Student Profile: Helen Reinbrecht

Helen Reinbrecht interned at CASA Berks for her internship. Read more about her experiences below! 

As a student working towards a Bachelor’s in English I was required to complete a 120 hour internship. I worked for CASA Berks as a communications and social media intern. CASA stands for Court Appointed Special Advocates and is a national nonprofit that trains volunteers to advocate for children in the foster care system. After starting my internship, I quickly learned that as much as my classes at Millersville University taught me how to write and how to research topics to write about, writing as a profession or as an organization demands more in-depth involvement than any of my classes asked of me.

In order to succeed in my internship, I used my skills as a writer and a researcher. I learned about grants, marketing, fundraising, and the general organization of a nonprofit. I also had to make an effort to learn about services and fields not related to English. I needed to write about children in the foster system and involved with the legal system and the issues these children and families face. I needed to write about these situations so that my readers and social media followers would be able to understand the problems facing these people, what they could do to help, and how CASA Berks was already helping.

To start, I researched statistics on the foster care system. I went to court to learn about dependency hearings, which are proceedings that decide whether children will go into foster care system or, if the children are already in foster care, be returned to their parents. I learned that most parents present at a dependency hearing are not “bad parents” but just about all of them were dealing with mental health and/or a substance abuse problem. So, I researched substance abuse in Pennsylvania to learn more about what is being done and how substance abuse affects children, their parents, and their grandparents.

This is just one example of how my research and knowledge on the subject developed past the original broad issue of foster care. Funding for children and children’s programs is another example of a knowledge rabbit hole or the social issues that can arise after children age out of foster care and what impact that has on the community. In short, no subject is an iceberg. In my experience, having an English degree means continually learning about new subjects and critically thinking about the issues that stem from the original topic. By being open to learning about new subjects, I was more successful at writing and communicating the needs of those I was writing about. With an understanding of who and what I was writing about I could make my points stronger and write more confidently about what needs to be done. Also, on a more superficial note, learning about these new subjects made the job more fun. It would have been easier to simply add in the statistics provided to me, but taking the time to actually go out and learn about a subject and talk to people or observe people who have a vested interest in what I was writing about added depth to the topic.

On another note, much of my internship revolved around posting on social media. This means that I needed to find pictures or videos to post, especially for Instagram. As CASA Berks is a relatively new nonprofit there were not a lot of pictures and even fewer videos for me to use. I had to find other sources of media. I mainly used the National CASA Association’s pictures and videos, but I also used the website called Creative Commons, which I heard about in an Education class. This website allows users to search for pictures and videos that are free from copyright and. therefore, most people are able to use them freely. As an English major I learned more about written plagiarism instead of copyright laws, but in a professional position I had to make sure that all of my posts and work follow the laws.

Another subject that I did not think of much in my English classes but made an appearance in my internship is statistics. While misrepresenting statistics usually has less dire causes than misrepresenting who owns a picture or who wrote a quote, to be a legitimate source of information I have found that it is good to understand at least a little bit of statistics to understand potential biases and how statistics can be misleading. Alternatively, and I was not at a level to do this, some marketing campaigns may use the statistics that best represent the product instead of the statistics that are the most clear.

This is part of why I think English and writing is so interesting as a field to be in. When one is writing there is almost always a bias. The writer is trying to convey an idea as they see it. There are some exceptions, journalism being the most commonly perceived bias-free writing, but even in journalism one can find bias in the word choices used or the pictures that go with the article. I am not the only intern to work for a CASA organization. There are interns all over the country who have the same goals and who are working with the same groups of people that I did.  We all learned, in a general sense, the same type of information, but we all made different decisions of what to post or what to include in a newsletter based on our biases of what we think is important and what we think our audience will find important.

By taking a job that requires you to write, you have an obligation to continue learning about all matter of subjects, but you can also have the freedom to express your opinions on these subjects and educate other people. As a source of information, whether the medium is a novel, an advertisement, a news article, a blog, or a social media post, you can influence people. I did not truly realize this until I was in a situation where I did feel that I could make a difference in children’s lives. You have a power, use it wisely!

Helen Reinbrecht

Break the Chain: On Screen/In Person

On September 27th, the popular On Screen/In Person series is back for a third season, starting with Break the Chain, produced and directed by Laura E. Swanson and Kirk Mason.  Break the Chain is an award-winning feature-length documentary film that highlights the growing child sex and labor trafficking industries through first-hand accounts of survivors and interviews with those working to raise awareness and create solutions.

Break the Chain Official [Trailer] HD – Laura Swanson

No Description

The evening at the Ware Center will begin with a pre-film panel at 6:15pm, including Dr. Karen Rice, Chairperson of the School of Social work at MU; Ms. Pam Pautz, Executive Director of the North Star Initiative; Sarah Fritz, Community Outreach Coordinator for the Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office on behalf of The Campaign Against the Sexual Exploitation of Children (CASE); and Ms. Elizabeth Bell, Awareness Representative from She’s Somebody’s Daughter. The film will begin at 7pm, ending with a Q&A session led by director Laura Swanson.

Produced and Directed by Michigan documentary filmmakers, Laura E. Swanson and Kirk Mason, “Break the Chain” is an award-winning feature-length documentary film that addresses the often hidden-in-plain-sight issue of Human Trafficking within Michigan communities and the United States. The film chronicles two survivors of Human Trafficking – providing a detailed look at how trafficking goes unnoticed within our backyards. Kwami, a child survivor of Labor Trafficking, was enslaved for nearly five years with three other children in Ypsilanti, Michigan before anyone noticed. Debbie, a survivor of Sex Trafficking, takes us through her experience of being sold for sex around the Detroit-area between the ages of 13 and 18. – artsmu.com

For more information, visit the Ware Center page. For free student tickets, contact Christine FilipponeImage Credit

Free State College: PA Student Power Distributes Pledges Supporting the PA Promise

Jordan Traut is a Junior at MU studying English, concentrating on Comparative Literature. She is working with the PA Student Power Fellowship this semester. Please consider signing the PA Student Power Pledge at the end of the post.

PA Student Power is a social justice activist organization which promotes paid fellowships on campuses across Pennsylvania each semester. This includes sponsoring students at Millersville University.

This semester, PA Power and their fall 2018 fellow, Jordan Traut, are turning a spotlight on free college tuition legislation introduced to both the state House and Senate. House Bill 2444 and Senate Bill 1111, collectively called the PA Promise, aim to make tuition free at PASSHE universities and community colleges.

The PA Promise, if passed, would cover traditional 4-year college tuition expenses and fees for recently graduated high school students if their family’s annual income is less than $110,000. Room and board at any state school or community college would also be covered for families earning $48,000 or less. More information on the bipartisan bill is outlined at papromise.org.

In an effort to garner support for the PA Promise legislation, the PA Student Power organization is distributing voter pledges to Millersville students who support affordable college and other pro-student causes.

To sign a pledge to vote for candidates who support PA Student Power’s College for All initiative, click the link: https://goo.gl/forms/QnqO9KZallfIPryf1.

For a paper copy of the pledge or to receive more information about PA Student Power fellowship opportunities, contact Jordan Traut at jetraut@millersville.edu.

Student Profile: Maria Rovito

Maria Rovito is a grad student here at MU and works as the head graduate assistant. A few of her poems were recently published on a website called Ex-Ex Lit and in the magazine Brave New World. 

I am an MA student in English interested in American literature and disability studies. I have been a student at Millersville since 2012 and I plan on graduating in May 2019. After that, I hope to complete my PhD and find a job somewhere as either a literature/disability studies/medical humanities professor, or as an editor or publisher. I have also been a graduate assistant to the English department since 2017, and this year I was fortunate enough to become the head graduate assistant. It’s a lot of work but I enjoy working with faculty and students in class and for research projects.

Being a grad student is almost a completely different experience from being an undergrad—not only do you have to complete assigned readings, you usually have to do extra work in order to supplement the readings you are assigned. For example, most of what I have learned about disability studies has been a product of my own independent research: meaning I incorporate this knowledge into my classes, but I haven’t directly learned about it through my coursework. Luckily, Dr. Emily Baldys was hired this year, and I now have a mentor who researches and teaches critical disability studies and the theoretical implications of medicine and medical knowledge. It’s a growing field, but hopefully one day I will get hired and use what I have learned in an academic setting.

My poetry is considered conceptual or cyberpoetic—meaning that I work more as an information processor rather than a traditional “author.” I was a fan of conceptual and post-language poetry before taking Dr. Halden-Sullivan’s postmodern American poetry class, particularly authors such as Matthew McIntosh and Claudia Rankine. I find the Internet to be a fascinating place for the sheer amount of information one is able to find, and this is reflected in my poetry. Who is responsible for this information? Why do we have access to certain things, and others are blocked? I believe the Internet and technology is destroying what we deem to be classic “literature,” as we are writing less for humans and more for cyborgs, robots, and aliens—beings that are considered post-human and postmodern.

I particularly enjoy Kenneth Goldsmith’s concept of “uncreative writing”—meaning a process of writing where nothing is original, and everything is taken from an outside source. Some of my poetry is taken from medical documents, such as the DSM, or from random places on the Internet: government websites, chatrooms on Reddit, or I look at the source code for websites and transform it into code poetry. I find that the author as a processor objectively looks at this information and copies it directly into their poetry—there is no subjective, emotional involvement in conceptual poetry. I have read a thousand poems about grandma’s death or someone’s love life; we don’t need any more. Not to say these emotions aren’t valid; however, I am not interested in universal human experiences.

I submitted three of my poems to Ex-Ex-Lit, and the editor contacted me and said they wanted to use one of my poems in a magazine called Brave New World.

Right now I am more focused on getting my academic work published in research journals, rather than getting my creative work out there. I wrote over a hundred poems for Dr. Halden-Sullivan’s class, and I think I have years of content for submissions to magazines. I’m not sure how helpful getting creative work published is for literature and critical theory academics. I think the more diverse my skills are, the better chance I have of landing a solid academic job. I submit abstracts to as many conferences and journals as I can in the hopes that my research is making a positive impact on the discipline. I don’t think I’m the future Foucault or Derrida, but I do think my work is challenging traditional notions of what we call “literature” and all its implications.

Maria Rovito

Poetic Freshman Orientation

This year at freshman orientation, Dr. Pfannenstiel and a group of volunteers designed a game using One Book One Campus to help students experience reading in a new way. Skyler Gibbon, a senior, reflected on what she saw and experienced as a part of orientation. 

I have a confession to make. When I started out as a freshman social work major at Millersville University in Fall 2014, I did not go to about 90% of freshman orientation. Sadly, I snobbishly dismissed it. At that time, I never would have thought that as a senior in 2019, I would actively choose to be present and choose to be engaged at freshman orientation. And let me tell you, going this year as a volunteer made me wish that I had attended my own orientation into this spirited, creative, and innovative academic community. Though I cannot describe freshman orientation as a freshman, I can describe it now as a senior volunteer. I was energized not only by the number of the freshman who are joining us at MU this year, but by their creativity, confidence, empowerment, and thoughtfulness through blackout poetry.

The novel “All American Boys” by Jason Reynolds and Bryan Kiely is our current One Book, One Campus selection. To facilitate meaningful conversations about race among students on campus, the One Book organizers and One Book volunteers used excerpts from “All American Boys.” Blackout poetry is simple, but still a profound art. Basically, students had to cross off what they didn’t want in the text, leaving what they wanted to keep to form their blackout poem.

It is common for people to build walls between themselves and the things that help us grow or challenge us. Poetry is one of those things. I think many people often believe that it is something innate. Or that is for more contemplative types. Or for monks that live on mountain tops. Or for 1800s’ transcendentalists who live near ponds. Or, as Dr Archibald has argued, for people who have had “a fairy land on their head to gift them.” Through blackout poetry, freshman students discovered that poetry can be created from what already exists rather than being completely manifested. Sure, there were a few students who still felt too discouraged to give a thoughtful attempt. However, almost everyone left appreciating the language that can emerge out of themselves through poetry. It surprised them. Many eyes lit up with the discovery of the profundity that was woven from the fabrics of their own mind and the words of “All American Boys.” They saw how poetry is freeing rather than confining. They saw how poetry can give the sense of a fierce and rebellious act through potentially using a marker to cross out lines in an old, worn library book. They have the words before them. They just had to choose which ones to use. And there is something so exciting and powerful in that.

Welcome to MU, new innovators/rebels

-Skyler Gibbon

Internship Profile: Hadassah Stoltzfus

Hadassah Stoltzfus interned with Empower Hope, an organization that is breaking the cycle of poverty & creating a new path of purpose by training indigenous leaders to empower vulnerable children.

“So you’re going to teach?” As every English major knows, a ready response to this question is a necessity. While teaching is a worthwhile and impactful profession, I could not see myself at the head of a classroom, but my internship this past summer with Empower Hope was an encouragement that I have other options to use my English degree.

I first saw the posting for a “Content/Creative Writer Intern” on ELCM’s website. I was unfamiliar with Empower Hope, so I read extensively on their website, growing increasingly excited about the work they were doing in Kenya. With sustainability in mind, the organization, though still in the infancy stages, had designed a mentorship model to equip local leaders to train and educate the next generation.

Poverty tends to be cyclical. Those that are born into families living on one to two dollars per day rarely find the tools to start a new life, and so the pattern of barely subsisting continues. In response, Empower Hope provides education and business training using local leaders to implement the projects so that communities can be transformed from the inside out. Where foreign aid has failed to remedy the problem of poverty, Empower Hope sees an opportunity to fix the root of the issue, and it starts with seeing individuals for their inherent worth. Empower Hope calls it “giving a face to the invisible.”

During my internship, I wrote a variety of content, most of which was marketing related, such as radio ads, presentations, promo scripts, and letters requesting sponsorship. I got a window into the workings of a not-yet-established non-profit which had its challenges, namely a lack of structure. However, the longer I worked with Empower Hope, the more I understood their goals and how they spoke, which helped me to complete writing projects with limited supervision.

An upside of working in a short-staffed office was the chance to do meaningful work. The staff treated me as an expert in my field and took my opinion seriously despite my being only an intern, an experience that would probably have been different had I been at an established, fully-staffed organization.

Empower Hope excels in recognizing individuals’ strengths and putting them to use. A highlight was creating illustrations for a kids’ booklet on poverty that they were creating to hand out at events. Despite being hired to write, I got to change hats for a week to work in the artistic realm.

Overall, the experience was a good window into the daily life of non-profit work. My internship presented me with alternative avenues to use English, and it was exciting to know that I was indirectly contributing to the work of bringing hope to people in poverty.

-Hadassah Stoltzfus

English Clubs

The English Department at Millersville University is proud to support the work, creativity, and fun involved in the various English clubs. For more information about clubs at MU, check out Get Involved where organizations across campus post club descriptions and contact information.

Film Club

The Film Club is a campus organization where film fans can gather for screenings of films followed by discussions, as well as connect with others with a passion for the art of film across Millersville. The club screens films and discusses the topics presented in them by correlating them to larger societal issues. You can find more information on the club’s Facebook page or by contacting club adviser Jill Craven.

English Club

The English Club provides a welcome environment where lovers of language and literature can come together to participate in literary activities, field trips, discussions, and more! Both majors and nonmajors are welcome. Meetings will begin at 6pm on Tuesdays starting September 11th. The location will be sent out via email at a later date. For more information, contact President Morgan Reichenbach or Vice President Stephanie Wenger.

The Snapper:

The Snapper is Millersville University’s student-run newspaper, providing fair, accurate, and unbiased reporting on a weekly basis for the student body. The Snapper is the campus’ independent watchdog, a tireless advocate and champion of student rights. Through its sections and other positions, The Snapper provides every student an opportunity to experience hands-on the print media field as well as improving their own writing and other pertinent skills. The Snapper’s office is located in the bottom level of the SMC, room 15. They hold weekly meetings every Thursday at 9:00 p.m. Students can contact The Snapper at: editor@thesnapper.com.

The George Street Press:

George Street Press is Millersville University’s literary magazine that is open to students and faculty alike. The publication is completely student run and student published, accepting all sorts of work from poetry, short fiction, essays, creative nonfiction, photography, painting and sculpture. If you are interested with assisting in publication, the club meets Tuesday nights in Club De’Ville (the commuter lounge in the lower level of the SMC) at 9pm. If you would like to submit any work for the Fall 2018 publication, submissions open on November 1st at georgestreetpresssubmissions@gmail.com. If you have any questions, contact President Kitsey Shehan or Vice President Sara Pizzo. Updates can be found on the club’s Instagram page.

American Association of University Women:

The purpose of MU’s AAUW, among other things, is to prepare students for leadership in the civic realm, offer students an opportunity to exchange ideas on social justice, network members with the global AAUW community of more than 170,000 members, and support women in gaining positions of leadership across campus. Meeting times will be announced. For more information, contact  President Amanda Mooney or adviserJill Craven.

Faculty Profile: Dr. Emily Baldys

Dr. Emily Baldys is the new English department hire! Read through her interview to find out what she loves about literature, what she enjoys teaching and writing about, and what the study of English means to her.

What brought you to literature and specifically your focus on disability studies?

I’ve always been a reader. When I was a kid, I used to get in trouble at school for reading during lessons, and then when I went home I would get in trouble for reading at the dinner table. I find joy and life and challenge in exploring the imaginative worlds that authors create, and so it seemed natural to me to find a career that would allow me to continue to read and learn about literature and to help others to do the same. I first encountered disability studies as a senior in college, and I was totally intrigued. A few years later, in graduate school, I had the opportunity to take a disability studies seminar, and things just clicked. I came to understand disability studies as a powerful lens for investigating literature’s treatment of crucial concepts such as difference, otherness, and the body. At the same time, I realized that literary depictions of bodily difference have helped to shape attitudes that still influence our cultural understanding and treatment of people with disabilities, and so there is an important ethical component to studying them.

What is your favorite “era” of literature and why?

I love studying literature of the Victorian era. It was a time when society was coming to grips with being “modern,” and I find it fascinating to watch authors grapple with issues like rapidly-advancing technology, urbanization, and industrialization—issues that still obsess our contemporary world. The novel, my favorite genre, was in its ascendancy in the Victorian era, and so as a scholar of this era I get to study some of the great classic novels by Dickens, the Brontës, George Eliot, and others.  Finally, I like studying the Victorian era because it was a time that saw the consolidation of so many concepts—like gender roles, disability, domesticity, social class, and colonialism—that still shape how we think about identity and our place in society.

What are you coming to teach at Millersville? Are you hoping to teach specific classes or create some of your own?

In addition to composition courses, I will teach the early and later English literature surveys, as well as some upper-level courses that offer a deeper dive into Romantic, Victorian, and post-1914 British literature. I’d also love to teach courses on the English novel, and I have some ideas for new courses on disability in literature, disability theory, and the “New Women” (first-wave feminists of the late nineteenth century).

Where did you go to school for your undergrad and PhD program? What were some of your experiences there?

I earned my B.A. in English from Bryn Mawr College and my M.A. and Ph.D. (also in English) from Penn State.  I loved the supportive, close-knit, and academically rigorous environment at Bryn Mawr; I also played soccer there and served as fiction editor for the literary magazine. At Penn State, I had the opportunity to work with some amazing scholars in the fields of disability studies, Romantic literature, and Victorian literature. I learned and grew so much at PSU, and I also made some dear friends there, including my husband Darrell, who is a fantastic teacher, scholar, travel partner, and kitty papa.

Are you looking forward to working at a larger university than the school you previously worked at? What kind of opportunities will a larger department bring?

While working in a small college can be quite cozy, I’m looking forward to working at a larger university and in a larger department at Millersville. A larger university provides more opportunities for dynamic campus life, and I hope to become involved in such events as the disability film series and Millersville Disability Pride day. Also, working within a larger department will allow me to specialize a bit more so that I’m teaching more of the literature courses that relate to my research areas.

Are you looking forward to living in Pennsylvania?

I am most definitely looking forward to living in Pennsylvania again! As you can probably tell from reading about my education, PA is my home state, and I’m excited to return. I grew up in central Pennsylvania (Williamsport) and still have family there, so it will be lovely to be closer to them. I’m also looking forward to getting to know the Lancaster area. It’s a beautiful part of the state, but apart from a couple of soccer games in college, I haven’t spent much time there yet. I’m looking forward to exploring the beautiful Millersville campus, checking out the Central Market and bookstores in downtown Lancaster, and finding a restaurant that serves a decent cheesesteak. There are many things I like about Ohio (where I’ve lived for the past seven years), but I must admit that their cheesesteaks are just not up to par.

Emily and her husband, Darrell, at Loch Ness in Scotland
Emily and her husband, Darrell, at Loch Ness in Scotland

What are some of your favorite past-times?

Unsurprisingly, I love to read, and I’m rarely happier than when I’m reading a good book with a cat on my lap. I also love cats, and when I’m not spoiling Penny and Percy, our two rescue kitties, I enjoy volunteering at the local animal shelter. My husband and I also love to travel together. We have a pushpin map to keep track of the places we’ve been (like France, Puerto Rico, the UK, and Bulgaria) and a LONG list of places we’d still like to go (too many to name). When I’m at home, I have a soft spot for the goofy spectacle that is minor league baseball, so I’m thrilled to be moving to a town that has a team; I can’t wait to check out the Barnstormers! Finally, I’m a relatively recent convert to world of fantasy role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, so I’m looking forward to exploring the gaming community in Lancaster.

What do you enjoy writing about?

I enjoy researching and writing about depictions of disability in literature, especially insofar as these depictions illuminate the conceptual intersections between disability and other ideological constructs such as gender, domesticity, and social class. My dissertation traces the ways in which mid-nineteenth-century novels engage with scientific and medical discourses like phrenology and lunacy reform. I’ve also published articles on the rehabilitation of “idiocy” in Wuthering Heights and on the normalizing of disabled protagonists in contemporary popular romance novels. My next article project will examine eugenic strands in fin-de-siècle and modernist feminism and their implications for evolving conceptions of bodily difference

What does it mean to study English?

I think the study of English provides us with a means to critical literacy in an information-saturated world. Through analysis of our own and others’ writing practices, we can attain an analytical perspective about the messages with which we are constantly bombarded in everyday life, and, by extension, about the cultures in which we live.  Further, when we find our way into the world of a two-hundred-year-old novel or hundred-year-old poem, when we forge connections with the characters or the emotions that these texts relate, it helps us to become better citizens. These connections can inspire us to relate our personal experiences and responses to broader social histories that demonstrate the power of language and narrative.  I truly believe these kinds of connections are ethically imperative in today’s world, and that empathic, reflective readers form more constructive, more culturally competent members of our communities.

Title Image: Photo of Emily on the moors above the Bronte parsonage in Haworth, England

 

Alumnus Profile: Alex Kaufman

Alexander L. Kaufman graduated from Millersville University in 1999 with a Bachelors of Science in Education (BSE) in English and also in Social Studies. He is originally from Glenside, Pennsylvania, where he graduated from Springfield Township High School in Montgomery County. As an undergraduate at Millersville, he enjoyed the intersections of history and literature, from the Middle Ages to the present day. While at Millersville, Alex forged close professional bonds with a number of faculty members in the English and History Departments. These unofficial mentorships instilled within him the importance of research, scholarship, collaboration, and professionalization. He realized that if he wanted to attend graduate school and teach at the college level, then he would need to go beyond the minimum requirements within each syllabus, especially in his upper-level literature and history courses, and to concentrate on these four critical areas of intellectual and personal growth.

After graduating from Millersville, Alex earned an MA in English in 2001 and then a Ph.D. in English in 2006, both from Purdue University. His doctoral studies focused on Middle English Language and Literature, and he had two secondary concentrations: Old English Language and Literature, and History of the English Language. His love of literature and the historical record greatly informed his studies and research in late medieval English literature and historical writings. While at Purdue, he continued to explore new areas of scholarship. While people in the corporate world often speak of the importance of “networking,” Alex understood that those in academia must also network in order to learn and grow as scholars and professionals. Alex gave his first professional presentation while an undergraduate at Millersville, and he soon learned as a graduate student that attending and presenting at national and international conferences is an excellent way to learn, receive feedback on one’s work, meet new colleagues, and initiate collaborative research projects.

After Purdue, Alex accepted a tenure-track Assistant Professor position of English at Auburn University at Montgomery in Alabama. He would spend eleven years at AUM, where he eventually earned the rank of full professor. He also continued his collaboration and mentoring, both with students and colleagues, where he served as the Coordinator for the Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies program for a number of years and also as Chair of the Department of English and Philosophy.

In January 2018, Alex returned to Indiana. He is now the Reed D. Voran Distinguished Professor of Humanities and Professor of English at Ball State University where he teaches in the Honors College. Alex really enjoys teaching, and some of his classes include outlaws from the medieval period to the present day, the Robin Hood tradition, historical writing and medieval chronicles, Chaucer, Arthurian literature and film, and medievalisms.

He loves researching, especially in archives. In addition to authoring numerous journal articles and book chapters, Alex is the author of The Historical Literature of the Jack Cade Rebellion (Ashgate 2009; repr. Routledge, 2016), co-editor of Telling Tales and Crafting Books: Essays in Honor of Thomas H. Ohlgren (Medieval Institute Publication, 2016), and editor of British Outlaws of Literature and History: Essays on Medieval and Early Modern Figures from Robin Hood to Twm Shon Catty (McFarland, 2011). He is currently working on two collections of essays, one on Robin Hood and the literary canon, and another on food and feasts in modern outlaw tales.  His passion toward history is still very much present, as he’s writing a sourcebook for the Jack Cade Rebellion.

Alex took to heart his Millersville and Purdue professors’ positive notion of collaboration. Much of his scholarship is collaborative in nature, especially his editorial work. With Valerie B. Johnson, he co-founded the journal The Bulletin of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies and also serves as co-administrator for the scholarly blog Robin Hood Scholars: IARHS on the Web. Moreover, he is also a general editor, with Lesley Coote, of the book series Outlaws in Literature, History, and Culture for Routledge Publishing.

Alex Kaufman

Fall 2018 Open Classes

There are still some open classes in the English department for you to take! Remember, if the class you want is already full, put yourself on the wait-list–that is how the department knows to open up new sections! Visit the registrar’s website for the full registration guide. 

235 Early American Literature: T, R from 10:50-12:05pm  or 421 Early American Literature T 6-9

  • 200 Level
  • G1 – Arts and Humanities (for 235)

240 Introduction to Film: M from 2-5:20 with a recitation W from 2-3:30

  • 200 Level
  • G1 – Arts and Humanities

242 Reading Our World: Stranger Things: T, R from 2:35-3:50pm

  • G1 – Arts and Humanities
  • W – Writing Component

242 Reading Our World: Social Justice: W from 6-9pm

  • G1 – Arts and Humanities
  • W – Writing Component

274 The Craft of Writing: M, W from 3-4:15pm

  • G1 – Arts and Humanities

312 Technical Writing: W from 6-9pm or MUOnline

  • AW – Advanced Writing Component

313 Fundamentals of Journalism: R from 6-9pm or MUOnline

  • AW – Advanced Writing Component

316 Business Writing: T from 1:10-2:25pm; T, R from 8-9:15am or 9:25-10:50am

  • AW – Advanced Writing Component

319 Science Writing: MUOnline

  • AW – Advanced Writing Component

333 African American Literature 1: M, W, F from 1-1:50 or 10-10:50

  • 200 Level
  • G1 – Arts and Humanities
  • CDC – Diversity Requirement
  • W – Writing Component

424 Realism and Naturalism to 1920: W from 6-9pm

463 Applied Linguistics: T from 6-9pm

  • 200 Level
  • G1 – Arts and Humanities
  • W – Writing Component

466 Writing Studies Seminar- Environmental Advocacy: M, W from 4:30-5:45pm

  • W – Writing Component

482 Film and American Society: R from 6-8:55pm

  • 200 Level
  • G1 – Arts and Humanities

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