The English Majors’ Weblog
Always connect.

I’ve been enjoying keeping up with my colleague, Professor Walker Rutledge, and his merry band of travelers on their tour of literary New England this month. Many of the trip participants are blogging away tales of their adventures, including whale watching and visiting historic and literary sites like Walden Pond and Plimouth Plantation. Check out the course blog.

IT IN place » Blog Archive » Orson Whales

From The Nation’s website, an announcement of an opportunity to share your opinion (and win $$$). After all, the school year will be over soon, so you’ll be looking for new audiences for your writing….

We’re looking for original, thoughtful, provocative student voices to tell us what is the most important issue for young people in the 2008 presidential campaign. Essays should not exceed 800 words and should be original, unpublished work that demonstrates fresh, clear thinking and superior quality of expression and craftsmanship. We’ll select five finalists and one winner, who will be awarded a $1,000 cash prize and a Nation subscription. The winning essay will be published in the magazine and featured on our website. The five finalists will be awarded $200 each and subscriptions, and their entries will be published online. Entries (only one per student) will be accepted through May 31. A winner will be announced by September 4. Please send entries to studentprize@thenation.com.

For more information, see the full announcement.

Dr. Karen Schneider recently forwarded an internship opportunity that she received from the Women’s Studies listserv. If you’re interested in a paid campus internship for 2007-2008, consider applying to Democracy Matters!

Here’s a brief excerpt from the website (full info available at link above):

The key to Democracy Matters’ success is its Campus Intern Program, which provides year-round training for paid undergraduate interns (called “Campus Coordinators”) and the support and tools for these students to lead their campus chapter efforts. Here’s why our program is so unique:

We offer Campus Coordinators stipends and in that way ensure that all students can afford to participate, regardless of socio-economic needs. See our Campus Coordinator Internship Description.

While our four-phase program curriculum is structured, we provide students with the flexibility they need to determine their own combination of education and outreach projects. The outcome, however, is consistent across campuses: (1) students become educated on the issues; (2) students learn to take political action; and (3) local, state, and federal coalitions benefit from the energy, idealism, and ideas of college students; (4) students develop the interest and capacity for a lifelong commitment to political engagement.

Our program is designed to facilitate movement off campus. While campus organizing is important, students learn the skills of politics by working in communities off-campus. In addition to local community-based campaigns, students work at both the state and national levels.

As English majors and teachers and professors and just people who love English in general, we know what a sad thing it is for a book to be banned. When we can do something to stop it, shouldn’t we?

Over the past week or so, in Bartlesville, OK, a book is in the process of being banned. Maureen Johnson’s The Bermudez Triangle which features some non-explicit homosexual content is very closing to being banned from the Bartlesville High School library.

Maureen, as well as a lot of people in Bartlesville and elsewhere are sending emails to the school board and to the local paper asking for this book to not be taken off the shelves.

I urge everyone to send emails and to support this cause. Maureen is also sending a whole box full of The Bermudez Triangle to the librarian of the school. You can read more about it at http://maureenjohnson.blogspot.com

Pippa Passes, Kentucky - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The link above was provided by Dr. Deborah Logan via the English Bounce List. The original link was provided by one of our English majors. The link is a classic example of life imitating art and a reminder that literature lives all around us if we only pay attention. It would be grand if students took over the care and maintenance of this weblog as their own. Any takers out there? A guaranteed fine time would be had by all.

For those who wish to read it, here is the famous song from Robert Browning’s “Pippa Passes”:

‘Song, from Pippa Passes’
The year’s at the spring,
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hill-side’s dew-pearled;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn;
God’s in his Heaven -
All’s right with the world!

– Robert Browning

And here is a link to the complete poem.

Update: I am informed that the link did not come from one of our students. Perhaps it will next time. Thanks, Deb, for the correction.