Dominican University English Department

Congratulations to our newly minted graduate, Julie Dolinsek, who completed her degree this summer (not a week ago). Continued success from all of us.

Check out two of our Fall semester courses with open enrollment! For those of us embracing the monster-under-the-bed as a roommate, we have Amy Wong's "Monsters and Monstrosity" course - online only. And for those of us ready for some culture shock traveling between Angelico Hall and your own home, we have Beginning Spanish taught by Radica Ostojic-Portello as a hybrid in-person and online course.

PBS resources to celebrate one of the greatest voices in African American culture and lives ...

A poem by Professor Joan Baranow, Across the Barrier Six days of riots in weather calm... enough to launch a rocket. It lifts from its own fire through a few clouds, the camera in someone’s hands unsteady, following the flame as it passes maximum pressure into a deeper blue, while down here gravity keeps its grip on rocks and rubber bullets, ensures the shattered glass, the arc of another shot. Blood streams down, not up, pools like spent fuel in the streets. The people are trying to speak but words go only so far and raised hands are hard to see through tear gas and smoke. Yeteven soacross the barrier a brief handclasp caught by someone’s cell phone. Brief as a synapse, then lost among the frayed nerves where gravity holds someone crawling to the curb while, up there, released from earth, those others float like impossible swans in self-protective suits.

Collectively, the faculty and staff of Dominican’s Division of Literature, Language, and Humanities are outraged and share in the grief expressed in protests across the country over the recent killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Tony McDade. Words and names have power, and we will continue to say the names of victims of police brutality, recognizing that these latest injustices are part of a longstanding history of racist violence against black people... in the United States. We demand more accountability from officers nationwide. To our campus community, especially our black students and students of color: we care for your safety and well-being, and we are committed to fighting racism at all levels and working for greater justice, equity, and inclusion. If you are enduring violence, direct or indirect, during this time, or feelings of profound loss, please know that your faculty and staff are here to listen. Know that you have resources available through the Diversity Action Group, Student Health Services, Black Mental Health Resources, National Suicide Prevention Hotline, family and friends. We find it important to hold space for anger, frustration, grief, and whatever else arises. Finally, as a faculty, we commit to the work of remaking literary canons so that they better reflect the diversity of the United States, and to the work of amplifying and centering non-white voices. The study of literature teaches us to confront narratives of violence, to investigate histories of oppression, and to critique unjust systems of power so that we may imagine and thereby create a more habitable future for all. Although reading and writing alone are not enough to create the future we want, we believe that they can activate the radical potential of the imagination, affirming each person’s full and equal dignity as a human, regardless of differences across race, gender, sexuality, age, and ability. So let’s use our imaginations and our craft, our words and our actions for change. Thank you. In Solidarity, The Faculty and Staff of the Division of Literature, Languages, and Humanities Adam Carl Amy Wong Carlos Rodriguez Chase Clow Dan May Perry Guevara Joan Baranow Judy Halebsky Thomas Burke Radica Ostojic-Portello ------A Small Needful Fact------ ------------Ross Gay------------ Is that Eric Garner worked for some time for the Parks and Rec. Horticultural Department, which means, perhaps, that with his very large hands, perhaps, in all likelihood, he put gently into the earth some plants which, most likely, some of them, in all likelihood, continue to grow, continue to do what such plants do, like house and feed small and necessary creatures, like being pleasant to touch and smell, like converting sunlight into food, like making it easier for us to breathe.