To kick off the semester, there will be an MFA/PhD mixer this Saturday, 9/17 from 5-7pm, located at 50 Presidential Plaza in the Jefferson Tower community room. Food will be provided but bring your own drinks.
Parking and RSVP info in your email. All English MFAs and PhD graduate students are welcome to attend!
Fall semester has officially begun! I hope both new and returning MFAs and PhDs are enjoying their classes and teaching assignments.
EGO is holding an end-of-semester Quizbowl Tournament on April 30th from 2-6 pm, open to both graduate students AND faculty.
For those who don’t know, Quizbowl is a team-based trivia format (teams of up to 3) that has a slightly more academic slant (less like bar trivia, though still plenty of pop culture) and is super fun!!! 😊
We are planning to have food/drink and we will have prizes for the winners!
Please reach out to Dylan Caskie to RSVP.
Our first meeting of Spring 2022 will allegedly be this Friday, 11 Feb., at noon. Details will follow and this post will be updated.
Our bi-annual English graduate student conference, Negotiations, is coming up in a few weeks! Join us to hear awesome presentations and provide some useful feedback to Jeffrey Adams, Sue-jin Green, Debra Kue, and Morgan Shaw.
This semester’s event is in-person on Saturday, December 4th, in HL 421. After presentations, there will be a reception with food and our Secret Santa gift exchange.
On Friday, November 12, 1:30pm, in Hall of Languages 101, the English Department Graduate Colloquium will convene (in person), with a presentation from our own Professor Erin Mackie on her recent research, soon to be published in Latin American Literary Review (Fall 2021).
Prof. Mackie will present “Angels of Allegory and Experience: Laura Restrepo’s The Angel of Galilea (Dulce compañía) and Gabriel García Márquez’s ‘A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings'”
Abstract: Establishing an intertextual relation between Restrepo’s novel and García Márquez’s story, this paper examines how Restrepo’s paired commitment to socio-political relevance and to broad legibility shapes her novel’s engagement with the legacy of magic realism and with discursive, especially novelistic, conventions more generally. A comparative analysis of thematic and formal features highlights how this commitment molds Dulce compañía’s recapitulation of the theme of the angel of flesh and blood within an updated, urban context, and in a commercially successful novel with an international readership. Focusing on narrative and figurative, especially allegorical, discourses, I consider that while the angel allegory in “A Very Old Man” is used to excavate literary-rhetorical issues of representation (as argued by Carlos Rincón), in Dulce compañía it is oriented towards the preservative revelation of popular forms of belief that emerge from the lived experience of violence and abandonment.
Colloquium attendance is required of all PhD students currently in coursework.
Our October EGO meeting will happen this Friday (Oct. 1st) starting at 1:30pm in HL 101.
This meeting is a couple of different meetings in one large chunk! The first part of the meeting will focus on our organizational constitution with proposed changes primarily dealing with who is involved in the organization and their roles as well as EGO budget procedures.
After we have our special meeting to address the EGO constitution, DGS Chris Forster will join our meeting at about 2pm. This is a good opportunity to discuss graduate student concerns with the DGS and to talk about potential graduate student/faculty social events in the future. Once Chris leaves, we will also continue with our regular meeting procedures, including reports from officers, any rising COVID concerns, and addressing our First-Year Representative position.
All EGO meetings are open to all graduate students in the English department!
Our first English Graduate Organization meeting of the semester will take place this Friday (3 September)!
Our meeting will be start at 2pm in Hall of Languages 101 and is open to all English graduate students.
In this first meeting, we will hear any officer reports, discuss COVID policies and COVID and teaching, address “old business” from last semester and over the summer, seek nominations for First-Year Representative, and address much needed constitutional updates. If you are a first-year student who is interested in running for First-Year Rep, you should plan to attend this meeting (if possible!).
Our PhD facilitator has also suggested the desire to let people Zoom into EGO meetings, as an accessibility option, so please reach out to Dylan if that is something you would like or are planning to do for this or future meetings.
Come and help set the EGO agenda for the semester!
The English Department is hosting a 2021 Fall Welcome Picnic this Friday from 5-8pm at the Willow Bay Picnic Shelter at Onondaga Lake Park. Food and beverages (and lawn games?) will be provided.
All graduate students are welcome, along with friends, partners, and furry companions.
Please reach out (ego@syr.edu) if you need a ride to Onondaga Lake Park.
The Write Now is continuing over the summer.
Every Tuesday from 4-6pm EST, we’ll meet to chat, hang out, and keep productive over the summer months. Feel free to drop in and stay as long as you want or need. These meetings are open to all, whether you’re a regular attendee or have never come to a meeting!
We are still on Zoom, so check your email!