Penn State Center for American Literary Studies

It's the final week to get your quills/pens out for our "Forms of Address" Writing Contest! Submit your best work in one of the following categories: Best Short Fiction, Best Nonfiction, Best Poetry, and Best Entry for a Writer under 18. Winners will receive a $200 grand prize! Visit our website for more information: https://cals.la.psu.edu//centre-county-reads-cals-communit Centre County Reads Penn State English

On Friday, March 19, join us for our fourth webinar of the "Unprecedented" Series: Getting Personal: American Women Poets and the Autobiographical Lyric. Register here: https://psu.zoom.us/webi/register/WN_6Ie1MHdWQDyFrDcjaCowRA

Addressing Inequity Monday, March 15, 2021 4:00-5:00 p.m EST via Zoom ... Link to join here: https://psu.zoom.us/j/96069203331 No prior registration is required for this event. In The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Powera Finalist for the 2020 Kirkus Prize for NonfictionDeirdre Mask examines how addresses and street names reflect ongoing race, class, and other divisions. In this roundtable discussion, three invited panelists will use The Address Book as a launch point for a broader discussion about how addresses and other place markers provide, or withhold, access to power and mobility. Treating specific case studiesBlack travel guidebooks; the proprietary geocode system what3words; and the United States Postal Servicepanelists will suggest strategies that have been, and might yet be, employed to navigate or otherwise redress inequities that place markers of various kinds demarcate. Featured Panelists: Christy Pottroff, Assistant Professor of English, Boston College Eunice Toh, Graduate Student in English and African American and Diaspora Studies, Penn State Ashley Marie Cashion, Strategic Partnerships Director, USA, what3words Moderator: Robbin Degeratu, Administrative Director, Centre County Library & Historical Museum Following the panelists’ opening statements there will be ample time for questions and answer with the audience. Part of the slate of events for the 2021 Centre County Reads/CALS Community Read of Deirdre Mask's The Address Book.

Now's your chance to let us know what you thought of our past Centre County Reads selections. Check out the Centre County Reads Madness tournament. Each Monday,... we will put up a link to vote for the books in the bracket. You can vote until Sunday evening. Who do you think will be crowned champion? Click the link to vote: https://forms.gle/UBdFZTo8GFcsri8y8

ANNOUNCING the "Forms of Address" Writing Contest! https://cals.la.psu.edu//centre-county-reads-cals-communit This contest is part of the 2021 Centre County Reads/CALS Community Read of The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Powera Finalist for the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Nonfictionin which author Deirdre Mask examines the ways in which street addresses provide for ongoing race, class, and other divisions.... Relatedly, forms of address denote guidelines for how to address properly government officials and professional persons, and religious dignitaries and royal figures, among others, in spoken greetings and written documents. Inspired by the range of styles, occasions, and categories forms of address encompass, enter your best writing7,500 words or lessin which someone (or something) addresses someone or something else in ways that signal and/or unsettle hierarchical attitudes, ideas, and assumptions in one of the following categories: Best Short Fiction, Best Nonfiction, Best Poetry, and Best Entry for a Writer under 18. Winners will receive a $200 grand prize. Please send entries to [email protected] and include a cover letter with your name, address, contact information, a brief biography, and contest category. Winning entries will be displayed at Schlow Centre Region Library and on the CALS website.

Check out the latest article from CALS about our "Unprecedented" webinar series! [Excerpt] "Unprecedented: a word privileging the never before or new that has seen unprecedented use since COVID’s arrival. Given its proliferation across the media, however, the term ironically risks being evacuated of all meaning and value, teetering instead on becoming its antonym, or hackneyed, familiar, and tired. Such a paradox made unprecedented a provocative focalizing concept for C...ALS’s 2020/21 webinar series." https://cals.la.psu.edu//orders-of-un-precedence-introduci