Volume 4, Issue I
October 2011
Department of English
GETTYSBURG COLLEGE
A Note from
the Chair
Croll Lecture
A belated welcome back to English and Writing
majors and minors. Now that you‟ve returned
from Reading Days, having no doubt read a
great deal, you can settle in to the remaining
weeks of the semester with lots of energy.
The English Department welcomes two new faculty
this year. Keetje Kuipers is this year‟s Emerging
Writer Lecturer, and Eman Meligi is a one-year
Fulbright Fellow who hails from Alexandria, Egypt.
Kent Gramm has joined the full-time faculty for
two years after teaching part-time last year.
We‟re so pleased to have such wonderful
additions to our faculty.
Special congratulations to Professor Elizabeth
Duquette and former student, Cheryl Tevlin „10.
Cheryl has been working at Drexel University,
while collaborating with Professor Duquette to put
together an edited volume of Elizabeth Stuart
Phelps‟ short works. Recently, their hard work was
rewarded with an offer to publish the volume from
University of Nebraska Press. What a great
example of faculty-student partnership!
In a few weeks, you will be able to make online
adjustments to your spring schedules. I have one
piece of advice to sophomores who are planning
to study abroad next year: while you can count
two courses taken abroad toward your English or
English w/Writing major, only one of those courses
can count toward your 300-level lit requirement.
You would be wise then to “save” a 200-level
literature or elective slot for one of your courses
taken abroad. Current juniors should be sure
that they have taken ENG 299 by the end of this
year; there are a few slots remaining in section B
for the spring semester.
Best wishes for a successful fall semester.
Suzanne J. Flynn
Chair, Department of English
Stephen Harris
This year‟s Croll Lecture will
be given by Stephen Harris,
Associate Professor of English,
University of Massachusetts
Amherst. The lecture, titled,
“Is God Beautiful? The
Aesthetics of Divinity in Early
Medieval Literature,” will be
held on Tues, November 2, at
5:00 pm in Joseph Theater.
Throughout the lecture, Harris will explore the
relationship between beauty and the divine as it
appears in medieval literature. He will address
questions such as: How did medieval authors think
that a poem participated in God? What precisely
are the mechanics of literary beauty? How do they
inspire a reader?
Harris‟s books include Race and Ethnicity in AngloSaxon Literature (Routledge, 2003), and Misconceptions about the Middle Ages (Routledge, 2008),
co-edited with Bryon Grigsby. He is currently editing
(with Michael Moynihan and Sherrill Harbison) Vox
Germanica: Essays on Germanic Literature and Culture
in Honor of James E. Cathey (forthcoming from
University of Arizona).
The Croll Lecture is sponsored by the Department
of English, EPACC, Department of Philosophy, and the
William Bittinger Fund.
Page
2
A
Word’s
Worth
of News
Student Internship Spotlights
Molly Troy ’12
English major
Where did you intern this summer and what were your duties as an intern?
I spent this past June and July interning at Cobblestone Publishing, a division of Carus
Publishing, that produces non-fiction children‟s magazines in Peterborough, New
Hampshire. My roles included: working closely with the editor to learn how the process
works, researching and writing articles, reading queries for articles, copyediting, sitting in
on design meetings, and completing other miscellaneous tasks assigned by the editors.
Often these tasks would include doing photo research, updating the magazine‟s
Facebook page, creating word puzzles, and filing old issues in their library.
What was the best part of your internship?
The best part of my internship was working with the editor of the science magazine Odyssey to put together an
issue. She let me take an active role from the very beginning -- the reviewing of the queries -- to the very end of
the process -- the final review of the galley. I was able to take the lead in contacting one writer and working out
the details for that piece, editing articles to be included in the issue, and searching for photographs pertaining to
the subject. One of the most exciting parts was interviewing world-renowned scientist Jill Tarter, writing an article
on the interview, and having it included in the issue.
Aimee Griffin ’12
English and Philosophy double-major, Theater Arts minor
Where did you intern this summer and what were your duties as an intern?
I was an intern at Objective Entertainment, a small literary/entertainment agency in New
York City. My duties were to read the proposals and queries sent to the company by
aspiring authors. I read many different types of things, from fiction and nonfiction to
graphic novels, screenplays, and TV pilots. If I was interested in something, I requested
more from the authors. If my interest continued, I brought the material to the attention of
one of the company's agents. I was also required to do research on potential clients and
projects, and some light editing of material that my boss was going to pitch to publishers.
Would you consider pursuing a career in this field?
Am I going to pursue a career in publishing? Yes. Do I want to be an agent? No. Frankly, being an agent requires
a level of savvy and smooth talking that I'm unsure I'd be able to uphold. My boss told me coming in to the
internship that by the end of the summer I would know if I wanted to do this for the rest of my life, and I knew that
I didn't. I do know now that my primary interest is in editing and being able to field book pitches.
What advice would you give to students considering similar internships?
The best piece of advice I think I can give after this experience is to look into interning with smaller companies.
They may not have a name that you recognize, but a lot of them have a significant reputation and ties with big
name publishers. It's also the best chance you're going to get to actually be involved in work similar to what you
want to do in the future.
Volume 4,
Issue
I
Page
3
New English Faculty
Keetje Kuipers. Keetje Kuipers is the Emerging Writer Lecturer for the
2011-2012 academic year. Originally from Missoula, Montana, Kuipers earned a
Bachelor of Arts degree from Swarthmore College and an MFA in Poetry from the
University of Oregon. She moved to Gettysburg this summer from San Francisco, where
she taught at Stanford University for two years. This fall, Professor Kuipers is teaching
two Introduction to Creative Writing classes and an advanced writing course titled
“Wilderness Writing.” She is especially excited for her Introduction to Creative Writing
classes, which will allow her to combine fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and screenwriting
into one class for the first time. Professor Kuipers enjoys spending time with her labradoodle named Bishop (after Elizabeth Bishop), reading books by Wallace Stegner,
and frequenting the Blue Parrot and the Ragged Edge.
Eman Meligi. This is Eman Meligi‟s first time teaching in the United States,
although she has spent much time studying and traveling here in the past. She received
her BA, MA, and PhD from Alexandria University in Alexandria, Egypt, where she later
began her teaching career. This semester, Professor Meligi is teaching one section of
Critical Methods and a class on twentiety-century drama. In the spring, she will
continue to teach Critical Methods and will teach a class on comparative lit. Her
favorite Egyptian writers include Tawfiq al-Hakim, Ali Salem, and Naguib Mahfouz.
In noting the differences between teaching in Gettysburg versus teaching in Egypt, she
praised the small class sizes and politeness of students. Her favorite part about
Gettysburg is the College itself, and she especially loves the water fountain.
Upcoming Events
Sigma Tau Delta
Fiction Writer, Pinckney Benedict. The Writing House
welcomes Pinckney Benedict to read in the CUB Junction
on Thursday, October 13, at 8:00 pm. Benedict is a shortstory writer and novelist whose work often reflects his
Appalachian background. He has published three
collections of short fiction (Town Smokes, The Wrecking
Yard, and Miracle Boy) and a novel (Dogs of God). He
serves on the core faculty of the low-residency MFA
program at Queens University of Charlotte in North
Carolina and is currently full professor in the English
Department at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
Book Drive. Sigma Tau Delta will host the Better World
Books Drive, which provides quality used books to a number
of charity organizations both in the United States and
abroad. Keep an eye out for the book bins around Thanksgiving and consider making a contribution of any textbooks
you can spare.
Medieval Drama Christmas Plays. The students of
Christopher Fee‟s ENG 312 Medieval Drama class will
stage two Christmas plays on Friday, December 9, at
4:00 pm in the Chapel. The class will perform “The Second
Shepherd‟s Play” and “The Offering of the Magi.”
NCUR Conference. The deadline for submitting an
abstract to this year's National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) is Tuesday, November 15. The
conference will take place from March 29 - 31, 2012, at
Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. If you have an
honors thesis in progress, a seminar paper in progress, or a
paper from a previous class in which you take particular
pride, consider submitting an abstract and sharing your
work with a wider audience! For more information, check
out the Weber website at www.weber.edu/ncur2012/.
Alumni News
JD Mazzocco ‘11
Before I set foot on Gettysburg‟s campus, I knew I wanted to go to law school. After
four incredibly brief years at Gettysburg, which included one major detour and
several clarifying moments, I have finally realized this goal. When I first began my
education at Gettysburg, I wanted to step outside of my comfort zone and try my
hand at the sciences. I stayed with this approach long enough to earn a minor in
Chemistry before realizing, as perhaps I had known all along, my talents and interests
lay elsewhere. In retrospect, changing my major to English was one of the best
decisions I have made. I realized how much I truly enjoyed the subject, and I cannot
deny how much my English classes have prepared me for the rigors of grad school.
After a few weeks of experiencing the prodigious workload of a first-year law student, I have found
myself inwardly thanking my English professors for holding me to such a high standard. The close reading and
writing skills that my professors made such a fuss over have actually turned out to be important after all, and
reading comprehension is the root of every assignment or task I have received. Legal reading and writing are
certainly different from anything I have previously encountered, but the techniques and approaches I learned
from the Gettysburg College English Department have already proven to be invaluable. While I may not have
appreciated the importance of correctly citing Moby Dick or understood why I was not allowed to start a sentence
with “but” or “because” (which, ironically enough, is encouraged in law school), I now fully appreciate how the
professors I had at Gettysburg shaped my comprehension and writing skills to meet the challenges of law school.
JD Mazzocco began his first year at Duquesne University School of Law in Pittsburgh this fall.
Writing Center Hours
Sun
Submit to The Mercury!
Art & Literary Magazine of Gettysburg College
7:00 - 10:00 pm
Mon/Wed
12:00 - 10:00 pm
Tues/Thurs
12:00 - 2:00 pm
4:00 - 10:00 pm
Fri & Sat
Closed
•
Art, Poetry, Short Fiction, and
Creative Non-Fiction
•
•
    
•
Liz Williams ‘13.
First Submissions Deadline:
December 2 at midnight
The Writing Center is located
on the ground floor of
Breidenbaugh Hall.
was written and created by
Accepting Submissions in:
Email Submissions to:
gburgmercuryart@gmail.com
gburgmercurypoetry@gmail.com
gburgmercuryfiction@gmail.com
gburgmercurynonfiction@gmail.com
Email Questions to:
Karl Utermohlen at uterka01@gettysburg.edu
Arielle Distasio at distar01@gettysburg.edu