In Print

Bob Siegel's "A More Certain Copenhagen, A More Symbolic Heisenberg" was published in Forum Modernes Theater, Bd 20/2 (2005).  Siegel writes, "Michael Frayn's play, Copenhagen, has buttressed the relativist postmodern point of view by linking the quantum world to the macro world of history.  The link between Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, Bohr's notion of Complimentarity, and the paradoxical, often contradictory, motives for Heisenberg's fateful visit seem to champion uncertainty as a lens through which we would view men's motives, actions, and history itself.  It has also once again ignited the most anti of all postmodernist debates about Heisenberg: was he or wasn't he? However, a close reading of the play may reveal a much more tenuous connection between micro and macro, at least as defined by the play. Moreover, by comparing another play about another scientist at a crucial moment in history, Brecht's Galileo, the need to judge Heisenberg may also become clearer."  Forum Modernes Theater is "a journal of theatre studies with contributions in German, English and French, although the German articles predominate. [The publication] covers current topics in theatre studies, and examines individual plays, theatrical epochs, and characteristics which are specific to the theatre of particular countries. The writers are German and international academics."

Reginald Watson's essay "Derogatory Images of Sex: The Black Woman and Her Plight in Toni Morrison's Beloved" appears in the College Language Association Journal v.49, number 3 (2006).

Ellen Arnold's essay, "The Word Made Visible:  Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead" was included in American Indian Rhetorics of Survivance: Word Medicine, Word Magic, a collection of essays edited by Ernest Stromberg (U of Pittsburgh P, 2006).  According to Arnold, "The essay examines visual rhetoric in Almanac of the Dead, arguing that Silko seeks to reconnect printed text to the dynamic, multisensory experience of orality through an exploration of the relationships between orality and writing, rather than by 'simulating' orality, as many critics have maintained.  Focusing on descriptions of photographs and pictographs in the novel, [I] suggest that Silko pushes readers to negotiate multiple, often competing frames of reference in order to 'incorporate a referential sense of language within a sense of words and images and the material objects they refer to as living nodes in networks of flowing energy and space/time.'"

Pat Bizzaro's three poems "Sulfur to Keep Out the Snakes," "Tryon Street, Charlotte," and "Shed Razing Letter to Alex Albright" appear in the recent issue of Pembroke Magazine 38 (2006).  Pembroke is a literary magazine published by the University of North Carolina at Pembroke and the North Carolina Arts Council, and edited by Shelby Stephenson. Pembroke Magazine 38 contains a special section devoted to Native American Literature.  This section contains remembrances of the late author Louis Owens, Gerald Vizenor's 2005 Western Literature Association Achievement Award Lecture, several essays on Native American literature, and some fine selections of poetry and fiction from contemporary Native American writers. Contributors include Gordon Henry, Kim Blaeser, Chris LaLonde, John Purdy, MariJo Moore, John Smelcer, Linda Hogan, and many more.

Stacey Cochran (M.A. Creative Writing, 2001) has published a new book, Amber Page and the Legend of the Coral Stone, his third, with Lulu Press.  From the publisher:  "On the island of Maui in Hawaii, a sixteen-year-old international spy named Rio Kayenta discovers a two-thousand-year-old coral stone.  Legend has it that the stone is meant for a girl named Amber and that with it, she can stop the evil S.H.R.O.U.D. organization.  Amber Page lives in the Arizona desert and wants one thing more than anything else in the world: to see her mom and dad back together again.  Amber's mom is a school bus driver who has split with her dad, but Amber believes the two still love one another.  When a strange old man stops at nothing to tell Amber that the legendary stone is meant for her, it frightens her and her family deeply.  It is a race against the clock to get the stone to Amber and to see if she will realize its legendary powers. For with the stone strengthening her, Amber may be able to save her family and the world." Simon Wood, author of Accidents Waiting to Happen, has described the book as "A Da Vinci Code for the junior high generation."

Chris Salerno (M.A. Creative Writing, 2005) published his first full-length book of poetry, Whirligig for Spuyten Duyvil Press (2006).  According to Ed Ochester, editor of the Pitt Poetry series: "Make it new Pound said, and Christopher Salerno does, though the playfulness, wit and surprises in these poems remind me of the mid-career poets I most admire: Denise Duhamel, Tony Hoagland, Dean Young ... 'We're alone in our best visions,' Salerno says but, as always, the best visions of the poet offer readers new ways of seeing. Whirligig is one of the most distinctive first books of poems I've read in decades."

Erica Plouffe-Lazure (M.A. Creative Writing, 2006) published her short story "Follow the Directions" in the online multimedia literary journal Mad Hatter's Review, issue 6, October (2006).  Please see: http://www.madhattersreview.com/issue6/index.shtml

Rick Taylor's chapter "Literature and Literary Criticism" appears in English Studies: An Introduction to the Discipline(s), edited by Bruce McComiskey and published by NCTE Press, Urbana, IL (2006).  According to Taylor, "The book argues for the productive potential of maintaining the unity of the various disciplines that have developed and are developing under the auspices of English Studies."

CW Sullivan III's "J.R.R. Tolkien and the Rediscovery of the North" was published in HUSSE Papers 2005: Proceedings of the Seventh Biennial Conference held in Veszprem, Hungary at the University of Veszprem, 2006.  The article is based on Sullivan's opening keynote address at the January 2005 conference of the Hungarian Society for the Study of English.  In the article, Sullivan argues: "Tolkien enters the fields of philology and fantasy at a time when both have been heavily impacted by the previous century's rediscovery and study of ancient northern European languages and literatures.  I believe that critics must understand this if they are to approach Tolkien's works in the spirit in which they were written, definitely not a modern spirit.  Moreover, critics must be aware of the methodologies developed to study such ancient languages and literatures and be ready to apply those methodologies to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.  With such an understanding, we not only realize what kind of story Tolkien was telling, that is, a traditional Hero Tale told from a Heroic Age perspective and in a Heroic Age mode, but we also realize, by studying Tolkien's antecedents in Scandinavian and Celtic literature, how Tolkien-as-performer, like all traditional performers before him, put his own stamp on the familiar tale."

Tom Douglass's review of Jeff Bigger's The United States of Appalachia: How Southern Mountaineers Brought Independence, Culture, and Enlightenment to America (2006) appears in Appalachian Heritage Summer (2006).  From the publisher: "The word Appalachia is seldom uttered in the same sentence with the word enlightenment. More likely, images of the film Deliverance, corncob chomping grannies, or bonafide gun-toting hillbillies come to mind. However, in truth, Appalachia has been a cradle of US freedom, independence, and enlightenment, as well as a region of progressive social history, literature, and music.  The United States of Appalachia reveals to us how so many of our nation's basic freedoms and founding moments grew out of the Appalachias.  From the first declaration of independence to the beginnings of folk music, literature, and poetry, Jeff Biggers illuminates with humor, intelligence, and clarity, the many reasons why we all need a lesson in Appalachian history."