Events

Fall 2020

The New Academy series will mostly be on hiatus this semester as we all struggle to adjust to the instability of the moment. We’re tentatively planning on returning next semester. Please watch this space for future developments.

Spring 2019 First Friday Reading Series

Events are in the Literatures & Languages Library (Room 200, Main Library) from 3-5

  • February 1
    • Mary Hays is back with more fiction. We’re not going to do another podcast interview with her, but you can listen to the one from last year here and read her bio on this page (scroll down).
  • March 1
    • Kyle Garton-Gundling will discuss his new book, Enlightened Individualism: Buddhism and Hinduism in American Literature from the Beats to the Present (OSU Press). In it, Kyle argues that even though works by Kerouac, Walker, Kingston, and others wrestle with issues of exoticism and appropriation, their characters are also meaningfully challenged and changed by Asian faiths. These literary adaptations, then, can help Americans reenvision individualism in a more transcendent and cosmopolitan context. Kyle also published an article, “Mindfulness as Slow Education in the Composition Classroom” in the collection Reversing the Cult of Speed in Higher Education: The Slow Movement in the Arts and Humanities edited by S. Gearhart and J.L. Chambers, Routledge, 2018. In spring 2018, Kyle won the Rhetoric Program Award for Excellence in Writing Instruction.
  • April 5 Heather McLeer

Furthermore, if you are an adjunct in the English department and are interested in reading or presenting research at one of our events, please email Mary or Dave.
maryhays(at)illinois.edu
dcmorris(at)illinois.edu

Fall 2018 First Friday Reading Series

  • November 2: Dana Kinzy (Note that this event is from 3:30-4:45 to accommodate our Rhet Department meeting on the same day.)
    • Room 150, English Building
    • Dana Kinzy grew up in rural, small-town Appalachia, where she developed both an early appreciation for well-told stories and a streak of independent-minded orneriness—all of which continue to influence her scholarly writing and her creative work as a poet and essayist. Dana’s scholarship focuses on the role of narrative in student and teacher identity formation, on classroom practices built on such narratives, and on the ways in which disruptive narratives connect to social justice work in education. Personally-professionally-academically, she does enjoy disrupting peoples’ expectations. She moonlights as a vigilante who subverts toxic narratives with sassiness, fun, and style, and her creative work continues in the subversive vein by including narrative-driven poems and lyrically-driven morsels of creative non-fiction. All of her writing attempts to explore the grit of everyday life—paying critical attention to the beauty and whimsy that intermingles with the grim and the ordinary. She completed an MFA in Creative Writing with an emphasis in poetry at West Virginia University, then celebrated by riding a mailcart around campus. She then postmarked herself with a PhD in English with an emphasis in Composition and Rhetoric at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and celebrated by singing “Total Eclipse of the Heart” on the campus quad. Following her public vocal stylings, Dana taught and advised badass students as a part of an educational opportunity program in Fairbanks, Alaska for five years—where she loved the cold and was afraid of bears. Currently, this revel-and-riot cat lady is knitting her way as a lecturer in Rhetoric at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She teaches rhetoric courses, mostly the Rhetoric 101-102 sequence, and mentors other rhetoric teachers in her capacity as Interim Associate Director. To celebrate: she now leads kitchen-dance parties with four felines (who vary in size and markings), a blue-haired daughter (who recently attempted to dye her own eyebrows to match her hair), and a partner (who chimes in cat-themed lyrics to disrupt contemporary and classic top hits—i.e. “watch me hiss, hiss; watch me meow, meow…”). In each ordinary adventure, this Mountain Mama strives to call attention to the quirky and to question the status quo. (Seriously, though: don’t be deceived by the light exterior or playful bio.  Her writing often takes on tough topics).
  • October 5: John Claborn
    • Lecturer in English, John Claborn teaches courses in BTW, Rhetoric, Film, and Literature. Last year, John’s book, Civil Rights and the Environment in African American Literature, 1897-1941 was published by Bloomsbury Academic Press. In the book, John examines the work of many of the era’s most important African-American writers (including Booker T. Washington, WEB Dubois, and Zora Neale Hurston) to uncover the centrality of environmental problems to writing from the civil rights movement in the early decades of the century. John will discuss his work in our first reading of the semester.

Spring 2018 First Friday Reading Series

Events are in the Literatures & Languages Library (Room 200, Main Library) from 3-5

  • April 4: Fiction Reading by Mary Lucille Hays
  • March 2: Fiction Reading by Mary Lucille Hays  POSTPONED
  • In solidarity with GEO’s ongoing strike, this New Academy Series reading will be postponed until a later date TBD. Follow The New Academy Series on facebook for announcements, and check out our podcast episodes (see tab above). 
    In lieu of coming to the event, we’d encourage you to join GEO’s picket.
  • Photo of Mary Lucille Hays

    Mary Lucille Hays

    Mary Lucille Hays writes about Midwestern life. She wants to be an ambassador for the Prairie perspective. She lives with her husband on the family farm where they raised their children and where her grandmother was born. Her stories often have a rural slant. Mary raises chickens, turkeys, and other birds and writes a weekly column called “Letter from Birdland,” which appears in a few community newspapers, including The News Gazette. She has a BA in Rhetoric from the University of Illinois and an MA in Creative Writing from City College of New York. A recent graduate of Murray State University’s Low Residency MFA program, Mary is a lecturer in the English Department at the University of Illinois where she teaches Rhetoric and tutors students.

  • February 2: Fiction Reading by Amanda Bales

    • Amanda Bales

      Amanda Bales grew-up in Oklahoma and completed her B.A. in English and Theater at Oklahoma State University. Since leaving, she has lived in various places, including some time in west Ireland and four years in a dry cabin in Fairbanks, Alaska, where she completed her M.F.A. in Creative Writing with an emphasis in Fiction. Her primary focus is short fiction, though she also explores poetry and experimental forms. Her critical work focuses on second person narratives, using Feminist and Social Psychology frameworks to examine the ways they grapple with racial and gender empathy gaps. She is currently a Lecturer in English at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign where she teaches Rhetoric.