News Archive

News from Spring 2011

Nicholas Nienhaus (LC'11) has been named assistant news editor at the Decorah Newspapers. An English major with a writing emphasis, Nick has been working for Luther's student newspaper, Chips, currently as an ad representative. Nick says, "I always enjoyed writing and was hoping I could stay close to home and have a job that pertained to my priorities and major." Though he will not graduate until May, he has already begun working for the newspaper. "I figured that the sooner I start with this fast paced business, the better," Nick said. "The staff has been very welcoming and helpful. Every day I feel myself grow as a writer." A native of Fort Atkinson, IA, Nick has a younger sister at Luther--Kristina, who is a sophomore.

Rachel Johnson

Associated Colleges of the Midwest has announced that a story by Rachel Johnson (LC'11), "Inheritance," was selected for the finalist round in the "Nick Adams" short story contest. Adam Sirgany, a senior at Knox College, was named winner. Binnie Kirshenbaum, novelist and professor and chair of the Writing Program at the Columbia University Graduate School of the Arts, served as the 2011 contest's final judge. The Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) is a consortium of academically excellent, independent liberal arts colleges located in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Colorado. Luther College is a member.

Kate Narveson

Kate Narveson contributed the chapter on John Donne's "Devotions upon Emergent Occasions" (source of "no man is an island" and "send not to know for whom the bell tolls") in the newly published Oxford Handbook of John Donne (Oxford UP, 2011).

For the third year, the English Department hosted Poem in Your Pocket Day on campus on Thursday, April 14. English majors set up baskets--overflowing with pocket-sized copies of hundreds of poems--around campus, and English faculty gave students in their classes the opportunity to pick poems they liked. Lots of folks picked up poems, read and enjoyed them, pocketed them, and then passed them on to friends, teachers, students, and strangers all day long. Together we shared the richness of language and the insight of short lyrics! Poem in Your Pocket Day is an initiative of the Academy of American Poets.

Poem in Your Pocket Day

Hannah Crippen

Hannah Crippen, a senior English major (LC’11), has edited a beautiful new print anthology of creative nonfiction pieces written by her classmates in last fall’s English 213 (Creative Writing: Nonfiction) at Luther College. After a live reading of work by everyone in the class this fall, Hannah was inspired to showcase their talent in collection, which she printed through the online publishing site Lulu.com.

Entitled EVERY PLACE I GO, I TAKE ANOTHER PLACE WITH ME -- the title of an essay by classmate Anna Rick, included in the collection – this beautifully designed book is available for sale at lulu.com and through the Luther College Bookshop. Hannah got the idea, collected work from classmates, investigated publishing options, wrote the introduction, and compiled and edited the essays into a single manuscript.. Her own creative work also appears in the collection. She will take this book with her – to borrow a phrase from the title -- as she travels to Seattle this summer to begin her prestigious appointment as the Luci Shaw Fellow at IMAGE: A Journal of Religion and the Arts.

Lulu.com give this description of the book: “This is a collection of non-fiction essays written by nineteen students in their second, third, and fourth years of college. Some try to define themselves in relation to their place, others to their families, others to the people that float in and out of their lives. Each essay, however, speaks to the things that define who each of us are at this moment and who we want to be in the future.”

A link to the title is here:

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/every-place-i-go-i-take-another-place-with-me/15313717?productTrackingContext=search_results/search_shelf/center/2

Writers of the essays in the collection gave a reading and book signing on Thursday, May 5, 9:40 a.m., in the Luther Book Shop.

Nancy K. Barry
Professor Nancy K. Barry has been selected as a participant in the Lutheran Academy of Scholars 2011 Summer Seminar. Barry will be one of a select group of leading scholars from educational institutions affiliated with the Luther church who will take part in the prestigious LAS seminar. Held at Harvard University June 20-July 1, the seminar will address issues of religious, social and cultural significance. The summer seminar is the foremost of the academy's programs that encourage scholars and promote scholarship, including faculty seminars, publication support and conference sponsorship. The academy is directed by the Dovre Center for Faith and Learning at Concordia College.

Amy Weldon
Professor Amy Weldon's essay "The Odd Girls: Flannery O'Connor and Me" has won an additional award from Shenandoah, the journal in which it appeared in 2010: the Thomas H. Carter Prize for the Essay for Volume 60. Weldon's new blog, The Cheapskate Intellectual, featuring reflective essays on money, life, and spirit -- especially, but not exclusively, for women, and updated weekly -- is now up and running at http://cheapskateintellectual.wordpress.com/

Diane Scholl
Professor Diane Scholl's poem "Earth, Air, Fire, Water" appears in the Spring 2011 issue of Cider Press Review. Her poem "St. John's Bible, May, 2005" appears in the Nov. 2 issue of The Christian Century.

Poet and Essayist Paul Zimmer
Award-winning writer and former director of University of Iowa Press, Paul Zimmer served as visiting professor in the English Department in January 2011, teaching Luther's introductory creative writing course and giving a reading of his poetry and prose on Tuesday, Jan. 11, 7 p.m. in the Center for Faith and Life Recital Hall. Members of his class were so excited by the writing that they have continued to meet and workshop their writing together.

In the Dark with my Dress on Fire
Martin Klammer

Professor Martin Klammer co-authored a book with South African freedom movement activist Blanche La Guma. The book, titled In the Dark with My Dress on Fire: My Life in Cape Town, London, Havana and Home Again, was released in South Africa Nov. 25, 2010. Klammer was joined at a sold-out book launch event by La Guma and guest speaker Albie Sachs, a former Constitutional Court Judge of South Africa.

Rachel casual
Professor Rachel Faldet's essay, "A Message in Instant Mashed Potatoes and Sauerkraut," appears in Wapsipinicon Almanac, Number 17. She was a guest on Iowa Public Radio's "The Exchange" in connection with her co-edited book, From My Perspective: Essays About Disability. The grant-funded anthology, the outcome of writing workshops she led at The Spectrum Network, received an "exemplary" commendation for disability advocacy by the Commission of Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities.

News from Fall 2010

Mark Z. Muggli
In fall semester, Professor Mark Z. Muggli participated in a Coe College ACM FaCE conference focused on embodiment in theatre/dance education. In addition to focused conversations with other ACM college faculty, the conference included a full-day workshop with the DAH Theatre of Serbia and a provocative DAH performance of a devised theatre piece about women's experiences during the 1990s civil war in the former Yugoslavia.

Kate Narveson
Professor Kate Narveson was an invited presenter, speaking on "Blurring the boundary between public and private: Lay voluntarism in early Stuart England" at a round table discussion on public and private devotion in early modern England, sponsored by the Early Modern Research Network. The panel was part of the Oct. 14-17, 2010, 16th Century Studies Conference in Montreal, Canada.