ASU – s [r] blog

Literary Happenings at ASU this October

September 28, 2023September 28, 2023Superstition Review

The Department of English at Arizona State University is putting on a series of informative and educational events this October. Take a look at some of the happenings on campus:

John Plotz – ‘We Have Always Been Posthuman: Speculative Satire before Science Fiction’ | October 2nd

Come to the annual Ian Fletcher Memorial Lecture, sponsored by the Department of English in honor of Professor Ian Fletcher (1920-1988). This year’s lecture will be delivered by John Plotz, the Barbara Mandel Professor of the Humanities at Brandies University and co-host of Recall This Book podcast. His research interests are in nineteenth- and twentieth-century British literature, the novel, science fiction, and fantasy, and is the author of several related works including “The Crowd: British Literature and Public Politics” (2000), “Portable Property: Victorian Culture on the Move” (2017), and “My Reading: Ursula Le Guin’s ‘Earthsea'” (2023).

The event will take place in Ross-Blakley Hall (RBHL) room 196 on the Tempe Campus. Doors open at 4:45. The event begins at 5:15. Refreshments will be served. Learn more.

‘Flatland’ Book Club with John Plotz | October 2nd

Professor John Plotz will also be hosting a discussion of the nineteenth-century novel “Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions” (1884) by Edwin Abbott Abbott.

The book club will take place in Ross-Blakley Hall (RBHL) room 324 on the Tempe Campus. The event will be held from 10:45 a.m.-noon. Please RVSP if you would like to attend this free event.

Echoes Seen: Collaborations in Image and Verse | September 14 – October 14

Supported by the Institute for Humanities Research, Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, The Department of English and the School of Art; the graduate students and faculty of the MFA programs of Creative Writing and the School of Art at ASU present “Echoes Seen: Collaborations in Image and Verse.” The exhibition displays work across many mediums, varying from photography, drawing, clothing, ceramics, paper-mâché, video and sound installation, and range in subject matter from joy, collective mythology, personal history, cultural fragments and their assemblage, and the significance of artifacts. In this exhibition, the possibilities for new perspectives in artists’ craft through the lens of collaboration – in pleasurable submissions and active encounters with another’s imagination – is ultimately about forging new and radical relationships through art.

The exhibition is open from September 14 – October 14, 2023. The gallery is open Thursday-Saturday, noon-5 p.m. ; first and third Fridays, 6 to 9 p.m. Learn more.

Humanities Week | October 15-20th

From October 15-20, ASU will be hosting The College’s Humanities Week with over 20 in-person and virtual events. Learn more.

MFA Student Reading Series | October 20th

Presented by ASU’s Creative Writing Program, the event brings notable alumni authors to the ASU community for readings and discussions about their writing and literary works.

The event will take place at the Ellis-Shackelford House, 1242 N. Central Ave. Phoenix, AZ 85004 from 5:30-7:00 p.m.

ASU Common Read: A Virtual Visit with Woo-kyoung Ahn | October 26th
ASU is excited to host Yale psychologist Woo-kyoung Ahn, author of “Thinking 101: How to Reason Better to Live Better,” for a virtual visit. Ahn will discuss “Thinking 101″—ASU’s Writing Programs selected Common Read for 2023-24—and answer questions from students and faculty.

The event will be held on Zoom from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. MST on Thursday, October 26, 2023. Learn more.

Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing: Distinguished Visiting Writers Series (DNRS) | October 27th

The Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing holds a series of free events open to the public to ensure all individuals have the ability to participate in the literary arts. Visiting authors host small workshops in partnership with the Piper Writers Studio, engage in intimate craft talks with students, visit ASU classes, and participate in other meaningful activities.

This month, the Piper Center welcomes Eileen Myles and Jenny Irish. The event will feature a reading and conversation with two inimitable voices as they read their work and discuss poetry, life, love, gender and more.

About the authors:

Eileen Myles

Eileen Myles (they/them, b. 1949) is a poet, novelist and art journalist whose practice of vernacular first-person writing has made them one of the most recognized writers of their generation. Pathetic Literature, which they edited, came out in Fall of 2022. A “working life,’ their newest collection of poems is out now. They live in New York & in Marfa, TX.

Jenny Irish

Jenny Irish is from Maine and lives in Arizona. She is the author of the hybrid collections Common Ancestor and Tooth Box, and the short story collection I Am Faithful. Her latest book is the poetry collection, Lupine. She is an associate professor of creative writing at Arizona State University.

Hear from these talented writers on Friday, October 27, 2023 from 6:30-8 p.m. MST.

The event will be held on the Tempe Campus in the Piper Writers House. RSVP to save your spot for this exciting literary event. Learn more.

Humanities Week, Oct. 15-20, 2023

September 13, 2023September 11, 2023Superstition Review

From October 15-20, ASU will be hosting The College’s Humanities Week with over 20 in-person and virtual events.

Events are open to students, faculty, staff and community members. Enjoy free food, swag, and speakers. The current event schedule is listed below, but updates can be viewed on the Humanities Week website.

Sunday, Oct. 15

‘Fly: The Big Book of Basketball Fashion’ Book Launch by Pulitzer Prize Winner Mitchell S. Jackson in Conversation with Marc J. Spears

7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. | Phoenix Art Museum

Join us for the release of Fly: The Big Book of Basketball Fashion by Mitchell S. Jackson. This sumptuous, colorful book celebrates NBA fashion and the decades of cultural and political phenomena that bring it into being.

The author will be in conversation with renowned veteran NBA reporter Marc J. Spears.

Learn more

Monday, Oct. 16

TikTok and Tarot: Imagining Ethical Futures for Social Media

1 p.m. to 2 p.m.

The Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics invites students and faculty to play, experiment, and discover using our Humane Tech Oracle Deck to explore our relationships with “the algorithm;” a mystifying black box we interact with every time we use our smart technology or engage in social media.

We will also be sharing about our newest research project, Understanding Algorithmic Folk Theories: Tracing Community-Based Knowledge on TikTok, which was recently awarded a grant by the NEH Dangers and Opportunities of Technology program.

Learn more.

Humanities Week SILC Café: German

1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. | Durham Hall Lobby

The School of International Letters and Cultures invites anyone who is searching for a place to come and get to know people from across the world or surround themselves with languages from around the globe.

SILC Café will be every day during Humanities Week with a different language department hosting each one — and a Sun Devil Rewards secret word each day!

Learn more.

Arming Students for Good: Youth Activism to Prevent Violence

3 p.m. to 5 p.m. | Walton Center for Planetary Health (Room 107 and Atrium)

Join the Humanities Lab at Arizona State University for a late afternoon event designed to elevate youth voices in collective efforts to prevent violence.

Hear from public figures, scientists and students about what we know about school shootings. Participate in interactive activities designed to demonstrate the urgent need for innovative solutions.

Learn more.

Tuesday, Oct. 17

Open Mic hosted by Hayden’s Ferry Review and Thousand Languages Project

12 p.m. to 1 p.m. | Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing or Online

Come share your creative work at this open mic event hosted by Hayden’s Ferry Review and the Thousand Languages Project.

We welcome poets, short story writers, and song writers/musicians and a microphone will be provided. Participants may share up to 3 minutes. Walk-ins may still sign up to participate.

Learn more.

ASU Worldbuilding Initiative Distinguished Lecture with Connor Alexander

1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.

The ASU Worldbuilding Initiative invites you to join us during Humanities Week to welcome our Fall 2023 Worldbuilding Distinguished Lecturer, Connor Alexander, lead designer of the award-winning tabletop roleplaying game Coyote & Crow.

In this interactive lecture and workshop, Connor Alexander will first introduce the world of Coyote & Crow, a sci-fi and fantasy tabletop role playing game set in a First Nations alternate future where colonization never happened, detailing the inventive and collaborative work that went into the game’s design and launch.

Afterward, he will lead participants in a character creation workshop where students and other audience members can make their own Coyote & Crow characters to take home with them, working in collaboration with Connor Alexander, the Akinana Circle live play team, and other members of the audience.

Learn more.

Humanities Week SILC Café: Japanese

1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. | Durham Hall Lobby

SILC Café will be every day during Humanities Week with a different language department hosting each one — and a Sun Devil Rewards secret word each day!

Learn more.

An Evening with Eddie Glaude Jr.

7 p.m. to 8 p.m. | Armstrong Hall (Room 101)

Eddie Glaude is a passionate educator, author and political commentator. He has authored a number of books on Black communities, the difficulties of race in the United States and the challenges we face as a democracy. He has also written award-winning books on religion and philosophy.

He is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor and Chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University and a contributor on programs like Morning Joe and Deadline Whitehouse with Nicolle Wallace. He also regularly appears on Meet the Press on Sundays and is a columnist for TIME Magazine.

Learn more.

Wednesday, Oct. 18

Film and Media Studies Humanities Week Open House

11 a.m. to 1 p.m. | Ross-Blakley Hall (Room 117)

Film and Media Studies in the Department of English at ASU invites all to our Fall 2023 Humanities Week Open House.

We’ll showcase work from FMS students and faculty, talk about upcoming courses, and provide opportunities for students and potential students to speak with FMS faculty and staff.

Learn more.

Hear Our Voices: Why We Need Historians to Write Children’s Books in the Wake of a Banned Books Movement

2 p.m. to 5 p.m. | Hayden Library (Room 236)

Join the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies and the ASU Libraries for visiting historian Radhika Natarajan’s discussion of her first children’s book, Hear Our Voices: A Powerful Retelling of the British Empire in 20 Stories.

Students will have the opportunity to create book ban and censorship awareness buttons via the library MakerSpace, as well as explore the Censorship Collection, a new curated collection of books and media that focuses on debates over censorship and free-speech.

Learn more.

Shakespeare at 400: Scenes From and Discussion of ‘The Book of Will’ by Lauren Gunderson

5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. | Old Main, Carson Ballroom or Online

In the case of “The Book of Will” by Lauren Gunderson, historical fiction illuminates historical fact. Discover how history was made with the publishing of Shakespeare’s Complete Works. Arizona State University presents scenes from “The Book of Will” by Lauren Gunderson, a modern, comedic look at how the Bard’s plays became the First Folio.

Historian Helen Cam has said: “Historical fiction is not only a respectable literary form; it is a standing reminder of the fact that history is about human beings.”

Learn more.

Thursday, Oct. 19

Public History Student Poster Show

10 a.m. to 1 p.m. | Coor Hall Room 4403

The School for Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies invites you to engage one-on-one with our current students and recent graduates who have been making an impact in public history research!

Students will showcase their projects by creating and presenting poster-sized visual representation of their findings, including the social and cultural significance of their work. The posters will be evaluated by a committee of faculty who will award fellowships to the winning students.

Learn more.

ASU Book Group: ‘The Circle That Fits’ by Kevin Lichty

12 p.m. to 1 p.m. | Piper Writers House or Zoom

The book group is open to all in the ASU community and meets monthly from noon–1 p.m. with two different options for attendance: either in-person at the Piper Writers House or virtually on Zoom. Registration is required for online attendance. In-person attendees are invited to join the author for lunch after at the University Club, no-host.

Learn more.

Humanities Week SILC Café: Arabic

1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. | Durham Hall Lobby

SILC Café will be every day during Humanities Week with a different language department hosting each one — and a Sun Devil Rewards secret word each day!

Learn more.

Mining the Deep: Speculative Fictions and Futures

Please join us for the 2023 Environmental Humanities Initiative Distinguished Lecture by Elizabeth DeLoughrey, Professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles: “Mining the Deep: Speculative Fictions and Futures.”

The lecture examines the oceanic turn in the humanities, particularly what Gaston Bachelard once termed the “depth imagination.”

Learn more.

Social Cohesion Dialogue 2023 – Public Dialogue

6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. | Marston Exploration Theater or Online

Jonathan Daniel Wells, author of “The Kidnapping Club: Wall Street, Slavery and Resistance on the Eve of the Civil War” and Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, author of “Children of the Land” will be in conversation with communities in and beyond ASU.

Join us as we reflect on vulnerability, borders, resistance, history, love, advocacy and justice.

Learn more.

Friday, Oct. 20

So, what are you going to do with that?

11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. | Armstrong Hall (Room L1-30) or Online

“So, what are you going to do with that?” English majors, history majors, language majors and more have heard the question a million times. The truth is that you can do a lot with a humanities degree.

Join a panel of alumni from the humanities division at The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences to hear their stories of where their humanities degrees took them and how their studies have positively influenced their careers.

Learn more.

Humanities Week SILC Café: Spanish

1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. | Durham Hall Lobby

SILC Café will be every day during Humanities Week with a different language department hosting each one — and a Sun Devil Rewards secret word each day!

Learn more.

Distinguished Visiting Writers Series Features Norma Cantú & Denice Frohman

September 11, 2023September 7, 2023Superstition Review

This month, the Piper Center, in partnership with the Hispanic Research Center at ASU, welcomes Norma Cantú and Denice Frohman. The event will offer a rare opportunity to hear from two acclaimed Latinx writers talking about mentorship, ancestry, and how we leverage the past to create something new.

About the authors:

Norma Cantu

Norma Elia Cantú, the Norine R. and T. Frank Murchison Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, is a folklorist, scholar, poet, and novelist. She served as the President of the American Folklore Society between 2019 and 2021. She is Professor emerita in English at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She is a co-founder of CantoMundo, a national organization that celebrates Latino/a poets and poetics. Her most recent publications include the novel, Cabañuelas, and Meditación Fronteriza: Poems of Love, Life, and Labor and the co-edited anthologies, Teaching Gloria E. Anzaldúa: Pedagogies and Practices for our Classrooms and our Communities and meXicana Fashions: Politics, Self-Adornment, and Identity Construction.

Denice Frohman

Denice Frohman is a poet and performer from New York City. A Pew Fellow and Baldwin-Emerson Fellow, she’s received support from CantoMundo, Headlands Center for the Arts, the National Association of Latino Arts & Cultures and Millay Colony. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The BreakBeat Poets: LatiNext, Nepantla: An Anthology for Queer Poets of Color, ESPNW and elsewhere. A former Women of the World Poetry Slam Champion, she’s featured on hundreds of national and international stages from The Apollo to The White House. She lives in Philadelphia.

Hear from these talented writers on Thursday, September 21, 2023 from 6:30-8 p.m. MST.

The event will be held on the Tempe Campus in the Alumni Lounge in the Memorial Union. RSVP to save your spot for this exciting literary event.

Rachel Cantor’s Half-Life of a Stolen Sister

July 12, 2023June 28, 2023Superstition Review

Rachel Cantor has recently published Half-Life of a Stolen Sister. The imaginative novel follows the lives of the Brontë siblings—Charlotte, Emily, Anne, and brother Branwell—retelling their story from the beginning in their precocious childhoods, to the writing of their renowned novels, to their early deaths. The work is a form-shattering novel written by an author praised as “laugh-out-loud hilarious and thought-provokingly philosophical” (Boston Globe).

The novel-by-stories book beautifully brings together diaries, letters, home movies, television and radio interviews, deathbed monologues and fragments from the sprawling invented worlds of the siblings’ childhood. The writing explores how the three sisters were able to produce literary landmarks that have withstood the ages and how their lives and circumstances brought the children together in greatness. Rachel Cantor is able to meld known biographical facts with storytelling to depict the family’s genius, their bonds of love and duty, impassioned creativity, and the ongoing tolls of illness, isolation, and loss.

Marie Myung-Ok Lee, author of The Evening Hero, praised Cantor’s reimagining of the Brontë family, “With humor and heart, Rachel Cantor paints a vivid, multi-voiced picture of the Brontës via a shape-shifting, time-bending tapestry of unforgettable characters and situations. Whether you’re a fan of this literary family or not, this book is a must-read for anyone looking for a truly innovative, tender, and humorous take on genius, the creative process, family, and life.”

Read some of the book’s other reviews below:
“Cantor pulls out all the stops to make this a unique and unforgettable reading experience that is as difficult to describe as it is to set down . . . Clever without straining, true to the basic facts of the Brontë family history, and emotionally compelling as the children grow while continuously facing new obstacles, Cantor’s unusual tale can be read and reread for endless diversion.”
—Booklist

“Cantor spins a free-ranging and intriguing tale of a literary family inspired by the Brontës that incorporates a mix of forms and anachronistic details . . . Cantor’s frisky and time-collapsing blend of forms elevates the experiment above run-of-the-mill Brontë fodder . . . For Brontë fans, this is a jolt of fresh air.”
—Publishers Weekly

“[Cantor’s] take on [the Brontës’] lives plays fair with their limited life spans and general relationships to each other and the world while throwing them into a setting replete with bagels, McMansions, subways, television, and soy milk. The structure of the novel is playful . . . with a few surprising insights.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Innovative . . . Cantor spins the known biographies of the Brontë siblings into a surrealist, eccentric story where modernity blends with the archaic … Retells the story of the Brontë family with flair.”

—Foreword Reviews, Starred Review

Rachel Cantor is the author of the novels Half-Life of a Stolen Sister (Soho Press 2023), Good on Paper (Melville House 2016), and A Highly Unlikely Scenario (Melville House 2014). Two dozen of her stories have been published in the Paris Review, One Story, Ninth Letter, Kenyon Review, New England Review, and elsewhere, and she has written about fiction for National Public Radio, the Guardian, Publishers Weekly, and other publications. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she is writing a series of middle grade and young adult books set in Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

Rachel Cantor was interviewed in Issue 17 of Superstition Review. View it here.

Half-Life of a Stolen Sister is available for purchase here. Read more from Rachel Cantor at her website or find her on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

Issue 30 Launch Party

November 17, 2022November 16, 2022Superstition Review

An Evening with Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet

October 12, 2022October 7, 2022Superstition Review

Currently a professor at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Rita Dove is coming to give a lecture at ASU’s Tempe campus. Called “An Evening with Rita Dove,” this event will be the highlight of ASU’s second annual Humanities Week. This is a series of special events that celebrate how students and faculty are exploring human adventure across culture, time, and space.

Born in 1952, Rita Dove has won the Pulitzer Prize, the Carole Weinstein Poetry Prize, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, and others. She has written extensively; her most notable works include her poetry collections Thomas and Beulah (which won the Pulitzer Prize), Playlist for the Apocalypse, and Collected Poems 1974 – 2004. Although many of her awards relate to her poetry, Dove has also written essays, songs, a play, and a novel.

Dove’s lecture is free and open to the public; it will take place on Tuesday, October 18, at 7:00pm in the Roskind Great Hall. Go here to learn more and register!

TomorrowTalks with Jocelyn Nicole Johnson: My Monticello

October 5, 2022October 19, 2022Superstition Review

Cover of "My Monticello." — *My Monticello* (Henry Holt and Co., 2021) | Jocelyn Nicole Johnson

Join ASU’s TomorrowTalks with Jocelyn Nicole Johnson, October 13th at 7pm AZ time. TomorrowTalks is a student-engagement initiative meant to put students in conversation with authors who explain how they use their writing to address society’s most pressing issues. It’s led by the Division of Humanities at ASU and hosted by ASU’s Department of English in partnership with Macmillan Publishers.

This event takes place over Zoom and is free, although registration is required. Johnson will be discussing her book My Monticello, published by Henry Holt and Company and winner of the Weatherford Award, the Balcones Fiction Prize, and the Lillian Smith Award. Set in the near future, her stories feature Da’Naisha—a Black descendent of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings—a university professor studying his son in secret, and a single mother grasping to purchase her first home. Johnson reckons with America’s past and present in this thrilling debut.

A badass debut by any measure—nimble, knowing, and electrifying.
Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Nickel Boys and Harlem Shuffle

Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s work has appeared in Guernica, The Guardian, Kweli Journal, and elsewhere. To learn more about her, visit her website.

…’My Monticello’ is, quite simply, an extraordinary debut from a gifted writer with an unflinching view of history and what may come of it.
The Washington Post

To learn more about TomorrowTalks and register for the event, go here.

Linguist Paul Baker: Sex Differences on a Forum About Anxiety

September 26, 2022September 22, 2022Superstition Review

Paul Baker discussion flyer. — Dr. Paul Baker Discussing Gender and Anxiety

This Friday at 9:00am AZ time, Dr. Paul Baker will be discussing global trends in anxiety and the intersection between anxiety and gender. The WHO estimates over 200 million people around the globe have anxiety, and women are more likely than men to be diagnosed. Some studies suggest that the way people conceptualize their emotions through language impacts whether they develop anxiety.

Dr. Baker has published over twenty books, conducting research on media, gender, sexuality, language, and more. He is a Professor of English Language at the Department of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University.

The linguistics and applied linguistics / TESOL program in the Department of English at ASU presents this free, open, and virtual talk.

Click here to learn more and register for this event!

Submissions Open: Dear Mother Earth

September 21, 2022October 10, 2022Superstition Review

Narrative Storytelling Initiative Submissions: Dear Mother Earth

The Narrative Storytelling Initiative‘s goal is to enhance access and public engagement with narrators and narratives. They are currently looking for messages written to Mother Earth in the future, with a maximum of 100 words. These messages will be included in a special exhibition piece at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory during the last two weeks of October.

Learn more and submit your message here!

TomorrowTalks with Jonathon Franzen: Crossroads

September 12, 2022October 19, 2022Superstition Review

The cover of "Crossroads" by Jonathon Franzen — Crossroads (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021) | Jonathan Franzen

Crossroads (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021) | Jonathan Franzen

Join ASU’s TomorrowTalks with Jonathan Franzen Wednesday, October 5th at 6pm AZ time. TomorrowTalks is a student-engagement initiative meant to put students in conversation with authors who explain how they use their writing to address society’s most pressing issues. It’s led by the Division of Humanities at ASU and hosted by ASU’s Department of English in partnership with Macmillan Publishers.

This event takes place over Zoom and is free, although registration is required. Franzen will be discussing his book Crossroads, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. His book is set in December of 1971, and it examines a Midwestern family in the midst of a moral crisis. With careful attention to each of the family members, he interweaves their perspectives into a tale of suspense and complexity.

Thank God for Jonathan Franzen . . . With its dazzling style and tireless attention to the machinations of a single family, Crossroads is distinctly Franzen-esque, but it represents a marked evolution . . . It’s an electrifying examination of the irreducible complexities of an ethical life. With his ever-parsing style and his relentless calculation of the fractals of consciousness, Franzen makes a good claim to being the 21st century’s Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Ron Charles, The Washington Post

Jonathan Franzen has written six novels. He has won a variety of awards: the National Book Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Award, the Heartland Prize, and others. Visit his website to read more about him.

To learn more about TomorrowTalks and register for the event, go here.