The Rackham Graduate School, the Department of English Language and Literature, and the Joint Program in English and Education present two Rackham Centennial Alumni Lectures on Friday, October 26, 2012.
Both lectures and reception will be held in 3222 Angell Hall.
Following an introduction by her mentor, Enoch Brater, Deborah R. Geis will present a lecture at 1:30pm on
“Six (Graduate) Degrees of Separation: Plays and Pathways after Ann Arbor.”
Deborah R. Geis received her B.A. in English and French from Cornell University in 1982, and her Ph.D. in English from the University of Michigan in 1988. She has taught at Queens College of the City University of New York, the University of Tennessee, and Oberlin College. She is associate professor and former chair of the English Department at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, where she specializes in drama and contemporary literature. Her books include Postmodern Theatric(k)s: Monologue in Contemporary American Drama and the recent Suzan-Lori Parks (both Univ. of Michigan Press). She is also co-editor, with Steven F. Kruger, of Approaching the Millennium: Essays on Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, and editor of the anthology Considering MAUS: Approaches to Art Spiegelman’s “Survivor’s Tale of the Holocaust. She has also published essays on many other contemporary dramatists, among them, Maria Irene Fornes, David Rabe, and David Mamet. She is also a performance poet who has competed in the National Poetry Slam and elsewhere across the country. A reception with light refreshments follows at 2:45PM in 3222 AH.
Following an introduction by Anne Gere, Sarah Ruffing Robbins will present a lecture at 4:00pm entitled
“Learning Legacies: Cross-Cultural Teaching Narratives in American Education.”
Sarah Ruffing Robbins is Lorraine Sherley Professor of American Literature at TCU. She is the author of the Choice-award-winning Managing Literacy, Mothering America: Women's Narratives on Reading and Writing in the Nineteenth Century and the Cambridge Introduction to Harriet Beecher Stowe and is co-editor, with Ann Pullen, of Nellie Arnott’s Writings on Angola, 1905-1913: Missionary Narratives Linking Africa and America. Sarah has also co-edited several essay volumes growing out of K-through-university collaborative projects funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the National Writing Project; these include Writing America; Writing Our Communities; and Teachers’ Writing Groups. Most recently, she co-edited and wrote several essays for Bridging Cultures: International Women Faculty Transforming the U.S. Academy. Sarah teaches courses in American literature; writing, authorship and literacy studies; and American cultural studies. She is currently serving as Vice President and conference director of the Society for the Study of American Women Writers (SSAWW) and has also held leadership positions in the American Studies Association (ASA), the Modern Language Association (MLA), the National Writing Project (NWP) and the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). Prior to enrolling at the U of M in 1990 as a Regents and CEW Scholar in the Joint Program in English and Education, Sarah taught English/Language Arts and journalism for over a decade in a range of secondary, middle school, K-12, and community college settings in Georgia and Michigan.
