Babel News From Eileen

springtime is here, and there is much to report and to [hopefully] seduce you
into:

FIRST, the special issue of "Journal of Narrative Theory" [v. 37, no. 2],
"Premodern to Modern Humanisms: The BABEL Project" is now available
for viewing
and downloading at Project Muse:

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_narrative_theory/toc/jnt37.2.html

SECOND, the formerly-behemoth and now recently slimmed-down BABEL
essay volume,
"Fragments For a History of a Vanishing Humanism," is going forward with Ohio
State University Press, and the prospectus and table of contents can be viewed
here:

http://www.siue.edu/babel/ProspectusFragmentsVolume.htm

THIRD, BABEL has two organized roundtable sessions at Kalamazoo this
year, "What
Is the Place of the Present in Medieval Studies?" and "Is There a
Theory in the
House of Old English Studies?" [plus there is a session organized by Nicola
Masciandaro which is very BABEL-y, "Why Am I Me? On Being Born in the Middle
Ages I" which we want to tout here], and more information on those
can be found
here:

http://www.siue.edu/babel/Kalamazoo08Panels.htm

FOURTH, along with Saint Louis University and Southern Illinois University
Edwardsville, BABEL is co-hosting the 34th Annual Meeting of the Southeastern
Medieval Association [theme: "Bodies, Embodiments, Becomings";
plenary speakers:
Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Steven Kruger] from October 2-4, 2008 [on
the downtown
campus of Saint Louis University], and the Call for Papers is here
[be there or
forever break our hearts]:

http://www.siue.edu/babel/SEMA2008CallForPapers.htm

FIFTH, as part of her mission to advance [and to keep re-formulating]
the BABEL
"mission" in various stealth maneuvers, Eileen recently presented the
so-called
"second chapter" of the BABEL manifesto-cum-loveletter at a Medieval
Club of New
York-sponsored panel on "The Subjects of Friendship, Medieval and
Medievalist,"
and the text of that second chapter can be found here:

http://www.siue.edu/~ejoy/BetweenWhatIsOurs.htm

*The "third chapter" of the so-called BABEL manifesto-cum-love letter will be
presented by Eileen at another event worth advertising here: the 2nd
International Workshop of the Anglo-Saxon Studies Colloquium (of Princeton,
Columbia, Rutgers, and NYU), to be held on May 23 and 24 at Kings College
London, "Anglo-Saxon Futures 2: About Time," and the program for that can be
found here:

http://www.siue.edu/~ejoy/AngloSaxonFutures2Programme.html

SIXTH, we have new list-serv members to welcome:

Ian Aebel, University of New Hampshire
Mike Augustine, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Brantley Bryant, Sonoma State University
Miriam Jacobson, Wake Forest University
Kathleen Kelly, Northeastern University
Sara Ritchey, University of Louisiana, Lafayette
Will Stockton, Ball State University

*As always, please review your bios on the list-serv page, and let me know of
any adjustments:

http://www.siue.edu/babel/BABELListServMembers.htm

And SEVENTH, finally [and also], we leave you with this excerpt from Spencer
Reese's "Ghazals for Spring" [from his book of poems "The Clerk's Tale"]:

"Pussy willows open their tattered pocketbooks like aristocrats escaping
who produce heirlooms at dawn and beg the border guards for political asylum.

Floorboards creak all night long in our house; the ghosts must go soon,
all night they tremble and fold their secrets in the growing heat of
the trees.

The mirror is smoke-colored, shadows flit across its surface like anxious
squirrels.
Shark-eyed, the mirror says, 'Unleash your opera.'

And when I think of spring, I think of love, I remember again
the night my roots exploded and mud sloshed in my guts.

O spring! Beautiful spring! How you resex the swinging trees
and sing our trembling skins to sleep."

Cheers, Eileen



--
Eileen A. Joy, Director of Graduate Studies
Dept. of English Language and Literature
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Peck Hall, Room 3206
Edwardsville, IL 62026-1431
(618) 650-3971
http://www.siue.edu/~ejoy
http://www.siue.edu/babel