The Weekly: Undergraduate News
...Coming to your inbox Mondays
Issue #21 for the week of 2/1/2020
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From the Director of Studies |
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Welcome back, everyone—“back” may still be somewhat altered, but the welcome is emphatic. It’s a quiet week in the department, as we settle into classes. As I write the forecast is for snow, so let us huddle around our zoom-screens and warm our hands at the intellectual fire that burns there, unconquerably.
As classes get under way, don’t neglect the thesis or the JP! Remember the Writing Room on Sundays (information below), and of course all the wonderful resources at the Writing Center. Both are ways of bringing your writing into conversation. I was rereading the poet Allen Grossman’s Summa Lyrica over the break, and he made me think all over again of the potential both for schism and for community in the project of interpretation, which is our project. This passage is dense, but for me very helpful:
“As soon as interpretation is permitted, the community becomes aware of the monadic character of its constituent elements, its persons. But the community can be healed when the members turn away from the text and toward one another. The bad diversity of meanings is a diversity unmediated by sociability. This occurs when the text is regarded as the only sanctioned answerer, when the text is ontoglogized in such a way that its legitimacy is regarded as prior to the legitimacy of the person. When readers turn away from the text and toward one another, when the text therefore recedes and can scarcely be seen, then there arises a new sentiment of textuality, which draws in the souls which have been scattered. This is the beginning of hermeneutic friendship in which the dialogic structure of the text, the structure characterized by communicable diversity, binds the community back together not through the repetition of meaning (the hermeneutic of repetition, which is the continuation into the community of the monologic conception of the text, and betrays the inherent diversity of interest on which the culture of persons is established) but through the dialectic interplay of meaning which comes to be seen as the progressive disclosure of being of which the text that was the starting point is then seen as a preliminary indication.” (Summa Lyrica 30.4)
I think he means something like: there is potential, if each of us cherishes our own particular interpretations, for a common text to drive us apart. That is the bad diversity of meanings, egocentric and unshareable. But if we remember to turn toward each other, the “communicable diversity” of the text, our starting point, can foster recognition of the diversity of interests that makes up what Grossman calls the culture of persons. Or put another way: do share your writing with readers, as you share your thoughts in seminar. Look up from the text, and look around. (And then look back. And then up again. And so on.)
Finally, down below, an afterword to remind us that spring has its plans, whatever winter may think.
Director of Undergraduate Studies
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Undergraduate Administrator
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ACADEMIC DATES & DEADLINES |
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2021
February 2021
February 1
Spring 2021 Classes Begin
February 12
Deadline to Add/Drop Classes without fee
February 12
Art to Heart Workshop with Saturnia
via Zoom 5:00 p.m. EST
March 2021
March 3
The Next Chapter: Alumni Panel
via Zoom 4:30 p.m. EST
March 8 - 12
Spring Midterm Period
March 13-16
Spring Recess
March 17
*Classes Resume
*Undergraduate Selection of P/D/F begins
March 18
King Lear. Read. Meet. Discuss. A Common Works Event
via Zoom TBA
March 25
A.B. Concentration Declaration Period Begins
April 2021
April 1
Akira Kurosawa's Ran. View. Meet Discuss. A Common Works Event
via Zoom TBA
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
*Junior Independent Work Due
*Senior Thesis Due
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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2021
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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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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The COVID-19 Dashboard now includes data from the undergraduates living on campus and those living locally with access to campus for the spring semester. Please keep in mind that the Dashboard is updated weekly on Mondays with results from the previous week, not in real time.
Web Resources:
Support Line:
For questions not answered on any of the above websites, the Princeton University COVID Connector Support Line is available by phone at (609) 258-7000 or by email at
Please stay safe, and best wishes for a great start to the spring semester.
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Undergraduates may study in select lobbies, atria, common spaces and classrooms within select buildings:
- Aaron Burr
- East Pyne
- Friend Center
- Frist Campus Center
- Julis Romo Rabinowitz/Louis A. Simpson
- Lewis Arts complex
- Lewis Library
- McDonnell
- Robertson
- Woolworth
Within these buildings, common areas and select classrooms will be open with COVID modifications and signage indicating availability in place. Changes to the list of buildings and spaces will be posted on the University’s COVID website throughout the semester.
Undergraduates may access these buildings with their PUID cards between 6:45 a.m. and midnight each day. Graduate students may also use these spaces, and their other access to campus buildings remains unchanged.
Also effective Monday, the Library is expanding its study-browse service to all undergraduates on campus. The service allows students and faculty with active PUIDs to reserve a seat or browse the stacks at campus Library locations through a reservation system.
We are reinforcing with undergraduates that they are expected to abide by the Social Contract as well as signs directing them to wear masks, heed capacity limits, practice physical distancing and follow cleaning protocols.
The Department of Public Safety, Venue Services staff and participants in a new Community Advocates Program will monitor building usage closely. We will evaluate usage and behavior in these spaces and evaluate whether more — or fewer — spaces should be made available. Undergraduate students will be informed that violations of the Social Contract could result in revocation of their access to these academic buildings.
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On January 20, 2021, American poetry in public came back in style. We do not mean that poetry came back into fashion. We mean that its return was stylish, personified as it was by the young poet Amanda Gorman, wearing a bright yellow Prada coat that nobody can stop talking about.
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Teaching with collections: 'Reading Toni Morrison'
in a virtual world
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What is it like to pore over — and even touch — the handwriting of a world-renowned author on the lined notepaper on which she drafted her famous novels? What do you learn about the writing process from reading an author’s handwritten pen and pencil scribbles as she made changes to early drafts of work on typewritten pages? And what happens when access to those literary pages of gold is threatened by the pandemic?
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How Fashion Can Relieve Us From the Burden of Visibility
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Sometimes you cover yourself up in order to reveal more of yourself, and sometimes the covering relieves you from being you.
Anne A. Cheng, “Self-Portrait as Teenager” (2019), oil, 12 x 12 inches Credit: Photo by the author
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The Class of 1859 Prize and the Politics of “Friendship”
by Sara Krolewski '18 , Annabel Barry '19, and Sylvie Thode '20
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Each year, the Princeton University Department of English awards the Class of 1859 prize, its highest honor, to a graduating senior. Until summer 2020, the official prize description read:
The Class of 1859 established the prize in 1869 on the occasion of their tenth reunion. Of the seventy-three members of the Class of ’59, thirty-five served in the Civil War after graduation. Fifteen fought for the Union, twenty for the Confederacy. The prize was meant to honor those who died in the war and restore the bonds of friendship that had been suspended by it.
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Calling all English Concentrators:
Thesis Writers and Junior Papers
English Writing Room
Sundays Spring 2021
1:30 - 4:30 p.m. EST
via Zoom
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Sunday Writing Room Zoom:
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Here and There:
Issue 4:
Gratitude & Family
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RED BULL Theater presents:
RemarkaBULL Podversations
EXPLORING KING LEAR
WITH ANDRÉ DE SHIELDS
LIVESTREAM
Monday, February 1, 2021 | 7:30 PM EST
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Tony Award-winning Actor ANDRÉ DE SHIELDS will join host NATHAN WINKELSTEIN, Red Bull’s Associate Artistic Director, for a conversation focused on the ‘man more sinned against than sinning’, Shakespeare’s titular King Lear. André gave a celebrated performance of the role at Classical Theater of Harlem and then The Folger in 2007. He will read a passage from the play and discuss the challenges and rewards of playing one of Shakespeare’s titans. They will take your questions too!
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J.K. Rowling and the Dangers of TERF Rhetoric
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2021
2 PM EST ON ZOOM
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Join the Women*s Center, the LGBT Center, and GSS for our first Feminist Friday. We will be discussing the dangers of TERF (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists) rhetoric to the continuing advocacy for womxn's rights, the physical danger to Trans* folks—especially Women of Color, and how we can be better advocates.
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Department of English Outreach presents
Art to Heart Workshop with Saturnia Arts
hosted by Cassy ('23) and Katie James
Friday, February 12, 2021 at 5:00 p.m. EST
Zoom
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Do you want to bring a smile to someone's face this Valentine's Day? Then join us for this group workshop where you will create an original piece of art or writing, then email it to someone in need as a Valentine's Day card.
No experience with art or creative writing necessary.
All you need to participate is a piece of paper, a pen, and an open heart.
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Intersections Working Group: Book Talk
Decolonizing Diasporas:
Radical Mappings of Afro-Atlantic Literature
by Yomaira C. Figueroa-Vásquez
Tuesday, February 16, 2021 12:00 p.m. EST
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The first 20 Princeton affiliates to register for the event below will be reimbursed for a copy of the book (Digital or Paperback) available on Amazon.com or at Northwestern University Press (links at bottom of page)
Book reimbursements can only be provided to University affiliates but the event is open to the public and all are welcome and encouraged to attend.
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SAVE THE DATE:
The Next Chapter: Alumni Panel
Wednesday, March 3, 2021
4:30 - 6:00 p.m. EST
via Zoom
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Keep an eye open for further event details and the list of recent alumni, who are in the fields of law, medicine, publishing, journalism, film, theater administration, and non-profit education, when they return to campus to talk with current concentrators and prospective concentrators about their professional journeys and how majoring in English is critical to what they do now.
Want to learn how concentrating in The Department of English can serve you? Join us Wednesday, March 3 at 4:30 p.m.
Meet our alumni. Listen to their stories. Hear how English served them.
Can't wait to meet them?
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King Lear
by William Shakespeare.
Read. Meet. Discuss.
A Common Works Event
Thursday, March 18, 2021
4:30 - 6:00 p.m. EST via Zoom
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Join graduate moderators, Lisa Kraege and Moeko Fujii to discuss this Shakespearean classic and Common Works text.
Open to current university concentrators and prospective concentrators. Class of 2022 concentrators are strongly encouraged to attend as this is connected to the Common Works.
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Intersections Working Group presents
The Smell of Risk:
Environmental Disparities and Olfactory Aesthetics by Hsuan L. Hsu
Tuesday, March 16, 2021 at 12:00 p.m. EST
via Zoom
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The first 20 Princeton affiliates to register for the event will be reimbursed for a copy of the book (Digital or Paperback) available on Amazon.com or at NY University Press (links at bottom of page)
Book reimbursements can only be provided to University affiliates but the event is open to the public and all are welcome and encouraged to attend.
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Akira Kurosawa's film
Ran
View. Meet. Discuss.
A Common Works Event
Thursday, March 18, 2021
4:30 - 6:00 p.m. EST
via Zoom
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Join graduate moderators, Lisa Kraege and Moeko Fujii to discuss this Shakespearean classic and Common Works text.
Open to current university concentrators and prospective concentrators. Class of 2022 concentrators are strongly encouraged to attend as this is connected to a Common Work (King Lear) .
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Intersections Working Group presents:
The Cry of the Senses and The Fact of Resonance
by Ren Ellis Neyra by Julie Beth Napolin
Tuesday, April 13, 2021 at 12:00 p.m. EST
Registration is Required
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The first 20 Princeton affiliates to register for the event below will be reimbursed for copies of the books (Digital or Paperback) available on Amazon.com or at NY University Press (links at bottom of page)
Book reimbursements can only be provided to University affiliates, but the event is open to the public and all are welcome and encouraged to attend.
Links to Purchase the books:
THE CRY OF THE SENSES
Amazon:
Duke University Press:
THE FACT OF RESONANCE
Amazon:
Fordham University Press:
Register for the Event Here:
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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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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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COM 432
Thomas Mann: Novelist of Epidemics
Mondays & Wednesdays 11:00 - 12:20 a.m.
R.J. Bergman
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Dear students, colleagues, and friends,
This spring semester, I have the honor and privilege of teaching Thomas Mann, Novelist of Epidemics (COM 432). I taught this course for the first time in 2017, a year whose cataclysms lent themselves all too well to Mann’s wartime novels of both political and bacterial “infection.” Unfortunately, these prescient works speak even more resonantly to the violence we have witnessed this past year, both medically in the ongoing pandemic and politically in ongoing acts of war and terror. Teaching this course (previously titled Thomas Mann and His World) was a deeply moving and even healing occasion last time around. My students reported a similarly rewarding experience from our searching collaborations. This is a class for questions with no easy answers, and for scholars with urgent, unsettling questions.
The Magic Mountain and Doctor Faustus (our two main texts for the class, along with Death in Venice and supporting philosophical readings) are encyclopedic novels that seem to reach into every corner of modern humanistic life. This means that we can closely tailor our focus to student interests. These might include music, medicine, language, history, translation, literary theory, psychology, and religion, to name just a few. We will look closely at how Thomas Mann’s experience of queerness plays out in his fiction, addressing the problematic but unignorable role of this author’s troubled, and troubling, biography in all his writings.
I hope you’ll consider joining us for what promises to be a galvanizing, multisensory, interdisciplinary “romp” through the worst of times. Please forward to any individuals or organizations you think might be interested.
We welcome both undergraduate and graduate students. Knowledge of German is helpful but by no means necessary.
Thank you, and best wishes for the coming semester,
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Creative Writing Certificate Expo
Friday, February 5th
3:00 - 4:30 p.m. EST
via Zoom
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This is an opportunity for all students, particularly first-years, sophomores, and juniors, to ask questions about the Program in Creative Writing! We are here to answer your questions about Creative Writing courses, the path to the Creative Writing certificate, the Creative Writing thesis, and more.
Creative Writing thesis students, faculty, and staff will be present to answer all of your questions!
Meeting Link:
Meeting ID: 961 1451 8036
P.S. This is an "open house" kind of event, so feel free to drop in at any time!
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"Writing Tools" by Fred Merchán is licensed with CC BY-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/ |
NOTA BENE
ENGLISH CONCENTRATORS & POTENTIAL CONCETRATORS: English Concentrators accepted to the Certificate Program in Creative Writing may cognate two CWR courses as departmental courses in English, and may substitute a thesis in CWR for the thesis in English.
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Patheos' 2021
College Essay Competition
Religion, Lost & Found
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Patheos' 2021 college essay competition, themed ‘Religion, Lost & Found', is now accepting submissions.
Winning essay will be awarded $750, with four runner-up essays winning $350.
Essays may consider stories of encountering religion on campus, losing faith, religion and dating, conversion, changing engagement with scripture, ritual, or prayer, and all else that reasonably feels like a story about religion or faith. Essays should center around a personal story or moment. Essays of theology or cultural critique will not be considered. Students from all and every religious background (including those who do not affiliate with a religious community) are encouraged to submit.
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Summer 2021:
Princeton's Department of Classics
Intensive: Ancient African Language of Gəˁəz (classical Ethiopic)
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This summer, Princeton’s Department of Classics will be offering an intensive class for Princeton undergraduates and graduate students in the ancient African language of Gəˁəz (classical Ethiopic). It will be taught by Prof. Hamza Zafer, who has taught this course to great acclaim at the University of Washington.
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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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While our physical office may be closed, the Center for Career Development is still here to support you.
Wherever you're studying, you can access virtual advising, programs, resources, recruiting and more. The Center for Career Development serves Princeton undergraduate and graduate students of all years and interests.
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Are You a Cruciverbalist?
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The Daily Princetonian now offers a daily crossword.
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HEY, CLASS OF 2021:
CLASS DAY IS 112 DAYS AWAY!
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It's time to dig through the baby pics. . .
CLASS DAY 2021
May 24, 2021 at 1:30 p.m.
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Class Day 2021 is just around the corner!
We in the Department of English Undergraduate are already working to put together a wonderful experience to celebrate you, your family and loved ones, and your graduation.
To aid us in this we need your help!
Please send us as jpeg/png/doc/pdf:
- Your favorite baby/ young person picture (cuteness you, creative you, "little reader" you, or the one you like the most!)
- Picture(s) of you now or recently.
- If you have them, photos that we can share of you and other concentrators. Please think of ones that "express you" or a photo of you that you love (and your family might too.)
- A favorite poem or passage that resonates with you, one which knocks you over, makes your heart sing, your brain buzz, or the one that captured your interest and brought you to your thesis!
(Kindly label your files with your full name - pngs, jpegs, pdfs, word docs are all welcome.)
MATERIALS ARE DUE FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2021.
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Spring and All
by William Carlos Williams
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I.
By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast-a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen
patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees
All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines—
Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches—
They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar wind—
Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf
One by one objects are defined—
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf
But now the stark dignity of
entrance—Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken
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Photo Credit: "Early Spring Maple—2" by Conrad Kuiper is licensed with CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/
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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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