An Occasional Broadsheet

William G. Cooper, Jr., Honors Program in English, UALR
October 2007 (No. 29)

COOPER ACTIVITIES: TWO DATES IN NOVEMBER TO PUT ON YOUR CALENDAR!

UALR ENGLISH FACULTY RESEARCH EVENING
Thursday 13 November 2007, 7 to 9 pm, Donaghey Student Center Meeting Room D. Refreshments provided. All welcome. Come and hear about current research projects and publications by English Department faculty:

RUSSELL MURPHY on W. B. Yeats's fascination with a Byzantine image of Christ, the Pantokrator, and its relationship to his Byzantium poetry

JIM PARINS on the writing and publishing that blossomed among Cherokees from the 1820s on as a result of Sequoyah's Cherokee Syllabary

EARL RAMSEY on Alexander Pope's debts to Michel de Montaigne especially the sense that Montaigne provided Pope with another "voice"

ZABELLE STODOLA on the captivity and confinement narratives written by European Americans and Native Americans about the 1862 Dakota War

PAUL YODER on the narrative structure underlying William Blake's notoriously complex last poem, Jerusalem.

FALL COOPER COLLOQUIUM
Wednesday 28 November 2007, 2 to 4 pm. Donaghey Student Center Meeting Room C. Refreshments provided. All welcome.
The Cooper Program is planning its first-ever fall colloquium because several of our students graduate in December. Hear presentations by Vicki Malpass, Meredith Moseley, Wynn Scoggins, and Ryan Witherspoon on their Honors projects.

THREE NEW BENEFITS FOR CURRENT COOPER STIPEND HOLDERS
Contact the Director for more information

1. RESEARCH-RELATED TRAVEL
The Cooper Program encourages current Cooper stipend holders to apply for funds for appropriate research-related activities (e.g. traveling to library collections, attending a workshop) and for attending and participating in academic conferences. The amount funded is flexible and depends on various factors including relevance to the student's Cooper project or level of the student's participation.

2. GRE REIMBURSEMENT
Current stipend holders applying to graduate school in their senior year can obtain a onetime reimbursement for the GRE general test. Students will need to provide proof of having taken the test after which they will receive a reimbursement (currently, $140). After they receive the test results for the general GRE (and the subject test if they take it), students should e-mail the Director with information on their scores.

3. BOOK STIPENDS FROM SPRING 2008
As from spring 2008, the Cooper Program will provide a book grant of $50 every semester for up to four semesters during the regular academic year to current Cooper stipend holders.

COOPER SEMINAR FOR SPRING 2008
Paul Yoder will teach a Cooper seminar called Reading Poetry, Monday & Wednesday 12:15 to 1:30 in Stabler Hall 401. Here's what he has to say about it: "Many English majors suffer from the shame of 'poetry anxiety disorder' (PAD). Well, now there is help. Doc Yoder's 'How to Read a Poem' offers a (relatively) painless step-by-step guide to overcoming PAD. This is a course in the art of poetry reading itself."

STUDENT NEWS

SARAH BURNS is teaching in Ishikoshi, Japan. She sent this e-mail in early September: "I taught 4 classes at elementary school. They are each 45 minutes. Most of the time, I will teach 6 classes back to back at elementary school. I thought I would be better with older students, but it turns out that I really like the younger ones! They are so energetic and excited."

KERI COFFMAN has submitted the prospectus of her Cooper project, titled "Moral Theme Comprehension and Narrative Choice in Character Education Programs," to the Arkansas Psychological Association Annual Convention's Student Poster Session. The session is open to undergraduate and graduate students across the state with a prize given to the best poster. The convention will be held on the UALR campus 25-26 October 2007. Be sure to wish her luck!

NANNETTE CRANE's short story "Sunday Best" has been nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize by the magazine in which it first appeared, upstreet.

ANGELIQUE JACKSON spent Labor Day in the library! She explains, "Over the Labor Day weekend, I traveled to the University of Kansas and spent the better part of two days in their vast collection of Russian and Eastern European materials. There I was able to expand the research for my Cooper project which analyzes memoirs and fictionalized personal narratives by a few of the 28.7 million victims of the Soviet Gulag system's forced labor camps. Working among the stacks allowed for an element of kismet in my research that electronic catalogs cannot provide. It was a wonderful opportunity, made possible with the help of the Cooper Program."

AMY SKINNER lives in New York City and enjoys her work at the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

LAPARA WASHINGTON is Literacy Coach at J.A. Fair High School this year. Her job is to ensure that quality literacy instruction goes on across the curriculum. As she says, "This job gives me the chance to reform our reading culture on a bigger scale than my classroom. I have a ten- classroom book club pilot this year."