Stay Up-to-Date

Wishing everyone a rejuvenating break! Our department is closed through Monday, 11/27. If you have plans for Thanksgiving, we hope you enjoy your day with loved ones but also strongly encourage you to get to know more about the history of the native land on which you’ll be spending the day (not to mention contemporary information about the tribe(s) in question). There are all kinds of resources you might dive into, but a solid first step is using a resource such as https://native-land.ca to reference a map of indigenous territories.

There is another upcoming date that is important for interested undergrads to keep in mind — the deadline to apply for our own department’s Maymester (and the default deadline for most other 2024 Maymesters as well) is this Saturday, 11/25!

This coming summer, Professor Andrew Chater once again plans to guide students through the experience of Bookpacking The Big Easy — the group will go on a trip through New Orleans and Southern Louisiana, reading along the way, to simultaneously enrich both the travel and reading experience! ENGL 352g: Bookpacking is available as three different courses/experiences on the Spring 2024 schedule — check out @bookpackers (or bookpackers.com) for more info about all three!

This particular section (32708, Bookpacking New Orleans) is a @uscdorsnife Maymester trip (through @uscflp) which will take place in May/June 2024, but will be part of students’ spring schedules and tuition.

Students from all fields are warmly welcome to apply for the Maymester. You will learn about the local French Creole, Cajun, White Protestant, and African-American communities by living the experience through novels, music, and southern food.

The application is to be completed through the USC Global: Student Travel Abroad portal, linked in bio. Applications are due November 25 by 11:59pm.

Note: Imagery reflects proper deadline date of 11/25 with incorrect day of the week.

MAXINE HONG KINGSTON
Monday 11/13 at USC
Book signing to follow.

Don’t miss an evening with the groundbreaking novelist, poet, and memoirist whom The New Yorker describes as “an Asian-American literary pioneer, whose writing has paved the way for many immigrants’ stories.”

This special event is free and open to everyone, so bring your book-loving friends!

Get info and RSVP at link in bio.

No matter what stage you’re at in your NARS career, come out to learn more about this cumulative project! As the session will be driven in large part by students’ questions we strongly encourage you to attend if interested, but we will also be recording the session if you are unable to make it.

All three of spring’s ENGL 492 instructors (Professors Freeman, Sligar, and Irwin) will be in attendance and are able to address the Spring 2024 seminars more specifically for any of our seniors.

For more capstone info be sure to check out our website page linked in our bio, and especially the info sheet which is downloadable on our Documents page. Come to the session prepared with any questions you may have, whether you’re still figuring out your proposal for next spring, are wondering what the day-to-day experience in the seminar will bring, or aren’t familiar with the capstone project at all!

https://usc.zoom.us/j/94240621474 // Meeting ID: 942 4062 1474

More details can be found in Laura’s recent 11/9 email.

Please join us for the book celebration of Dreams in Double Time by our very own, Professor Jonathan Leal!

WED, NOV. 8 | 3-4 PM IDE ROOM | THH 420

In Dreams in Double Time (Duke University Press 2023), Jonathan Leal examines how the mid-twentieth century musical revolution of bebop opened up new futures for racialized and minoritized communities. Blending lyrical nonfiction, cultural history, memoir, and transdisciplinary critique, Leal braids the stories of variously racialized artists of color who, through their relationships with Black radical musicians and their aesthetics, came to challenge a racially supremacist, imperial nation-state in the immediate aftermath of global war.

Dreams in Double Time: https://www.dukeupress.edu/dreams-in-double-time

“With Dreams in Double Time, Jonathan Leal proves he has ‘something to say.’ I use this phrase in the prosaic sense that he contributes new understanding and opens fresh areas of inquiry, and in the sense associated with a jazz musician’s solo. Almost every page treats readers to surprising revelation and provocation, and the figures Leal focalizes his history through are compelling as subjects on their own. This book is a tremendous achievement, a gift to readers seeking cultural history and methodologically innovative work.”
— Anthony Reed, author of Soundworks: Race, Sound, and Poetry in Production

Review of Dreams in Double Time in the LA Review of Books: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/measured-longings-and-layered-stories-on-jonathan-leals-dreams-in-double-time-on-race-freedom-and-bebop/

See you there!