The Chair’s Compass 1

Highlighted Scholarships. 2-3

Faculty Spotlight 4

How to be an Intern 5

Visiting Writers Series 6

Inside this issue:

The Narrow Road to the Deep North—a late 17th century poetic diary by the great Japanese haiku poet, Matsuo Bashō, re-counts his journey through Japan as a means of restoring and renewing his art: "every day is a journey, and the journey itself home." The title and the sentiment are echoed in Richard Flanagan’s 2014 novel, which received the Man Booker Prize that year. It is a gripping, harrow-ing account of another journey in a later centu-ry, the WWII enslave-ment of Allied troops—mainly Australian, Dutch, British, and American soldiers—and forced labor to build a supply line—the infa-mous Death Railway—between Thailand and Burma for Japanese war efforts in Southeast Asia. There is much that is epic in the design of the novel, tragic in its ultimate con-clusions. The novel, which I incorporated this fall into my Critical Prac-tice course, is not festive reading, definitely not a work fitting for Yuletide celebration, the time I sit here writing this “compass.”

And yet it is. A story of cruelty and brav-ery, it also reflects on the love, sacrifice, and small kindnesses that sustained the soldiers in the bleak-est, most appalling time of their lives. Christmas, in the deep grip of winter, is equally a story of love, sacrifice, and acts of kind-ness that allow us to give thanks for what we have and who we are capable of becoming in our best moments. Perhaps the novel is essential reading at Christmas, a grim re-minder of the worst and best elements of life’s journey and of how in-domitable we can be when confronted with

challenges that test our faith. Please keep in touch with this depart-ment and let us know about your own jour-neys, the roads that you trod. We would be delighted to hear from you.

H.

The Chair’s Compass

College of Arts and Sciences — Department of English and Linguistics

Editor/ Writer: *Chris Ashton*

Supervisor: Dr. Kate White

Fall 2015 Indiana University — Purdue University Fort Wayne

“Behind this door

Now buried in deep grass

A different generation will celebrate

The Festival of Dolls.”

-Matsuo Bashō

PAGE 2 FALL 2015

Highlighted Scholarships for 2016

Story by Chris Ashton

College of Arts and Sciences - Department of English and Linguistics

IPFW Students: most of you (and I include myself among your number) know how difficult it can be to pay for college. Some of us are working a couple of full-time jobs, an internship, going to school full time, and (I cannot fathom how) raising a family in the time between. Since time is a finite resource, and many of us are finding it in short supply, I thought it best to highlight some of the scholarships available to us for the upcoming school year. In addition to cutting down the fi-nancial burden on students, a scholarship might give a student the opportunity to take some time and focus on what’s really im-portant: themselves. After all, what is college if not a tool for bet-

tering one’s self? And, even if you disagree, who couldn’t do with a bit more free time? Anyway, with-out further ado, here are some scholarships that I think are worth highlighting:

The Department of Eng-lish & Linguistics Award for Ethics in Linguistics

Who it’s for: Undergraduate or Graduate Students

How much: $500

What it’s about: The focus of this award is to reward students who can effectively utilize linguistics to promote nonviolence and under-

standing.

How to get it:

Complete at least one course in linguistics and/or the lan-guage study concentration above the introductory level, and

Submit one of the following:

* A piece of linguistic coursework,

* A presentation on the topic (in any media),

* A documentation study,

* A course course-related conference presentation, or

* Something along these

lines that demonstrates a poten-tial for promoting nonviolence and understanding.

Why I chose it: I like this award because it is accessible. Grad stu-dents and undergrads alike can get amongst it, and the prize is pretty considerable. It seems to me that, if you have even a pass-ing interest in linguistics, you owe it to yourself to try. In all likeli-hood, you have already created the winning apparatus (for a lin-guistics course, presumably) any-way; just submit that thing and see what happens!

The Sylvia E. Bowman Award

Who it’s for: Undergraduate Stu-dents

How much: $400 and your name is added to a plaque and memori-alized for eternity.

What it’s about: This award fo-cuses on students who can show-case effective writing or teaching skills in the field of literature.

How to get it: All you have to do for this one is submit an essay on either the writing or teaching of literature. That’s it.

Why I chose it: This award stuck out to me because it’s relative sim-plicity (in terms of assignment) and the multifaceted reward. Hon-estly, I can’t imagine many of us

don’t want to have our names etched into a plaque and displayed for those who come after us. It’s a symbol of the winner’s achieve-ment. I back it.

The Psi Iota Award for Writing

Who it’s for: Undergraduate Stu-dents

How much: Monetary amount is TBD, but the winning story may also be published in Confluence.

What it’s about: This one is all about exemplary writing. Show off your writing chops, win a prize (just like at the county fair).

How to get it: To be considered for this award, you must:

Hey, Alumni! We Want to Hear from You!

PAGE 3 FALL 2015

Highlighted Scholarships for 2016

Mail your responses back to: Kate White English Department Newsletter Indiana Purdue Fort Wayne 2101 E. Coliseum Blvd. Fort Wayne, IN 46805

We’d love to hear from our alumni about where your lives have taken you. You may clip this portion of the newsletter and mail it with your responses, or you may email us at newsletter-engl@ipfw.edu. Here are a few things we’d like to know:

Is there something you’d like to see in this newsletter?

What direction did your English degree from IPFW take you?

Have you continued to write creatively? Would you be interested in having your work in our news-letter?

Are there updates to your career or life you’d like us to know about?

What is your fondest memory of your time in the English Department here at IPFW?

What advice would you give current students?

College of Arts and Sciences - Department of English and Linguistics

OR

Find us on Facebook and tell us your story!

Email your response to: whitek@ipfw.edu OR

* Hold a GPA of at least 3.0 in English courses, and

* Submit your best short story.

Why I chose it: While the previ-ous two awards were centered on research or things of academic nature, I wanted to highlight one that targeted the creative writer, also.

Additionally, if you win, your work could be published in Fort Wayne’s Confluence magazine. Again, you win money, too, but who wouldn’t want to pad their portfolio just a bit? Finally, since I mentioned previously how little time we are all finding ourselves with these days, I thought it pru-dent to choose an award that re-quires less of that precious time to

Submission Instructions The deadline for the awards and scholarships mentioned is Febru-ary 19th, 2016. In order to enter, students should provide appropri-ate submission materials based on award criteria as well as a faculty member’s name who will support the nomination. Please attach electronic submission with cover letter: name, faculty member’s name, and your IPFW e-mail address.

Send submissions to Dr. Sand-man: sandmans@ipfw.edu.

be spent.

These are but a few of the scholarships and awards that are available to us as IPFW students with English majors or minors. For more information, contact the department office at 260-481-6841, or visit the office, which is located in the Liberal Arts Build-ing, room 145 during regular of-fice hours.

Submission instructions have been provided to the right. If you have any further questions regarding those, I encourage you to e-mail Dr. Sandman at the ad-dress listed (sandmans@ipfw.edu).

Faculty Spotlight: Dr. George Kalamaras

PAGE 4 FALL 2015

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Rachel E. Hile EDITORS: Clark Butler, Bernd Fischer REVIEW EDITORS: Frank Palmeri, Mihoko Suzuki MANAGING EDITOR: Cathleen M. Carosella

A Journal of Literature, History, and the Philosophy of History

Clio: A Journal of Literature History, and the Philosophy of Histo-ry, an international triennial journal, publishes scholarly essays on three interrelated topics: literature as informed by historical understandings, historical writings considered as literature, and philosophy of history, with a special in-terest in Hegel.

Clio seeks essays that are interdisciplinary in their argu-ments. We publish researched essays at the intersections of our three disciplines of emphasis. Our focus is histori-ography, in reference to any time period and literatures, especially those that reflect contemporary theoretical ap-proaches to our traditional focus.

Email: clio@ipfw.edu Website: http://www.ipfw.edu/engl/clio.html

College of Arts and Sciences - Department of English and Linguistics

since 1990, and has published 14 vol-umes of poetry (seven of which are full-length, and seven of which are small-er collections), nearly 900 poems in magazines and anthologies, a book of scholarly criticism, and numerous scholarly articles, in addition to teach-ing and other things. I found it a bit unsettling that IPFW could have someone with so much work under their belt, yet I knew almost nothing about him. So I decided to ask him a few questions, and bullet some inter-esting points about the good doctor.

He is Indiana’s current Poet Laureate. Dr. Kalamaras has held the post since 2014, taking over after his predecessor, Karen Kovacik, and he will conclude his two-year term at the end of 2015. I asked Dr. Kalamaras about the highlight of his position: “I can’t narrow it to one highlight…However, several of my initiatives, working together toward this goal, stand out: The state-wide collabo-rative poem (‘Project 411’), my

poetry video blog ‘A Gray Barn Ris-ing’ (of which I broadcasted 75 epi-sodes), and the ‘Five Corners’ poetry readings I organized throughout the state (in which I brought groups of poets from one part of the state to another and through which I got to meet so many wonderful people).”

He was awarded an Indo-U.S. Advanced Research Fellowship to conduct research in India. In his own words: “My research grant was an Indo-U.S. Advanced Re-search Fellowship (from the Ful-bright Foundation and the Indo-U.S. Subcommission on Education and Culture). As a long-time practitioner of Hindu-yogic meditation, I have conducted research for decades on silence, the topic of my critical book from State University of New York Press. I went to India in 1994 to continue that research, where I studied primary texts in libraries and conducted multiple interviews with yogis in various ashrams.”

He is responsible for IPFW’s Vis-iting Writer’s Series. The series,

started in 1992, was handed to him when his predecessor, Wen-dell Mayo, left IPFW in 1994. It brings writers of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction to Fort Wayne, where they have an opportunity to read to a community-wide audience and meet with stu-dents. Over the last 23 years, the series has played host to all manner of writers (most recent-ly, I checked out Joe Amato and Kass Fleisher’s visit— more on that on page 6). When asked if he had a favorite visiting writer, Dr. Kalamaras replied: “No, I don’t have a favorite. Every one has been wonderful, each in his or her own way, bringing fresh insight to the series.”

When he’s not writing, teaching, hosting events, recording broad-casts, or holding positions of great import, you can find Dr. Kalamaras in his office (Liberal Arts Building, Room 119).

To me, IPFW exists as a microcosm in our fair city, Fort Wayne. As such, students (and maybe Faculty/Staff alike) see faces that they will never get to put a name next to. Dr. George Kalamaras has been at IPFW

In my time here at IPFW, I’ve met a myriad variety of students; people from all walks of life end up in college, so I’ve learned. College is an excel-lent time for trying new things (or so I’m told), and the experi-ence afforded to us as interns can be incredibly preparatory for those of us looking to break in to our prospective job markets. One interesting thing I’ve found about this populace, however, is that a lot of them have taken on some form of internship. Ironical-ly, even I have found myself in a couple- which explains why I have a platform for writing this article- but it left me wondering: what is our responsibility, as interns, to people who might like to/totally need to find an intern-ship? I’ve decided to type this “helpful” how-to in order to as-suage my guilt.

FINDING AN INTERNSHIP

The first step on the road to suc-cessfully becoming an intern is finding an internship. I utilized the internet, bulletin boards at school, and even word of mouth to little avail. It was genuinely

surprising how many companies didn’t want me to come and in-

tern with them: I quickly discov-ered that, if I was going to in-

tern, it was probably going to be for free. Finally, I decided to just

ask my internship coordinator (the ever-knowledgeable Dr.

Kate White), and that did the trick. The irony of this situation, however, was that, upon receiv-ing my very first internship, on

my first day, I was

given this advice from my super-visor: “Never take an unpaid in-

ternship.” It was incredible. That same man continued on to say that, as far as practicality is con-cerned, giving away your time is foolish. I disagree- it might have been nice to get paid, but it also severely limits the options availa-ble to you. Plus, my experience there was invaluable, so I like to think that I had the right idea.

WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR INTERNSHIP

So, after taking my advice (or not- there’s more than one way up the mountain, after all), you’ve landed an internship. This, alone, does not make you an intern. No- instead, being an intern means being knocked down a peg. I don’t mean to insinuate that you will be berated or belittled- most human resources departments have rules in place to try and prevent such practices- but you should (and likely will) be working beneath someone. First, this provides an opportunity to learn a strong sense of empathy- how can we feel anything for anyone without expe-riencing their plight? There’s no need to whine- you’ll likely only be doing this temporarily. Empathy makes you a better candidate and increases your ability to land fu-ture jobs, anyway.

Second, unless you are planning on staying at the compa-ny you intern with, I strongly rec-ommend having some fun with it. It’s important to remember that you are representative as IPFW as an intern, but it’s equally im-portant to remember that you are (maybe?) an English major/free spirit/beatnik/hedonist. Have fun with this- a lot of people work and work and work, then forget to en-

How to be an Intern PAGE 5 FALL 2015

joy any of this at all. One day you’ll be super old (or already dead), and you’ll look back on your time as an intern- but you won’t remember anything. That’s because you took it too seriously: con-grats. Soon you’ll be dead, and without even a single comforting memory of your time as goofy intern. You don’t want that (probably).

Finally (and this may seem con-trary to some of my other points), the last thing you should do with your internship is actually show up. As a college student, I am more than familiar with the tempta-tion we face to blow off our classes and do, quite literally, anything else; howev-er, with an internship, you are doing an egregious disservice to yourself by failing to attend. Unlike class, you are not miss-ing a lecture or a PowerPoint- you are simultaneously blowing it for your school and the company that took a huge risk and hired you (even though you wrote “sandwich artist” on your resumé, which is probably a bad idea). Don’t be that per-son. Instead, I offer a compromise: get weird there and stay weird, but show up.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Well, this is a bit redundant, isn’t it? I already told you what I think you should do. Do that. Quit reading. Wait, no- in-stead, read it again, and listen to my ad-vice. That’s my final answer.

College of Arts and Sciences - Department of English and Linguistics

Roger Ebert. Her readings were tem-porally schizophrenic, jumping from the 20th century back to the 18th cen-tury, and many times in between. One particularly endearing element of Dr. Fleisher’s reading came in the form of her flubbing a line: “I’m just going to do this again,” she said with a laugh. She also admonished that this sort of thing (along with her writing) is about “cleaning up as you go.”

Joe Amato, on the other hand, kept his reading a bit tidier. His reading focused on the day-to-day life and thoughts of Dr. Amato- each line a situation in which he “pretends” something. For example: “This is where I pretend that there are still things you can do with words that you can’t do with any other medium.” This reading had a lot of juxtaposition, pitting opposing feelings against each other in back-to-back lines. Some were robotic,

For the month of October, 2015, IPFW hosted two visiting writ-ers: Kass Fleisher and Joe Amato. Initially, I thought it would be ad-vantageous to talk about these au-thors in terms of their accomplish-ments and backgrounds, but I real-ized that there wasn’t a great way to do that without ripping information straight from their websites infor-mation that can be found at kass-flesiher.com and joeamato.net, re-spectively. Instead, since they were there for a reading, it stands to rea-son that I would talk about those readings, rather than their accom-plishments (which are great; check those websites for proof).

Kass Fleisher is a well-educated author whose works for this setting were concerned with a myriad of topics, including feminism (Dr. Kalamaras, who hosted the event, introduced her writing as “fiercely feminist”), identity, and

some humorous, and still others felt revelatory (e.g. “This is where I pre-tend that nobody knows anything”). Dr. Amato’s reading gave audiences a real look into the thoughts and feelings of his speaker, and the ef-fect was humanizing and, simulta-neously, entertaining.

This reading was wrapped up by a Q & A, in which both au-thors were asked about their inspi-rations and writing habits. “I bitch about everything,” said Amato, jok-ing about how his organized ap-proach tends to create little annoy-ances with his writing. Fleisher, on the other hand, is a bit more care-free: “I’m not worried about it,” she says, adding: “I just know it’s going to be there.”

IPFW Visiting Writers Series: Joe Amato & Kass Fleisher