The Weekly: Undergraduate News
...Coming to your inbox Mondays
Issue #3 for the week of 9/7/2020
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From the Director of Studies: |
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Welcome to our second week, all. I hope everyone is settling into coursework, and finding energy in what you are reading. In an ordinary semester, we can walk the halls in McCosh and hear such a plenty of voices, from so many places and centuries, spilling from classrooms. This fall, it’s all buzzing around us in the ether—exciting in its own way.
A couple of things to flag below. Juniors and seniors, I’ll hold informational meetings for you this Thursday at 4:30 and 5:15, respectively, laying out the requirements for the coming year and answering any questions. Those will be recorded, but do come if you can. Zoom codes to follow by email. Some virtual literary snacks will be served, as always. Further out, we have now scheduled a talk by Justin Torres, author of We the Animals, on Thursday, October 22, at 7:30 PM. His novel is among the Common Works for the class of ’22, and he is a great speaker—we urge everyone to attend, and you’ll hear more about the event as we get closer.
Most of us by now have read President Eisgruber’s letter on anti-racism. The project of recognizing and fighting racism on campus is one the department joins with a strong sense of urgency, and we will convene a town-hall discussion of steps we can take. Stay tuned for information on timing shortly.
Finally, each week I want to end the newsletter with a brief excerpt from a book a member of the department faculty and staff is reading—a reward for scrolling down to the bottom (as if the news in-between were not reward enough in itself!). I’m going to start it off myself, but we’ll hear from many others over the course of the year. (Colleagues! Your suggestions welcome!)
Director of Undergraduate Studies
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Other Sources of Assistance: |
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Outreach Coordinator
Outreach Calendar
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Undergraduate Administrator
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September 2020
September 7
Labor Day - University Holiday
Classes Meet as Scheduled
Administrative Offices Closed
September 10
Juniors 4:30 p.m. | Zoom
Seniors 5:30 p.m. | Zoom
DUS & Concentrators Meeting
September 11
11:59 p.m.
Undergraduate Deadline to Add/Drop without Fee
September 23
12:00 p.m.| Zoom
Registration Required
Intersections Working Group presents Joshua Bennett
Event details listed below
October 2020
October 5-9
Midterm Examination Week
October 10 - 13
Fall Recess - No Classes
October 14
6:00 a.m. | TigerHub
Undergraduate Selection of P/D/F Option begins
October 14
12:30 p.m. | Zoom
UG Graduate School Admissions Workshop
October 21
12:00 p.m. | Zoom
Intersections Working Group presents: Lindsay Reckson
Event details TBA
October 22
TBA | Zoom
Common Works Lecture: Justin Torres, We the Animals
November 2020
November 3
11:59 p.m.
Undergraduate Deadline to Select P/D/F Option
November 24
Final Day of Regularly Schedule 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
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Additional Dates for Juniors: |
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September 10
4:30 pm | Zoom
Juniors Meet with DUS
November 17
JP Topic Sheet DUE to Junior Seminar Faculty (ENG 300)
December 2
7:30 a.m.
Junior Spring Term Course Selection Begins
January 15
Deadline for Submitting Junior Independent Work
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Additional Dates for Seniors: |
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September 10
5:30 pm| Zoom
Seniors Meet with DUS
October 1
12:00 p.m.
Senior Topic Sheet DUE to UA and Dropbox.
November 24
Senior's 20-page minimum thesis chapter DUE to advisors and Dropbox
(link TBA)
December 1
7:30 a.m.
Senior Spring Term Course Selection Begins
April 13, 2021
Senior Thesis DUE
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LINK TO DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH UG WEBSITE
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Check Out the Lit Review and Podcasts
Below!
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NEW CALENDAR AVAILABLE:
Access Princeton's
Virtual Activities Calendar
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14th Annual Humanities Colloquim:
Things As They Should Be? A Question for the Humanities
Wednesday, September 9, 2020
4:30 - 6:00 p.m.
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The Humanities Council kicks off each academic year with an interdisciplinary Colloquium featuring humanities faculty.
Aristotle claims that poetry is more philosophical than history because it depicts not ‘what happens’ but ‘the kind of thing that might happen’; not just ‘things as they are or seem’, but ‘things as they should be’ (Poetics 1451a-b and 1460b). The colloquium seeks to investigate the disciplinary divisions these claims suggest: in what ways does poetry depict what might or should be? Can literature define expectations and hence become an instrument for social and political change and ethical transformation? Does history not also organize its narratives according to what seems probable or necessary? What are the philosophical stakes of asking how different disciplines depict “things as they should be”?
The following scholars, whose work represents different approaches and historical periods, examine these questions.
Eddie S. Glaude Jr. (African American Studies)
Barbara Graziosi (Classics)
Jhumpa Lahiri (Creative Writing)
Melissa Lane (Politics)
Moderator:
Eric S. Gregory (Religion)
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Panel Discussion: Interrogating Biases at LIFE Magazine
Friday, September 11, 2020 @ 2:00 pm
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Join us for a live webinar roundtable as Princeton voices from across disciplines consider the ways intersectional biases persistent in the US in the middle of the twentieth century informed Life magazine. How, for example, can editorial thinking about race, Christianity, gender, and heteronormativity be located the magazine’s photographic agenda, journalistic intentions, and historic reach? Participants include Eden Consenstein (Religion), Tessa Desmond (American Studies), and Autumn Womack (English). Moderated by Katherine A. Bussard, the Peter C. Bunnell Curator of Photography.
This event will include live closed captions in both English and Spanish. English captions are available directly in the Zoom toolbar by clicking the "CC" icon. To access Spanish-language captioning, open Streamtext, where you can select “Spanish” to see the live captioning.
Para acceder a los subtítulos en varios idiomas, ingrese al seminario web de Zoom durante un evento en vivo, luego abra un navegador web separado para visitar esta página donde puede seleccionar" español "o el idioma de su elección.
Spanish-language live closed-captioning for this program is made possible by the Rapid Response Magic Project of the Princeton University Humanities Council.
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Intersections Working Group presents:
Joshua Bennett
September 23, 2020
12:00 p.m.
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Intersections Working Group presents a discussion of "Being Property Once Myself: Blackness and the End of Man" (Harvard, 2020) with author Joshua Bennett, Mellon Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College.
The first 20 people to register below for the event will be reimbursed for a copy of the book (Digital or Hardcover) available on Amazon.com or at Harvard University Press (links at bottom of page)
If you are interested in attending the workshop and being reimbursed for a copy of the book, please register using the following link:
Joshua Bennett's Being Property Once Myself: Blackness and the End of Man is available at:
or
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That's Why We Become Witches: Sylvia Townsend Warner and Katherine Mansfield
September 25, 2020 10:00 - 11:00 p.m. EST*
*This event is held in Wellington, New Zealand on September 26, 2020 at 14:00 - 15:00; the date and time have been adjusted to reflect Princeton, NJ EST time.
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Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893-1978) and Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) were modernist women writers who had lasting impacts on women’s writing as it exists today. Both Mansfield and Warner have been compared and contrasted with Virginia Woolf extensively, but rarely, if ever, have Mansfield and Warner been put into conversation directly with each other.
Join us online for this talk by recent Princeton University graduate Tessa Smith which explores Townsend Warner and Mansfield as speaking to different stories of queer women writers and the ways their legacies, in public and private writing, have been shaped.
There is no cost to attend the talk, just register below and we'll send a link out 24 hours in advance.
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SAVE THE DATE:
Thursday Evening
October 22, 2020
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A reading and Q&A
with
JUSTIN TORRES
author of
We the Animals
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FALL 2020: COURSES TO CONSIDER |
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LAO 218/ENG 258/AMS 218:
Latinx Autobiography
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LAO 218/
ENG 258/AMS 218:
Latinx Autobiography
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This course begins from the disjoint and relation between the narrated autobiography and the lived life. In reading works by authors including Myriam Gurba, Wendy C. Ortiz, Carmen Maria Machado, Richard Rodriguez, and Junot Diaz, we will explore not only how writers experiment with the project of narrating a life that contends with the structures and strictures of racial matrices, gender binaries, and traumatic abuse - but also how writers test the boundaries of what autobiographies more generally are and are for.
This course satisfies the following ENG Major Distribution Areas: Literature and Culture from 1900-present (post-1900) and/or Difference & Diversity
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ENG 408/ GSS 415/ AMS 418:
Queer Literatures:
Theory, Narrative, and Aesthetics
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ENG 408/ GSS 415/ AMS 418:
Queer Literatures:
Theory, Narrative, and Aesthetics
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This course will read from various trajectories of queer literature and engage "reading queerly" across race, gender, ability, class, and geography. We will consider the etymology of queer and think through its affiliate terms: lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans. How are such narratives encounters with power that are historically situated in relation to the national formations, carceral states, and racial capitalism?
ENG Major Distribution Area: Difference & Diversity. Questions should be directed to caleon@princeton.edu.
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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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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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Book Pickup and Digitization
Additionally, the Princeton University Library is offering new services to give you access to library materials while the library buildings are closed: book pickup and digitization.
NOTE: The Library is preparing for an anticipated increase in requests for digitized materials needed for teaching in the fall. Please keep this in mind when requesting digitization of research material.
When you search for a title in the library Catalog (https://catalog.princeton.edu/), the record for a printed book will show a new button called Request Pick-up or Digitization for all materials in Firestone and branch libraries that are available for pickup and digitization.
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When you click the button, you will be asked to login with your Princeton netid.
Successful login will take you to a second screen:
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If you choose Digitization Request, you will be routed to the Article Express interface. From there, click “Logon to ILLiad”. This will open a new page; from there, click “Submit Request”. The digital scan will be sent to your Princeton University email.
If you choose Request this item, you will receive an email confirmation that the pickup request has been received. When the item is ready for pickup, you will receive an email alerting you when to stop by the appropriate library during pickup hours. You can retrieve the item just outside the library doors. The exact location may vary across buildings. All locations have relevant signage in place.
Because this service is now available, our access to the HathiTrust Emergency Temporary Access Service (ETAS) has been discontinued. The more limited access to HathiTrust we enjoyed prior to the shutdown remains available.
Please let us know if you have any questions about this process. And, as always, we remain at your service for any purchase requests or research assistance.
Have Questions? Please contact our librarian:
(609) 258-3296
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Afterword:
This week's contribution is
from The Shore, by Chris Nealon (2020)
Chosen by Jeff Dolven
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All those years I thought I was a poet and I was just some person on
the metro
But I'm OK with being numerable...
Number of beats, number of breaths—
Each of us pulsing through the nights — each a portion of the sources
of plenty—
The chanson de geste of your hand across the page
The troubadour amour of your eyes on the horizon
And the voice in my head that speaks to me like I'm a child—
Some days I'm like shut up superego
Some days I just say, please always speak to me this way
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Photo Credit: "El Pescador Beach - Black and White" by Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area
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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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