EGSS 2005-2006 Executive Committee Profiles

PRESIDENT : Marie Thormodsgard Year: PhD2 Research Interests: Gender and Sexuality studies, Post-colonial studies, Diaspora, Indigenous, African American, and Caribbean Literatures Dissertation topic: Indigenous women's literature from Canada, New Zealand, and the United States Supervisor: Professor Heike Härting EGSS Positions and Duties: President - To provide support and activities for Doctorate and Masters students and to represent their needs and concerns before EGSS.  I also lead the EGSS committee (an excellent group and hardworking group), sit in on departmental meetings, and basically do anything that no one else wants to do. Interests/Goals for EGSS: To raise the community level of the department while building our city and international reputation.  Our department already boasts a rigorous academic community.  We will continue with efforts began last year to increase community unity academically and socially.

VICE-PRESIDENT : Hajer Trabelsi Hajer Ben Gouider Trabelsi is an MA student who is presently finishing her thesis.  Area of interest: Renaissance and globalization studies.

SECRETARY : Andrea Beverley EGSS duties: The secretarial position is pretty loosely defined but I think my main role will be to help get some new projects off the ground, such as our growing presence on the web and the publication of a departmental newsletter. Research Interests: I am in the first year of my PhD and my supervisor is Professor Heike Harting. My thesis will be entitled: Grounds for Telling It: Complex Connectivities in Canadian Women's Writi

TREASURER & M.A.REPRESENTATIVE : Katie Musgrave Year: MA2 Research Interests: Rhetorical Characterization and the Shakespearean Female Supervisor: Professor Joyce Boro EGGS Positions and Duties: 1)MA Representative: To provide any required help or guidance to Master?s students, to represent their needs and concerns before EGSS, and to create opportunities for them to be socially involved with and connected to other students and the department 2)Treasurer: To (vigilantly) monitor and (properly) distribute the EGSS funds! Interests/Goals for EGSS: To build and nurture departmental community and spirit, and to raise the profile of our department both within our city and beyond i

VP EXTERNAL (ACCUTE/MLA REP): Richard Cassidy

Duties: To maintain and reinforce EGSS' relationship with grad students in English (and other) departments from across the country; to provide communications; to increase ACCUTE membership; and to solicit student participation at the annual ACCUTE conference (taking place at York this year) Research Interests: I am interested in Canadian/Québécois/Urban fictions in French and English, and I am pursuing pedagogical questions about what a body does (and therefore learns to do) when we read and how this can be understood in terms of what a body does in urban space. Specifically, I am working on a comparison of the fictions, theory and fine art of Gail Scott and Réjean Ducharme. I am also working with a group of students to produce a published collection of papers given at (or related to) the Global Linkages Conference that was held in the department in March 2005.

CONFERENCE CHAIR: Amy Kebe B.A. Obtained: Cheikh Anta Diop University, 1996 – English Literature M.A. obtained: Cheikh Anta Diop University, 1999– English Literature Began Ph.D. Program in winter 2003 Present Status: Writing Dissertation Name of Supervisors: Prof. Moyes; co-supervisor: Prof. Brown Dissertation Topic: “Creating Our Space”: Afro-Caribbean Diasporic Feminism in the Writing of Dionne Brand, Marlene Nourbese Philip, and Makeda Silvera Research Interests: Black Feminism(s), Minority Writing, Diaspora, African American, African, and Caribbean Literatures. Conference Papers: “The changing Roles of Women in Somali Society.” Farmington University, Department of Women Studies, Maine, April 2001. ”Women and Patriarchy in African Societies” Penobscot, Rockland, Maine May 2001. “Female Circumcision and Infibulation in the Somali Society” Foreign Language Association, Maine, March 2001.   Academic Publications: "The Abdication." Le Soleil, Dakar, May 1998. “The Rolling Stones and the Beatles.” Le Soleil, Dakar, August 1999.

EVENTS September 2005 Executive Council Meeting Back-to-School house party Meet & Greet / Wine & Cheese with the profs October 2005 Department Visiting Speaker: Dr. Asha Varadharajan Halloween Party November 2005 Exectutive Council Meeting Giant book sale December 2005 Department Visiting Speaker: Dr. Peter Sabor Department Visiting Speaker: Dr. Lisa Henderson Christmas Party January 2006 Executive Council Meeting Renaissance of Brunante Thursdays! Department Visiting Speaker: Eileen Myles February 2006 Department Visiting Speaker: Dr. Andrew Parker Department Visiting Speaker: Dr. Ajume Wingo March 2006 Executive Council Meeting Department Visiting Speaker: Dr. Jed Esty April 2006 Department Visiting Speaker: Dr. Marcie Frank General Assembly End-of-Term Party