english THE
PERIPATETIC
OBSERVER
SUNY-
GENESEO
DEPARTMENT
OF ENGLISH
VOLUME 10
SPRING
2010
English Stays Strong as Both a Department and Community
A note from the Department
chair, Richard Finkelstein
! Despite the challenging economic
environment that all of us have faced,
the last year has seen our English De-
partment move forward in many positive,
well-focused directions. Faculty and staff
have redoubled their efforts to ensure
that English majors receive classroom
education that matches Geneseo’s top-
ranked reputation, and also get the at-
tention, encouragement, and mentorship
they deserve. Our push forward also
results from the many kinds of generous
support that alumni have provided. Eng-
lish Department graduates everywhere
have confirmed that they remain strong
participants in our community, often
decades after leaving Geneseo.
! During this past year, for example,
we held one of our forums that attempts
to answer the question, “how do you
build a career with an English major
after graduation?” Featuring Janet Ten-
reiro (’78), a businesswoman in western
New York, and lawyers Anne Joynt (’02)
and Mary Kate Woods (’96), the session
Welles Hall, home of the English Department
proved encouraging to students, who
heard a happy truth: English majors
sometimes take more time to settle on a
career path than some, but our major
builds the skills and intellectual flexibility
to create professional lives in a variety
of ways over a lifetime. Alumni have
also helped strengthen our students’
confidence by participating in internships
and helping them to establish networks.
Professor Graham Drake coordinates
most of the internships, and he has been
kept busy.
! As has always been a Geneseo tra-
dition, faculty members support students
with creative activities and family-like
connections outside the classroom. For
over two years, Professor Ken Cooper
has been working with Geneseo students
on an organic garden they designed.
Integrated with his courses on literature
and eco-criticism, work in the garden has
also educated the entire campus about
healthy practices. In addition to engag-
ing many former students to write sec-
tions of his two-volume encyclopedia on
the history of Broadway, Professor Tom
Greenfield continues to teach guitar and
occasionally serenade students in his
classes. Several of our faculty members
lead study programs overseas, including
a new one in Ireland created by Profes-
sor Rob Doggett. The centerpiece of this
trip is a residency at the International
Yeats Summer School, where students
meet and are mentored by some of the
world’s most important scholars. With
Professor Beth McCoy’s mentoring, we
have now sent two students to the Sum-
mer Institute for Literary and Cultural
Studies at Wheaton College in Massa-
chusetts. One of them is now a Ph.D.
student at Brown.
" As you can see inside, this has also
been a growth year for bringing speak-
in this issue:
keep in touch" 2
alumni update" 3
literary forum" 4
Lima on the “Today Show”! 8

Select English majors serve as Writing
Center Tutors, aiding all Geneseo stu-
dents with their academic writing.
A Letter from the Chair (continued from
page one)
ers, poets, and fiction writers to campus
to enhance our intellectual environment.
Students heard talks from Professor Mi-
chael Warner, Chair of the Yale Univer-
sity English Department, who delivered
the annual Walter Harding Lecture, en-
dowed by the Harding family. J.D.
McClatchy, poet and translator (and
another member of the Yale Depart-
ment), gave a poetry reading when he
visited for the Phi Beta Kappa lecture last
spring. The Geneseo Literary Forum
brought prize-winning short story writer
ZZ Packer to campus this fall. We were
thrilled to sponsor several literary read-
ings: and there was little more exciting
than hosting an award-winning alumna
writer, Ashley Pankratz (’05).
Keep in touch. Let us know about your accomplishments.
Email us at englishalumni@geneseo.edu, or fill out the information below.
Name:
Address:
City/State/Zip:
Email: "
Year of graduation:
Your information:
Send to: Dept. of English, SUNY-Geneseo, 1 College Circle, Geneseo NY 14454-1401
The Peripatetic Observer Spring 2010 Page 2
2009 Awards:
Here are a few of this
year’s student awards
and scholarships
1. The William T. Beauchamp
Literature Award.
Patrick Morgan received this annual
$250 award presented to an outstand-
ing senior English student.
2. The Rita K. Gollin Award for
Excellence in American Literature.
This graduating senior award went to
Molly Kerker. To be eligible for con-
sideration, recipients must demonstrate
excellent work in the study of Ameri-
can literatures.
3. The Don Watt Memorial
! That we were able to reaffirm our
Scholarship.
vigorous commitment to building an intel-
Caitlin Klein received this scholarship,
lectually and socially supportive commu-
established by friends and colleagues
nity during the sharp economic down-
of the the former Chair and Professor.
town speaks to the commitment of fac-
It rewards a student who demonstrates
ulty, staff, and alumni. With your time
a strong academic record as well as a
and generosity we have enlarged our
history of having to work to support
students’ opportunities and the quality of
her- or himself in college.
their experience at Geneseo. Thanks for
all that you have done. Please continue
4. The Natalie Selser Freed Memorial
to keep in touch.
Scholarship.
Jeffrey Lovitz received this award,
granted to the junior English major
with the highest grade point average
within the major. It is funded by Pro-
fessor Walter Freed in loving memory
Richard Finkelstein
of his mother.
Chair
GREAT Day 2009
At this year’s Geneseo Recognizing
Excellence, Achievement, and Talent
Day (21 April) more than ten student
panels featured critical papers, recita-
tions, and creative readings in English
language and literature. Topics in-
cluded the Hebrew Scriptures as Lit-
erature, Thoreau and Beauty, Cine-
matic Representations of Elizabeth I,
“Criticism without Borders” (Multi-
media Responses to Literature), and
African-American Migration Narrative.

Alumni News
Please send your news and updates to
englishalumni@geneseo.edu
Bill Bly (1969) graduated as an Art ma-
jor with a Creative Writing minor at
Geneseo. He studied with the recently
re tired Da ve Kell y ("a first-class
teacher"), Dr. David Wand, and Profes-
sor Walter Harding ("one of the finest
professors I ever knew"). Bly attended
graduate school in Creative Writing at
SUNY Buffalo and has lived for the last
31 years in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, a
suburb of Tulsa.
" Professor Harding's influence contin-
ues, as Mr. Bly is a Life Member of The
Thoreau Society.
" Bly, a Geneseo village resident from
the ages of 2 to 27, finds that Welles
Hall will always "have a special meaning
for me. It was my grade school from
1956-1963. And, ironically, my last
class as a senior at SUNY Geneseo was
in that building!" Bly is a Geneseo "leg-
acy" graduate, as his father received his
BS and MS in Education from the col-
lege.
! drama teacher in Iroquois, Ontario.
Peter Wm. V. Fedorchuk (1974) retired in
2007 as English Department Chair and
English teacher at Wayland-Cohocton
Central School after thirty-three years of
service. "I used many of my handwritten
notes from undergraduate classes at
Geneseo to supplement my lectures and
teaching of American, British, and Greek
literature to juniors and seniors at the
high school level," he writes. He is now
an adjunct instructor at Genesee Com-
munity College, teaching English and
Education courses as well as Public
Speaking. <PeterFed@frontiernet.net>
! ronmental researc h organization.
Trouble Light, a new volume of poetry
by Gerald McCarthy (1974), is available
at GeraldMcCarthyPoet.com. McCarthy
is Professor of English at St. Thomas
Aquinas College, in Sparkill, NY; he
received his MFA from the University of
Iowa in 1976.
<Gerald@GeraldMcCarthyPoet.com>
! "If you live in Western or Central NY you
Sari Arfin-Schulman (1992) teaches high
school English and Drama with the Port
Washington school district. "This is my
17th year," she writes, "hard to believe!"
She delivered the presentation, "Teach-
ing The Canterbury Tales to 21st Century
Students," at the November 2009 NCTE
The Peripatetic Observer Spring 2010 Page 3
National Convention in Philadelphia.
She has two daughters, ages 3 and 7.
! Tom Greenfield
Tracy Strauss (1996) teaches First-Year Receives 2009
Writing at Emerson College. She re-
cently earned a scholarship to attend the
Chancellor’s Award
Southampton Writers Conference, where for Excellence in
she worked with author Kaylie Jones.
Teaching
!
Alison O'Reilly (1999) is a Youth Services
Professor Greenfield was one of
Librarian with the Austin Public Library
four Geneseo faculty members
and serves on the 2010 Newbery Award
Committee. to receive the Chancellor's
Award for Excellence in Teach-
! ing. The awards are SUNY
Julie Sacco Bastedo (1999) teaches Eng- system-level honors conferred to
lish and Drama at Orchard Park High acknowledge and provide
School in Orchard Park, NY. She cur-
system-wide recognition for con-
rently runs the Drama program, directing
sistently superior professional
One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest in Fall
achievement and to encourage
2008 and A Midsummer Night's Dream
the ongoing pursuit of excel-
for Fall 2009. She received her Addi-
tional Qualification in Dramatic Arts from lence.
York University in Toronto, Ontario, in
the summer of 2008. Julie also created
an interdisciplinary program called
"Drama without Borders," dealing with
American and Canadian Drama and
History, which she co-orchestrates with a
<jules.vergne@gmail.com>
!
Padraic McConville (2004) is working on
his MBA at Cornell University's Johnson
School. He spent last summer working
for a private equity firm, and he deliv-
ered a presentation to Geneseo's School
of Business last autumn.
! A perennial favorite among ma-
jors and non-majors alike, Pro-
Erica Truncale (2007) has been living in
fessor Greenfield teaches many
Boston, MA, since November 2007. She
of the department’s drama
is the Development Assistant for the Si-
lent Spring Institute, a non-profit envi- courses. He also teaches
courses in the School of the Arts
<erica.truncale@gmail.com> and mentors students from all
over campus. An accomplished
!
acoustic guitarist and songwriter,
Brian Balduzzi (2009) has been ac-
he lends his services to many
cepted to Washington and Lee Law
School. college organizations for enter-
tainment or fundraising pur-
! poses.
Ben DeGeorge (2009) works full-time in
his family's company, St. Pauly Textile.
Greenfield has written two major
books on American drama and
have probably seen our clothing collec-
media and numerous scholarly
tion sheds at local non profit organiza-
tions in your communities," he writes. He articles. He served as Dean of
invites visits to: www.St-Pauly.com. Ben the College for 11 years before
is also a co-writer of the blog, taking a full-time professorial
www.BiggerImpact.com. appointment in the English de-
<BenDeGeorge@gmail.com> partment six years ago.

Rob Doggett and Richard Finkelstein congratulate an
elementary school student winner at the 2009 Peace
Poetry Contest award ceremony.
The Geneseo Literary Forum
The Geneseo Literary Forum brings nationally
recognized writers and poets to campus,
providing valuable experience and training
for the department’s Creative Writing majors,
and contributing significantly to the college’s
cultural offerings. The 2009-2010 forum pre-
sented the following contributors.
Last Spring Ashley Pank-
ratz (’05), winner of the
Colorado Review Nelligan
Prize read from her fiction
and nonfiction. She is
currently a graduate stu-
dent in creative writing at
the University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor. As a Geneseo
student, Ashley won the
English Department writing
awards for her fiction and
nonfiction. After Gene-
seo, she received her MA
from SUNY-Brockport; she
is working on her MFA at
the University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor.
This fall, Tina May Hall
read at the Literary Forum.
The winner of the Cake
Train chapbook award for
her novella All the Day’s Sad Stories, Tina
May Hall teaches writing and literature at
Hamilton College. Her fiction has appeared
in numerous literary journals including Black
Warrior Review, 3rd Bed, and Quarterly
West. Hall met with the Fiction Workshop
while she was in Geneseo, answering ques-
tions about her work as well as leading the
class in a writing exercise focusing on lan-
guage.
In December, author ZZ Packer visited to read
from her short story collection Drinking Cof-
fee Elsewhere. Packer is the editor of New
Stories from the South 2008: The Year’s Best,
and she is currently working on her first novel,
The Thousands, about the Buffalo Soldiers.
The Peripatetic Observer Spring 2010 Page 4
The 2009
Departmental
Awards Ceremony
Honoring excellence
Her work has been presented in various
publications including Story, The New Yorker,
Best American Short Stories 2000, and the
New York Times. She is a Guggenheim
Fellowship recipient and the winner of a Rona
Jaffe Foundation Grant and Whiting Writer’s Caitlin Klein and Professor Ken Cooper
Award. Packer’s reading was followed by happily reflect upon the many admira-
questions, a book signing, and dinner with ble award and scholarship recipients.
faculty and writing students.
Poet Micah Ling visited in
Januar y to read from
ZZ Packer Three Islands, her recently Planning for the future
published book of persona
poems about Amelia Ear-
hart, Robert Stroud, and
Fletcher Christian. Ling’s
work has been featured in
journals including Fifth
Wednesday and Harpur
Palate. She is also the
deputy editor of Keyhole
Magazine. She currently
teaches writing and litera-
ture at Indiana University, Professor Rob Doggett and student
where she received her Rebecca Huber talk about the upcom-
M.F.A. Following her
ing Summer 2009 study-abroad course
reading, Ling visited the
in Ireland.
fiction workshop to lead
students in a writing exer-
cise.
This April, Kirk Nesset Deep in discussion
visited. Nesset is the author of Paradise Road
and Mr. Agreeable, as well as well as a
nonfiction study, The Stories of Raymond
Carver, and a forthcoming book of poems,
Saint X. His stories, poems, translations and
essays have appeared in such journals as the
Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, Ameri-
can Poetry Review, Gettysburg Review, Iowa
Review, Agni, The Sun, Fiction, and Prairie
Schooner, among others. Nesset gave a read-
ing and met with the Senior Creative Writing
majors in the Senior Reading Seminar
(ENGL370), now required of all Creative Adam Kroopnick, Rachel Svenson, and
Writing majors, to discuss his work and an-
Anna Mellace consider their successes
swer questions they have about giving read-
over cake during the reception.
ings, and writing in general!""
" ! "
 The Peripatetic Observer Spring 2010 Page 5

Department Faculty Celebrate Black Authors

On 10 February, four members of the English faculty gave a joint reading of works
by Black literary authors, including Derek Walcott, Ntozake Shange, Jamaica Kin-
caid, and August Wilson. The reading was held in the College Union's Kinetic
Gallery, where the Anthony Barboza exhibit, The Soul of Black Genius, was on
display.

Pictured, clockwise from the right: Professor Graham Drake, Professor Tom Green-
field, Professor Kristen Gentry, and Professor Beth McCoy. (Photos by Christine
Cusano.)

See http://mlk.geneseo.edu/celebratingblackauthors.htm for more information.

Mary Kate Woods (’96), Anne Joynt (’02), and Janet Tenreiro
(’78) met with English majors as part of an advisement initiative.

English Alumni Advise Current Majors

On Thursday, 23 May, the English Department hosted three successful English major alumni who spoke about how they
made their career choices, found employment, and, generally, managed their lives after graduating with an English ma-
jor. Anne Joynt (’02) (a lawyer with Buffalo’s Lipsitz and Ponterio), Mary Kate Woods (’96) (with CBS Entertainment in
New York City), and Janet Tenreiro (’78) (a businesswoman and community leader in Canandaigua) held a roundtable
discussion and met with students throughout the day.
 The Peripatetic Observer Spring 2010 Page 6

Geneseo Students Present at Annual Sigma Tau Delta Conference in St. Louis
Four English majors presented critical and creative work at Sigma Tau Delta’s 2010 International Conference, held in St.
Louis, Missouri, on 17-20 March. Sigma Tau Delta is the undergraduate honor society for English majors. Two creative
writing students read from their fiction: Caitlin Portch (“The Usefulness of Scarves”) and Eleanor Bryan (“Brother Keep-
ing”). Abby Mayer read her critical piece, “Life Shaped: Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom,” and Caitlin
Klein presented “The Fractilized Nature of Percival Everett’s Erasure and Its Social Implication.” Their travel to the con-
ference was made possible in part by undergraduate research grants.

Photos below, clockwise from the top left: Near the Gateway Arch and art museum; Caitlin Klein reads from her paper; a
group picture on the streets of St. Louis; Elle Bryan at her panel; walking back to the conference hotel; Caitlin Portch at
the podium. All photos courtesy of Abby Mayer.
 The Peripatetic Observer Spring 2010 Page 7

The John H. Parry Award in Critical Second Place Third Place

2009 Departmental Essay Mathé Kamsutchom William Porter
First Place, Patrick Morgan

Undergraduate The Lucy Harmon Award in Fiction Second Place Third Place
First Place, Eleanor Bryan Meghan Pipe Jillian Capewell

Writing Awards
The Mary A. Thomas Award in Poetry Second Place Third Place
First Place, Caroline Povinelli Jenna Geiser Andrea Colasanto

The Creative Non-Fiction Award Second Place Third Place

First Place, Danielle Hunt Eleanor S. Bryan Ethan Waddell

The Jerome de Romanet Award in Second Place Third Place

African-American Literature Ethan Waddell William Porter
First Place, Rebecca Huben

Join the English Alumni Facebook Group

The English Department invites all recent
graduates and former students to join
our alumni Facebook group. Members
of the larger departmental community
may use the group page to mark recent
achievements, ask questions, note Gene-
seo events, and generally keep in touch.
Several college departments, including
Physics, History, and Sociology, maintain
similar Facebook groups. The English
Recently in print
alumni group promises to be one of the
largest of these efforts. In its first day,
almost one hundred alumni joined the Romantic Autobiography
group. in England
To find the group, enter “SUNY Gene- Ed. Dr. Eugene Stelzig, Distinguished
seo English Department Alumni” into the Teaching Professor. Ashgate, 2009.
Facebook search box. If you have al-
ready joined us on-line, please invite This collec-
your former Geneseo colleagues. tion pre-
sents
twelve
essays on
the devel-
opment of
autobiog-
raphy as a
distinct
genre dur-
ing the
19th cen-
tury. Di-
vided into three sections—women's life
writing, male self-fashioning, and
“genres and modes”—the volume deals
with such authors as Dorothy Word-
sworth, Gertrude Stein, William Word-
sworth, Mary Shelley, Thomas de
Quincey, Mary Hays, Joseph Severn,
Mary Robinson, and Ned Ludd.

As one reviewer writes, “The essays in

this collection are consistently fresh
and original in their treatments of an
extraordinary range of forms of auto-
biographical practice.”

The alumni Facebook group proves to be popular.


NBC’s Today Show Features
Professor Maria Lima
Jenna Wolfe, the co-anchor of NBC's
Sunday edition of "Today" and former
Geneseo student, visited Professor
Maria Lima's ENGL170, The Practice of
Criticism, classroom as part of a larger
videotaped segment that aired nationally
on 27 September 2009.
According to a college press release,
Wolfe attended Geneseo from 1992-94
but finished her degree at SUNY Bing-
hamton. She spent much of her time at
Binghamton away from campus, how-
ever, doing internships at local television
stations and decided that Geneseo more
closely represented her true on-campus
college experience.
"I have wonderful memories of Gene-
seo," she said. "What I learned here
definitely helped me get where I am.
Learning how to think critically and write
have helped me in ways I didn't antici-
SUNY-GENESEO
1 COLLEGE CIRCLE
GENESEO, NY 14454-1401
english
The Peripatetic Observer Spring 2010 Page 8
pate." In particular, Wolfe took several "--I can honestly say," Wolfe continued,
classes with Dr. Lima, including the Prac- "that a day doesn't go by that I don't go
tice of Criticism in 1994. back to some of the fundamentals of
writing and of being creative and think-
The "Today" Sunday co-anchor and ing outside the box, and thinking of dif-
Weekday correspondent returned to ferent approaches to write things."
campus during the 2009 Fall Semester's
third week of classes. For
her broadcast, Wolfe and Maria Lima on “Today”
t he NBC cameras re-
corded a "surprise" visit to
Lima's class in Welles Hall.
Wolfe noted that Lima
was "my toughest profes-
sor, but also my most in-
fluential."
Addressing the ENGL170
students, the television
personality testified that
"a lot of people can get
More information about Jenna Wolfe
through school and never say they're
can be found on her wikipedia entry:
using what they learned in school in their
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenna_Wol
everyday life--"
fe.
"Are you listening?" interjected Lima, " ! "
waving her finger at the class.
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