The Weekly: Undergraduate News
...Coming to your inbox Mondays
Issue #16 for the week of 12/7/2020
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From the Director of Studies |
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Reading week turns to exam week, across the Rubicon of Dean’s Date—I will not detain you long here. Events are few (though this might be interesting, for those of you planning to take Science Fiction next term). Below you’ll find Kelly’s customarily well-curated survey of prospects and deadlines. And at the far end, a little writing advice. Speaking of which, write well, all. (The trick, I learned yesterday from Brian Dillon’s Essayism, is to write while writing.*)
* “By that stage I was convinced that criticism (and perhaps writing in general) should consist of a sensitive but dauntless search for the most productive or provocative metaphors in the material to hand. And I still think that this is what writing is, still feel that an account of the world that fails to draw from it all its figural potential is therefore incomplete. Which is not to say that I always find the guiding metaphor myself; sometimes the object in front of me—text, image, place or person—will not yield the comparison that seems to open things up, to make thought and writing flow. Then you have simply written something: perfectly serviceable, perhaps, informative and otherwise inventive—at the level of its structure, for example, or your word choices. But you will have failed to find the element—when all is said and done, it may be obvious only to the writer—that secretly governs the whole. You will have failed as it were to write while writing.”
Director of Undergraduate Studies
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Undergraduate Administrator
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ACADEMIC DATES & DEADLINES |
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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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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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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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JUST IN TIME FOR THANKSGIVING
Here and There: Issue 3: Food
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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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Wintersession 2021 will be a fully virtual experience and will run from January 18–31, 2021.
Undergraduate students, graduate students, staff and faculty can participate as teachers, learners or both.
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Access Princeton's
Virtual Activities Calendar
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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.
This Afro-Asiatic language is vital for the study of ancient and medieval Africa, especially African Christianity, and has a vast archive of texts, many written by Egyptians and Ethiopians, and others originally written in Hebrew or Greek, including apocryphal biblical books like Enoch and Jubilees. This language is rarely taught outside of Ethiopia despite the real need for specialists in it to work on studying and translating these texts. Princeton has the largest collection of Gəˁəz manuscripts in the Americas and fascinating projects studying them, which students can join.
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Submission Opportunity
Tortoise
Thursday, December 17, 2020 11:59 p.m. EST
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Tortoise is an annual journal published through the Writing Center that showcases exceptional student writing and accompanies that writing with explanatory comments in which the authors and editors reflect on the writing and research process.
We are currently soliciting submissions for our next issue, which will be published at the end of the academic year. Our Early Deadline is Thursday 17 December 2020, at 11:59pm ET. Further submission information is available on the above poster.
We publish writing from all disciplines and at all levels, from Writing Seminar papers in literature to graduate student abstracts in linguistics.
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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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This week's contribution is graciously provided by
Professor Jeff Dolven:
To a Snail
Marianne Moore (1924)
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If “compression is the first grace of style,”
you have it. Contractility is a virtue
as modesty is a virtue.
It is not the acquisition of any one thing
that is able to adorn,
or the incidental quality that occurs
as a concomitant of something well said,
that we value in style,
but the principle that is hid:
in the absence of feet, “a method of conclusions”;
“a knowledge of principles,”
in the curious phenomenon of your occipital horn.
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Photo Credit: https://i.imgur.com/iUMDTGT.png
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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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