Student Organizations

Graduate English Association

The GEA organizes and sponsors academic and social events throughout the year, with the aim of bringing all English graduate students together. Look for teaching and research seminars, happy hours, seasonal parties, poetry and fiction readings, an alternate jobs panel, and fundraising book sales. Tri-Chairs are elected at the end of spring semester, one each from literature, creative writing, and composition and rhetoric. Tri-Chairs for 2003-2004 are Ann Henson, Rebecca Randall, and Brooke Rollins.

American Literature Colloquium

The ALC was founded to foster intellectual exchange among graduate students and faculty interested in all facets of American literature. The ALC hosts research presentations by faculty or guest lecturers and has sponsored panels on such topics as book collecting, the job search, influential scholarship, and current questions in the field. The ALC collaborated with the Nineteenth-Century British Club to organize the department’s first national graduate student conference in Spring 2003. The collaboration will continue this spring with a jointly sponsored nineteenth-century British and American conference, and the ALC will launch its own twentieth-century conference open to graduate students and faculty. Tri-chairs for 2003-2004 are Chris Heafner, Michelle Cooper, and Teri Amlong.

Nineteenth-Century British Club

This organization brings together students and faculty interested in the literature, culture, and history of the Romantic and Victorian periods in England. The club hosts academic discussions and research presentations and sponsors annual events like the Jane Austen dinner. In Spring 2003, the club collaborated with the American Literature Colloquium to organize the department’s first national graduate student conference in nineteenth-century English and American literature. The great success of that conference has inspired a second nineteenth-century graduate conference for Spring 2004. Current co-chairs are Josh Brewer and Amy Smith.

Composition and Rhetoric Association

This organization is made up of students and faculty interested in the teaching of and research in composition, rhetoric, and related topics. It sponsors presentations by faculty members, discussions of current articles, opportunities to assemble panels for the Conference on College Composition and Communication, and plans social activities. The association also presents the annual Nancy Thompson Achievement Award for enduring service to the field and excellence in scholarly research. The current chair is Brooke Rollins.

See also student-run publications: the literary journal Yemassee and the scholarly journal Cleave.