The Weekly: Undergraduate News
...Coming to your inbox Mondays
Issue #13 for the week of 11/16/2020
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From the Director of Studies: |
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Week 11!—and courses are entering the last two weeks of a swift and strange semester. I wish us all presence of mind these last two weeks, when the whole of a problem, the arc of a career, the depth of a question may come into view.
Forgive me all the same a glance ahead to next semester. First of all, you’ll have seen in the special edition of this newsletter the banquet of upcoming courses. Don’t hesitate to reach out to your advisors or to the instructors, or to me, if you have questions or curiosities. On Friday the department is hosting a virtual at-home advising session for prospective majors (an informal version of the spring’s open house), so if you have friends who are first-years or sophomores and are wondering about English classes, please send them our way. Seniors, you’ll also have received the survey that has gone around querying you about thesis groups for the spring. If you’re interested, please respond! They are a great way of testing your ideas and keeping yourself on a schedule, as well as learning what your classmates are up to.
Finally, a few upcoming events of interest. t4t: A Trans Studies Symposium enters its second week, and on Friday Organizing Stories presents a Student-Faculty Activist Workshop with S.O.N.G. (Southerners on New Ground). On Tuesday night, Josh Kotin will be talking with grad alum Keri Walsh about Rediscovering the Lost Generation: Inside the World of Shakespeare and Company, the famous English-language Paris bookshop. Over at the Humanities Council, Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian, University of Oxford, will give a talk on The Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge Monday at 1, and later that day Keith Wailoo of the History Department will discuss Whose Pain Matters? Reflections on Race, Social Justice, and COVID-19’s Revealed Inequalities. And if you’re impatient for intellectual stimulation and can’t wait for these events, there’s the afterword right at the end of this message…
Director of Undergraduate Studies
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Undergraduate Administrator
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ACADEMIC DATES & DEADLINES |
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November 2020
November 24
Final Day of Regularly Scheduled Classes
November 25 - 27
Thanksgiving Recess
November 26 - 27
University Holiday
Administrative Offices Closed
November 30
Reading Period Begins
December 2020
December 8
Reading Period Ends
Dean's Date: Deadline for Student Submission of Written Work
December 9 - 15
Fall Term Final Examinations
December 12
Deadline for Submission of Take-Home Exercises
December 22
Winter Break Begins
2021
January 2021
January 18
Undergraduate Add/ Drop Period Begins
Virtual Wintersession Begins
February 2021
February 1
Spring 2021 Classes Begin
February 12
Deadline to Add/Drop Classes without fee
March 2021
March 8 - 12
Spring Midterm Period
March 13-16
Spring Recess
March 17
Classes Resume
Undergraduate Selection of P/D/F begins
March 25
A.B. Concentration Declaration Period Begins
April 2021
April 6
Deadline to Drop Spring Term Courses
Deadline to Select P/D/F Option
April 13
Declaration Day
Junior Fall Term 2021 Course Selection
April 14
Sophomore Fall Term 2021 Course Selection
April 15
First-Year Fall Term 2021 Course Selection
April 27
Spring 2021 Term Courses End
April 28
Reading Period Begins
May 2021
May 5
Reading Period Ends
Dean's Date
May 8 - 14
Spring 2021 Final Exams
May 25
Commencement
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Additional Dates for Juniors: |
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Additional Dates for Seniors:
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November 16
O.U.R. Winter Funding Application Opens
S.A.F.E.
November 17
JP Topic Sheet DUE to Junior Seminar Faculty (ENG 300)
December 2
7:30 a.m.
Junior Spring Term Course Selection Begins
December 6
O.U.R. Winter Funding Application CLOSES
S.A.F.E.
2021
January 15, 2021
Deadline for Submitting 10 pages of Junior Independent Work or final JP prospectus due
February 19, 2021
First full JP draft due to advisor
April 13, 2021
Deadline for Submitting Junior Independent Work
Please see the below information regarding O.U.R.'s funding cycles and the Departmental resources for research funding support.
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November 16
O.U.R. Winter Funding Application Opens
S.A.F.E.
December 1
7:30 a.m.
Senior Spring Term Course Selection Begins
December 6
O.U.R. Winter Funding Application CLOSES
S.A.F.E.
December 15
Senior's 20-page minimum thesis chapter DUE to advisors and Dropbox
(link TBA)
2021
March 8, 2021
Deadline for submission of non-thesis materials for department prizes
April 13, 2021
Senior Thesis DUE
May 6-7, 2021
Senior Departmental/
Comprehensive Exams
Please see the below information regarding O.U.R.'s funding cycles and the Departmental resources for research funding support.
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LINK TO DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH UG WEBSITE
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SENIORS:
NEW DEADLINE:
20 PAGES SENIOR THESIS WORK IS NOW
DECEMBER 15, 2020
PLEASE NOTE THIS CHANGE!
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Here and There:
Issue 2: Shelter in Place features the creative work of Reb Ngu, Cole Vandenberg, Sophia Marusic, Abby Spare, Cassandra James, Aditi Desai, Lila Harmar, Anika Khakoo, Mel Hornyak, Natalia Arbelaez Solano, Brittani Telfair, and the editorial talents of Isabel Griffith-Gorgati.
Thank you to our wonderful contributors.
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RESEARCH FUNDING INFORMATION: |
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The Maren Grant for Senior Thesis Research
The Maren Grant for Senior Thesis Research supports work toward the thesis for seniors in the English Department. Students should apply through SAFE, and choose the Maren Grant among their funding sources.
Please apply to all funding sources for which you are eligible.
Applications to the Maren Grant for Senior Thesis Research may be made in any of the three OUR funding cycles:
- for thesis research in the summer before senior year;
- in the fall of senior year;
- or in the winter before the thesis is due.
Awards are typically between $200 and $1200.
Deadlines are early: be sure you consult OUR and plan ahead.
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The Maren-Annan Grant for Departmental Research
The Maren-Annan Grant for Departmental Research supports student research for the Junior Paper and, under special circumstances, for other work for juniors or seniors within the context of a course in the English Department (excluding the senior thesis).
Applications should be made through SAFE, by choosing “Undergraduate Independent Projects” under “ACTIVITY.”
Please apply to all funds for which you are eligible along with the Maren Grant.
Allowable expenses correspond to those listed for senior thesis research on the OUR website.
Applications may be made at any time, but we recommend submission at least four weeks before any planned travel.
Awards are typically between $200 and $1200.
Consultation with your JP advisor or the instructor for your class is essential.
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Winter Break/ January Winter Semester O.U.R. Funding Cycle:
O.U.R.'s Application Opens: Monday, November 16, 2020
O.U.R.'s Application Closes: Sunday, December 6, 2020
O.U.R.'s Award posted: Friday, January 8, 2021
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Summer O.U.R. Funding Cycle:
O.U.R.'s Application Opens: Friday, February 19, 2021
O.U.R.'s Application Closes: Sunday, March 21, 2021
O.U.R.'s Award posted: Friday, April 16, 2021
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Your application for all funding must be made through S.A.F.E.
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Students applying to the OUR senior thesis research funding program are required to apply for all departmental and programmatic funds for which they are eligible in one single application.
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You will be able to save your application in SAFE and go back to it, but you must complete and submit the application by the earliest deadline of all the funding sources to which you are applying; no changes will be accepted once applications are submitted and locked, except for the selection of additional funding opportunities when eligible.
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Student Activity Funding Engine (S.A.F.E.)
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Access Princeton's
Virtual Activities Calendar
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t4t: A Trans Studies Symposium
November 10, 12, 17, and 19 at 12:00 p.m. EST
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The Trans Studies Symposium will bring together artists, scholars, and community organizers to be in dialogue about the current state of trans studies and movement building. Over four conversations, the symposium will help to unfurl the legacies of trans organizing, scholarship, art practices, and histories, and how we might consider this history as we move forward into a precarious future.
Speakers & Registration Links:
Cassils
rafa esparza
Jules Gill-Peterson
Perry Zurn
Dora Santana
Río Sophia
Raquel Salas-Rivera
Kelly Díaz
Sponsors: 250th Fund for Innovation in Undergraduate Education, Department of English, Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies, Program in American Studies, Program in Latin American Studies, Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in the Humanities, Lewis Center for the Arts
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Reading:
Pale Sister by Colm Tóibín
performed by Lisa Dwan
Monday, November 23 at 5:00 p.m. EST
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The Department of English and the Council of the Humanities invite you to a rehearsed reading of Colm Tóibín’s Pale Sister by Lisa Dwan. Don’t miss this opportunity to witness this amazing performance.
Click below to register:
Written especially for Lisa Dwan, Class of 1932 Visiting Fellow in the Council of the Humanities. Pale Sister reimagines Sophocles’s Antigone from the point of view of her sister, Ismene. The play follows Ismene as she recounts her sister’s infamous defiance of their uncle, the king of Thebes, and decides what to do as the pressure mounts on the submissive young woman to act. The production was born from a semester-long course Tóibin and Dwan taught at Columbia University, exploring Antigone’s story and its adaptation through history.
Colm Tóibin is one of Ireland’s most celebrated living authors, known for his novels including The Master, Nora Webster, The Testament of Mary, and Brooklyn, which was adapted into an Oscar-nominated movie starring Saoirse Ronan and Domnhall Gleeson. Tóibin has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times and has received numerous awards, including the Costa Novel Award, the International Dublin Literary Award, the Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award, the Stonewall Book Award, and the Irish Pen Award.
Award winning stage, film, and TV actress, Lisa Dwan, is best known for her acclaimed performances in adaptations of Samuel Beckett’s works. Her sold-out tour of "The Beckett Trilogy" in the United States received rave reviews, with the New York Times describing her as “an instrument of Beckett in the way saints and martyrs are said to be instruments of god.” Dwan won the Emery Battis award for her performance in Harold Pinter’s The Lover and The Collection at the Shakespeare Theatre Company. Dwan adapted and starred in No’s Knife at Old Vic Theatre and Abbey Theatre, making her the first woman to perform Beckett's Stories and Texts for Nothing. As part of her “Greek series” Dwan is currently in production to film Pale Sister for the BBC and collaborating with Margaret Atwood on a new version of Medea and with Salman Rushdie on a Helen of Troy. Dwan regularly lectures internationally on theatre and Beckett. Presently the Class of 1932 Visiting Fellow in the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University, Dwan is currently starring in Netflix’s Top Boy for Netflix. Following their recent success on Beckett’s shorts including “Eh Joe,” Dwan will once again team up with Sir Trevor Nunn to play Winnie in Beckett’s Happy Days in February 2021.
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Other Events Around Princeton |
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The Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge
Monday, November 16 at 1:00 p.m. EST
Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian, University of Oxford
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Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian at the University of Oxford, presents an exploration of the deliberate destruction of knowledge – especially of libraries and archives through history, from the ancient libraries and archives of Mesopotamia, through the Great Library of Alexandria, the European Reformation of the 16th century, through to more recent attacks, including the Holocaust, Bosnia in the 1990s, and Iraq in the 2000s.
The talk will also look at literary destructions from Byron to Plath. As much as examining the motivations of destruction, the talk will look at the social value of the preservation of knowledge, especially in the digital world in which we are all immersed.
“This book should stir us to thinking and to action—against censorship, against careless loss,and for the preservation of the memory of where we came from and of our right to be where we are.”
— Michael Skapinker, Financial Times (ft.com)
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Whose Pain Matters?
Reflections on Race, Social Justice, and COVID-19’s Revealed Inequalities
Monday, November 16 at 6:30 p.m.
Keith Wailoo, History; Princeton School of Public & International Affairs
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COVID-19 continues to impact health and economies around the globe, but the pandemic has had another effect: exposing entrenched inequalities in society and healthcare—and creating new ones.
The ethical problems surrounding coronavirus are numerous and profound. “COVID-19 has revealed truths and accentuated challenges that are already inherent in our society and healthcare system,” said Keith Wailoo, PhD, Henry Putnam University Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University.
Drawing on lessons learned from past pandemics and decades of studying U.S. cultural and racial politics, Wailoo will explore how the novel coronavirus is shaping how we prioritize pain and relief in the 2020 William C. Stubing Memorial Lecture.
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4th Annual Princeton African
Humanities Colloquium
Via Zoom
November 16-17, 2020
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The Humanities Council is proud to support the 4th Annual Humanities Colloquium (PAHC) on Africa and Digital Humanities.
The two-day colloquium focuses on the ways in which digital technology and the study of Africa shape each other. It will look at the new and innovative ways of researching, documenting, historizing, writing, and theorizing about the African continent and its people that stem out of the digital turn. The event aims to open up a broad conversation among researchers and scholars of Africa and its diaspora involved in using digital technology in the humanities, broadly defined.
The keynote address will be delivered by Evelyn Fogwe Chibaka (University of Buea, Cameroon) on "What Digital Humanities Means to Africa."
The Princeton African Humanities Colloquium (PAHC), directed by Simon Gikandi (English), was established in 2013 to provide a forum to promote research and teaching in the humanities (broadly defined) at Princeton University and to incorporate the study of Africa in existing and future research projects.
PAHC organizes an annual colloquium on a major topic in African studies, bringing together scholars working on African humanities from Africa, North America, and other regions of the world.
The event is also supported by The Center for Digital Humanities, PIIRS, Program in African Studies, Department of African American Studies, and The University Center for Human Values.
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Rediscovering the Lost Generation:
Inside the World of Shakespeare and Company
Wednesday, November 18, 7:00 p.m.
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Join the Shakespeare and Company Project
(https://shakespeareandco.princeton.edu) for a (virtual) conversation about the Lost Generation and the books they loved. Shakespeare and Company, Sylvia Beach's bookshop and lending library in interwar Paris, counted among its members James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, and many other prominent writers and intellectuals.
In conversation will be Project Director Joshua Kotin (Department of English) and Keri Walsh (Fordham), editor of "The Letters of Sylvia Beach."
Presented in partnership with Princeton Public Library and the Historical Society of Princeton
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We are compiling a list of paid and unpaid virtual projects and mini-internships over winter break for all students.
There are currently more than 110 positions available with 36 different organizations. These opportunities take the place of Princeternship, which will not be offered this winter due to restrictions caused by COVID-19.
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How to be Naturally You in the Workplace
Thurs., Nov. 19 • 4:30-5:30 p.m. ET
A panel of professionals will discuss the difficulties they have encountered with having a natural hairstyle at their workplace.
Learn more & register:
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Center for Career Development's Upcoming Events |
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Organizing Stories presents:
What is a Story Circle?
— and How to Use It in Cultural Organizing
A Workshop with Southerners on New Ground (S.O.N.G.)
Friday, November 20 at 4:30 p.m. EST
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Join us on Friday, November 20th at 4:30 PM as Organizing Stories presents a Student-Faculty Activist Workshop with S.O.N.G.
Southerners on New Ground (S.O.N.G.) is a home for LGBTQ liberation across all lines of race, class, abilities, age, culture, gender, and sexuality in the South. They build, sustain, and connect a southern regional base of LBGTQ people in order to transform the region through strategic projects and campaigns developed in response to current conditions.
As a part of the Organizing Stories workshop series, organizers from S.O.N.G. will lead participants through a spirited workshop on how “story circles” can be employed in cultural and intersectional organizing work.
The workshop is open to undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty interested in the intersections between scholarly and activist work.
All interested participants will receive an event invitation after completing the RSVP form.
Organizing Stories is a student-focused project founded and directed by Professors Autumn M. Womack (English; African American Studies) and Monica Huerta (English; American Studies). The project connects students with veteran organizers in order to investigate the long histories of anti-racist activism, racial justice organizing, and coalition-building as they relate to questions of narrative, storytelling, and humanistic study more broadly.
Organizing Stories is supported by an Exploratory Grant in Collaborative Humanities from the Humanities Council, as well as the Dean of the Faculty, The University Center for Human Values, the Department of African American Studies, and the Princeton African Humanities Colloquium.
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Princeton Dance Festival Reimagined
November 23, December 3, 4 & 5: event days and times available at link below
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Along with the entire global dance community, the Program in Dance is exploring the challenges of dance in a socially distanced world. How can we create new methods of dance and choreography for the online environment that reimagine frontiers of physical practice and the choreographic space?
Six diverse, professional choreographers bring their unique aesthetics to the question of dance in the COVID era working with groups of Princeton dance students. These new works will explore the intersections of dance and multimedia performance, digital animation, filmmaking, site-specific theater and art, or music.
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University Center for Human Values offers events of interest: |
To access the events that the University Center of Human Values presents please use this:
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Ever wanted to know what your professors have been working on when they're not teaching your classes?
Visit the Humanities Council's Faculty Bookshelf! Browse by author or discipline to explore the University's cutting-edge humanities scholarship. (Check out our Department's Faculty Author Q&A: CLaudia Johnson on "30 Great Myths about Jane Austen" here!)
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80-minute, Discipline-Specific Appointments: From formulating a plan for semester- and year-long projects to conducting research and drafting and revising, our trained Graduate Fellows are available as students tackle the challenges of independent work! Make an appointment now: https://writingcenter.princeton.edu/s/80MIN
The Virtual Writing Lab (Sunday-Thursday 8 p.m. – 11 p.m. ET): Having a hard time getting motivated working on your JP or Thesis? Looking for a sense of community? Don’t go it alone! Join our Zoom-based virtual lab to write with peers, consult Fellows as needed, and tackle your short and long-term writing goals! Join here any time we’re open.
Writing Partnerships: Pair up with an experienced Graduate Fellow for a standing weekly appointment to structure the JP or thesis writing process and avoid a pile-up of writing at the end of the semester. If you’re interested in setting up a partnership, write to Dr. Creedon (greedon@princeton.edu).
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Online access to millions of books from PUL's print collection resumes through HathiTrust emergency access service
In response to the needs of an increased number of students and faculty researching, teaching, and learning remotely this fall, Princeton University Library is pleased to announce the resumption of the HathiTrust Emergency Temporary Access Service (ETAS) effective August 31. Through this service, millions of books from our print collection will be accessible online. Full article.
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Princeton University Library to launch Study-Browse Service on August 10
Princeton University Library (PUL) will launch a new service, the PUL Study-Browse Service, beginning Aug. 10 with a pilot at Firestone Library. Through an online reservation system, Princeton University students and faculty with an active PUID will be able to book a seat in a designated Library location for a specified period of time. The Library remains closed to the public and other patrons. The start date of the Study-Browse Service at branch libraries and Special Collections will be determined within the coming days. Access to Special Collections is not available at this time. More information.
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This week's contribution is graciously provided by
Professor Jeff Dolven:
Little Song
by Rowan Ricardo Phillips (2016)
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Both guitars run trebly. One noodles
Over a groove. The other slushes chords.
Then they switch. It’s quite an earnest affair.
They close my eyes. I close their eyes. A horn
Blares its inner air to brass. A girl shakes
Her ass. Some dude does the same. The music’s
Gone moot. Who doesn’t love it when the bass
Doesn’t hide? When you can feel the trumpet peel
Old oil and spit from deep down the empty
Pit of a note or none or few? So don’t
Give up on it yet: the scenario.
You know that it’s just as tired of you
As you are of it. Still, there’s much more to it
Than that. It does not not get you quite wrong.
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Photo Credit: Something on the Eight Ball, 1953-54, Stuart Davis. Philadelphia Museum of Art.
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Suggestions, events, additions, or questions: contact The Department of English's Undergraduate Administrator, Kelly Lake kalake@princeton.edu
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Department of English
22 McCosh Hall
Princeton, NJ 08544
(609) 258-4061
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