All posts by Rachel Hicks

myOwnBody.docx by Maria Rovito

Congratulations to Maria Rovito for publishing a book of her poems!  If you have been recently published, contact Rachel Hicks with your story.

myOwnBody.docx, a collection of conceptual, cyber, and experimental poems, looks at the ways in which bodies are rendered and manipulated on screen, on the Internet, and in real life. Reading on the page as lines of code, chat room messages, and transcriptions, Rovito’s work aims to explore and reinvent the question of the body and human involvement in machinery and technology, shifting the borders between human and non-human.

Maria was profiled on the blog because a few of her poems featured in this collection were published on websites and in magazines. Check out her experiences as a grad student and a writer here.

You can find her book on Amazon.

M.J. Zeller — The Edelion: Deliverance

Within the past year, Millersville alum Matt Zeller published a novel he began working on during his time at MU entitled The Edelion: Deliverance. This is the first book in a series of four.

From the back flap:

The underworld of society is not for the faint of heart. Nobles spit on you, the city watch beats you, and the general public treats you like a disease. To live in this cold and dark life, one must fight for survival every day. Many turn to theft by means of cruelty and murder, but there are some that approach this career through cunning, guile, and skill. It is through this lifestyle that we find a young boy known only as Harth, striving to make a life for himself and gain fame and fortune under the infamous banner of the Thieves Guild.

Upon passing the first test, Harth is instructed to find his way to the City of Thieves; however, he discovers a world far more dangerous than he could have ever imagined. Along his journey to the City of Thieves, evil creatures and minions of a long-forgotten power lurk in the shadows, tracking his movements for reasons unknown to him. It all seems coincidental to Harth, but the fluctuations of a sleeping magic within him suggest otherwise. Harth is left frightened and confused as his injuries pile up and his courage wanes, but the not-so-random people he meets along the way keep him pushing forward. Despite all the near-death situations, Harth finds his way to the City of Thieves to secure his place among the most infamous thieves in the world. But are his adventures complete? His goals met? Or have they only just begun now that a once-slumbering evil creeps back into the land, hungry for destruction?

Matt worked closely with Dr. Tim Miller on the early drafts of the novel when he was an undergraduate student.  We are so very proud of the publications that emerge from the creativity of Millersville students.

Millersville students get published! If you’ve recently found yourself a published author, let us know by contacting Rachel Hicks with your story.

Saxby’s Selfies

To participate in Saxby’s Selfies, invite a professor to coffee and the department will provide a $5 gift card for a “tasty beverage.” Take a selfie and send to Rachel Hicks with a quick blurb about what you talked about! 

Dr. Phannenstiel and Skyler Gibbon

On October 18th, Dr. Phannenstiel and Skyler Gibbon went out for coffee on the English Department. Their conversation covered myriad topics- from grad school opportunities to fashion.

We talked about our coffee addictions. We talked about grad school and the opportunities that come with it. We talked about the opportunities that professors and students have to participate in conferences. We talked about TV shows, like our love for John Oliver, cake-baking shows, and Atlanta.  We talked about how important writing skills are essential to all areas of study (like advocacy campaigns, science/technology). I talked about my thesis topic on the rhetorical influence and hermeneutics of black preaching…Nicole gave me sources to help with my research.  -Skyler Gibbon

Dr. Phannenstiel and Andie Petrillo

In October, graduate student Andie Petrillo and Dr. Phannenstiel grabbed coffee and talked about career opportunities after graduate school, among other things.

Back in October in the throes of juggling classwork, my G.A. duties, and rehearsing for Jesus Christ Superstar I was invited by Dr. Pfannenstiel to have a cup of coffee at Saxby’s as part of the “Saxby’s Selfie” promotion. Dr. Pfannenstiel is both my degree advisor and my thesis chair. After swapping updates on classwork and the show, Dr. Pfannenstiel and I discussed how to prepare for the real world after graduation. As someone who is interested in entering the world of academia and higher education, her advice has been invaluable in terms of building up a professional résumé and preparing myself for the higher ed job market next year. This is why I chose Millersville for my graduate degree; I wanted to be somewhere where I was a name, not a number and where my professors would help me succeed not only with my degree, but also in my career path. Not many programs would offer this, and not many professors would choose to see you as more than a glorified undergrad. -Andie Petrillo

Powerful Media Use at the International Policy Conference

Leah Hoffman participated in the International Policy Conference held on October 24th and 25th at MU. Check out her experience below! 

The International Policy Conference, focusing on the Power of Media, was held on October 24 and 25. One of the sessions focused on interacting with other languages and cultures in a digital space. Along with two other students, I examined the possibility for misinterpretation of other languages when engaging online and the practices that will hopefully lend themselves to more successful communication across languages.

The first aspect to our presentation focused on idiomatic phrases and their use in language. I brought some Spanish idiomatic phrases and asked students to use an online translator to learn the literal meaning of the phrase. We then contrasted the literal and idiomatic phrases. For example, “ser pan comido” literally translates as “to be eaten bread,” but it is more closely aligned to the American idiomatic phrase “to be a piece of cake.” I asked students to consider how a lack of cultural understanding or going solely off a literal translation could make communication more difficult, or even impossible. This began a discussion of user responsibility to have personal or cultural knowledge when interacting with other languages online, or at the very least user understanding that some meanings may literally get lost in translation.

We then spoke about the use of proverbs and sayings and their ability to convey the morals of a society. There is a Japanese proverb that literally translates to “Let the cute journey.” This may not make sense to a nonnative, but the meaning behind the proverb is not dissimilar to the American proverb meaning “spare the rod, spoil the child”. Again, this demonstrates the need for deeper cultural understanding, an understanding that cannot simply be garnered through an online translator.

To conclude our session, we introduced a quote from Nigerian author Chinua Achebe who suggested that “proverbs are like the palm oil with which words are eaten.” We asked students to consider how proverbs and idiomatic phrases allow us to communicate more clearly. We noted their importance in expressing abstract thoughts or making concepts and ideas more digestible. Students were challenged to think of modern or digital examples that serve the same purpose across different modes of communication. They were invited to participate in an ongoing conversation by adding their own thoughts and realizations to the poster with sticky notes, which were available for other students with the purpose of seeing how their peers were engaging with the content. Students made suggestions of examples in digital communication, such as the use of emojis to clarify text messages or the unifying or clarifying roles of memes of gifs which contain their own brand of meaning that can transcend communication barriers.

Overall, the goal of the session was to make students more cognizant of aspects of language that may not always be received when engaging in online communication. This called to attention practices that they may employ in digital communication to clarify their own intentions and messages. Overall, the students came away with a new perspective on their roles as digital citizens and a deeper understanding of intercultural interactions online in an age where the entire world is connected.

Leah Hoffman

ENGL 318: Web Writing — Community Service Learning Project

Dr. Pfannenstiel’s Web Writing class participated in a community service learning project with the Lancaster Osteopathic Health Foundation–read more below! 

Fall 2018 ENGL 318 Web Writing and Content Management engaged in a community service-learning project. This Friday November 16th is ExtraOrdinary Give day in Lancaster County, and I’m happy to announce that students of ENGL 318 created the web content and web content strategy that will be used by Lancaster Osteopathic Health Foundation (LOHF). Visit their website at lohf.org and their ExtraGive page.

As an AW course, a mix of students from various backgrounds and various majors register for and complete the course. Their enthusiasm for creating web content, with real impact in the community was amazing. I’m sharing a few samples of their work here, to both raise awareness for LOHF and the amazing community work they engage with in creating scholarship for organization supporting mental health in Lancaster County, and for the hard work of students across various disciplines who used web writing and web writing strategy to help further LOHF’s mission to support mental health awareness in Lancaster County.

The work completed by students in the course showcases the real work of web content in a 21st century digital world!

-Dr. Pfannenstiel

Image Created By Karen Layman, Karlee Rice and Vanessa Schneider
Image Created By Amanda Mooney and Leah Hoffman

Victorian Literature: “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”

Read about Dr. Baldys’ Victorian and Edwardian Literature class and their trip to see “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” starring Jeremy Kendall at the Ware Center on October 26th.

Dr. Baldys and Jeremy Kendall

The story of “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” is about Mr. Utterson and his friend Dr. Jekyll living in Victorian England. Various crimes and murders occur in London, all connected by a strange man named Edward Hyde. Utterson eventually finds out that Hyde is associated with Jekyll, as Jekyll states in his will that his establishment in the case of his disappearance or death should go to Hyde. When Utterson sees Jekyll, he notices that he has been getting frail and sickly, due to his addiction to a particular drug. This drug is connected to Hyde, as Jekyll takes the drug to transform into Hyde. More and more, Jekyll grows addicted to the drug, and his transformation into Hyde becomes increasingly difficult. Eventually, Hyde is accused of these various crimes, and by the end of the novella he disappears. This novella demonstrates late Victorian anxieties about science and class in the post-Darwinian era; it also reflects emerging theories about the structure of the human psyche while addressing the age-old question of how to balance the “duality” of good and evil within ourselves.

Our class read the novella a few days before the performance by Jeremy Kendall. We have also been discussing how science and religion was viewed in the Victorian period and how these concepts impacted cultural discourse and literature. Jeremy also visited with the class to discuss his choices in adapting the work and his work as an actor. Jeremy’s adaptation was interesting because it was a one-man show. He played sixteen different characters and had to vary his acting to demonstrate sixteen different voices and used pre-recorded audio tracks to represent offstage crowds. The original novella doesn’t portray any strong women characters, but he added a female character, Louisa, to his performance.

The simplistic set including the door frame on wheels really forced the audience to focus on the characters and their actions. Jeremy was able to accurately capture the essence of sixteen different people in the course of 75 minutes. Seeing the performance enhanced my understanding of the text and allowed me to visualize each character in a new way. This show sparked discussion of adaptive choices with the class.

-Maria Rovito

Internship Profile–Kaylee Herndon

Read about Kaylee Herndon’s Internship with the Reading Royals hockey team! For more information about the internship process, check out the MU Internships webpage. 

I am currently in the middle of spending the hockey season with the Reading Royals hockey team in Reading, PA. As one of their media interns for the season I am getting to use my Journalism and English experience in a career path that many people do not regularly consider when getting their degree.

Photo by Kaylee Herndon

Working in media relations for a sports team is extremely similar to working in a newsroom, except that you know what your writing will focus on each day that you go into work. There are daily deadlines, social media updates, live tweeting, and other aspects that go into promoting a team and covering their games.

I have been using social media, Photoshop, and Adobe Premiere in addition to traditional writing at this internship (see the above graphic made using Photoshop). Premiere is something that I thought I would never need to learn, but it turns out the journalism professors are right: you need to be able to take and edit your own photos and videos to make it out there.

Another skill I was surprised that I needed to use is my phone photography. It is the easiest and fastest way to get photos up on social media, i.e. an Instagram story. I found out that there are settings within the camera that makes capturing quick movement, like skaters or pucks, easier, but it is still a skill to be learned.

The most interesting concept of the job for me is that I went from being an athlete to covering the athlete. Having been on the opposite side of the job definitely provides me a different perspective. It creates some barriers when it comes to what I expect to be true and what reality is. This includes willingness of participation of athletes in team promotion activities and fan engagement and the accommodation (or non-accommodation) of the coaching staff. It also has helped me create some unique ideas, such as a player blog where a player gets to discuss their experiences in the local area and on the team. It was a large adjustment in terms of expectations when I found out that the media for a team does not regularly interact with its player-members of the team that they promote. While from the athletic view it makes sense, at least while in college, it would produce more interesting and engaging content if players were more actively involved with the media being put out about them.

Overall, this internship has been an incredible experience so far in terms of preparing me for my future career whether I go into sports or traditional journalism. Without the real-life experience, I feel like I would be under prepared for the fast-paced world of sports journalism.

-Kaylee Herndon

Reading Our World: Masculinity

ENGL 242: Reading Our World is one of the core classes of the English major that is almost comparable to an advanced book club. Each section of Reading Our World focuses on a different theme  explored through a section of texts on that theme. Critical lenses are applied across the field of English Studies to explore different perspectives by learning methods for critiquing texts.

Of the many sections of ENGL 242 offered next semester, one of the newest to look out for is Reading Our World: Masculinity.

Toxic masculinity is a buzzword in 2018, but the concept certainly isn’t new. In academic circles, the preferred term is hegemonic masculinity. Simply put, this term refers to any practice that attempts to justify male dominance over women and “weaker” types of men. We see this not only in the male/female binary, but also in the straight/gay and alpha/beta binaries. These biases are deeply ingrained, even in our language. Honorific language is used to describe highly “masculine” traits, whereas pejoratives are used for most characteristics deemed “feminine,” especially when referring to less “masculine” men.

This course will examine Western literature through the lens of various masculinities in an effort to unveil the toxic ideology that contributes to social ills, including domestic violence, rape culture, gay-bashing, and the abuse of power, among others. Ultimately, students will leave this course able to recognize the ideology of hegemonic masculinity when they encounter it in music, film, television, and literature so that they can begin to dismantle it.

Details:

  • Wednesday from 6-9pm at the Ware Center
  • Counts as a G1 and a W
  • If you have already taken ENGL 242, you can take it again for elective credit

EAPSU Fall 2018 at Shippensburg University

The Fall 2018 English Association of Pennsylvania State Universities Conference was held at Shippensburg University on October 4-6. EAPSU prides itself as an inclusive organization dedicated to excellence in English Studies. The conference showcases the best in many disciplines within English Studies: creative writing, literature, film, composition, technical/scientific writing, and pedagogy. Members of the organization come from faculty and students from the 14 English Departments in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. The overarching theme of the event was “Creativity in Times of Crisis”.

The keynote speaker was Patricia Smith, an award-winning author of eight critically acclaimed books of poetry. She is the winner of the 2018 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, the NAACP Image Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for her poetry collection Incendiary Art (Triquarterly Press/Northwestern University Press, 2017).

Dr. Corkery and two groups of MU students presented at the conference. On Friday, the first panel, Hip Hop & Lyrics to Move the World, explored what can be learned about creativity through the emergence of Hip Hop, especially related to marginalized Blacks and Latinos in the Bronx, New York during the 1970s and ’80s. Panelists discussed the crises surrounding key players in hip hop who produced innovative lyrics aimed at addressing their circumstances. Nelian Cruz, Claribel Rodriquez de la Rosa, Barseh Gbor, and Dante McLeod were the students involved.

Later that day, a second group of students discussed the implications of Alice Walker’s piece “Search for Our Mother’s Gardens” in a panel titled Creativity and Oppression: Innovations of African American Female Authors. Walker and her ideas call attention to creativity where it is seemingly absent, encouraging Black women to create despite historical abuse and neglect. Students highlighted the creativity of different African American female writers, recognizing their unique challenges and creative products. Tatyanna Campbell, Naima Winder, Apsara Uprety, and Imani Anderson were involved in the panel.

From Left to Right: Dr. Pfannenstiel, Jay Barnica, Andie Petrillo, Jason Hertz

A group of graduate students along with Dr. Pfannenstiel presented on Creatively Solving Data Dilemmas in Digital Humanities Student Projects. Each member of the panel presented their paper: Nicole Pfannenstiel, “Data Fluency in Assignments: Assigning and mentoring through data dilemmas”; Andie Petrillo, “Missing Data is not “Emma Approved”: How to make meaning with poorly archived data”; Jay Barnica, “Call, Raise, or Fold?: The ethics of evesdropping on an online poker forum”; Jason Hertz, “Control+s Your Data: A lesson learned with NeoGAF gafe made NeoGAF into Neo-NeoGaf.”

Hi everyone! I was honored last fall to be asked by Dr. Pfannenstiel to be a part of a panel discussion for this year’s EAPSU conference at Shippensburg University. After months of preparation, the day finally arrived for us to present. We left Millersville at an alarmingly early 6:30 am. We then arrived at Shippensburg University around 8:30 and wandered over to sign in and receive our “swag bags” and headed to our assigned room. We waited for what seemed like an hour, but was actually only about 15 minutes for our designated chair person and for any attendees to wander in. Even though our presentation wasn’t well attended (it was at 9 a.m. so I can’t blame students for not coming), I still had a great time presenting with my panel and answering English Librarian, Michele Santamaria’s many questions. Relieved to have successfully presented at my first conference, we headed to other sessions led by MU faculty and students. My favorite part of the day aside from presenting was having lunch with Dr. Pfannenstiel, Dr. Mando, Michele Santamaria, and Jay Barnica (fellow grad student and presenter). It was a great way for us all to get to know each other outside of the classroom! After a long day of presenting and learning from other presenters, we left the conference exhausted but inspired. I’m so glad that I got the chance to experience academic conferences!

-Andie Petrillo, second-year graduate student

Dr. Mando’s “Tiny Ecology Project: A Place-Based Writing Pedagogy”

A few faculty members participated in a panel presentation titled Observation, Invention, and Information in Times of Crisis. Justin Mando, assistant professor of English and Science Writing, presented “Tiny Ecology Project: A Place-Based Writing Pedagogy.” Joyce Anderson, instructor of English, presented “Curbing Writer’s Block: A Quick Workshop.” Last but not least, Michelle Santamaria, English and Foreign Language Subject Librarian, presented “Challenging Confirmation Bias: Creating & Playing an Information Literacy Game.”

Thanks to all MU students and faculty for their hard work!

 

TCK Publishing

Source

Publishing a collection of stories, a novel, or a selection of poetry is much easier than it used to be with the rise of self-publishing, Ebooks, and online publishing houses. Now, an author or poet doesn’t need an agent to help them navigate the publishing field. TCK Publishing is an option for writers who want to be published but may not have the means or desire to hire an agent.

TCK publishing is a small press publisher that encourages student writers to submit their novels and nonfiction manuscripts for feedback, as well as a potential book deal. They publish books in a wide variety of genres, including mystery, thriller, romance, science fiction, fantasy, and nonfiction. There is no need to hire a professional editor (though it is not discouraged) because TCK publishing’s editors provide free developmental editing, copyediting, line editing, and proofreading services.

TCK publishing pays 50% net royalties–3 to 6 times more than traditional publishers pay. There is no fee to submit a manuscript nor is there a fee to publish the finished book.

Check out the submissions guidelines page to learn about the process of submitting your manuscript!

If you have recently published a book, let us know! We would love to feature you on the blog. Contact Rachel Hicks with your story.