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Timeless. Recession-Proof. Satisfying.
Photo, left to right: Lisa Sisley (BA '92), Business, Public Relations, and Marketing; Melia Fritch (MA '04), Library and Information Services; Ashley Brown Morris (BA '09, MA '12), Museum Services; and Cheryl Rauh (MA '11), Technical and Professional Writing, College Teaching, and Student Services. They shared the professional possibilities of a degree in English at our annual Alumni Connections panel, Oct. 2016.
Last September, The Washington Post published an article titled “Meet the Parents Who Won’t Let Their Children Study Literature” (2 Sept. 2016). Its claims prompted Cheryl Rauh (MA ‘11, pictured above) to offer a set of counter-arguments based on her own experience. Cheryl has allowed us to share her response here.
Think students should study “practical” things in college? It's hard to beat my English degree. Here's why:
It transcends all industries. I have skills in research, writing, and analysis. I am useful to everyone and can teach myself a lot on the job. I've worked for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, a medical billing company, a tech company specializing in aviation training, the University, and done freelance work in several fields. My work spans tech writing, marketing and promotions, teaching, editing, and program coordinating.
It's timeless. Every job changes with technology, so studying for a job means hoping the school has the resources to keep up with the latest trends in industry. And then hoping your employer does the same so you're marketable elsewhere. My skills don't rely on technology or practices; they make me highly adaptable.
It's recession-proof. I graduated into the recession, but I was only a barista for 1.5 months before I got a job in web content. Since then, I've only had 1 month without work while I completed a lengthy interview process for a job I got despite not having the required experience in the industry. My research and writing skills were worth that much.
You can make good money. It's possible to work your way up to pretty good pay. It does start low, but if I had been so inclined, I could be making really good money in tech writing right now. If I needed to, I could go make more and my current job is opening new doors for how I might do that.
Perhaps most important to me...
It can lead to satisfying careers. Investment in what you do improves the quality of your work and makes you more successful. I thought about a computer science degree to get my self on a faster track to a good income. I am good with code, but I don't enjoy it as more than something I dabble in a bit. Let's stop encouraging students to move on to unsatisfying yet lucrative jobs by perpetuating myths that lead them away from the satisfying careers available to those with humanities degrees.
-- Cheryl Rauh, 2 Sept. 2016
Shelfie Thursday: Philip Nel
A few shelves from Philip Nel’s office. Some picturebooks, some scholarship on children’s literature, and a few anthologies.
Meet the new English Department faculty!
Kansas State University’s Department of English was delighted to welcome three new tenure-track faculty members this fall: Charlotte Hyde, Anuja Madan, and Tom Sarmiento. We caught up with all three of them recently to discover what makes them tick as readers, writers, and human beings…
Charlotte Hyde
Assistant Professor / Graduate Faculty
Ph.D. in English, Rhetoric and Composition, 2016, Purdue University
Field of Interest: Technical Communication; Workplace Communication; Gender and Minority Rhetorics; Game Studies
What books are currently on your nightstand?
Seveneves by Neil Stephenson
Play: How it shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul by Stuart Brown
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
What was your favorite book as a child? Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
If you hadn’t become an English professor, what profession would you have liked to pursue? LEGO® Master Builder
What sound or noise do you love? The forest/campus noises
What was your first impression of Kansas/ Manhattan/Kansas State University? The people are so welcoming and helpful!
Anuja Madan
Assistant Professor / Graduate Faculty
Ph.D. in English, 2016, University of Florida
Field of interest: South Asian Studies; Postcolonial Literature; Children's Literature; comics studies; childhood studies; Cultural Studies
What was your favorite book as a child? I wouldn’t be able to isolate one favorite book! I loved L.M. Montgomery’s Emily and Anne series and was a huge fan of Agatha Christie’s novels. What’s the last book you read for pleasure? Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely’s All American Boys. If you hadn’t become an English professor, what profession would you have liked to pursue? I had seriously contemplated getting an advanced degree in Education and working in education policy organizations, but decided to become an English professor after thoroughly enjoying my first experience teaching literature. What books are currently on your nightstand? M.L. Stedman’s The Light Between Oceans; Janice Pariat’s Seahorse Outside of your professional life, what achievement are you most proud of? One memorable achievement goes back to my time at an alternative school in Delhi called Mirambika, where we didn’t have a fixed curriculum. In Grade 6, a documentary film-maker couple worked with my class on making a film, in which we also acted. Under their guidance, we did everything from the storyboarding, scriptwriting, cinematography to the editing. It was a lot of fun and The Friendly Alien was recognized as the first film in India made by children.
Tom Sarmiento
Assistant Professor / Graduate Faculty
PhD in American Studies, 2014, University of Minnesota
Field of interest: Filipinx American Literature & Culture; Asian American Literature; Queer Literature & Theory; Feminist Theory; Cultural Studies; Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies; Midwest Literature & Culture; Visual Culture (Television & Film)
What books are currently on your nightstand? Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling
What book do you think every English major should read? Rolling the R's by R. Zamora Linmark
If you hadn’t become an English professor, what profession would you have liked to pursue? To be an astrophysicist and search for exoplanets and extraterrestrial life
What would you tell your 18-year-old self? It's ok to take the road less traveled.
Outside of your professional life, what achievement are you most proud of? The ability to bake, assemble, and decorate fancy layer cakes
Five Works to Help You Survive the 2016 Election
Here at the Kansas State University English Department, the world's foremost purveyor of literature listicles, we've been thinking a lot about the 2016 election. Some of us have even been weeping about it, but that hasn't stopped us from compiling — for your edification and maybe even enjoyment — the top Five Works to Help You Survive the 2016 Election. Please note that no English professors or politicians were harmed in the making of this listicle! It’s also worth noting that politics have always been, to say the least, disconcerting. Here are the top five literary works to help you take a deep breath and process — and maybe even appreciate — our political system:
1. Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales: The 1386 meeting of the English Parliament, called the “Wonderful Parliament,” sought to curtail royal power, threatening to depose King Richard II and to impeach his closest advisors. One man caught up in these political machinations was a newly elected member of Parliament for Kent named Geoffrey Chaucer. Biographer Paul Strohm maintains that the Wonderful Parliament precipitated a professional and personal crisis for Chaucer, depriving him of patron, home, and job, and forcing him to invent a career that did not then exist in English — man of letters — as he committed himself to the ambitious and unprecedented project of The Canterbury Tales, which chronicles the story-telling competition of a group of pilgrims who represent not nobles and saints but a cross-section of English society. Thus, a failed political career changed the course of literary history and inspired one of the most enduring works of English literature. — Associate Professor Wendy Matlock
2. John Donne’s Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions: Given the vocabulary of hate, diminishment, insult, and anger that has infected this election season, I would like to draw all of our attentions to John Donne’s Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation XVII, and perhaps to the most well known part of it: “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” It’s not simply that the personal is political, but rather, since we have to live in whatever world we make this election day, it can never be anything else. — Associate Professor Kimball Smith
3. George Eliot's Middlemarch: Middlemarch includes some of the most famous electioneering scenes in nineteenth-century British literature. Set just before the Great Reform Act of 1832 (the piece of legislation that would open up the vote to the middle classes for the first time), Middlemarch includes a depiction of the hapless election campaign of Arthur Brooke, a well-meaning windbag. Brooke's progressive policies aren't matched by his practices as a local landowner, and he soon finds himself the object of satire, mocked by an effigy of himself at the hustings. In a novel about the gap between our intentions and our actions, Brooke's failed election campaign serves a counterpoint to the failed ambitions of medical doctor Tertius Lydgate and would-be philanthropist Dorothea Brooke, reminding readers that reform at the individual or social level is generally achieved in anything but a straightforward fashion. — Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies Anne Longmuir
4. Ronald D. Parks’ The Darkest Period: In an era of cutthroat politics, I'd like to suggest a must-read for folks who live in Kansas: Parks’ The Darkest Period: The Kanza Indians and Their Last Homelands, 1846-1873. Parks’ text shows the landscape of Kansas politics, which involved a great deal of lying, stealing, and illegal activities as settlers did everything they could think of to claim other folks’ land in the name of god and country. It's a compelling read that might just make the present day election scene look warm and fuzzy. — Professor Lisa Tatonetti
5. Joan Bauer, Hope Was Here: A Newbery Honor Book, Hope Was Here shows what can happen when adolescents get involved in a small town Wisconsin mayoral campaign, pitching in to support a local diner owner in his bid to unseat an unscrupulous, well-connected incumbent. It has been more than ten years since I first read this young-adult novel, but I've never forgotten the young people's commitment to their cause and their desire to be responsible citizens, as well as their zeal for building a coalition of allies. — Professor and Associate Department Head Anne Phillips
14 Halloween Children’s Books to Set Your Pumpkins on Edge
It’s that time of year again — the time when the dead raise the living, when unremembered trauma traps a ghost, when even the timid John Pig invites a witch and her friends in for a party, when children battle malevolent ghosts in a parallel London, and, of course, when carrots intimidate rabbits! In celebration of Halloween, some of Kansas State University’s Children’s Literature faculty suggest books that frighten and books that brighten (not all of our recommendations are scary).
Happy Halloween!
And look out for that carrot! No, NO — the carrot behind you!
PICTURE BOOKS
Judith Ross Enderle and Stephanie Gordon Tessler, Six Creepy Sheep, illustrated by John O'Brien (1992) A reverse counting book, a picture book, and a celebration of poetic sound patterns, particularly alliteration, this delightful book depicts what happens when six sheep dress up in costumes and venture out "one spooky Halloween night." O'Brien's illustrations perpetuate the wordplay, for example, depicting a "passel of pirates" as pigs. A contender for Best Halloween book ever.
Mark Newgarden and Megan Montague Cash, Bow-Wow’s Nightmare Neighbors (2014) Like the first Bow-Wow picture book (Bow-Wow Bugs a Bug, 2007), this wordless tale speaks the pictorial language of the comic strip. In this adventure, our intrepid terrier faces off against ghost cats in a haunted house, but — I hasten to add — the book is funny, not scary. The tone is more Buster Keaton than Boris Karloff, more well-timed gag than hair-raising fright. Since it is more likely to charm than to spook, the book is ideal for the easily frightened — and, of course, for any who enjoy a well-told tale.
Aaron Reynolds and Peter Brown, Creepy Carrots! (2012) Is Jasper Rabbit paranoid . . . or are those carrots following him? Is that the “soft . . . sinister . . . tunktunktunk of carrots creeping”? Influenced by the shadowed compositions of film noir, Peter Brown restricts his color palate to black and white . . . and orange. His visual storytelling creates just the right mood for Aaron Reynolds’ words. Until the very end, we’re not 100% sure whether Jasper Rabbit is just imagining these menacing vegetables or whether they really are after him.
Dr. Seuss, “What Was I Scared Of?” (from The Sneetches and Other Stories, 1961) Colored in dark hues and set entirely at night, this Seuss story is actually a bit scary: Why does this “pair of pale green pants / With nobody inside them” haunt our protagonist? He or she (the nameless character’s gender is never revealed) has a series of close calls with these empty, sentient pants until, finally, they meet face to face. At that point, fear gives way to understanding. Realizing that each character was afraid of the other (“I was just as strange to them / As they were strange to me!”), the two become friends. A tale about confronting your fears.
Duncan Tonatiuh, Funny Bones: Posada and His Day of the Dead Calaveras (2015)
Tonatiuh’s picture book tells the story of José Guadalupe Posada and his calaveras — festive skeletons associated with el Día de Muertos (the Day of the Dead). A mix of biography and cultural history, the book does not strive to scare — but Posada’s calaveras are both grim and humorous. Tonatiuh includes original art by Posada, accompanied by pithy observations and questions. Next to an image of skeletal figures working in the street, Tonatiuh asks whether Don Lupe (as Posada was known) was telling us that “calaveras are all around us? That we are all Calaveras, whether we are rich or poor, famous or not?” With dark humor and good will, the book considers death as an invitation to reflect on life.
Jan L. Waldron, John Pig's Halloween, illustrated by David McPhail (1998) In this picture book, John Pig is too frightened to venture out with his mates on Halloween Night. A witch and her familiar crash-land on his doorstep, and, as a courteous host, he invites them in. A party with plenty of home-made treats ensues. A satisfying story and gorgeous illustrations will make this a necessary family tradition.
CHAPTER BOOKS & PROSE TALES
Peter Beagle, Tamsin (1999) A 13-year old New Yorker is abruptly uprooted from her home and taken to live with a new stepfamily in an ancient farmhouse in Dorset. Mysterious cold spots in the kitchen, sinister giggles in the bathroom, and a ghost cat lead Jenny to Tamsin, who lived during the terrible scourge following the Monmouth Rebellion in the late seventeenth century. Tamsin has "stopped," as she calls it, because there is something she cannot bear to remember. Jenny must help her recall it, and brave not only the Wild Hunt, but also the malevolent ghost of Judge Jeffries who hanged so many of her countrymen. Potent, mesmerizing fantasy.
Tananarive Due, Ghost Summer: Stories (2015) A teacher with a tarnished past comes to the deep south, where her daily solace is the lake behind her new house, full of longing. A mother suspects her child has been taken, replaced by a monster...a monster who loves her. The American-Book-Award-winning author turns her talent for long, slow horror novels to sharp, dense, lucidly memorable short stories, stories written for adults but perfect for teens.
Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book (2010) Moody more than terrifying, this is a children's novel of a little boy who falls into the hands of monsters--who care for him as their own. Outside the graveyard, an ancient conspiracy searches for the boy whom the ghosts name Nobody; inside the graveyard, the boy learns about history, fear, death, and the warm embrace of the long dead.
Henry James, The Turn of the Screw (1898) A governess fears that her youthful charges are haunted by the unspeakable deeds of their late caretakers. But could she be mistaken? Is the evil only in her mind? A classic gothic tale written for adults, but powerful for teen readers as well.
Charles Perrault, “Blue Beard” (1697) A wealthy widower woos and wins a naive young girl. He then goes on a business trip, charging her to enjoy and explore her new mansion, with the exception of one room, whose key is included in the ring he gives her. What she finds in the room, and her desperate attempts to erase the evidence build to a suitably suspenseful conclusion.
Alvin Schwartz, In a Dark, Dark Room and Other Scary Stories, illustrated by Dirk Zimmer (1985) This is a classic for many reasons. We still fondly remember the resolution of "The Green Ribbon." For years, our son structured all of the stories he created for us along the lines of "In a Dark, Dark Room." And "[h]ave you seen the ghost of John...?" You don't know your Halloween children's literature if you haven't entered Schwartz's Dark, Dark Room...
Maggie Stiefvater, The Scorpio Races (2013) Every November, the horses come out of the sea. Every November, the men of one small island ride them. Every November, the men die. This November, one girl, her family slowly disintegrating around her, will ride with them, unless she's killed by the horses...or the men. A richly imagined, poignant novel for teens.
Jonathan Stroud, The Screaming Staircase (Lockwood & Co.) (2013) A London that has been plagued by ghosts for over fifty years fights back with Detection Agencies that train and use children who have the needed psychic abilities. Witty and sometimes very scary and eerie, this first book of a series features narrator Lucy Carlyle, a young teen from northern England who joins the small detective agency, Lockwood, composed only of teens (no adult supervision) and in fierce competition with better funded and more conventional agencies.
Contributors:
Carol Franko: Stroud’s The Screaming Staircase. Philip Nel: Newgarden and Cash’s Bow-Wow’s Nightmare Neighbors, Aaron Reynolds and Peter Brown’s Creepy Carrots, Tonatiuh’s Funny Bones, Seuss’s “What Was I Scared Of?” Anne Phillips: Waldron’s John Pig’s Halloween, Enderle and Tessler’s Six Creepy Sheep, Schwartz’s In a Dark, Dark Room. Joe Sutliff Sanders: Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, Stiefvater’s The Scorpio Races, Due’s Ghost Summer. Naomi Wood: James’ Turn of the Screw, Perrault’s “Blue Beard,” Beagle’s Tamsin.
K-State English at Work in the World
Alumni Connections Panel, Oct. 2016
Welcome to the relaunch of our long-standing print newsletter, English Matters, for the 21st century!
This new platform will allow us to provide timely updates on our current work in English at Kansas State as well as glimpses into the department’s past and its future.
We are also eager to make visible the many contributions that English makes to our world – including the world of business, as the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week.
“Hunting for Soft Skills, Companies Scoop Up English Majors” (25 Oct. 2016) offers further proof of what our alumni tell us in conversation and what we observe over social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter: an English degree pays dividends, both personally and professionally, and has currency in a wide range of contexts.
These insights are not news to us. See, for example, two recent articles by Robert Matz, Senior Associate Dean and Professor of English at George Mason University: “What Can I Do with an English Major?” and “The Myth of the English Major Barista.” See also the accomplishments of our alumni who participated in our 2016 Alumni Connections Career Panel and whose current career paths only scratch the surface of possibility for graduates in English:
Ashley Brown Morris (BA '09, MA '12), Development and Grants Program Specialist, National World War One Museum and Memorial
Melia Fritch (MA '04), Academic Services Librarian, K-State Libraries
Kent Glasscock (BA '76), President, Kansas State University Institute for Commercialization
Cheryl Rauh (MA '11), Student Services Coordinator, Kansas State University Educational Supportive Services
Lisa Sisley (BA '92), Principal Owner, New Boston Creative
We’re looking forward to sharing with you how K-State English is at work in the world. In the weeks ahead, you can look forward to hearing more about:
Current and upcoming events #KStateEnglishNow
Our faculty #WorkplaceWeds, #ShelfieThurs
Our students #KStateStudents
Our alumni #KStateAlum, #EnglishJobs
Our community outreach #KStateCommunity, #KStateYoungWriters
Our history #KStateEnglishPast
Our areas of specialization #KStateCS, #KStateChLit, #KStateCW, #KStateLit, #KStateCompRhet, #KStateLing, #KStateTechWr, #KStateDH
Watch, too, for an opportunity to help us select the photo that best represents the work of our department. Our placeholder image – the roses blooming outside the English/Counseling Services Building – offers a reminder that English captures life in art, sometimes with beautiful results.
Have an idea for a post? A question or concern? Email us at [email protected].
Karin Westman has served as Department Head of English since 2007. This semester, in addition to her administrative responsibilities, she is teaching a graduate seminar on “Harry Potter and Literary History” and finishing her book on the same topic.