This semester has seen both a sad transition and notable achievements for faculty and students in the Department of English.

First, I am sorry to convey news of the death of Joseph B. DeRoche (1938-2013). Joe’s love of poetry, his humility and humanity, touched many students over more than forty years at Northeastern, and he will be greatly missed; see page 13 for Marina Leslie’s tribute to this unique member of our community.

On a happier note, you will find in the following pages news of the recognition of many current students and faculty. The College of Social Sciences and Humani-ties (CSSH) this year inaugurated several new programs to support scholarly activ-ity. Nicole Aljoe and Ryan Cordell, both assistant professors, and Lana Cook, a doctoral candidate, will be part of the first cohort of Northeastern Humanities Cen-ter Resident Fellows, while Professors Carla Kaplan, Kathleen Kelly, and Janet Randall are recipients of CSSH Dean’s Research Development Grants, also in their first year.

Faculty and students are making their scholarly marks externally as well as within Northeastern. As the 2012-2013 academic year ends, assistant professor Erika Boeckeler returns from a fellowship year at the Wellesley College Newhouse Hu-manities Center, crossing paths with Carla Kaplan, Davis Distinguished Professor of American Literature, who will spend the 2013-2014 year at Wellesley as the Mary L. Cornille Distinguished Visiting Professor. You can read more about these and other faculty achievements on page 12 and about the activities of our graduate students on pages 8 and 9.

This May saw the graduation of a bumper crop of over thirty majors (including com-bined majors with Cinema Studies and Linguistics). At our departmental reception honoring our graduates on May 3rd, Tesla Cariani, graduating with the highest departmental GPA, spoke about the challenges as well as the joys of being a Northeastern English major; you can read the full text of her remarks on our Face-book page, Northeastern University, English Department. Elise Funke, an Eng-lish/Linguistics dual major graduating with the second-highest GPA, recognized mentors in both majors; Robert Gewirtz spoke about the road that has led him to a position as Marketing Associate/Recruiter at the Jinghua Language School in Tenzhen, China; and Mackenzie Cockerill, who will begin an M.Litt at the Univer-sity of Glasgow in Fall 2013, read an apt short story about searching and desire. The department extends hearty congratulations to all of our graduates!

I hope our new alumnae will look forward to the Newsletter, “Like” us on Facebook, and Stay Connected via http://www.northeastern.edu/english/alumni/ so that we can follow your further transitions and adventures. Laura Green, Department Chair

English Department, 405 Lake Hall, (617) 373‐4540, h p://www.northeastern.edu/english/alumni/ 

English Department Alumni/a e e-Newsletter Spring 2013

In this Issue

Alumni/ae Spotlights Seeking and Sowing Growth … 2 Jeffery Dubinski-Neessen (BA ’05)

Portraits in Context … 4 Megan McCormick (BA ’09, MA ’11)

Alumni Updates … 5 Department News Co-op Program … 6

Undergraduate Program … 7

Graduate Program … 8

EGSA … 9

Writing Program … 10

Faculty … 11

In Memoriam Joe DeRoche … 12

Acknowledgments … 12

Chair’s Letter

I returned to Northeastern University in 2004 to speak with Professor Marina Leslie one day during her office hours. I didn’t set up an appointment and decided to come by one day that spring to talk about what I would need to do to re-enter Northeast-ern after having taken a five-year hiatus. I waited for her outside of her office. She turned the corner and saw me standing there and said, “Jeff Dubinski, how are you? What has it been, five years? How was California?” This moment stands out to me. For her to care so much about her students to re-member me and where I had been meant so much. I knew that I had to come back to Northeastern to finish my bachelor’s degree. Discovering a Career Path Shortly after graduation in 2005, I landed a position at Cambridge College over in Central Square. As an Admissions Counselor, I recruited students for grad-uate programs in Education that prepared students to become teachers and administrators. Working in college admissions was a great fit for me. It com-bined my interest in working in higher ed with my background in sales and retail. I loved working with this group of students and educators. I felt like I was making a difference in their lives and in the lives of the children that they would end up teaching once they were in a classroom. After two and half years at Cambridge College and recruiting regional-ly, I decided to apply to a position that would provide me with more experience and more opportunities to grow professionally. Mastering the Profession In late 2007, I began working at Boston University School of Public Health. In my new position, I had the opportunity to recruit students nationally and be a part of a great organization, the Association of Schools of Public Health. Again at BU, I knew I was making a difference in my students’ lives and in the lives that they would ultimately touch through their good works in the field of public health. My mentors at BUSPH and my colleagues through ASPH taught me about policy development and program manage-ment. During my five and a half year tenure at

BUSPH, I had the opportunity to present nationally on graduate admissions and public health educa-tion and careers at multiple national conferences, the National Institutes of Health, and in various online forums. I sought out opportunities to grow professionally, joined school-wide and university-wide committees, and completed my Master’s in Policy, Planning and Administration with a focus in Higher Education Administration from Boston Uni-versity in 2011. While at BUSPH, I was promoted to the school’s Senior Recruiter position and managed the school’s recruitment program. Moving Forward I had been looking for further opportunities to ad-vance and ways to grow professionally over the past year and came across the position at the University of New Mexico School of Law. My husband and I had been looking to relocate from the Boston area and were looking for positions where we had family, in either Albuquerque or upstate New York. The job description for the Assistant Dean for Admissions and Financial Aid fit my experience really well. Continued on page 3

Page 2

Seeking and Sowing Growth Jeffery Dubinski-Neessen (BA ’05) shares his story of professional growth in Higher Ed Administration

“One of the things that I feel has helped me grow professionally is my desire to learn, something which was 

nurtured at NU.” Jeffery Dubinski‐Neessen (BA ’05) 

Dubinski-Neessen, continued from page 2 I was hired and started my new position at the Uni-versity of New Mexico School of Law in February 2013. One of the things that attracted me to apply for the position at UNM Law was the service driven mission of the school. The School is the only law school in the state and has a deep commitment to training their students and to serving New Mexico. Looking Back One of the things that I feel has helped me grow pro-fessionally is my desire to learn, something which was nurtured at NU. Here’s some advice for current students, from someone who’s been there: Get involved on campus and make connections with your fellow classmates and professors. The Faculty at NU are fantastic. They are here because they love to teach and love working with students. They are here to support you and can help mentor you as you consider graduate school and various profes-sional paths. For example, during my senior year, I was asked to be a part of a student interview com-mittee as the department searched for a new faculty

position. This was a great opportunity for me to see inside the faculty hiring process.

Make the most of your co-op. One of the great things about Northeastern is the Co-Op Program. I learned so much during my co-op, which was at John Hancock, and I still use many of these skills to this day. Don’t be afraid to seek out opportunities at work that interest you and will develop your skills. I have always asked for more responsibility at work. My previous supervisors will say that I ask lots of ques-tions and like to take on new projects. Reach out to alumni who are in fields that interest you. Contributed by Doctoral Candidate Laura Hartmann. Laura is pursuing research in Transatlantic Modernism, Postmodern and Contemporary American Poetry and Novel, and 20th Century Visual Studies.

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Remembering Joseph DeRoche I started at NU in 1996. During my first year, I took the usual freshman courses. It wasn’t until my second year when I took Professor DeRo-che’s Gay and Lesbian Literature course that I found a love for litera-ture. Professor Joe DeRoche, who passed away in April of this year, taught at Northeastern for over 40 years. I took several courses with him during my time at NU. He made literature and poetry come alive for me and encouraged me to continue my degree after I had taken time off from my studies. I did a directed study with Professor DeRoche on Paul Monette’s literature during my senior year at Northeastern. Professor DeRoche really cared about his students. We’d have coffee outside on Centennial Common and chat about school and what I’d like to do after graduating. He encouraged me to write, something I still do.

I remember Professor DeRoche’s retirement party, I walked in a little late and found Professor DeRoche sitting near the entrance to the party. He looked up and smiled, ‘I was hoping you would come.’ That to me was so touching and spoke volumes about the type of professor he was and how much he cared about his students. Jeffery Dubinski-Neessen

More memories of Joe DeRoche, shared by his colleague and friend Marina Leslie, can be found on page 13.

Photo by Robert Kalman (BA ’70) 

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Regarding the top image at left, from the Street col-lection: I often feel uncomfortable with street pho-tography because of the lack of consent from the subject. Candid portraiture seems an inherent re-duction of the subject to the image they present (and therefore can easily become a cliché). While in some ways this candor is honest in a manner that other portraiture can't reach, it still makes me un-easy to feel that my photograph isn't a product of collaboration with the person in the image itself, and without more context for the moment captured. In this photo I felt that capturing the woman's reflec-tion rather than her actual self was in some way a compromise with my own discomfort; she herself is not present in the image, only her reflection. Her distance from the photo, and my intrusive presence with the camera, is magnified by her being framed. It felt like an honest depiction of my relationship with street subjects; a small, simple, cropped snap-shot of a person's large and complicated life.

Regarding the bottom image at left, from the Por-trait-Life collection: In this photo I wanted to take a portrait of myself that wasn't in the spirit of a self-portrait. The focus on the leaves above me was an attempt to find context rather than focusing only on my face. When taking photos of other people, I try to find a complete image; the environment surround-ing the subject is as relevant as the person herself. With self-portraiture, however, I feel naturally more compelled to focus on my own appearance (as eve-ryone is when they see a picture of themselves), when in reality I would prefer an image created with the same sense of context as the other portraits I take. What I find most beautiful about a photograph is its ability to capture a moment, not just an image. I believe that it's in that difference that the viewer can find a connection to what she sees, feeling a moment's capture rather than a picture taken with a machine. Focusing simply on appearance forgoes that potential for emotional communication. The biggest project I'm focusing on now is The Amer-ican Woman project. This project, for me, is a way of reclaiming my own identity by navigating the theo-ries and definitions we were given as students, and finding a way to reconcile that information with my own experience. Continued on page 5.

Untitled. From Street collection. © Megan McCormick 

Untitled. From Portrait ‐ Life collection. © Megan McCormick 

I've been finding a way to  approach photography from a  

post‐male‐gaze place  (not forgetting that it exists, but con‐

sciously reclaiming the model/photographer relationship so that my art 

is not about a  power struggle so much as  

it is a collaboration with  the person in front of the camera). 

 Megan McCormick (BA ’09, MA ’11 ) 

Portraits in Context

Megan McCormick (BA ’09, MA ’11) reflects on portraits from her photography portfolio, selected by assistant professor of English and visual arts scholar Kimberly Juanita Brown.

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Jennifer Bankard Sopchockchai (PhD’13) has accepted a Lecturer position in the Writing Pro-gram at the University of Southern California.

Tiffany Conroy Moore (PhD’09) will be perform-ing as Banquo in the Player’s Ring Theatre’s pro-duction of Macbeth, May 31-June 16. http://playersring.org/event/macbeth/

Verdie Culbreath (MA ’12 ) has been accepted into the doctoral program at Cornell University.

Dennis Daly (MA ’75) has published his first book of poetry, The Custom House.

Jeremy Gillette-Newman (MA ’11 ) has been accepted into the doctoral program at Arizona State University.

Cory Grewell (PhD ’08) accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Literature at Patrick Henry College in Purcellville, VA.

Thomas M. Hall (BS English Education ’68, M.Ed.’76) taught Eng-lish at the high school level for seven years, and then spent the next 31 years as an assistant principal and principal. He was an adjunct instruc-tor at Quincy College for eight years, and recently wrote and published his

third novel, Hidden: A Novel of Suspense.

Jennifer Haney (MA’08) received her JD from Harvard Law School this Spring. Brett Ingram (MA ’03) has accepted a position as Visiting Professor in the Communication Depart-ment at Boston College. He received his PhD in Communication, with a concentration in Public Cul-ture, Performance Studies, and Rhetoric, from University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2012. Danielle Skeehan (PhD ’13) was awarded a Pro-gram in Early American Economy and Society (PEAES) postdoctoral fellowship. She will also con-tinue as a Visiting Research Associate at the McNeil Center in 2013-2014. Dan Springer (MA ’90), currently serving as Fine & Performing Arts Chair at Dennis-Yarmouth Re-gional High School on Cape Cod, had a successful solo exhibition of his latest work this past summer at the Brewster Ladies Library. Springer, the 2010 Arts Foundation of Cape Cod's "Arts Educator of the Year," spoke last spring at the annual National Art Education Association conference in NYC about the importance of maintaining your own voice as an artist to be a truly successful classroom instruc-tor. Check out his blog for details and his random musings on whatever subject catches his attention at: www.springed.wordpress.com. Brandon Tankersley (MA ’12 ) has been accept-ed into the doctoral program at SUNY Albany.

Megan McCormick, continued from page 4. I've been working with women to explore the parts of myself that I'm most uncomfortable facing -- the fact that I am an American, and the fact that I am an independ-ent and able female, thus marking me a product of feminism as it is known in all facets, for better or worse. And, at the same time, I've been finding a way to approach photography from a post-male-gaze place (not forgetting that it exists, but consciously reclaiming the model/photographer relationship so that my art is not about a power struggle so much as it is a collaboration with the person in front of the camera). Each of the subjects I've worked with has chosen the person they wish to emulate, and have had the final say in all aspects of the creative execu-

tion of the shoot. I didn't want this to just be my pho-to project; I wanted it to be a cultural exploration alongside women who are each uniquely empowered to claim their own relationship with the American fe-male identity. After each shoot I've emailed the per-son questions about their choices that led to the shoot--whom she chose, why she chose that person, and why she chose to represent that person the way that she has. Contributed by Professor Kimberly Juanita Brown and Megan McCormick. Megan lives in Brook-lyn, NY. You can view the featured images and imag-es from The American Woman at Megan’s website: http://megwethersfieldphotography.virb.com/.

fàtç VÉÇÇxvàxw http://www.northeastern.edu/english/alumni/

Find us on LinkedIn.com @ Northeastern University Department of English Students—Past and Present.

Hanna Gibeau, Class of 2016 Production Assistant, Cengage Learning

Hanna works closely with the editorial department, making sure the content of the products (print and digital) is exactly as planned before it heads to the manufacturers. Hanna said she has “learned that there are many more steps in the process of publishing a book than I originally thought there were. Since we publish textbooks and e-learning tools, there is a different process than that of publishing novels or chil-dren's stories. We have to go much more by demand and what the global market requires of us based on educational needs.” Hanna and other English majors have the added learning bonus of seeing a merger unfold. Cengage Learning recently joined National Geographic a few months ago to create National Geographic Learning. “This has taught me a great deal about company relations and the process of bring two forces together to make our products better. We are in the process of revamping all of our books with Nat Geo pic-tures and explorers, making them more exciting and more desirable. It is a very interesting time here at Cengage!”

Breegan Semonelli, Class of 2016 Constituent Advocate, City of Boston Mayor’s Office

As a Constituent Advocate, Breegan and her cohort of Northeastern Co-op peers manage the expectations of the constituent caller and move request to the correct City de-partment. Breegan said she learned that “it is especially important to manage expectations so the constituents can plan accordingly.” Breegan said she realized that “communication is a key component of a thriving city, espe-cially in a state of emergency. My fellow co-ops and I were present during both the February blizzard and the more re-cent terrorist crisis.” These extenuating circumstances “reaffirmed to me that municipal government never sleeps.” Despite the severity of the situation, essential employees, including the co-ops, reported to work to “maintain some sense of regularity within the city.” Reporting to work during a city-wide shut-down meant being delivered to co-op by a Boston Police cruiser “which is hopefully the last time that will happen, “ quipped Breegan.

Nicholas D’Amore, Class of 2016 Museum Education Assistant, Commonwealth Museum

Prior to his co-op experience, Nick had never entertained the possibility of working with younger children as a career. “Sure, I love kids and they're easy to work with, but I felt like it wouldn't satisfy me intellectually, “ Nick said. Four months into his current co-op at the Commonwealth Museum experi-ence, Nick said he has decided to reconsider his career pos-sibilities. That thought is in large part “due to some of the connections I've made both on a professional and friendly level. Each day, I work with classrooms ranging from 7-18 years olds… I also get to work with teachers and chaper-ones as well. Working with those teachers, I've learned a great deal about the different kinds of teaching careers.” One of the connections he made lead Nick to job moonlight-ing as a high school entrance exam tutor, which he loves. “It's a nice break from a normal classroom setting, and you get to assess a single student's concerns. This is an oppor-tunity I attribute directly to my experience at the museum; and I'm very grateful for that discovery.”

Ashley Roth, Class of 2015 Teaching Assistant, KAPPA International High School

Ashley’s first co-op was in the marketing department of a magazine publishing house. It was a coveted a job in an industry that she thought she would love. And “while I did learn a great deal … I came to realize that marketing and advertising were just simply not for me.” For her second Co-op Ashley chose a different path- teaching in a New York City public school. “My experience at KAPPA International High School has been amazing ….a majority of the students come from relatively rough backgrounds, but they are excit-ed and willing to learn. I have learned an incredible amount about teaching English literature to high schoolers, and I am happy to say that my interest in the field has been solidified. Ashley will be following in the footsteps of her father. Her goal is to honor his memory by becoming “a compassionate, enthusiastic, intelligent teacher who will make a positive con-tribution.”

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CO-OP UPDATE Minds in Motion This semester, 32 undergraduate English students are working out in the field, some are as near as Huntington Avenue and others as far away as Uganda. The students are gaining valuable experience as paid, contributing members of a teams in a va-riety of settings, big and small, including library archives, law firms, city and state government, publishing houses, healthcare, schools, private and public business organizations, museums and TV studios. Here are a few snapshots of current co-op stu-dents:

Contributed by Lisa Doherty, MA ’92, English Co-op Advisor. Do you want to find out how your business or non-profit might partner with NU’s co-op program? Contact Lisa at l.doherty@neu.edu for more information.

On May 2, 2013, the English Department celebrated with our 2013 graduates and their friends and families at a festive event in the Curry Student Center. The students receiving the top GPAs in the graduating class, Elise Funke and Tesla Cariani, offered inspiring remarks, while MacKenzie Cockerill read an original short story and Robbie Gewirtz shared some of his experiences living in Chi-na. Both Elise and Tesla had received multiple awards in 2013. Elise was a member of the Huntington 100 and received the Sears B. Condit Award and the Wendy Breen Kline Compass Award; Tes-la received the Sears B. Condit Award, the Husky Leadership Award, and the LGBTQA Distinguished Service Award. Several of our graduates have announced post-graduation plans: Elise Funke will join the law firm of Johnson Becker PLLC in Minne-apolis, MacKenzie Cockerill will study at the University of Glasgow (an MLitt in Modernities: Literature, Theory, and Culture), Robbie Gewirtz will return to China as a Marketing Associate and Recruiter at the Jiahua Language School in Shenzhen, Gabrille Griot will begin an MA in Cultural and Creative Industries at King’s College London, and Alison Smith will work in the Parent Marketing De-partment of Bright Horizons in Watertown. Earlier in the semester, we were pleased to announce the winners of the 2013 Peter Burton Hanson Writing Prizes:

In the Category of Scholarly Writing, the top prize was awarded to Alex Shapiro for "The Church in African American Litera-ture," written for Professor Nicole Aljoe in Early African Ameri-can Literature (Spring 2012). Honorable mention was awarded to Sydney Rey for "Narrating for 'Us' and 'Them': Subjectivity and Alterity in Conrad's Heart of Darkness," written for Profes-sor Nicole Aljoe in Postcolonial Literature (Fall 2012).

In the Category of Creative Writing, the top prize was awarded to Ryan La Sala for "Sylvia Had a Hunch," written for Profes-sor Francis Blessington in Fiction Workshop (Spring 2012). Honorable mention was awarded to Jackson Hyland-Lipski for "Structures," written for Professor Francis Blessington in Fiction Workshop (Spring 2012).

Thanks to MacKenzie Cockerill, the English Club, advised by Professor Sam Bernstein, was very active in the spring semester, arranging outings to several theatrical productions, as well as presentations by Professor Ryan Cordell on digital humanities and Professor Janet Randall on linguistics and jury instructions. Contributed by Professor Beth Britt. Professor Britt is the Undergraduate Faculty Mentor for the Department of English.

Help Support Your Department of English

The Department of English is committed to providing a rich educational experience for un-dergraduate and graduate students. These goals would not be possible without the sus-tained generosity of alumni and other im-portant members of the Northeastern commu-nity. Please consider making a gift, contribu-tion, or bequest to the department. Doing so can make a huge impact on students and fac-ulty, passing on the traditions of learning and discovery to future cohorts.

For information about gifts and giving, please contact Peri Onipede at o.onipede@neu.edu or (617) 373-5420.

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UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM NEWS

Find us on LinkedIn.com @ Northeastern University Department of English Students—Past and Present.

This May saw the graduation of over thirty majors, including combined majors with Cinema Studies and Linguistics. Elise Funke, pictured above, graduated with combined majors in  English/Linguistics.   

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Graduate students and faculty in the English Department are working on a new digital humanities project: a digital archive of the events surrounding the bombing of the Boston Marathon in April. “Our Marathon” (http://marathon.neu.edu/) is a crowd-sourced archive of pictures, videos, stories, and social media related to the Boston Marathon bombing, the subsequent search and capture of the individuals who planted the bombs, and the city’s healing process. Under the leadership of Profes-sors Ryan Cordell and Elizabeth Maddock Dillon, a group of graduate students, including Alicia Peaker, Jim McGrath, Elizabeth Hopwood, Kristi Girdharry, and others have begun building the website and the archive. “Our Marathon” will allow the public to explore not only what happened during the event, but also how the event was experienced by Bostonians, visitors to the city, and those many members of the “Boston diaspora” who were far away but deeply engaged in the unfolding events. The archive will serve as a long-term memorial, preserving these records for students and researchers, providing future historians with invaluable, local windows into an important national event. Sponsored by the NULab for Maps, Texts, and Networks, the “Our Marathon” project team has already partnered with other organizations around the city, including the public radio station WBUR, the Internet Archive, and the Digital Public Library of America. Over the summer, grad-uate students will be collecting oral histories from around Boston, from the many people affected by the bombing. If you have a story, image, or text to contribute, please visit the site and add to the archive. We also welcome

volunteers who are interested in assisting with the pro-ject as we move forward: visit the website for more infor-mation. Contributed by Elizabeth Maddock Dillon, Professor of English and Graduate Coordinator.

GRADUATE PROGRAMS UPDATE

2012-2013 Graduate Program - Degrees Conferred Ph.D.:  Jennifer Sopchockchai Bankard, Aparna Mujumdar, Stephanie Loomis Pappas,  

James Richie, Danielle Skeehan, Art Zilleruelo MA: Jacob Erickson, Aleksandra Galus, Bryanna Parker, Kevin Ruby 

Our Marathon: The Boston Bombing Digital Archive http://marathon.neu.edu/

The bombings at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013 and the events of the following weeks impacted many communities around and beyond the city: its citizens, visitors from around the world in town for the race, and Boston natives who watched the events unfold from elsewhere. These events changed lives in ways small and large and in ways that were immediate and more enduring. Our Marathon is a place to share your experiences from the day of the bombing, the investiga-tion, the Friday "shelter in place," or the city's ongoing healing process. The Archive will be a long-term memorial and valuable record for future students and researchers.

Our Marathon: The Boston Bombing Archive

We are proud of the graduate students who have received research fellowships this year. All of these students will be completing research for their dissertations at archives in the coming year.

Tabitha Kenlon has been awarded a 2013-2014 Chawton House Library Visiting Fellowship to complete research at the Chawton House Library in Hampshire, England.

Alicia Peaker has been awarded a 2013 Friends of Smith College Libraries Scholar-in- Residence Fellowship.

Jenna Sciuto has been awarded a John W. Hunt Memorial/Faulkner Journal Scholarship.

Max White has been awarded a Filson Fellowship from the Filson Historical Society in Louisville, Kentucky.

For graduate student honors, awards, and achievements from 2012-2013, visit http://www.northeastern.edu/english/graduate/graduate-achievements/.

This April, the English Graduate Student Association hosted its sev-enth annual interdisciplinary graduate student conference. Themed alt/, the conference provided a space for its presenters, poets, and featured visual artists to explore concepts of alterity, alternatives, and alteration. And, for the seventh straight year, the EGSA confer-ence provided an intellectually stimulating and collaborative envi-ronment for presenters to deliver papers and receive feedback on their ideas. alt/ hosted over forty presenters, who delivered papers on topics that ranged from medieval literature to contemporary internet memes, and in fields as varied as literary studies, rhetoric and com-position, film studies, sociology, and theology. The EGSA was also thrilled to host keynote speaker José Esteban Muñoz from New York University. Professor Muñoz’s thought-provoking keynote address, an analysis of queer racial community in the film Wildness, was well-received by all in attendance. Northeastern University’s Kimberly Juanita Brown delivered the faculty address, and her stir-ring presentation on the reiterative representations of the slave’s corporeal form in contemporary photography inspired lively discus-sion among those in attendance. Professor Ryan Cordell also host-ed a Special Topics Workshop, which allowed attendees invaluable hands-on experience with Digital Humanities technology.

In addition, the EGSA conference featured its second annual art gallery at Northeastern’s Gallery 360 and its first ever poetry read-ing. The EGSA hosted work from artists from as close as Boston and as far away as Monfalcone, Italy in its art gallery, all of which explored the conference theme through alternative practices, mate-rials, and concepts. The gallery’s opening reception was headlined by featured slam poet Sean Patrick Mulroy, who dropped lines alongside a number of blossoming poets studying English at North-eastern. The gallery reception and poetry reading was attended by Northeastern faculty and graduate students, along with featured and local artists, making the event an eclectic and lively occasion. All involved with this year’s EGSA conference were excited to see many of its traditions continued while new traditions—such as the poetry reading and Special Topics Workshop—were inaugurated. The EGSA eagerly looks forward to the eighth annual conference this spring, and hopes to see you all there! Contributed by Doctoral Student and 2013 EGSA Conference Co-Chair Frank Capogna. Frank studies Modernism, poetics, performance, and philosophy.

① Doctoral Candidates Genie Giaimo and Jenna Sciuto attend the alt/ art reception and poetry reading. ② Doctoral Student Frank Capogna responds to a question for the panel. ③ José Esteban Muñoz  ④ Professor Kimberly Juanita Brown  

⑤ Conference attendees participate in Special Topics Workshop. ⑥ Slam poet Sean Patrick Mulroy.  Photos by Jeremy Gillette‐Newman (MA ’11 ) 

ENGLISH GRADUATE STUDENT ASSOCIATION UPDATE

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WRITING PROGRAM HELPS LAUNCH WRITERS’ ROOM IN O’BRYANT The Writing Program is partnering with 826 Boston, a nonprofit organization devoted to helping young people with their writing (http://www.826boston.org/), to launch a Writers’ Room in the John D. O’Bryant School of Math and Science, a grade 7-to-12 Boston public school located in Roxbury. The Writers’ Room, modeled on our Writing Center at Northeastern, will provide one-on-one and small-group assistance to students on a wide range of writing projects. It will also serve as a hub for a variety of special writing and publica-tion projects, as well as after-school workshops and other events. An 826 staff member will direct the Writers’ Room. Professors Gallagher and Lerner will help provide training for the tutors, who will largely be Northeastern students. The Writing Program is excited about the opportunity to help build a culture of writing and publishing in the O’Bryant and to provide our undergraduates with a unique opportunity to work with young writers. While some funding has been secured for this project, the project leaders are still fundraising to get the Writers’ Room up and running to full capacity in Fall 2013. If readers know of potential donors, please contact Professor Gallagher (617-373-2193; c.gallagher@neu.edu) or Professor Lerner (617-373-2451; n.lerner@neu.edu). WRITING CENTER EXPANDING For the 2012/13 academic year, the Writing Center opened a Snell Library location, where undergraduate and graduate student consultants worked with a wide variety of NU writers, as they continue to do in our Holmes Hall location as well. While the library space was centrally located on the first floor of Snell, it was also small and somewhat hard to find (the rooms were previously used as storage closets!). Starting in the fall, the Writing Center will have a new location in Snell’s renovated first floor, a “corner office” adjacent to Argo Tea. This piece of prime real estate will essentially double the total Writing Center space and allow us to continue to provide guidance and feedback to all NU writers. For questions about the Writing Center, contact Professor Lerner (617-373-2451; n.lerner@neu.edu). PARTNERSHIP WITH ROXBURY COMMUNITY COLLEGE For the spring 2013 semester, Professor Lerner’s class, ENGL3381—Processes of Writing and Tutoring, engaged in partnership with Roxbury Community College’s Writing Center. After an initial training period, students in ENGL3381 worked as staff in the RCC Writing Center, learning a great deal about our college neighbor down Columbus Ave. and supporting RCC’s students’ writing endeavors. By all accounts, this partnership was a great success. As one student described about her work with a student at RCC, “We were able to build a personal connection that traversed any socio-economic boundaries that would otherwise separate us. The writing center offered the setting for a transaction worth more than any amount of money.” We look forward to continuing this NU-RCC partnership. Contributed by Chris Gallagher, Professor of English and Director of the Writing Programs.

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NU Instructor and author Laurie Edwards was interviewed on  Fresh Air with Terry Gross in April. Listen online at:  

http://www.npr.org/2013/04/11/176688401/living‐with‐chronic‐pain‐in‐the‐kingdom‐of‐the‐sick.  

Read more about Laurie’s recent book and other news from the Writing Programs at:  http://www.northeastern.edu/english/writing‐program/wp‐newsletter‐archive/. 

WRITING PROGRAM NEWS

FACULTY NEWS Nicole Aljoe has received one of the inaugu-ral Northeastern Humanities Center Faculty Fellowships for 2013-2014. With faculty and graduate student fellows from across the col-lege, she will be contributing the theme of "Viral Culture," working on a project titled "Do you Remember the Days of Slav'ry?': The Neo-Slave Narrative in Contemporary Carib-bean Cultural Production."

Kimberly Juanita Brown was the organizer of a symposium, "First Exposure" (April 26th), which brought together scholars of African and African-American Studies, Visual Studies, and Women's and Gender Studies from around Boston. The symposium, which grew out of a seminar, "The Dark Room: Race and Visual Studies," sponsored by the Northeast-ern Humanities Center, featured talks by sem-inar participants (including Professors Brown and Nicole Aljoe) as well as keynote address-es by Professors Saidiya Hartman, of Colum-bia University, and Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Carla Kaplan will spend the academic year on sabbatical as the Mary L. Cornille Distin-guished Visting Professor in the Humanities at the Newhouse Center for the Humanities at Wellesley College. She has also received a Research Development Fund award from NU's College of Social Sciences and Humani-ties in support of her current book project, "Queen of the Muckrakers: The Life and Times of Jessica Mitford." And in Spring 2014, she will spend a week as the Fannie Hurst Visiting Professor at Washington Uni-versity.

Kathleen Kelly is one of the recipients of the inaugural year of the College of Social Sci-ences and Humanities Research Develop-ment Fund (RDF). Kathleen will travel to Tin-tagel Castle in Cornwall as part of her re-search for her book manuscript, “Lost and

Invented Ecologies: The Medieval Natural World,” which examines medieval literary texts, maps and other documents to explore the narratives of places that either no longer exist or have changed dramatically.

Janet Randall also received funds from the RDF, for her research with the Massachusetts Bar Association Plain English Jury Instruc-tion Task Force. Professor Randall’s research also involves current Northeastern undergraduate and graduate students. The ulti-mate goal of the Task Force project is the rewriting of all civil and, eventually, criminal jury instructions in Massachusetts. Page 11

SPOTLIGHT ON RYAN CORDELL In his first year in the Eng-lish department at North-eastern University, assistant professor Ryan Cordell has kept many balls in the air, receiving fellowships and grants both to forward his own research as a “digital Americanist” (a scholar who uses digital methods to map, track, and interpret the literary culture of nineteenth-century America) and to develop new Digital Human-ities projects with NU col-leagues.

With two other Project Directors, English department colleague Elizabeth Maddock Dillon and College of Computer and Information Science assistant professor David Smith, Professor Cordell has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities Office of Digital Humanities for a project, “Uncovering Reprinting Net-works in Nineteenth Century American Newspapers,” that will develop models to track the spread of prints and reprints of poetry and short stories throughout nine-teenth-century newspapers. This and other scholarly and interactive projects are part of Northeastern’s NUlab for Texts, Maps, and Networks, of which Professor Cordell is a core faculty member.

As a teacher, Professor Cordell is particularly concerned with bringing this rapidly developing field’s new technologies, methods, and questions to curious students, scholars, and members of the public. In addition to teaching a course for NU under-graduates called “Technologies of Text,” Professor Cordell was the principal organ-izer of the Boston-area “Days of DH” in March, 2013 and the MLA-affiliated “ThatCamp 2013” (both sponsored by NUlab). He also blogs about digital technolo-gy at the Chronicle of Higher Education’s ProfHacker website.

Professor Cordell currently holds an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship for Scholars in Critical Bibliography from the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia. Next year, Professor Cordell, along with assistant professor Nicole Aljoe, will be one of the inaugural Northeastern University Humanities Center Faculty Fellows who will come together over the theme of “Viral Culture.” To learn more about Professor Cordell’s scholarship and public writing and the emerging discipline of Digital Hu-manities (and to view some beautiful photos of exotic birds!), visit his website at ryan.cordells.us. Contributed by Laura Green, Professor and Chair of the De-partment of English.

Professor Cordell hosted the workshop,  “Making Your First Digital Map with GIS,” at the 

EGSA Conference in March 2013.  Photo by Jeremy Gillette‐Newman (MA ’11 )  

FACULTY NEWS

Special thanks to Beth Britt, Frank Capogna, Elizabeth Maddock Dillon, Lisa Doherty, Jef-

fery Dubinski-Neessen, Jean Duddy, Chris Gallagher, Jeremy Gillette-Newman, Laura Green, Laura Hartmann, Neal Lerner, Marina Leslie, and Robert Kalman for contributing articles, interviews, images, and edits to the Spring 2013 Alumni/ae e-Newsletter. If you would like to contribute to a future edition of the e-Newsletter, please contact Melissa Daigle at m.daigle@neu.edu.

Acknowledgments

IN MEMORIAM

Joseph B. DeRoche We are very sad to report that beloved colleague, teach-er, mentor, and poet Joseph B. DeRoche passed away April 2, 2013. Born in Portland, Maine on September 17, 1938, Joe was the only son of Anne and Blair DeRoche. Joe Deroche taught poetry, American literature, and gay and lesbian literature in the Northeastern English De-partment for more than 40 years. He was a 1964 gradu-ate of the famed Iowa Writer's Workshop and widely known in poetry circles. He participated in a Boston Uni-versity poetry workshop with such distinguished poets as Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton, and George Starbucks, among others. Joe served as the editor of the Heath In-troduction to Poetry for many years. In the late 1960s, Joe inaugurated the “Poets at Northeastern” series with a chapbook entitled “The Inhabited Scroll.” Joe was ordained in the lay Order of Saint Francis and active in Dignity/Boston, a progressive, inclusive community of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered Catholics. He is interred at Holy Cross Cemetery, Yar-mouth, ME. A memorial will be held at Northeastern in the fall (date and time tba). Jason Miranda (BA ’98) has created a web memorial page, josephderoche.com, where we invite you to share your remembrances of Joe. If you wish to be contacted directly as information be-comes available about the memorial, please email Mari-na Leslie (m.leslie@neu.edu).

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Photos by Robert Kalman (BA ’70) 

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