“No Hostages Through These Doors”:
Thomas Bartlett Whitaker’s “Hell’s Kitchen” and the Politics of PEN

When: Wednesday, March 26, 12-1pm
Who: Professor Ira Wells
Where: JHB 719

Here is a brief abstract of Professor Wells’ talk, please join us for the final Brown Bag Lunch of the semester!

“PEN International, one of the world’s first human rights organizations, has long defended the free speech of persecuted artists. The PEN Prison Writing Program, however, has a slightly different agenda, which is to help convicted criminals become artists. The PEN Prison Writing Program ‘believes in the restorative and rehabilitative power of writing,’ and encourages ‘the use of the written word as a legitimate form of power.’

But what is the nature of the ‘power’ of the written word? And what, moreover, will this power restore and rehabilitate? When PEN proclaims the ‘power’ of the written word, are they honoring an important strand of America’s liberal intellectual heritage, are they pledging allegiance to a romantic coupling of art and freedom, are they inadvertently helping to bind prisoners ever more insidiously to the carceral regime, or are they claiming something that is actually true? This talk, part of a work in progress, addresses these questions through a discussion of Thomas Bartlett Whitaker’s prize-winning essay ‘Hell’s Kitchen.’ I’ll suggest that part of the power of Whitaker’s prison writing resides in its capacity to disrupt the place of the prison in the dreamlife of American power.”

Whitaker’s essay can be found here:
http://72.10.54.216/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5936/prmID/1641

“How Does Religion Fit Into Literary Studies?”

When: Friday, February 28, 12-1pm
Who: Professor Mark Knight
Where: JHB 719

Graduate students and faculty, please join the GEA and Professor Knight for another riotous Brown Bag Lunch:

“In this talk I will consider the challenges of understanding and speaking about religion in literary studies. I’ll do so with brief reference to some of the work I’ve written previously, and more detailed reflections on two current projects: a monograph on Evangelicalism and the Victorian Novel that I’ve almost finished writing, and a 40-essay Companion to Religion and Literature that I’m editing for Routledge. Although the current projects are quite different, they both face similar methodological challenges: how might we think about religion’s mediated forms, how does our literary scholarship make room for theological discourse, what traditions are we referring to when we speak about religion, and what are the limits of critical distance when it comes to our reading of belief?”

“Systems or Nothing”: Physiologia and the History of (Literature and) Science

 When: Thursday, February 6, 12-1pm

Who: Professor Liza Blake

Where: JHB 719

Graduate students and faculty, please join the GEA and Professor Blake for the first Brown Bag Lunch of 2014:

“This presentation will serve as a conversation about a larger book manuscript in progress, entitled ‘Early Modern Literary Physics,’ which argues that early modern literary texts systematically use literary means such as poetic translations, metaphors, plot structures, and dramatic motivation to fashion coherent scientific and philosophical cosmologies. I will articulate a historical and philological argument of the project, which finds a direct correlation between the decline of early modern physics-making and the rise of early modern science, and I will discuss the implications of this historical argument for the narratives we tell about literature and science in early modernity and modernity.”

“Es gibt eine kanadische Literatur”: Belatedness and Canadian Literary Studies as Foreign Policy

When: Wednesday, November 13, 12-1pm
Who: Smaro Kamboureli
Where: JHB 719

Graduate students and faculty are asked to welcome Professor Kamboureli, Avie Bennett Chair in Canadian Literature, to the department! Here is a brief abstract:

In April 2012, the Canadian federal government “abolished” “Understanding Canada,” a program that supported Canadian Studies overseas. Rather than simply bemoaning the shutting down of this program, as did a host of literary authors, academics and even politicians, this paper argues that the function of “Understanding Canada,” especially as it pertains to the study of Canadian literature, should be best examined in the context of Canada’s cultural and foreign policies (e.g., the Massey and Symons Reports) and in light of the increased emphasis on knowledge economies. Taking a historical view of this program and seeing it as a trope in the Canadian national narrative of “self-formation,” it asks how “Understanding Canada” has instrumentalized culture and whether such a policy, whose origins can be traced to the early 1970s, should still be thought as relevant in the 21st century.

“Filipino Couture and the New Silk Road.”

When: Wednesday, October 23. 12-1pm
Who: Denise Cruz
Where: JHB 719

Graduate students and faculty are asked to welcome Professor Cruz to the department and join the GEA for the first Brown Bag Lunch of the year!

Here is a brief abstract to pique your interest:

“This presentation is part of a larger project that stages Manila couture as critical to imaginings of late twentieth-century and contemporary formations of gender and sexuality in the wake of global economic developments. Rather than the familiar east-west binaries of empire and Orientalism, I claim the importance of recognizing new silk roads, alternate circuits that connect Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East. Influenced by shifts in global economies, recently governments, businesses, and consumers have become increasingly aware of the importance of the political, economic, and purchasing power in Asia and the Middle East. These regions have specifically turned to couture as another realm in which they might actively compete with, and perhaps even surpass, American and European business.”

Come one, come all to a spook-tacular Halloween Pumpkin Carving Party hosted by the GEA Social Committee. Let’s get ready for Halloween in style as we carve up some truly terrifying pumpkins!

Costumes are optional, please BYOP (bring your own pumpkin). There will be Halloween candy, festive decorations, and some carving supplies. All grad students, faculty, staff, friends and family are welcome.

When: Tuesday, October 29, 2013, 5:00pm until 8:00pm
Where: JHB 719

Hey guys! Just a reminder: tomorrow (Thursday, Oct. 10) is Coffee Hour and Pub Night!

Coffee Hour runs from 4:30-5:30 in JHB 719. Stop by for coffee, tea and a treat.
Pub Night starts at 5:30 at The Green Room. Enjoy a much-deserved happy hour beer

Hope to see you there!

You can see a list of our CUPE 3902 reps, social committee members, ACCUTE representative and other positions here.

Thank-you to everyone who attended the GEA meeting and volunteered their time this year.