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March 21: Crimson Reads celebrates past year of WSU authorship

The published works of Washington State University authors will be recognized at the WSU Libraries’ ninth annual Crimson Reads, starting with a 1 p.m. presentation on Monday, March 21, in the Terrell Library atrium. Crimson Reads is part of WSU Showcase, the annual celebration of faculty, staff, and student excellence.

The presentation is titled “Reflections of Home: Contextualizing Meaningful Spaces Through Literature.” Speakers will be Trevor Bond, WSU Libraries’ associate dean of digital initiatives and special collections and author of “Coming Home to Nez Perce Country: The Niimíipuu Campaign to Repatriate Their Exploited Heritage”; Nakia Williamson-Cloud, director of the Nez Perce Tribe’s Cultural Resources Program; and Cameron McGill, WSU assistant professor of English and author of the poetry collection “In the Night Field.”

“In the Night Field” charts the complex relationship between mental health and place, “mapping the emotional coordinates of physical locations as a way of making legible the intimate regions of memory and of better understanding those memories: their startling artistry, varied discontents, and casual fallibilities,” McGill said.

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WSU announces Visiting Writers schedule for spring 2022

Washington State University announces this spring’s virtual Visiting Writers Series, a collaboration between WSU’s Pullman and Vancouver campuses.

Each presentation below will take place at 6 p.m. on the date listed via YouTube Live. For more information on series presenters, including the YouTube links to upcoming readings, visit the WSU Visiting Writers Series website.

The WSU Visiting Writers Series brings noted poets and writers of fiction and nonfiction to campus for creative readings, class visits, workshops, and collaborative exchanges across intellectual and artistic disciplines. All talks in the series are free and open to students, faculty, staff, and the broader community.

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The Reason Restaurateur Is ‘Missing’ a Letter

Paul Brians.
Brians

The English language can be very confusing, and this is especially true when it comes to using (or misusing) words or phrases borrowed from another language. For some reason, French loan words seem to give us particular trouble.

For example, former professor of English Paul Brians of Washington State University points out, the word “amateur” is often misspelled as “amature.” Yet another common error listed on the professor’s website is made by those who confuse the terms “protégé” and “prodigy.” The former is someone you’ve taken under your wing, but the latter is someone extraordinary, and only in rare instances are they likely to be one and the same.

As anyone who browses online recipes and tutorials is probably aware, there are more than a few people who seem to be under the impression that “voilà” should be spelled “wallah.” (As per Brians’ site, the word “wallah” is actually Hindi for “worker.”) One understandably misspelled word from the food world describes somebody who owns or operates a restaurant. That word is obviously “restauranteur,” right? Well yes, it would be, were “restauranteur” an actual word, but it isn’t. The word you really want is “restaurateur,” spelled without an “n.”

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mashed

 

Program integrates community service into coursework

Hundreds of students on several Washington State University campuses will participate in community service projects as part of their English classes this year.

For his English 101 classes, WSU Pullman Teaching Assistant Professor David Martin wanted the service-learning component to be research focused; however, he did not have a clear idea of what types of projects would work in his curriculum.

“I was able to learn what other faculty in CES (Community Engaged Scholars) were doing and I found that to be very useful,” Martin said. “It got my mind and wheels turning on some possibilities for my classes.”

This semester, his students are working with community partners in the Palouse region to identify local challenges such as food and housing insecurity, abandoned pets, and stream erosion. They will create a problem statement, write a literature review, and pitch ideas for how those challenges can be resolved.

Students in Linda Russo’s English 302 class will work with the Palouse Conservation District to restore areas along the Palouse River. She said CES inspired her to explore what literary studies can look like when students literally get their hands dirty.

Vanessa Cozza and Johanna Phelps, English professors on the Tri-Cities and Vancouver campuses, respectively, said students in their technical and professional writing classes are working with multiple community partners to create promotional materials such as instruction manuals, brochures, logos, and website designs.

Vanessa Cozza.
Cozza
Linda Russo.
Russo
Johanna Phelps.
Phelps

One of the greatest benefits of participating in CES, according to Martin, Phelps, Russo, and Cozza, was the opportunity to meet other faculty interested in service-learning. Many have stayed in touch with each other since the program concluded.

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Center for Arts and Humanities announces fellowship and catalyst award recipients

The Center for Arts and Humanities (CAH) has selected nine faculty to receive the 2021 CAH Fellowships and Catalyst Award.

Faculty receiving the CAH Fellowship for 2021:

  • Avantika Bawa.
    Bawa

    AVANTICA BAWA, Department of Fine Arts

    Bawa will continue an ongoing series of installations reflecting the artist’s interest in responding to the built and natural environment through the language of drawing and construction.

  • Troy Bennefield.
    Bennefield

    TROY BENNEFIELD, School of Music

    Bennefield will explore and publish information on the life and works of Dutch composer Julius Hijman, whose career was interrupted by the Nazi regime. Bennefield will produce the first-ever recordings of Hijman’s compositions.

  • Dennis Dehart.
    Dehart

    DENNIS DeHART, Department of Fine Arts

    DeHart will create a lens-based series of works focused on the Columbia River drainage basin and the Snake River. The exhibition will be in collaboration with the WSU Libraries’ Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections.

  • Martin King.
    King

    MARTIN KING, School of Music

    King will commission a new horn, tuba and piano trio, record an album of music for this ensemble, and give performing tours of this music to expand and diversify the repertoire and promote this ensemble.

  • Laurie Mercier.
    Mercier

    LAURIE MERCIER, Department of History

    Mercier will conduct research for a book project about gendered occupational segregation in the U.S. and Canadian Wests from 1930-2020.

  • Melissa Nicolas.
    Nicolas

    MELISSA NICOLAS, Department of English

    Nicolas will create an open-access digital archive of personal narratives about living through the COVID‑19 pandemic.

  • Jeffrey Sanders.
    Sanders

    JEFF SANDERS, Department of History

    Sanders will develop a book proposal for a cultural and environmental history of strontium 90.

Jacqueline Wilson.
Wilson
  • JACQUELINE WILSON, School of Music

Wilson will create an album of classical works by Indigenous composers for solo bassoon utilizing a decolonized approach.

Faculty receiving the CAH Catalyst Award for 2021:

  • Ruth Gregory.
    Gregory

    RUTH GREGORY, Digital Technology and Culture Program

    Gregory will pursue multiple grant proposals to the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Spencer Foundation, and provide paid internships for community engaged humanities students.

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