of "Shakespeare and the Poetic Imagination." Ms. Lacey was awarded a grant from the PSC-CUNY Adjunct Professional Development Fund to cover the cost of travel and expenses related to her presentation at this Conference.

Mychel Namphy was the invited guest lecturer for a Centennial Birthday Tribute to Richard Wright as part of the Annual Langston Hughes Celebration at the Langston Hughes branch of the Queens Public Library on February 8.  The title of Professor  Namphy's lecture was "Richard Wright: A Literature of Commitment."

Professor Namphy was invited to give a Black History Month address/sermon as part of the February 24 Sunday services at Grace Episcopal Church in Jamaica, Queens.  The title of Professor Namphy's address was "The Lord Roars from Zion!: Black Spirituality and the Prophetic Tradition of Political Activism."

Professor Namphy was invited by the Urban Enrichment Society (UES), a student organization at York College, to lecture on "Bridging the Gaps of African History."  This event, held on March 20, was the first in the UES's semester-long African Film Festival.

On April 26, Professor Namphy will be the keynote speaker at the annual Jessie Redmon Fauset Day in Lawnside, New Jersey.  The event is sponsored by the Lawnside Historical Society.  The title of the lecture is "Jessie Fauset: Doyenne of the Harlem Renaissance."

Professor Namphy will be the featured lecturer at an event commemorating the birthday of Malcolm X held at the Langston Hughes Branch of the Queens Public Library in Astoria, Queens.  The title of Professor Namphy's lecture is "Malcolm X: Revolutionary of the Spirit."

Karin Wolf has been invited to be one of nine York faculty members working on the assessment of student learning outcomes of Math and Quantitative Reasoning Skills at York.  The study is being conducted by the Office of Institutional Research.  As part of this work, Professor Wolf will also attend the Math Across the Curriculum conference at Borough of Manhattan Community College on March 28.

February 2008

Kelly Josephs will present at the Provost’s Series on Wednesday, February 20 at 1PM, as part of a panel entitled "Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Colonialism."  Professor Josephs will present together with Professors Hamid Bahri (Foreign Languages, ESL and Humanities) and Laura Fishman ( History and Philosophy).

Mychel Namphy will be the guest lecturer for the Annual Langston Hughes Celebration at the Langston Hughes Community Library and Cultural Center on Friday, February 8. He will be the key speaker for a special centennial birthday tribute to author Richard Wright.

Helen Andretta was the Keynote Speaker at the Northeast Regional meeting of the Christianity and Lecture Conference held at Regis College in Weston, Massachusetts held October 26-28, 2007. The conference theme was “Making Peace in Our Time.” Professor Andretta’s presentation titled “The ‘Salt’ of Peace” was well received by many worldwide members of the Conference and will be published in the 2007 Proceedings Papers of the conference.

James Papa published an essay in Newsday on the Virginia Tech shootings.

Glenn Lewis, as on-air Journalism and Media expert for Channel 5 News, was interviewed for a webcast news story on “The Impact of the Internet on Presidential Elections.” The two-and-a-half-minute video piece will be built around the extensive interview with Professor Lewis. It will be aired online for Fox 5 News on Super Tuesday, February 5.

Professor Lewis will serve as one of two Consortial Faculty members on the first Governance Council (governing body) of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. He will also serve on the inaugural Faculty Standards Committee at the School of Journalism.

December 2007

Glenn Lewis will lead a non-fiction book writing seminar at the CUNY Graduate Center on February 9.

Linda Grasso will give a talk on Georgia O'Keeffe on Friday, December 7 at the Siegel Theater at the CUNY Graduate Center.

Valerie Anderson completed a successful research trip to South Carolina with senior student, Tanagra Bledman.  The trip was sponsored by Provost Ivelaw Lloyd Griffith.

Mychel Namphy will participate in a group presentation, "Factors Shaping Student Preparedness," in the York College Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning space on December 5.

Kelly Josephs will participate in a forum on "The Use of Anti-Gay Lyrics in Reggae Music" to be held February 7 at Main Brooklyn Public Library.

Alan Cooper published a review of Philip Roth's Exit Ghost in the Fall 2007 issue of Jewish Book World.

October 2007

Linda Grasso has had two articles accepted for publication The first article, "Reading Published Letter Collections as Literary Texts: Correspondence between Maria Chabot and Georgia O'Keeffe, 1941-1949," will appear in the June 2008 issue of Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers.  The second article, "Beloved Sisters and Loving Friends: Reading Women's Letter Collections as Fictional Texts," will be included in the anthology, Correspondences: Essays on the History, Theory, and Practice of U.S. Letters, 1620-1860. Ed Sharon M. Harris and Theresa Strouth Gaul.  The editors are currently in the process of finding a publisher.

September 2007

Kelly Baker Josephs was a Fellow at the 2007 "Archaeologies of Black Memory" Seminar held at the University of Miami. This seminar investigates the relationships betwene archive, collective memory, and public criticism in relation to African Diaspora Studies. The seminar is supported by a grant from the Ford Foundation and is the result of collaboration between two prominent journals in the Caribbean and African Diaspora Studies, Small Axe Anthurium (Columbia University) and (University of Miami).

Michael J. Cripps was named Assistant Editor for Across the Disciplines: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Language, Literacy, and Academic Writing. ATD is an online, peer-reviewed WAC/WID journal that "publishes articles relevant to writing and writing pedagogy in all their intellectual, political, social, and technological complexity." ATD is available at http://wac.colostate.edu/atd/.