2019-20 Events
CALS began the 2019-20 school year as co-sponsor of the "Myths, Legends, and Songs from around the World" Marathon Read. Attention turned next to Centre County Reads, where Alice McDermott's Charming Billy explores the struggles of her title character, Billy Lynch, as he navigates friendship, family, and romance as a second-generation Irish immigrant in America. Inspired by McDermott's book, CALS planned to host a roundtable that examined "American Dreams: Romance & Reality" that was unfortunately cancelled due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. CALS also co-sponsored a writing and art contest that asked entrants to try "Careful Writing." The Ninth Annual Spring Symposium, "Disability's Environments," was scheduled for March, but had to be postponed until the 2020-21 school year, again due to the pandemic. CALS will conclude the year with the Eighth Annual First Book Institute. | ||
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2019 Marathon Read: Myths, Legends, and Songs from around the World September 19, 2019 The Marathon Read celebrated global myths, legends, and songs. It featured texts written or published in languages from around the world, including The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, “Ithaka” by the early twentieth-century Greek poet C. P. Cavafy, and others, as well as songs such as "24 hours" and "Que Tiene." |
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Callanish February 8, 2020 Callanish band members Patty Lambert, Betsy Gamble, Holly Foy, and Louisa Smith played songs to show the spirit of Ireland, Scotland, and the British Isles and explained their musical instruments and the evolution of Irish music upon immigrants’ arrival to the United States. |
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Justin Houser February 15, 2020 Local historian and genealogist Justin Houser gave a talk titled “Waves Across the Ocean: The Background of Several Irish Migrations to Central Pennsylvania” at the Holt Memorial Library in Philipsburg. Houser spoke on why immigrants left Ireland behind and where the immigrants chose to settle, focusing especially on Central Pennsylvania. |
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Nalini Krishnakutty March 3, 2020 Dr. Nalini Krishnakutty gave a lecture titled “Re-Viewing History: Centering the Stories of Immigrants.” She presented stories about immigration to the United States. She spoke about the humanizing effect of learning the stories behind immigrants and emphasized that the US is a land of immigrants who coexist, thus demonstrating that there are multiple ways to be American. |
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"American Dreams: Romance & Reality" Roundtable Discussion March 30, 2020-Cancelled In Alice McDermott’s National Book Award-winning novel Charming Billy, second-generation Irish American cousins living in Queens, New York, inherit the dreams—and the American dream—of their immigrant parents. At a wake held in the 1980s for the title character Billy Lynch, a tight-knit community of mourners meditate on the romantic underpinnings of, and the darker lived realities often belying, hopes and dreams passed on from one generation to the next. In this roundtable discussion, three panelists were set to use McDermott’s novel as a touchstone for a broader discussion about how, why, and to what end immigrant dreams are passed on, taken up, and transposed across generations in American literature, history, and society. Unfortunately, the actual roundtable never occurred due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Panelists were to include:
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"Careful Writing" Writing Contest Winners Announced April 2020 Tracing the experiences of an extended Irish-American family across the twentieth century, Charming Billy invites us to consider to whom we show care and how we show that care. As Billy navigates relationships with friends, family, and lovers, we as readers might also consider how to show care in ways that sustain ourselves and the objects of our care. Inspired by this ongoing negotiation of human connection, we asked entrants for writing in which someone or something receives care in one of the following categories: Best Short Fiction, Best Nonfiction, Best Poetry, and Best Entry for a Writer under 18. |
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2020 CALS Graduate Award Symposium April 10, 2020 CALS celebrated Akash Belsare and Liana Glew, winners of the 2019 CALS Dissertation Fellowship, and Sean Weidman, winner of the 2019 CALS Summer Graduate Fellowship. |
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An Evening with Alice McDermott April 16, 2020 - Cancelled National Book Award-winning novelist Alice McDermott was set to visit and and read from her works, however, the event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. |
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The Ninth Annual CALS Spring Symposium **September 14, 2020 (Rescheduled) Focused on how environments—social, material, ecological, and speculative—influence scholarly and popular conceptions of disability, this year’s spring symposium will showcase nationally prominent scholars alongside Penn State faculty who will examine the symposium topic from various vantage points. This forum will explore stories of disability in narrative, text, and literature. Roundtable One: Disability’s Structured Environments
Roundtable Two: Disability’s Natural Environments
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