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NUCL

2019 NUCL Conference Held in Seattle, March 23

For the first time since its inception sixteen years ago, UP’s Northwest Undergraduate Conference on Literature (NUCL) was organized and hosted by the English Department of Seattle University on March 23, 2019. The submissions of ten UP students were accepted, and eight students were able to attend and present their critical and/or creative work: Tayler Bradley, Claire Breiholz, Sophie Downing, Berkeley Franklin, Caroline Holyoak, Emily Nelson, Claire Noring, andBianca Salazar. Several English faculty members also traveled to Seattle to support students and facilitate travel and lodging arrangements.

Two students won individual recognition for their work. Emily Nelson won the award for Best Critical Paper for “A Woman’s Place: The Revolution Personified in A Grain of Wheat,” and Caroline Holyoak received an honorable mention in the Best Creative Writing Submission category for her poetry collection Live Wire.

For more information contact Genevieve Brassard, English, at brassard@up.edu.

NUCL Keynote: “Does Literature Change Anything? Lessons from African American Writing,” March 24

Kenneth W. Warren will present  will present “Does Literature Change Anything? Lessons from African American Writing,” the keynote address for the 2018 Northwest Undergraduate Conference on Literature (NUCL), on Saturday, March 24, at 1:45 p.m., in the Bauccio Commons. His talk is free and open to all.

Warren is Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Professor in the English department at the University of Chicago. His most recent book is What Was African American Literature? (2011) and he is co-editor (with Adolph Reed Jr.) of Renewing Black Intellectual History: The Ideological and Material Foundations of African American Thought (2009).

NUCL is sponsored by the English department, the provost’s office, the College of Arts & Sciences, and the dean of admissions. For ADA accommodations or more information, contact the Department of English at x8031 or hiro@up.edu.

NUCL Keynote: “Critical Thought for Critical Times,” March 25

Literature professor Erica Edwards of the University of California, Riverside will present “Critical Thought for Critical Times,” the keynote address for the 2017 Northwest Undergraduate Conference on Literature (NUCL), on Saturday, March 25, at 1:45 p.m., in the Bauccio Commons. Her talk is free and open to all.

What is the nature of critical thought in literary studies, and why does it matter? Edwards addresses the question through a discussion of artists like Gwendolyn Brooks, Claudia Rankine, and others who have worked with literary forms—poetry, fiction, drama, essays, plays, and film—to dissent to the world that was given to them and to imagine a new world to come. Edwards specializes in African American literature, gender and sexuality, and black politics and social movements.

NUCL is sponsored by the English department, the provost’s office, the College of Arts & Sciences, and the dean of admissions. For ADA accommodations or more information, contact the Department of English at x8031 or hiro@up.edu.

NUCL Keynote Speaker: William Deresiewicz, March 19

William Deresiewicz copyAward-winning essayist and critic William Deresiewicz will present the keynote lecture, titled “The Self in Society and the Humanity in Both,” for English department’s annual Northwest Undergraduate Conference on Literature (NUCL) on Saturday, March 19, at 1:45 p.m., in Mago Hunt Center Recital Hall. His lecture is free and open to the public.

Deresiewicz’s works include A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught me About Love, Friendship, and the Things that Really Matter (2011) and Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life (2014), a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in nonfiction. His criticism appears in The Nation, The American Scholar, The New Republic, The New York Times, and Harper’s. He taught English at Yale University for ten years and at Columbia University for five years.

For more information contact the English department at 7228 or english@up.edu.

Tim Dayton NUCL Keynote, March 28

NUCLEnglish professor and author Tim Dayton will give the keynote address for the 2015 Northwest Undergraduate Conference on Literature (NUCL) on Saturday, March 28, at 1:30 p.m., in Mago Hunt Center recital hall. His talk is free and open to all. Dayton is a professor of English at Kansas State University, and the author of Muriel Rukeyser’s The Book of the Dead.

The Northwest Undergraduate Conference on Literature, founded in 2004, creates a professional atmosphere to promote student criticism and challenge student critics. Cosponsors include the English department, the provost’s office, the College of Arts and Sciences, and admissions. For more information contact the English department at 7264 or english@up.edu.