Paul Michael Lützeler received the Bundesverdienstkreuz 1.Klasse - the German Cross of Merit, First Class.  This award is the highest bestowed in the fields of German culture, economic and politics.  It was presented on May 10 by Alexander Petri, the Consul General of Germany.

During the spring semester, Robert E. Hegel, Professor of Chinese and CompLit, delivered papers at the Association for Asian Studies meeting in Washington, DC ("Making Convincing Arguments in Legal Cases") and at an April conference on violence in China held at the University of Illinois ("'Real' vs. 'Imagined' Violence in Fiction and Case Reports"). He also wrote an essay for a volume on late seventeenth century literary responses to the fall of the Ming entitled "Dreaming the Past: Memory and Continuity Beyond the Ming Fall." Over the summer he taught his East Asian Philosophies course in May, and from May to July he directed a Mellon Dissertation Seminar in Literature and History, The Study of Elite and Popular Cultures in Early Modern East Asia. Thereafter he fled the St. Louis summer to spend several weeks in Maine.

"Function analysis," developed by Emma Kafalenos, has recently been acknowledged as having influenced the development of software (specifically the selection of "headings," or categories) for communicating clinical information by healthcare professionals in the British medical system. (http://www.nhsia.nhs.uk/headings/pdf/ (See Appendix 10: Functional Analysis, pp. 127ff; her name appears on pp. 2, 129, 130.)  In addition, her article on the effects of embedding in "The Truman Show", Whistler's "Caprice in Purple and Gold: The Golden Screen", and Cortazar's "Blow-Up" is scheduled for publication in the Spring 2003 issue of Poetics Today.

Fatemeh Keshavarz finished the first draft of the most recent monograph she has been working on: "Recite In the Name of the Red Rose: Poetic Strategies of Sacred Making in Twentieth Century Iran". Her article titled "Pregnant with God: The Poetic Art of Mothering the Sacred in Rumi's Fihi ma fih" should appear in the Journal of South Asia Studies in the fall.  Also in the fall, her recent translations of two ghazals of Rumi will appear in LVNG10, the literary quarterly published in Chicago. This is a special issue dedicated to translation. And if that wasn't keeping her busy enough, she will present a paper titled "Flight of the Birds: The Poetic Animating the Spiritual in 'Attar's Conference of the Birds" in a conference on Farid al-Din 'Attar and the Persian Sufi Tradition organized by the Center for Near and Middle Eastern Studies of the School of Oriental and African Studies (London University).

Mei Chun (PhD candidate in Chinese & Comp Lit) presented her paper, “The Narrative Significance of Verse: Policing Voices in ‘Pearl Shirt Re-Encountered,’” for the Midwest Conference on Asian History and Culture at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio on May 2nd and 3rd.  She will present it again for 51st Annual Meeting of the Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs held this year at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio, on September 27-29.

Jonathan Graas presented "The Reflected Self of Stephen's Lacanian Mirror" last June in Milwaukee at the American Conference on Irish Studies at Marquette University.

DOUBLE WINNERS FOR COMP LIT!  Kamaal Haque won first place in the graduate category of the Olin Library's 15th Annual Carl Neureuther Student Book Collection Competition, with a collection entitled "Half a World Away: History, Ethnography and Literature of Afghanistan and Pakistan".  And undergrad student Jennifer Losi, who is double-majoring in Comparative Arts and Drama, won first place in the undergraduate category.

Heidi Spear spent time in London this summer in order to have access to specific resources for her ongoing projects.  At the British Library, she conducted research on Pirandellian cinema for a paper she intends to submit for publication.  In addition, Heidi met with contacts at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and the Roundhouse (a versatile theater space, which was home to the Royal Shakespeare Company this summer) to discuss her dissertation ideas. 

Daniel Medin recently completed the YIVO program in intensive Yiddish at Columbia University, and will soon depart for Berlin to begin dissertation research on a DAAD grant.

And the newest member of the CL family -

Marcus Chengyuan Lu, son of Jie Zhang (PhD candidate in Chinese & Comp Lit) and Qilong Lu, was born on March 14, 2002. He weighed in at 7lbs 1oz and 21 inches. This picture was taken in June, when he was three months old.

His mother says he likes to read for fun.

Brian McHale's visit in September was postponed.  We hope to re-schedule him soon.

Upcoming -

October 25, 2002

3:00 PM 

Formal Lounge of the Woman's Building

Linda Hutcheon, Professor of English and Comparative Lit at the University of Toronto

and Michael Hutcheon, Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto