What's in the minds of our CSUB English Majors?

Anthony Jauregui

What made you want to major in English? A failed Computer Science route, along with an interest in the pragmatic and creative side to writing.

What has been your best experience as an English major here at CSUB? Winning 2nd place in the Betty Creative Writing Award for Drama, two years in a row. (Like the repetition? Let's hope for another next year.)

What do you plan to do after graduation? Travel the United States and explore life before (hopefully), settling into a Master's Program for Writing Dramatic Media. (Fingers crossed UNLV)

What is your favorite work of literature? Edward Albee's "The Goat or Who is Sylvia?"

Jacqueline Lucas

I decided to major in English about half way through general education at Bakersfield College. I hopped all over the place, testing out different majors to see what was fit for me. After a couple of trial and error courses, I took a British Literature class and really fell in love with the English major. The most rewarding experience as an English major at CSUB was learning Middle English in Dr. Troup's Chaucer course during my first quarter at CSUB. I remember being so intimidated by the material. I read the most hilarious stories from The Canterbury Tales, in an untranslated version of the book and I had to memorize the first 18 lines from The General Prologue. I can still recite them to this day. After graduation, I am going to graduate school for a Master's in English so I can become an English Professor. My favorite work of literature is The Bald Soprano by Eugene Ionesco because it is absolutely hilarious yet completely alters the way we think about language and human interaction.

What We Accomplished, Summer 2015

Dr. Monica Ayuso attended the National Endowment for the Humanities [NEH] Institute entitled "What Is Gained in Translation: Learning How to Read Translated Texts" in Kent State University, June 7-27, 2015.  The institute, directed by Francoise Massarier-Kenney and Brian Baer, included 30 polyglot scholars in all stages of their professional careers who discussed translation theory and designed ways to draw awareness to the role of translations in their classes.  The institute offered an embarrassment of riches: lectures on Persian, Spanish, Latin American, Arabic, and Chinese translation and field trips to the well-known Cleveland "West-Side Market," to the Cleveland Museum (one of the top five art museums in the U.S.) and to the May 4 Memorial on the Kent State Campus.  (An interesting note: Dozens of spirited black squirrels pop up everywhere on the wooded campus.  They were imported from Ontario, Canada, fifty years ago and are the unofficial mascot of the university, which makes you wonder why the kit fox isn't our mascot!)

M. Ayuso and Seminar Colleagues

Charles MacQuarrie led a National Endowment for the Humanities [NEH] Summer Seminar for College and University Teachers titled "The Irish Sea Cultural Province:Crossroads of Medieval Literature and Languages" that took him to Belfast, Northern Ireland -- Douglas, Isle of Man --  and Glasgow, Scotland.  He led a survey investigating the extent and the significance of the linguistic, cultural, and physical multiplicity that characterized the conflicted relations between Briton, Saxon, Gaelic, Norse, and Latinate culture. Professor MacQuarrie also gave a series of lectures for Smithsonian titled "In the Wake of the Vikings on Le Boréal" on a cruise of Scottish Isles and Norwegian Fjords.  Through Smithsonian Journeys, he's planning a series on the Scottish mainland for summer 2016.

C. MacQuarrie and daughter

Rachel Duarte was the first from CSUB to win a NEH Seminar as a graduate student and was one of only two graduate students to earn participation in "The Legacy of Ancient Italy: The Etruscans and Early Roman City," a three week seminar that started at the University of Switzerland and into Italy, starting in Bologna, Orvieto and the Tarquinia tombs, Cortana, Florance, and ended in Rome; world-renown archeologists provided guest lectures and gave tours to excavated sites not open to the public. Ms. Duarte had the opportunity to study the Etruscans in depth. Most amazingly, she had the opportunity to utilize the library at the American Academy of Rome to continue her research tinto the Etruscan myth of Turan and Atunis in comparison to the Adonis myth mentioned in Sappho's fragment 59.

R. Duarte 

Milissa Ackerley was the site coordinator for the Irish Sea Cultural Province and handled logistics for the group of thirteen professors, three graduate students, and the two directors while they traveled through Ireland, Isle of Man, and Glasgow.  Meeting and getting to know our co-director,  Dr. Joseph Nagy from UCLA, world renowned Celtic Scholar, was one of the high points of the trip, but the entire group and experience was life-changing.  Ms. Ackerley made new friends from all over the United States with whom she is still in contact and plans to visit in the next year.  Besides visiting some amazing historical sites and taking many walks through the countryside, she left a tribute at the Fairy Bridge on the Isle of Man, toured Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland, and met a direwolf from Game of Thrones in Northern Ireland.

M. Ackerley

Carol Dell'Amico traveled to Dublin to walk in the fictional footsteps of James Joyce's Leopold Bloom (Ulysses). She took some pictures at the Martello Tower, including of crazy people swimming in the cold and rain (never mind that it was “summer”). She will be teaching Ulysses in the spring (English 568).

Martello swimmers

Jeff Eagan, Kim Collins, and Jessica Wojtysiak presented their research study titled "Help I Need Somebody: An Investigation of Mandatory Tutoring in Composition Courses" at The Young Rhetoricians' Conference in Monterey, California.

Matthew Woodman had poems appear in the journals Hinchas de Poesia, Unsplendid, The Timberline Review, and Spillway.

Reading and Writing in the Common Core

The Kern Council of the California Association of Teachers of English (CATE) invites you to three days of workshops: "Reading & Writing in the Common Core." 

To register online, click here.  

CATE (California Association of Teachers of English) is a non-profit organization promoting communication, collaboration, and educational knowledge among all responsible for teaching English and the language arts. All California English teachers are encouraged to join.