Tim Ryan, assistant professor of English, is the recipient of the 2013 University Honors Great Professor Award.
Ryan is a specialist in twentieth century American literature and culture, modernism, African-American literature and Southern studies.
This university-wide award, which was established in 2001, recognizes a faculty or staff member who has, over time, contributed significantly to honors...
Read More »
Professor Joe Bonomo, a favorite teacher among many NIU students in the Department of English and a well-known rock ’n’ roll author and authority, has a new book out featuring a collection of essays exploring his youth.
The book, titled “This Must Be Where My Obsession With Infinity Began,” was the winner of the Orphan...
Read More »
Drafting the Beast
In a backyard in Wheaton, Maryland, I thrust my hand into some sand. I lift out my hand, fingers-splayed. Delicate as powder. A silt of the imagination lingers on skin stretched over bone, a ramshackle draft of an X-ray machine: how bone appears. Late morning splinters all around this discovery.
Later, the sun...
Read More »
For many students, knowing the path from degree to career can be difficult.
Today’s job market is challenging. Students in business or computer science might have a strong sense of what doors their degree can open for them.
But for students in the humanities, those doors can be harder to see.
A trio of recent graduates of...
Read More »
The First Year Composition Program will host its annual Showcase of Student Writing (SSW) from 3 to 5 p.m. Wednesday, April 10, in the Duke Ellington Ballroom.
The showcase provides a forum for hundreds of students in various English classes to share their research with a public audience.
Students present their projects through a combination of...
Read More »
NIU English professor Amy Levin, who spent the month of February as the first U.S. Fulbright Scholar in a public university in Myanmar (Burma) in almost 30 years, will present an upcoming talk and slideshow on her recent experiences.
Her informal presentation, titled “Teaching ‘Hamlet’ in Myanmar,” will be held from 12:30 to 1:45 p.m....
Read More »
Erin Vobornik, a second-year graduate student at NIU who is working on her master’s degree in English linguistics, was named a 2013 fellow of the Linguistic Society of America.
Vobornik, who earned a bachelor’s degree in French from NIU in 2008, was awarded the Dictionary Society of North America Fellowship.
This fellowship provides $1,700 tuition for the...
Read More »
The NIU community is mourning the loss of Lucien Stryk, an internationally acclaimed Zen poet and former star English professor who died Jan. 24, in London. He was 88.
Stryk was born in Kolo, Poland, in 1924, and moved at a young age to Chicago with his family. After serving in the U.S. Army in...
Read More »
Top 20 Christmas titles
most often anthologized
(With number of occurrences)
1.
“A Visit from St. Nicholas”
by Clement C. Moore (31)
2.
“A Christmas Carol”
by Charles Dickens (28)
3.
“The Fir-Tree”
by Hans Christian Andersen (24)
4.
Excerpts from “The Wind in the Willows” by Kenneth Grahame (18)
“Is There a Santa Claus?”
editorial by Francis. P. Church (18)
6.
“Gift of the Magi”
by O. Henry (15)
7.
Excerpts from “Little...
Read More »
Musicians who are mega-celebrities. Hyped-up presidential elections. Assassination attempts against famous figures. A seemingly endless war abroad. A public largely disaffected from politics.
This might sound like a characterization of the United States today, but these are features of Robert Altman’s 1975 film “Nashville,” which will be screened from 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 18,...
Read More »
NIU in the News
