For those planning on taking English 4582: African-American Literature in Fall 2018, the class has officially been canceled due to staffing issues. However, English 4597.01 The Disability Experience in the Contemporary World will be taking its place. It will be taking place at the same time as English 4582 and will be taught by Dr. Amrita Dhar! The information is as follows!

English 4597.01 The Disability Experience in the Contemporary World
Class Number: 35680
Days: Monday & Wednesday
Time: 11:10-12:30pm

Any questions? Contact your advisors Beth Wallace (wallace.308) and Dr. Renee Benham (benham.20)

The English Department would love to welcome our newest English Advisor, Dr. M. Renee Benham, to the Newark branch! She will be assisting English students (M-Z) in their academic journey and cannot wait to get to know her students. Here is a little background on our newest addition!

Dr. M. Renee Benham received her Ph.D. in English Literature from Ohio University. Her dissertation, Beyond Nightingale: The Transformation of Nursing in Victorian and WWI Literature, traced the evolution of the literary representation of nursing from a denigrated last resort for poor widows to an esteemed, efficient profession for middle-class British women. A portion of this project, “The Cost of Efficiency in Great War Nursing Literature” was recently published in the medical humanities collection Medicine, Health, and Being Human (Routledge, 2018). Benham taught multiple courses at Ohio University including freshman and junior composition courses themed on Sherlock Holmes and literature survey courses including texts from Austen’s Northanger Abbey to Rowling’s Harry Potter. Benham received her M.A. from Wright State University and her B.A. from Denison University.

I am really excited to get to know the English majors at OSU-Newark

If you have any questions for Dr. Benham, she can be reached at benham.20@osu.edu. And make sure to welcome her to campus this August!

Our own Writing and Rhetoric extraordinaire, Dr. Elizabeth Weiser, has published Museum Rhetoric: Building Civic Identity in National Spaces. Dr. Weiser has traveled worldwide exploring and researching museums and the way they create identity.

The synopsis is as follows:

In today’s diverse societies, museums are the primary institutions within the public sphere in which individuals can both engage critical thought and celebrate community. This volume uses the lens of rhetoric to explore the role these societal repositories play in establishing and altering cultural heritage and national identity.

Based on fieldwork conducted in over sixty museums in twenty-two countries across six continents, Museum Rhetoric explores how heritage museum exhibits persuade visitors to unite their own sense of identity with that of the broader civic society and how the latter changes in response. Elizabeth Weiser examines what compels communities, organizations, and nations to create museum spaces, and how museums operate as sites of both civic engagement and rhetorical persuasion. Moving beyond rhetorical explorations of museums as “memory sites,” she shows how they intentionally straddle the divides between style and content, intellect and affect, and unity and diversity, and why their portrayal of the past matters to civic life—and particularly studies of nationalism—in the present and future.

Deeply researched and artfully argued, Museum Rhetoric sheds light on the public impact of cultural and aesthetic heritage and opens avenues of inquiry for scholars of museum studies and public history.

Congratulations to Dr. Weiser! Purchasing information can be found here.

Every year, the English Department holds an essay contest that allows students to turn in their best essays of the year for a cash prize! The 2017-2018 winners were Kyle Smith, senior English student, who came in first place with her analysis of the film Ex Machina, and Shelby Royal, junior English Student, in second place with a close reading of “The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere.” Both essays have been included below for your reading pleasure.

A True Turing Test by Kyle Smith

Roll the Dice: A Close Reading of Part III of “The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere” by Shelby Royal

Congratulations to both of the winners, and stay up to date with all of the English Department’s awards and events by following us on Twitter!