The Department and International Engagement

Witnessing Worlds Within and Beyond . . .

Every aspect of what we do—our teaching, our research, and our service—underscores a growing participation in and efforts to facilitate conversations and experiences that impact and transform lives here and afar. This department has an established record of vibrant engagement with international communities through our teaching mission. Our graduate programs draw students from more than 30 countries, among them Taiwan, South Korea, Turkey, Vietnam, Canada, Kuwait, and Japan. In addition, our faculty maintain active intellectual and pedagogical ties abroad. This department is making an impact on the world, and the world is making its mark on this department in the best possible ways.

International Learning and Exchange Programs 

The Department of English at ASU engages with several universities worldwide--University of Graz (Austria), Sichuan University (China), University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany), and University of Leeds (U.K.)--to provide learning experiences beyond our borders.

In addition, other ASU study abroad programs are linked with our faculty and curriculum. Programs in Cambridge, U.K. (Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Cambridge), London, U.K. (London-Literature & Theatre), and Florence, Italy (Florence Summer Program) regularly engage Department of English students in summer study opportunities. 

Recent International Engagement

Africa

• Professor Emerita Thelma Richard, a former Fulbright scholar in Grenada, Spain, and a Fulbright Senior Specialist at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa in 2000, maintains active intellectual and pedagogical ties with the university. Richard's online course, “Postcolonial Mirrors,” which she team-taught with a literature colleague at the university, led an undergraduate student to conduct her honors project on female voices and presentations of women in Zimbabwean literature (see photo below).
   

Thelma Richards and Sam Raditlhalo Presenting via Laptop in South Africa
 

• Neal Lester was an invited speaker at the 2nd Annual Rhyme-and-Reason Conference and Concert Series in Ghana during the summer of 2008.  (Please see photograph below.)
   

Neal Lester in Ghana Market
 

• In November of 2001 James Gee spent quality time in South Africa as a keynote speaker at the conference Literacy Development, Early and Late: Ownership, Identity, and Discourses in Cape Town, South Africa where he discussed Literacy and Language in Global and Local Settings.

Asia

• Melissa Pritchard traveled to Afghanistan in January 2009, where she interviewed Air Force women pilots and members of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) about their experiences. A non-fiction article, "A Woman's Garden, Sown in Blood," which profiles the five U.S. Air Force and Army women she interviewed in Panjshir Province, Afghanistan, was published in The Collagist: Online Literature from Danzc Books, Issue 4, editor Matt Bell, on November 15, 2009.

  In May 2009, Pritchard learned that one of the female soldiers she had interviewed, Ashton Goodman, had been killed in Afghanistan by an IED. Pritchard was inspired to begin The Ashton Goodman Grant through the Afghan Women's Writing Project (AWWP), which supports writing and theater programs for Afghan women. The fund and AWWP site were highlighted as "Website of the Week" July 7 on the Hayden's Ferry Review Blog and in ASU News June 24: "Remember Ashton, Help Afghan Women." An article by Pritchard honoring Sr. Airman Ashton Goodman was published as a feature story in May 2010 in the 10th anniversary issue of O, The Oprah Magazine and an interview with Pritchard entitled "Leaving--and Finding--Her Heart in Afghanistan" was published in ASU News Now on May 6, 2010. As well, Pritchard taught Writing 103 for the Afghan Women's Writing Project in May and June, 2010, and was guest speaker at a Spirit of the Senses salon (Scottsdale, AZ) in July 2010, speaking again about Afghanistan. In October 2010, Pritchard was appointed to the Governing Board of The Afghan Women's Writing Project.

• In January 2009, Melissa Pritchard also made her third trip to India, this time traveling with music student Melissa Glenn. There the pair worked with organizations serving at-risk populations, including Kalam:Margins Write and Seagull Arts in Calcutta, and with Roma Debabrata's anti-trafficking agency, STOP, in New Delhi. An interview with Pritchard, conducted during this January trip, was featured on the homepage of the South Asian youth literary journal, Kinaara, which was launched in July 2009. Fast-forward to February 13, 2011, when Pritchard gave a talk entitled "Child Sex Trafficking: Raising Awareness, Taking Action" at Phoenix's Orangewood Church, in conjunction with a concert by musician Dr. Melissa Glenn. The concert benefitted anti-trafficking agencies in Calcutta and New Delhi, India.

  • Beginning in January of 2006, MFA students, under the tutelage of Melissa Pritchard, established important partnerships with the Daywalka Foundation and Kalam:MarginsWrite in Calcutta, India. They created a writing project that involved adolescents from marginalized areas of Calcutta, mainly brothel districts and railway stations, actively writing poetry, giving readings at local bookstores, tea stalls and other venues, and publishing their first literary magazine (see photo below). Pritchard is an executive board member for the Foundation.

     

Melissa Pritchard in India

• Paul Kei Matsuda organized the Symposium on Second Language Writing (an international conference he has been organizing since 1998) at Nagoya Gakuin University, Nagoya, Japan, in September 2007.

  • Matsuda has also delivered plenary addresses at international symposia and conferences in Asia, including the Symposium in Second Language Writing at Tokyo International University, Japan, in March of 2008, the Asia TEFL Annual Convention in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in July of 2007, the Tamkang International Conference on Second Language Writing at Tamkang University, Taiwan, in December of 2006, and the International Association for World Englishes conference in Nagoya, Japan, in October of 2006.

  • Matsuda is also an Honorary Member of the Japan Association for College English Teachers (JACET). Furthermore, he has been an international visiting researcher at Nagoya University in Nagoya, Japan, and at the University of Hong Kong, in 2007.
• 2009 and 2010 were productive for Paul Matsuda as he travelled through Taiwan, China, Japan, and Thailand as Visiting Professor, invited lecturer and plenary speaker:

  • Invited Lecture: “The Future of Second Language Writing” at the National Chiao Tung University in Hsinchu, Taiwan on April 8, 2009 and “The Idea of the Writing Center Revisited” on April 7, 2009 as well as “Writing for Publication in English” on April 6, 2009.

  • Invited Lecture: “Writing for Publication” at the National Chengchi University in Taiwan. April 9, 2009.

  • Visiting Professor at Tamkang University in Danshuei, Taiwan in July 2009.

  • Invited Lectures at the National Dong Hwa University in Hualien, Taiwan: “Writing for Scholarly Publication in English” on July 13, 2009 and “Voice in Written Discourse” on July 13, 2009.

  • Invited Lecture: “World Englishes and the Teaching of Composition” at the National Chung Cheng University in Taiwan on July 21, 2009 and “The Future of Second Language Writing Research” on July 20, 2009.

  • Invited Lecture: “Writing for Publication in English” at the National Cheng Kung University in Tainan, Taiwan on July 20, 2009.

  • Plenary Speaker: “ELT in the Globalized World.” Language and Language Teaching Conference at the Prince of Songkla University-Hat Yai, Songkhla, Thailand on August 14, 2009.

  • Featured Speaker: “Writing for Publication.” Language and Language Teaching Conference at the Prince of Songkla University-Hat Yai, Songkhla, Thailand on August 14, 2009.

  • Plenary Speaker: “Negotiating Englishes: An Essential Ability for the Next Generation of EFL Learners”, at the 9th Wenshan International Conference at the National Chengchi University in Taipei, Taiwan. May 29, 2010

  • Invited Lecture: “World Englishes and the Teaching of Writing” at the National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei, Taiwan. June 7, 2010.

  • Invited Lecture: “Teaching Writing to Japanese Learners of English” at the Kanda University of Foreign Studies in Chiba, Japan. June 1, 2010.

  • Invited Lecture: “Voice Matters: How Identity is Constructed in Personal and Academic Writing” at the Kanda University of Foreign Studies in Chiba, Japan. June 1, 2010.

  • “First-Year Writing in Hong Kong: Challenges and Possibilities.” City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China, September 9, 2010.

• In 2011, Paul Matsuda had a significant presence in Taiwan, Japan, China, Thailand, and Qatar:

  • Visiting Position

    • Visiting Professor, Thammasat University, Bangkok, Thailand, May 2011.

  • Keynote, Plenary, Featured Talks:

    • Featured Speaker. Japan Association for English Language Teachers, Seinan Gakuin University, Fukuoka, Japan, August 30, 2011.

    • Plenary Speaker. Pan Asian Conference, English Teachers Association, Taipei, Taiwan, November 11, 2011.

    • Featured Panel. “Opening the Gate: Perspectives of International Journal Editors” Paul Kei Matsuda (chair), Diane Belcher, Rosa Manchón, Lourdes Ortega, Paul Thompson, and Leo van Lier. Symposium on Second Language Writing, Taipei, Taiwan, June 11, 2011.

    • Dialogue. “Sharpening the Edge: Developing Arguments that Makes a Difference” Miyuki Sasaki (chair), Dwight Atkinson and Paul Kei Matsuda. Symposium on Second Language Writing, Taipei, Taiwan, June 10, 2011.

    • Featured Colloquium. “Becoming a Writing Researcher.” Wu-chang Vincent Chang (chair), Icy Lee, Hui-Tzu Min, A. Suresh Canagarajah, Miyuki Sasaki, and Paul Kei Matsuda. Symposium on Second Language Writing, Taipei, Taiwan, June 9, 2011.

    • Keynote Speaker. “Writing for International Scholarly Publication: Issues andStrategies for Taiwanese English Education Researchers.” 6th International Conference on English Education. English for Specific Purposes (ESP): English Instruction and Communication. Shih-Chien University, Taipei, Taiwan, April23-24, 2011.

    • Plenary Speaker. Aletheia Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Cross-Cultural Studies, Aletheia University, Danshui, Taiwan, April 30, 2011.

    • Keynote Speaker. “L2 Writing in Context.” International Conference on Second Language Writing Research and Teaching, April 16, 2011.

  • Workshops

    • “Writing for Scholarly Publication in English.” Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, May 12, 2011.

    • “Writing for Scholarly Publication in English.” Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand, May 19, 2011.

    • “Writing for Scholarly Publication.” Thammasat University, Bangkok, Thailand, May 20, 2011.

    • “The Place of Linguistic and Rhetorical Structures in the Teaching of Writing.” Qatar University, Doha, Qatar, January 9, 2011.

    • “Teaching Writing in Context.” Qatar University, Doha, Qatar, January 10, 2011.

  • Invited Talks

    • “Rhetorical Analysis and the Teaching of EFL Writing.” Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, May 12, 2011.

    • “Can Thai Teachers Teach Writing?” Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand, May 19, 2011.

    • “An Integrated Approach to Writing Instruction.” Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand, May 23, 2011.

    • “Situating Second Language Writing Instruction.” Thammasat University, Bangkok, Thailand, May 20, 2011.

    • “The Future of Mass Literacy for the Multilingual Generation.” National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, April 2011.

• Neal Lester presented a three-week lectureship in China in 2007 at Sichuan University; Jewell Parker Rhodes and Jay Boyer taught and presented at the university as well (see photo below).

Neal Lester in China

• Roy Major and the Department of English hosted Visiting Scholar Li Lin, a faculty member from Sichuan University, in 2008 - 2009, during which time Lin interacted with American graduate students and teachers in Major's second language acquisition course and Paul Kei Matsuda's course in second language writing. 

• Karen Adams was primary editor of 2010's Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Lao Studies, which is part of a series of publications coming from the triennial International Conferences on Lao Studies organized by the Center for Lao Studies, San Francisco.

• During the fall of 2006 and 2007, Karen Adams taught ENG 414: Studies in Linguistics in World Englishes and LIN 656: Studies in Cross-Cultural Discourse Analysis.  Her research has included work on Southeast Asian languages and she mentors students who have interests in these areas.  She is a member of the Center for Asian Research and participates in the Asian Pacific American Studies Program.

  • In May of 2007, Adams chaired the committee that hosted the Second International Conference on Lao Studies at Arizona State University. She co-edited a collection of papers from the conf with a colleague from the School of Human Evolution and Social Change.

  • Adams was also awarded an Arizona Humanities Council grant in 2006 that helped to fund "A Proud Journey Home," a museum exhibit at the Tempe Historical Museum that discussed the journey of Cambodian, Laotian and Vietnamese communities from Southeast Asia to their new homes here in Arizona.

• In 2008, Robert Bjork was appointed to the Advisory Board of The Medieval Centre at Taiwan's National Chung Cheng University. 
  • Bjork was also an invited guest of honor and speaker at Seoul National University in Korea during the fall of 2008, during which time he also delivered a plenary address for the Medieval and Early Modern English Studies Association of Korea at Korea University.
     
  • Also in the fall of 2008, Bjork delivered a talk at the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes, Taiwan Branch, and at the annual meeting of the Center for the Humanities and Social Sciences at National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan. 
• Alleen and Don Nilsen have created the website Afghanistan 4Kids with a goal towards enhancing understanding of Afghanistan for teachers, parents and children. Since 2001 more than 135,000 people have visited the site.
   
• Since 2007, Jewell Rhodes has worked with students and faculty at ASU and at Sichuan University to build the first creative writing program at a Chinese university, making numerous visits to Chengdu to teach and to mentor the English faculty there, and hosting these professors here in Arizona.
  • In June, 2009, Rhodes presented at the Singapore Ministry of Education National Creative Writing Conference for gifted high school students, and taught a pedagogy workshop.
• In September 2009 and May 2010 Joe Lockard taught two graduate classes, American Short Stories and Modern American Poetry, at Sichuan University in Chengdu, China as Visiting Associate Professor.

• Joe Lockard has also been invited to give four lectures in China since 2010:

  • “Translation Economies of American Literature in China.” Beijing University, March 24, 2011.

  • “Reading, Writing and Prisoners: Literature and Prisons in the US Southwest & History and Literature of US Slavery.” Sichuan University, December 13, 2010.

  • “‘Authenticity’ and US Multicultural Literature.” Beijing University, June 2010.

  • “Chinese Anthologies of American Literature & Ethnic Pretenders and US Literature.” Sichuan University, May 2010.

• Elly van Gelderen was invited to lecture at the Symposium on Methodology of Morphosyntactic Change: Case Studies and Cross-linguistic Applications in March 2009, Osaka, Japan. 

                                           
                                                                          Elly van Gelderen in Japan
    

• During summer 2011, Elly Van Gelderen made several contributions abroad, including giving a workshop on the diachrony of negation in Athabascan at the International Conference on Historical Linguistics in Osaka, Japan, and teaching a mini/intensive class in grammar and discourse for MTESOL students at the Institute for Foreign Languages at the Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP) in Cambodia.

• Aya Matsuda has made significant contributions to the international community by sharing her knowledge as a guest speaker and plenary speaker over the years. From 2001 to 2005 she was invited to speak in Tokyo, Japan three times:

  • Guest lecture, “World Englishes and English language teaching” given for the TESOL graduate program at Temple University in Tokyo in June, 2005.

  • Guest lecture, “Negotiation of identity and language uses” at Sophia University in Tokyo in June, 2002.

  • Guest lecture, “Language and identity” at Sophia University in Tokyo in June, 2001.

• Aya Matsuda also spent a productive portion of 2009 and 2010 in Japan, Taiwan, and China. She was a plenary speaker at the 2009 conference of the Japan Association for Language Teaching. Her talk was titled “Globalization and English language teaching in Japan.” In July 2009, she was invited to National Chung Cheng University in Chiayi, Taiwan, to give a talk titled “English today: Implications for ELT in Taiwan.” She was also a guest lecturer at the University of Hong Kong, in September 2010.

              
                                          Aya Matsuda in Taiwan

• On December 15, 2010 ASU News reported the ground breaking opening of “The SCU-ASU Center for American Culture, which officially launched Dec. 13 at Sichuan University in Chengdu, China. It is designed to be a model for Sino-American cultural engagement through university-to-university collaboration." The article describes the benefits of this center, with many prominent speakers hailing its unique goal of bridging Chinese-American cultures. Speaking at the conference was Neal Lester, a professor of English and dean of humanities in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, who represented ASU at the center’s opening ceremony. "We are very excited to participate in this moment of global collaboration,’ he told a gathering of more than 200 students, faculty, deans and staff from Sichuan University, along with members of the public and business community.”  

                          
                                             Neal Lester in China for SCU-ASU center opening
   

• Peter Goggin gave presentations on rhetoric, sustainability, and environment in English studies for the Center for American Culture at Sichuan University (Chengdu, China) in March 2011. Dr. Goggin participated with other ASU faculty to give lectures on the theme of “What is America?: Place and Identity,” and to meet with Sichuan University faculty and students. His two presentations were titled "The New American University, the Humanities, and Environmental Sustainability," and "Rhetorics of Environmentalism in the American Landscape."

• Jay Boyer’s Suicide Gal, Won't You Come Out Tonight, Come Out Tonight has been contracted for bilingual publication--English/Mandarin--and will appear in China in An Anthology of Contemporary Short Plays, Volume III, ed. Jianqui Sun, Beijing, China: Foreign Language and Research Press.

• James Gee was a plenary speaker at Learning to Mean, The Ninth International Literacy and Education Research Network Conference on Learning in Beijing, People’s Republic of China in July 2002. 

Australia

• Mark Lussier lectured and taught in Australia in the spring of 2006, both at the University of Melbourne and Monash University.

• Jewell Rhodes, in August 2009, visited Melbourne, Australia to teach master classes at Monash University's Centre for Postcolonial Literature, and presented at the Melbourne Writers Festival.

• Cynthia Hogue publishes internationally on a frequent basis. An example of a recent contribution (December 2009) is “Cora Arsene,” published in the Australian online journal Jacket Magazine.

• Since 2000 James Gee has been visiting Australia, sharing his knowledge of and research in learning and video games at conferences and workshops:

  • Keynote Address: “Are video games good for learning?” at the 2006 Curriculum Corporation Conference in Adelaide, Australia during August of 2006 and during the same month he was invited to the workshop “Games and learning”, Education Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.

  • 10th Garth Boomer Address at the Pleasure, passion, provocation, and learning in video games AATE/ALEA National Conference in Brisbane, Australia during July of 2005.

  • Keynote Address: “The New Literacy Studies and adult literacy as a field” at the Australian Council for Adult Literacy in Freemantle, Australia during September of 2000.

  • Keynote Address: “Capitalism Lite: Implications for Schools, Work, and Society” at the International Conference on Working Knowledge in Sydney, Australia during December of 2000.
     

Europe

• Mark Lussier was an invited lecturer at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, in May of 2009.

• In 2008, Robert Bjork was appointed to the editorial boards of the journals Anglo-Saxon England, published by Cambridge University Press, and Mediaevistik: Internationale Zeitschrift fur Interdisziplinare Mittelalterforschung, Peter Lang Publishing Group, Bern, Germany.

  • In November of 2006,  Bjork delivered the keynote address at the annual meeting of the Viking Society for Northern Research, University of London, United Kingdom, and he delivered the Biannual Fell-Benedikz Lecture at the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom.

  • Bjork held a Visiting Scholar appointment at St. Catherine's College at the University of Cambridge, England, during the Lent and Easter terms of the 1997 academic year, and in the spring of 2008, he served as a Visiting Professor at the Institut für Anglistik at the Universität Innsbruck, Austria.

  • Since 1996, Bjork has been the General Editor of the journal Arizona Studies in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Brepols Publishers, Belgium.   

• Melissa Pritchard was elected as a Hawthornden Fellow at Hawthornden Castle, Scotland, in the summer of 2008. In May 2009, Pritchard was a guest speaker at Professor Mario Materassi’s Southwestern Literature class, University of Florence, Florence, Italy. In 2011, Pritchard was invited back to Italy--this time to Rome--where she gave a lecture on May 13, 2011 during an annual week-long seminar on “American Studies: States of the Art” held at the Center for American Studies (Centro Studi Americani) from May 9-13. Pritchard was also invited to speak at Gabrielle d'Annunzio University in Pescara, Italy, on May 19, 2011.

• Melissa Pritchard was an invited faculty member for the Prague Summer Program from July 2-16, 2011. Other faculty included Charles Baxter, Patricia Hampl, Stuart Dybeck, and Jaimy Gordon.

• In May of 2005, Neal Lester and Maureen Goggin shared with students at Moscow (Russia) State Linguistics University their scholarly expertise respectively on the race and gender politics of hair and on the rhetoric of needlepoint.

• During the summer of 2008, Master of Fine Arts graduate students in creative writing Fernando Perez and Bojan Louis traveled to Prague as participants in a writing program sponsored and administed by Western Michigan University, in partnership with Charles University, Czech Republic. Perez and Louis studied with poets Jack Myers and Roger Weingarten in workshop for one month while attending lectures, faculty readings, and walking tours of the beautiful city.  (See photo below.)

  • Cynthia Hogue and Melissa Pritchard participated in the Prague program during the summer of 2009.
     

Fernando Perez in Prague

• Beth Tobin received a joint fellowship from British Academy and the Huntington Library in June of 2007 to conduct research on eighteenth-century British shell collectors. This short-term award helped to defray the cost of conducting archival research in Britain.

• Since January of 2007, Johanna Wagner has been completing a doctorate degree in this department as she is simultaneously enrolled in the doctorate program at Ghent University (Belgium).

• Cynthia Hogue’s 2006 visit to the Terezín concentration camp, while leading an intensive poetry workshop in Prague, Czech Republic, inspired her poem “An Hour from Town,” which appears in Counterpath, an online special issue on borders and restraints published in 2006.

• Elly van Gelderen was an invited researcher at the Center for Advanced Study of Arts and Letters, Oslo, Norway, during the fall of 2004, and she taught Chomskyan linguistics in Naples, Italy, in May 2007 (see photo below).
   

Elly van Gelderen

• Karen Adams mentored a scholar in the spring of 2008, Marija Janeva-Mihajlovska, here on an exchange from the University of Ss. Kiril and Metodij (UKIM) in Skopje, Macedonia. The student's visit was hosted by the Melikian Center for Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies. She has regularly worked with exchange scholars in linguistics through the Center.

• In 2002, Gregory Castle presented a lecture at the James Joyce Summer School at the University College in Dublin. 

• Other activities in Europe that engage our faculty instruction include directing Summer Study Abroad Programs in Cambridge, England, London, England and in Florence, Italy.  Participating faculty in these ongoing programs have been Mark Lussier, Cajsa Baldini, Heather Hoyt, Christine Helfers, Dan Bivona, Robert Sturges and Rosalynn Voaden.

• Jewell Rhodes gave a reading from her work at Aberystwyth University in Wales, in November 2009 while visiting the university’s creative writing program. In April 2011, she was a creative writing master class speaker at the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival in England.

• David Hawkes delivered an invited lecture, “The Soul: An Obituary,” to the Department of English at St. Andrews University, Scotland in April 2011.

• Cynthia Hogue was in France, June 2010, to meet author Virginie Lalucq. In cooperation with Professor Sylvain Gallais, she is translating Lalucq’s book (co-authored with Jean-Luc Nancy) Fortino Samano. Hogue was the Witter Bynner Translation Fellow at the Santa Fe Art Institute in May 2010, where she and Prof. Gallais began the translation project.

• Late 2009 saw the first critical essay of Cynthia Hogue’s poetry published in England: “Cynthia Hogue’s The Incognito Body as Ecopoethics.” by Elizabeth-Jane Burnett of Birbeck University of London.

• Cynthia Hogue was also a featured poet, critic, and teacher in July and August of 2009 in Prague, Czech Republic and June of 2009 in Exeter, U.K.:

  • Prague, Czech Republic - “Thinking in Song, Seeing in Words.” A poetics lecture delivered at Charles University and a featured reading at Ypisilon Theatre for the Prague Summer Seminar.

  • Exeter, U.K - A Symposium on Ecopoetics and the conference Skylines at University of the Trees, Center for Contemporary Art and the Natural World.  Featured Poet (one of six featured poets in roundtable discussion), and featured reading (one of twelve poets).

• Maureen Goggin was invited to lecture at the University of Graz in Graz, Austria in May 2010 where she presented "Reading American Culture in Needlework Samplers." Goggin gave a keynote address, “Suturing a Wounded Body-Wounded Mind in Red Silk on White Linen: Embodied and Hand(y) Knowledge of Trauma,” for the April 2011 RO-UK5 International Conference, Wounded Bodies-Wounded Minds: Intersections of Memory and Identity, in Iasa, Romania.

• Maureen Goggin and Ileana Orlich traveled to Romania and to set up an agreement for an English-Romanian Center, which is now signed with the Romanian Government and ASU. The agreement brings a professor to ASU to teach Romanian

• Goggin also traveled to and met with parties in Munich, Germany to set up an exchange program with the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. The agreement is in the process of being established now.

• Paul Matsuda was the Chair of the Symposium on Second Language Writing 2010 in May at the Universidad de Murcia in Murcia, Spain. Matsuda has been organizing the Symposium since 1998. In addition to chairing the Symposium, Matsuda gave a plenary address of “The Disciplinary Division of Labor: A Decade Later” and was the featured speaker of “L2 Writing across Continents: Cross Pollination or Inbreeding?” 

• Since 2001 Richard Newhauser has been making an impact in Europe through lectures, as a visiting professor and director:

  • Speaker at The Seventeenth Biennial Congress of The New Chaucer Society in Siena, Italy, July 15-19, 2010.

  • Speaker: "Editing Medieval Texts from Britain in the Twenty-First Century," at the Conference of the Early English Text Society, Saint Anne's College, Oxford, England, May 20-22, 2010.

  • Director of NEH Summer Seminars for College and University Teachers on "The Seven Deadly Sins as Cultural Constructions in the Middle Ages" at Darwin College, Cambridge University from July 17 - August 18, 2006 and July 12 - August 13, 2004.

  • Visiting Distinguished Professor in the Department of History at Radboud Universiteit in Nijmegen, Netherlands in the Spring of 2006 and Summer of 2002.

  • Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England from September, 2000 to
    August, 2001.

  • Invited Presentation: "The Optics of Ps-Grosseteste: Peter of Limoges's Tractatus moralis de oculo," at Editing Medieval Texts from Britain in the Twenty-First Century, sponsored by the Early English Text Society, St. Anne's College, Oxford, May 21, 2010.

  • Invited Lecture: "Sir Gawain and the Ambiguity of Judgment," at the conference on "Medieval Relativism and its Legacy, 1230-1450," Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, June 5-7, 2008.

  • Invited Lecture: "The Seven Deadly Sins: Past and Present," Darwin College, University of Cambridge, August 10, 2006.

  • Invited Lecture: "Editing Peter of Limoges," at the University of Tartu, Estonia, May 12, 2006.

  • Invited Conference Presentation: "Preaching the 'Contrary Virtues,' " at the conference on "Preaching the Virtues in the Middle Ages (13th-15th Centuries)," Radboud Universiteit, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, April 20-21, 2006.

  • Invited Conference Presentation: "Die Hauptlaster als mittelalterliche Anthropologie," at the Freiburger Colloquium 2006: "Laster im Mittelalter," University of Fribourg, Switzerland, February 20-24, 2006.

  • Invited Lecture: "Avaritia and Paupertas: The Place of the Franciscans in the History of Avarice," at the University of Swansea, History Department, February 21, 2001.

  • Visiting Fellow, Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England: September, 2000 – August, 2001.

• Richard Newhauser also gave a presentation to the English Faculty Medieval Research Seminar, Oxford University, on May 18, 2011, and a presentation in a conference on “Fides Virtus. The Virtue of Faith in the Context of the Theological Virtues,” Padua, Italy, July 6-9, 2011.

• In March 2011, Simon Ortiz gave a keynote address, “Indigenous Literature: Land Culture, Community. And Change and Integrity,” at the 32nd Annual American Indian Workshop, University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

• During the spring semester of 2011, ASU Writing Programs instructor Angela Christie and Chandra Laizeau of the Sorbonne University – Paris 4 brought American and French university students together online for a transatlantic collaboration transacted in English. The project, entitled “In Search of Clean Water,” was designed to stimulate international dialogue, engage participants in a subject of mutual interest, foster professional profiles reflecting awareness of global issues, and expand multimedia communication skills.

• Since 2001 Jeff MacSwan has shared his knowledge and research in the field of bilingualism and codeswitching throughout Europe as a visiting researcher, visiting professor, and invited speaker: 

  • Visiting Researcher/Invited Speaker: “Research programs in codeswitching” at the Centre for the Study of Multilingualism at the University of Bangor in Wales in June 2009.

  • Invited speaker: “Research on codeswitching” at the Centre for the Study of Multilingualism at the
    University of Hamburg in Germany during July 2009.

  • Invited Speaker: “Language minority education” at the University of Bremen in Germany during July 2009.

  • Invited Speaker: ”Minimalism and codeswitching: On the edges of FI” at the Bergische Universität
    Wuppertal Wuppertaler Linguistisches Forum at Wuppertal University in Germany on December 13, 2004.

  • Visiting Professor: University of Hamburg Center for the Study of Multilingualism teaching Codeswitching on minimalist assumptions on December 9, 2004.

  • Invited Speaker: “Codeswitching and the minimalist program” for the Symposium on Language
    Interaction and Translation at the Centre for the Study of Multilingualism at Hamburg University in
    Germany on October 15, 2001.

• With research and publishing interests in sociolinguistics, video games and learning, and discourse analysis, James Gee has a natural and profound impact on the international community. Over the years he has been keynote speaker, invited speaker, and conference contributor throughout Europe sharing his vast knowledge and making positive progress in education. Keynote addresses by James Gee in recent years include:

  • Eighth International Literacy and Education Research Network Conference on Learning. "Theories of Learning in Digital Literacies” in Spetses, Greece, July 2001.

  • The United Kingdom Literacy Association (UKLA) 40th International Conference. “Learning, language and video games” in Manchester, England July 2004.

  • CAL’05 Virtual Learning? “Conversation: Why video games are good for your soul,” in Bristol, England with Henry Jenkins, April 2005 and “A fond farewell to language as we know (knew) it” also in April 2005.

  • DREAM Conference: Informal Learning and Digital Media. “Learning is the engine that drives good video games” at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense, Denmark, September 2006.

  • Game in’ Action Conference. “Deep learning, commercial games, and ‘serious games’” at Goteborg University in Goteborg, Sweden, June 2007.

  • International Conference on Organizational Learning, Knowledge, and Capabilities. “The future of learning” in Copenhagen, Denmark, April 2008.

  • Handheld Learning Conference. “Beyond platforms: Deep learning in games” in London, England, October 2009.

The Americas

• In March of 2009, Gregory Castle was the O'Neil Fund for Irish Literature Visiting Speaker at the University of Victoria Department of English in British Columbia.
   
• Bob Bjork is a member of the editorial board for Toronto Old Norse-Icelandic Studies (TONIS), University of Toronto Press. He is also a member of the executive board for Iter: Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance, a University of Toronto project.

• In February of 2006, Paul Kei Matsuda led workshops on academic writing and writing programs at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City.

• The Department of English co-hosted two Canadian Fulbright Scholars with the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, Tom Wayman in 2007 and Ross Leckie in 2008.

• Alberto Rios visited the University of Calgary in Calgary, Canada in Spring 2009 as the Markin-Flanagan Distinguished Writer.

• Richard Newhauser gave a keynote address at the Graduate Conference in History and Classics at the University of Alberta in March 2005. Newhauser also made a valuable international contribution as an external examiner for PhD dissertation at the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto in September, 2009.

• Extensive speaking engagements enable James Gee to spread his expertise throughout the world. In recent years Gee has travelled widely throughout North America sharing his knowledge and at conferences as a keynote or invited speaker:

  • Invited speaker: “Learning by design: Video games as learning machines” at the International Conference on Educational Multimedia in Quebec City, Canada in March 2004.

  • Keynote address: “Video games and leaning” at the Children’s Learning in a Digital World Conference held at the OWL Children’s Trust and Brock Research Institute for Youth Studies at Brock University in Ontario, Canada in August 2005.

  • Keynote address: “Deep learning properties of good video games: How far can they go?” at the Interacting with Immersive Worlds Conference at Brock University in St. Catharines, Canada during June 2007.

  • Colloquium on Discourses, Identity and Educational Practices: “Identities, literacies, and Discourses at (Digital) play in the global world” at the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California in Ensenada, Mexico during April 2008. 

• In November, 2008, Melissa Pritchard traveled as an invited writer and observer to Ecuador with a medical mission team from Women For World Health. ASU News published a December 2008 interview with her about her experiences.

• Carrie Gillon was an invited speaker to the Editors' Association of Canada's annual meeting, held in Vancouver in May 2011. Her talk was entitled, "Storytelling in Squamish and Innu-aimun: Reference tracking strategies."

• In November of 2007, Elizabeth Horan delivered a presentation on her book, co-edited with Doris Meyer, titled This America of Ours: The Letters of Gabriela Mistral and Silvina Ocampo (University of Texas Press, 2003), at the Villa Ocampo in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

• Horan also delivered a presentation at the Universidad de Catolica in Santiago, Chile, and she co-presented and participated in a panel discussion at the Universidad de Santiago de Chile, during November of 2007. The presentations and discussion were related to the Ocampo book.
   
• Elizabeth Horan continues to make many significant contributions to Latin American scholarship through her published articles on her research into Latin American Literature in the journals Historia (Santiago, Chile) and Literatura Chilena. Not only did she present at the Latin American Studies Association in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil in June 2010, she is an executive board member for two international journals: Chasqui and the Latin American Literary Review.

Multicontinental

•  Paul Kei Matsuda was the chair of the Committee to Internationalize TESOL Quarterly from 2003 to 2005 and is currently a member of the Internationalization Committee at the Council of Writing Program Administrators, a position held since 2006.

• Not only have two major international conferences of the North American Society for the Study of Romanticism been hosted by Mark Lussier and this department (2000 and 2006), but the conference brought to ASU scholars of Romanticism from four continents and thirteen countries. The 2006 conference looked at the intersection of Romantic literary and philosophical practices with pedagogical practices (see photo below).

  • Lussier and Bruce Matsunaga co-edited a collection of essays which emerged from the conference and was published in 2008, titled Engaged Romanticism: Romanticism as Praxis (Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press).

Participants in the 2006 International Romanticism Conference hike South Mountain in Phoenix, Arizona with host Mark Lussier

• Heather Maring is a member of the editorial team at the Intangible Heritage Section of UNESCO, Paris. In the summer of 2006, Heather worked in Paris, compiling A Manual on Oral Traditions and Expressions, in line with the stipulations of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Heritage. In addition, while in Paris, Heather became a temporary member of the UNESCO Secretariat while assisting at the first session of the General Assembly of the States Parties to the 2003 Convention.

• Joe Lockard’s Antislavery Literature Project, a highly successful research and pedagogical tool online since 2002 featuring contributions from affiliates from international locales such as Ireland, Israel and Hong Kong, receives visits from over 100 countries, mostly from China, the United Kingdom, South Africa, France, Singapore, Canada, the Russian Federation, and Germany.

  • Lockard has also spent several weeks at Sichuan University in China aiding in the development of a digital humanities and public scholarship project on Chinese translations of American literature.  This work is ongoing as of 2011.  
• Claudia Sadowski-Smith's research has focused on multi-ethnic and transnational representations of globalization, immigration, and national borders in the Americas and in Europe. Besides several essays, she has published Border Fictions: Globalization, Empire, and Writing at the Boundaries of the United States (University of Virginia Press, 2008), Globalization on the Line: Culture, Capital, and Citizenship at U.S. Borders (Palgrave, 2002).
   
• Jay Boyer's plays and short fiction appear in many international venues, such as the 2005 reading of Empty Stages at London's Jermyn Street Theatre, United Kingdom, and the 2001 production of Heartbeats at Belleville's Pinnacle Playhouse, Canada, and the production of A History of the Last Millenium at the Robert Gill Theatre in Toronto, Canada, in 2003.

• Alleen Nilsen and Don Nilsen serve on the Executive Board of the International Society for Humor Studies. Furthermore, as presidents of the American Name Society, (an organization which has actually expanded into being international), the Nilsens edited a special issue of the Names journal in March of 2008 focusing on "Names and Ethnicity." Authors include Livingstone Makondo from Midlands State University in Zimbabwe, Africa; Karen Kow Yip Cheng from the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; and Bertie Neethling from the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa.  They have served on the board since the inception of the ISHS in the late 1980's. 

  • Alleen Nilsen was appointed to the editorial board for Humor, a quarterly journal put out by the International Society for Humor Studies. She is also on the CEE (Conference on English Education), a unit of the National Council of Teachers of English, which over the last thirty years has become international. 
     

  • Don Nilsen continues to impact the international community through his commitments as a member of the Comité Scientifique International of Humoresque from 1997 to present, in his role as Founding Executive Secretary and Historian for the International Society for Humor Studies 1989 to present. Additionally, Don sits on the editorial boards for the HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research (1987-2010) and Hephzibah: Journal of Arts and Pedagogy of Nigeria, West Africa (2006-2010).  

  • Literature for Today's Young Adults 8th edition, co-authored by Ken Donelson and Alleen Nilsen, is used in Canada, England, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as in the United States.

• Robert Bjork is editor of the Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages, published in 2010, with about 700 international contributors. He is also a member of the Standing Committee for CARMEN (Cooperative for the Advancement of Research through a Medieval European Network), 2005 - present.  

• Rosalynn Voaden is co-editor of the Yale Companion to Medieval Holy Women, published in 2010, a volume with contributions from scholars in England, Holland, Germany, Canada, and the United States.

• Dan Bivona organized and presented at the Nineteenth Century Studies Association conference on "Money/Myths" which was held in Albuquerque in March 2011. About a third of the attendees were from overseas: Australia, UK, Canada, and Belgium were best represented.

• With Sylvain Gallais, Cynthia Hogue has completed several translation projects:

  • A book-length translation of Fortino Sámano (Les débordements du poème), trans. from the French of Virginie Lalucq and Jean-Luc Nancy (a contract for publication is currently under negotiation).

  • Fortino Sámano (Les débordements du poème) (five poems), trans. from the French of Virginie Lalucq and Jean-Luc Nancy, with Sylvain Gallais, in Aufgabe 10 (2011): 54-57. Special issue on contemporary French ets (ed. Cole Swensen).

  • V illes (five poems), trans. from the French of Nicole Brossard, with Sylvain Gallais, in lyrikline. International, online poetry and translation compendium curated by

  • Literaturwerkstatt (Berlin), available at: http://lyrikline.org

  • Formage (four poems), trans. from the French of Nathalie Quintaine, with Sylvain Gallais, in The Drunken Boat. Special translation issue available at: http://www.thedrunkenboat.com/

  • Grand ensemble (four poems). trans. from the French of Nathalie Quintaine, with Sylvain Gallais, in Aufgabe 10 (2011): 94-97. Special issue on contemporary French poets (ed. Cole Swensen).

• Dawn Penich-Thacker served as a volunteer working to develop English language curriculum for the Center for Outreach and Advocacy for Refugees (COAR) from August of 2006 to October of 2007. And since September of 2005, Dawn has also been teaching English to Somali Bantu refugees as a volunteer for the International Rescue Committee, the leading refugee aid organization in the world.

• Heather Hoyt provides excellent cyber mentoring of graduate students and professors from Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Iran, and Kuwait seeking her advice and feedback on their research and teaching of Arab American literature and contemporary Arab literature in English. Since Heather first offered this original special topics class, “Arab Women Writers” in spring 2004, she has received a steady stream of cyber inquires about this relatively new but timely area of scholarly and pedagogical inquiry.

• In April 2009, Aya Matsuda gave a workshop on “Standard setting and standard(s) of English(es)” to a group of Russian teachers of English. The workshop was sponsored by the World Learning Russian Project and held in Tucson, Arizona.
   
• For the past 6 years, Jewell Rhodes and the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing's Program for Global Engagement have funded travel opportunities for creative writing MFA students to Greece, Argentina, England, Singapore, China, Canada, Mexico, India, Japan, Belize, Australia, and the Czech Republic. These fellowships give students experience as global writers as they teach creative writing, attend conferences, and participate in workshops and festivals.

• For the last several years Jeff MacSwan has made multiple unique contributions in the area of bilingualism and codeswitching to the international community. In October of 2009 he was an invited speaker at the Mellon Foundation Symposium on the Bilingual Mind at Syracuse University discussing “Programs and proposals in codeswitching research: Unconstraining theories of bilingual language mixing.” He is also an Editorial Board member for International Multilingual Research Journal; a board he has served on since 2006. Additionally, MacSwan has contributed to the ISB4: Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Bilingualism through publication contributions, lectures and as a steering committee member.