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  • 23 Apr 2019 by Alan Gravano

    MELUS 2020 Call for Papers

    University of New Orleans

    April 2-5, 2020

    Le Meriden Hotel

    “Awakenings and Reckonings: Multiethnic Literature and Effecting Change—Past, Present, and Future”

    MELUS 2020 Call for Paper

    University of New Orleans

    April 2-5, 2020

    MELUS 2020 takes its theme’s inspiration from the 2016 novel In the Wake: On Blackness and Being in which Christina Sharpe draws on various meanings of “wake” to consider Black experience in the US. She invokes the watery wake that followed the slave ship, the ritual of the funeral wake, and a state of consciousness, wakefulness, or “wokeness” that signals awareness about new and enduring legacies of injustice.

    New Orleans is an apt site for considering how multiethnic literatures have been in dynamic relation to various wakes. Ships, burials, mournings, and hauntings have long defined the experiences of and stories told by New Orleanians and those who have passed through the city. A port city that served as 19th century America’s largest trading center of enslaved Africans and African Americans. New Orleans saw one of the most important and overlooked rebellions led by enslaved people in the US. The long wake of slavery created dramatic race and class disparities. The wake of the failure of the federal levee system, which caused the tragedy that was Hurricane Katrina, continues to be visible 14 years later.

    The conference theme also alludes to Kate Chopin’s classic New Orleans novel, The Awakening, which challenged gender and sexual norms of the late 19th century. Chopin is part of a robust genealogy of writers who have told—and continue to tell—stories of shifting consciousness, social change, and painful reckonings set in and around the South. As such, we aim to highlight and discuss how literature has responded to and effected change in the past, present, and in imagined and manifested futures. New Orleans has been a key site for moments or processes of personal and collective awakenings. For many, Katrina was an important moment of awakening or renewed consciousness about the adaptation of past structures of exploitation and disposability for a new era.

    New Orleans’ diverse communities also provide considerable opportunities for examining how immigrant groups and their literatures have effected and contine to effect change. The city’s port was the second largest point of entry for immigrant to the US in the 19th century, among them German, Irish, Italian, and Sicilian, and Haitian immigrants after the 1809 revolution. More recently, Vietnamese and Latin American immigrants have also helped to shape the city. Their voices join others in moment of awakenings and reckonings.

    We welcome proposals for individual papers, panels, and roundtables, as well as creative writing and pedagogical discussions, on the broad spectrum of underground histories in multi-ethnic literature, culture, and performance including but not limited to:

    • Representations of wakes, wakefulness, and awakenings;
    • Representations of reckoning with the past;
    • Shifts in consciousness;
    • Reckoning with the South’s Confederate past;
    • Literature and public memory/monuments;
    • Representations of ports, shipping, and circulation;
    • Representations of funerals, wakes, and burials;
    • And any other topics related to multi-ethnic literature and change.

    The MELUS 2020 conference website, along with a complete CFP, will be available later this summer. In the meantime, if you have any questions, you may email Kim Martin Long at kmlong@uno.edu

  • 23 Apr 2019 by Alan Gravano

    William J. Connell, Professor of History and Joseph M. and Geraldine C. La Motta Chair in Italian Studies, has been selected a 2019 Andrew Carnegie Fellow. As a recipient of the so-called "Brainy Award," the fellowship includes a $200,000 grant to devote significant time to research, writing, and publishing in the humanities and social sciences.

    Connell's project, Tracking Migrant Labor in Renaissance Florence, researches the ending of a century-old policy of free immigration and the passage of a law requiring foreign workers to register with the state by purchasing numbered annual work permits.

    "My discovery in Florence's Archivio di Stato of the registers recording deliveries of these work permits over a 40-year period, from 1473 to 1512, means for the first time we can measure this substantial population. Particularly intriguing is the way data analysis can be applied to these records to demonstrate in a very precise way, how this extremely mobile population fluctuated over time in response to growth or downturns in the economy, and also around war or plague," said Connell.

    The Carnegie Fellowship supports Connell's efforts to shed important light on this topic, looking at the structuring of Florence's society around the city's political, scholarly and artistic achievements as well as what citizenship looked like in an early modern state versus in classical antiquity or the medieval commune.

    "The issuance of these numbered permits for categories of outsiders is evidence that a new conception of citizenship was taking hold. The lower classes of laborers who were native to Florence, for example, did not have to purchase permits for their work," explained Connell, sharing that this research mirrors some of the conversations still going on around immigration, refugee and labor issues today.

    "Professor William Connell has been one of our scholarly treasures for years and we are very proud of his accomplishment in being selected as a Carnegie Fellow. An international expert on Machiavelli, Dr. Connell is highly qualified for this project having published a series of original studies on Renaissance Florence and Machiavelli, additional books on Italian and Italian-American culture more broadly, and a highly-regarded translation of Machiavelli's Prince. The range and dedication of Dr. Connell's teaching on both the undergraduate and graduate levels serve a thriving research enterprise that is acclaimed and systematic," said Mary J. Meehan, Ph.D., Interim President.

    A distinguished panel of 16 jurors chose the fellows based on the quality, originality and potential impact of their proposals, as well as each scholar's capacity to communicate the findings to a broad audience. The jurors are all scholars and intellectual leaders from the some of the world's leading educational institutions, foundations, and scholarship societies – and six are either current or former university presidents. For 2019, the Corporation received a total of 273 nominations. Each underwent a preliminary anonymous evaluation by national experts in the relevant fields. Then, the top proposals were forwarded to the members of the jury for review and the final selection of 32 fellows for the Class of 2019.

    "Andrew Carnegie believed in education and understood its influence on the progress of society and mankind. The Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program is an integral part of carrying out the mission he set for our organization," said Vartan Gregorian, president of Carnegie Corporation of New York and president emeritus of Brown University. "Over the past five years, we at Carnegie have been very impressed by the quality, range, and reach of our fellows' work. This year is no exception. We salute this year's class and all of the applicants for demonstrating the vitality of American higher education and scholarship."

    Carnegie Corporation of New York was established in 1911 by Andrew Carnegie to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding. In keeping with this mandate, the Corporation's work focuses on the issues that Andrew Carnegie considered of paramount importance: international peace, education and knowledge, and the strength of our democracy.

    Connell, founding director of the Charles and Joan Alberto Italian Studies Institute and co-editor of The Routledge History of Italian Americans (2018), has received numerous recognitions including fellowships at Harvard's Villa I Tatti and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the Mille Grazie Award of UNICO National, and the Presidential Award of the Columbian Foundation. Twice he served as a gubernatorial appointee on the New Jersey Italian Heritage Commission. In 2016 he received the Monsignor Joseph Granato Italian Culture Medal of Seton Hall University.

  • 01 Apr 2019 by Alan Gravano

    Student Athletics Program Coordinator in QueensNew York

     

    Job Title: Student Athletics Program Coordinator

    Job ID: 20416

    Location: Queens College

    Full/Part Time: Full-Time

    Regular/Temporary: Regular

    POSITION DETAILS

    Reporting to the Athletics Director, the Student Athletics Program Coordinator will assist with the planning, coordination and administrative duties associated with the Queens College Summer Camp and other year round community recreation programs. In addition to the CUNY Title Overview, specific duties include, but are not limited to:• Work closely with the Athletics Director to support summer camp planning and operations• Assist with the purchasing of supplies for the summer camp and other department student and community programs• Run frequent reports on program registration data and communicate information to the Athletics Director • Assist in the creation of annual budgets for summer camp and all community based programs• Maintain and organize purchasing, invoicing paperwork for submission to the Athletic Department Finance Manager• Assist with program evaluation processes to increase and improve services• Stay up-to-date on all NYC Board of Health summer camp codes and regulations• Collaborate with the Office of Communications on the development of promotional materials for programs and assist with the promotion of summer camp programming at Open House events• Coordinate the hiring and payroll processes for part-time summer camp support staff

    QUALIFICATIONS

    Bachelor's degree required.PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS• Two year’s work experience in a summer camp or intercollegiate athletics setting• Experience in children’s educational or recreational setting• Marketing/ promotional experience a plus • Demonstrated ability in and a commitment to educational values• Strong interpersonal skills and customer service orientation• A flexible schedule is expected to include working some nights and weekends as necessary• Knowledge/experience with Windows and Microsoft office

    CUNY TITLE OVERVIEW

    Supports the administration of College athletic programs.

    • Assists with compliance programs activities required by the CUNYAC (CUNY Athletic Conference) and external bodies

    • Serves student-athletes through providing advising services and enrichment programs

    • Organizes student-athlete communications and activities, and other department work such as calendars, materials, reports, handbooks, and compliance manuals

    • Performs related duties as assigned.

    CUNY TITLE

    Assistant to HEO

    FLSA

    Non-exempt

    COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS

    Salary $39,282 - $53,758 (commensurate with education and experience).CUNY's benefits contribute significantly to total compensation, supporting health and wellness, financial well-being, and professional development. We offer a range of health plans, competitive retirement/pension benefits and savings plans, tuition waivers for CUNY graduate study and generous paid time off. Our staff also benefits from the extensive academic, arts, and athletic programs on our campuses and the opportunity to participate in a lively, diverse academic community in one of the greatest cities in the world.

    HOW TO APPLY

    If you are viewing this job posting on any website other than CUNYfirst, please follow the instructions below:- Go to cuny.jobs- In the box under "job title/ keyword", enter "20416" - Click on "Student Athletics Program Coordinator" - Click on the "Apply Now" button and follow the instructions.Please note that the candidates must upload a cover letter describing related qualifications and experience, resume, and the name and contact information of three (3) professional references as ONE DOCUMENT in any of the following formats: .doc, .docx, or .pdf format.**Please use a simple name for the document that you uploaded, for example: JDoeResume. Documents with long names cannot be parsed by the application system.

    CLOSING DATE

    April 17, 2019

    JOB SEARCH CATEGORY

    CUNY Job Posting: Managerial/Professional

    EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY

    CUNY encourages people with disabilities, minorities, veterans and women to apply. At CUNY, Italian Americans are also included among our protected groups. Applicants and employees will not be discriminated against on the basis of any legally protected category, including sexual orientation or gender identity. EEO/AA/Vet/Disability Employer.