Happy 2020, y’all! Our first regular meeting of the semester will be held this Friday, January 31st, in Hall of Languages room 102. This will likely be our last Friday meeting of the semester, as we’re moving the meetings to Thursday evenings from now on.
As always, all of our meetings are open to all MAs and PhDs, even if you’ve never been to an EGO meeting before. All MAs and PhDs can vote in EGO and we all have an equal voice within the organization.
It’s time for our semi-annual intra-English graduate student conference, Negotiations! Come to hear other smart people present parts of their seminar papers, conference papers, articles, dissertation chapters, or anything else they might be working on. Or, present your own work in a low stakes, supportive environment.
All are welcome and food will be provided.
This semester’s Negotiations is on Tuesday (10 Dec.) starting at 2pm in 421 HL.
We’ll be hearing Natalie El-Eid present her paper, “No More ‘Isolated Incidents’: The War on Terror in the Arab American Home” and Haejoo Kim present her paper, “The Vaccination Epidemic and the Fiction of the Natural Body in Victorian Anti-Vaccination Rhetoric.”
If you want to present at Negotiations or you have any questions, please contact our MA Facilitator, Cassidy (cwheel03@syr.edu), who is organizing this academic year’s Negotiations.
We have an EGO meeting this Friday, y’all!
We’re meeting at Faegan’s Cafe and Pub this month, so join us to discuss issues impacting graduate students, graduate student services, the job search committee, and how we can respond to white supremacy in our classrooms (and lives). See y’all there at 4pm!
Wow, two wonderful meetings in one afternoon? What luck!
Our first meeting of the Theory Group for the 2019-2020 academic year is this Friday, October 25, at 3pm, in the English Library (401A HL). We’ll be tackling the introduction and third chapter of Alexis Shotwell’s Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times. Not having read any of this book, might it be relevant to last season’s discoveries about the point sy
stem on The Good Place? Hmmm, something to think about.
Here is a brief blurb on the book from the publisher’s website:
In Against Purity, Alexis Shotwell proposes a powerful new conception of social movements as custodians for the past and incubators for liberated futures. Against Purity undertakes an analysis that draws on theories of race, disability, gender, and animal ethics as a foundation for an innovative approach to the politics and ethics of responding to systemic problems.
If that sounds interesting to you, why not join us to discuss this book on Friday? You can find the relevant excepts on the group’s Google site here. (If you’re already logged into Google, you might get an error when trying to access this site, you need to log in with your g.syr.edu email address.)
If you’ve never been to the Theory Group, it is open to graduate students and faculty, though you shouldn’t be put off by the idea of faculty presence. It is fairly low stakes and a place to come, ask questions, and enjoy as much discussion as you want to. Even if you can only read a bit of the text, it is still interesting to sit in on the discussion (and even contribute!). It was originally conceptualized by Chrises Forster and Eng along with Wil and yours truly as a group where we could come together and discuss interesting recently published theoretical texts, both related and unrelated to our own academic interests. We run off of suggestions, so if Shotwell’s work doesn’t interest you but there is a text you’ve been wanting to tackle, you can always submit it as a suggestion and we’ll likely read it during a future meeting.
It’s time for another EGO meeting! We’re having one this Friday, October 25th, at 1pm in the English Library (401AHL). I’ll be bringing Halloween-themed Oreos for everyone to enjoy during the meeting.
As our PhD Facilitator, Simon, mentioned in his e-mail, we’ll be discussing officer reports, the outcome of the First-Year Representative election, the upcoming Negotiations conference, and future EGO meeting dates. If you have anything else graduate program-related (or you-in-the-graduate-program related), feel free to bring it to the meeting as well!
We’re having an EGO meeting this Friday! While elected EGO representatives are obligated to attend, these meetings are for every MA and PhD in the department. Even if you don’t have anything to formally report, you can come and bring up any concerns or questions you have about your graduate school experience.
Also, I will be bringing snacks again this meeting 🙂
Write Now has officially started and will be held on Mondays, 5-7pm, in the English Library (in HL 401).
A b/w drawing of a cat writing with a quill and ink.
If you have never experienced the joys of Write Now, it’s a lovely two hours where we meet to write. Whether you’re working on a dissertation chapter or a BlackBoard post, working around others who are writing can help you to maintain productivity. Also, it is fairly enjoyable to meet up and write with friends and colleagues.
And there is pizza. (Free pizza!)
See y’all there!
If you want more information, you can always contact Patty Roylance or just send your question over the EGO listserv.
We have our first EGO meeting today!
Whether you’ve been to no meetings or every meeting, EGO represents YOU and your interests both within and outside of the department. This is your chance to find out more about how the department works and to help us set goals for the year, all while eating some lovely snacks.
Happy start to the 2019-2020 school year, y’all!
As a reminder, we have our MA/PhD Picnic coming up this Sunday, 1:30-5pm, at Rhyse’s house (329 Salt Springs Road)–thanks for hosting again this year, Rhyse! 
Feel free to stop by, grab some food, and say howdy.
Don’t forget to attend Negotiations this Friday! All are welcome and food will be provided. This poster comes courtesy of our lovely MA Facilitator, Mark. Thanks, Mark!