Greetings, Undergrounders! We hope your first week of spring quarter is progressing well. April is practically here and we can’t wait for the inevitable new blooms, outside lectures (if we’re lucky!) and warm, sunny days. Hopefully not too sunny, though, or else it’ll be hard to stay inside and study.

Some amazing news for the DePaul English department, and the humanities in general, arrived over spring break!

John Shanahan, associate dean of LAS and associate professor of English, and co-principal investigators Robin Burke (CDM – Computing), Antonio Ceraso (WRD) and Megan Bernal (DePaul Library) have been awarded a $75,000 grant by the NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) Office of Digital Humanities for their project “Reading Chicago Reading: Modeling Texts and Readers in a Public Library System.” The project is briefly described as “a pilot study on how analyzing patron responses to a citywide reading program can help scholars and librarians better understand which book genres and styles prove most meaningful to the community.” Given that DePaul has long been a partner of the CPL’s One Book, One Chicago program, it seems like an especially great proposal.               Congrats to Prof. Shanahan and the team!

Speaking of the Humanities, the DePaul Humanities Center has a spring calendar that looks full of amazing literary-themed events. Here’s a sneak preview:

Wednesday, April 6
Humanities Center Event: DePaulywood Squares (featuring ENG professor ANne CLark Batlett!)
7:00 – 9:00 pm
Student Center 120

Monday, April 11
Humanities Center Event: Making the Novel Novel, Moby Dick
7:00 – 9:00 pm
Student Center 120

Thursday, April 21
Making the Novel Novel: The XenoText
7:00 – 9:00 pm
Student Center 120

We’ll be keeping you updated on these and the other events when they come around. Last but certainly not least, the Spring English Conference is almost here. Send us your Academic or Creative Work and participate in a day of panels and talks held on Friday, April 9th. Email englishconference.dpu(at)gmail.com with questions and submissions. 

*Are you wondering what all the conference fuss is about? Worry not – we’re here to explain.

Here’s the deal. It’s a day each spring organized by two grad students (yours truly included)  to gather the grad and undergrad students in the English Department and discuss and share our work. As ENG students, we spend hours and hours and devote ourselves to the study and writing of literature and creative work – this is your chance to hear what your classmates work on and present your own papers and projects. It’s great experience for graduate work, postgrad work, and (GASP) your impending professional life, where you will quite often be required to present your ideas and work in a compelling and confident way. (It’s true in ANY line of work. Believe me.)

We group the submissions by theme, so you’d be presenting your work alongside other similar work. If you write fiction, poetry, or nonfiction, you’ll be reading it aloud and talking about the creative process along with other similar presenters.If you have an idea, but it’s not done yet, you can submit a proposal. See the 2016 SPEC Submission Guidelines for details.*