Blogging as a Means of Self-Reflection — By Shane Ellis Coates
The potential that blogging has as a means of reflective practice is undeniable. The act of writing, in itself, requires us to actually think about what we are going to write and how we are going to write it . Add to that the assumption that someone, somewhere will read what we post and perhaps even respond to it makes it all the more important that we at least consider the ideas we put forward; and in so doing it sometimes happens that we experience new realizations about the things we believe or thought we knew, realizations that have the potential to change our perspectives and perhaps facilitate new learning, even new ways of thinking.
…Sometimes.
Just because a person blogs does not necessarily mean that she or he engages in reflective practice or critical contemplation of her or his beliefs (proponents of the alt-right, case in point). Furthermore, not everyone, including me, has the desire to become a blogger. But that does not mean that I forgo the opportunity to engage in the reflective practice blogging can facilitate; it just means that I enter the arena through the side entrance, i.e. the comments section, as a responder. And the outcomes, in my opinion, are equally as valuable.
For me, the best instigators (let's call them "triggers") of critical thought and reflection often come in the form of things said or written by others: a point of contention, an opinion I disagree with, a perceived inaccuracy, a fallacy presented as fact. All these things can provoke a reaction that, if handled properly, can be more conductive to self-reflection and critical thought than any natural impulse I might have to sit down and express my thoughts on a given subject – i.e. I am not just offering my point of view, I am entering into a debate, I need to plan my strategy, devise an argument that will force the opponent to concede my point.
Within that process, several outcomes, some ironic, all worth experiencing, may occur. More often than not, my inclination is to review my own knowledge and understanding of the given issue before I respond to points made by a second party (to reduce the likelihood of making a complete ass of myself). This usually entails some impromptu research, additional reading mostly, to establish a basis for my argument. Once satisfied that I have created an airtight response, I post it to the comments section and look forward to the “discussion” that might follow.
However (and here’s the fun part), the process of formulating, organizing, and preparing to share my views on a given issue can produce unanticipated outcomes. Sometimes, while exploring a topic, while analyzing opposing viewpoints to find the chinks in the armor, I uncover the fallacies of my own ideas and perspective. Suddenly, the point I had wanted to make no longer represents what I now believe or consider as fact. I have defeated my own purpose. I have changed.
The irony is not lost on me, but in my opinion, these are the best experiences in terms of personal growth and development. Rather than merely reaffirming or reiterating a previously held belief, I emerge from an introspective process with a new point of view and a new direction, ideologically speaking. The process of reacting and responding to blog posts (or Web forum articles or comments regarding either) forces me to consider other points of view as well as my own, exposing me to the inherent possibilities of both and, more importantly, the possibility that I might be wrong. In my opinion, that is what real reflective practice should comprise.
Updated: Nov 6, 2021
…Sometimes.
Just because a person blogs does not necessarily mean that she or he engages in reflective practice or critical contemplation of her or his beliefs (proponents of the alt-right, case in point). Furthermore, not everyone, including me, has the desire to become a blogger. But that does not mean that I forgo the opportunity to engage in the reflective practice blogging can facilitate; it just means that I enter the arena through the side entrance, i.e. the comments section, as a responder. And the outcomes, in my opinion, are equally as valuable.
For me, the best instigators (let's call them "triggers") of critical thought and reflection often come in the form of things said or written by others: a point of contention, an opinion I disagree with, a perceived inaccuracy, a fallacy presented as fact. All these things can provoke a reaction that, if handled properly, can be more conductive to self-reflection and critical thought than any natural impulse I might have to sit down and express my thoughts on a given subject – i.e. I am not just offering my point of view, I am entering into a debate, I need to plan my strategy, devise an argument that will force the opponent to concede my point.
Within that process, several outcomes, some ironic, all worth experiencing, may occur. More often than not, my inclination is to review my own knowledge and understanding of the given issue before I respond to points made by a second party (to reduce the likelihood of making a complete ass of myself). This usually entails some impromptu research, additional reading mostly, to establish a basis for my argument. Once satisfied that I have created an airtight response, I post it to the comments section and look forward to the “discussion” that might follow.
However (and here’s the fun part), the process of formulating, organizing, and preparing to share my views on a given issue can produce unanticipated outcomes. Sometimes, while exploring a topic, while analyzing opposing viewpoints to find the chinks in the armor, I uncover the fallacies of my own ideas and perspective. Suddenly, the point I had wanted to make no longer represents what I now believe or consider as fact. I have defeated my own purpose. I have changed.
The irony is not lost on me, but in my opinion, these are the best experiences in terms of personal growth and development. Rather than merely reaffirming or reiterating a previously held belief, I emerge from an introspective process with a new point of view and a new direction, ideologically speaking. The process of reacting and responding to blog posts (or Web forum articles or comments regarding either) forces me to consider other points of view as well as my own, exposing me to the inherent possibilities of both and, more importantly, the possibility that I might be wrong. In my opinion, that is what real reflective practice should comprise.
Updated: Nov 6, 2021
The Importance of Writing in the Sciences: An Interview with Dr. Martin Lukac — by Katherine Lam
Amidst the throes of the final days of the spring, 2019 semester, we caught up with Dr. Martin Lukac, Associate Professor of Computer Science at NU. We chatted about the importance of writing in the sciences and his experience working with the Writing Across the Curriculum initiative.
Q: Hi Martin, so let’s get straight to the point - is writing important in science?
Of course it is. If you can’t write what about you are working on, then nobody will know it. Then, the whole point of improving the world through science is not achievable. And writing helps guide your thinking - you’re researching what you’re writing and writing what you’re researching. It keeps you organized.
Q: How do your students feel about writing as scientists?
Well, students now think I’m being too mean with them in their writing, but the students who have graduated and are studying in graduate programs often complain to me that I should have been harder on them. They wish they could have learned writing much earlier.
Q: Now you worked with us this semester as part of our Writing Across the Curriculum initiative to integrate reading and writing strategies in your Computer Science Research Methods course. What were you expecting, and did your results match those expectations?
Honestly I had no expectations whatsoever. I was positively surprised that your advice and teaching methods helped in managing my students. Additionally I was very happy to be able to put structure into teaching reading and writing.
Q: We provided you with some resources to help with the Compute Science Research Methods course. Have these resources been useful for you?
Essentially, it allowed me to structure the class better, and to make the [writing] process more meaningful. The most helpful would be the rubrics - it was a starting point where we could expand on various sections for the final paper. Rubrics were something I hadn’t known about, so for me it was very useful. I started with one assignment, and it led me to design them for other parts of the final survey paper. They’ll also be useful for the students and the faculty that will be evaluating them.
Q: Have you seen differences in the way students are writing now that you have the rubrics?
I have quite a lot of students, so it’ll take more time to for me to say for the whole class. But from the papers I’ve read so far, it seems like the students are on the right track. And this feels like it’s better than before. Working with you to develop these rubrics has really helped.
Q: That’s great to know, and we’re happy that you’re experiencing success! Would you recommend faculty to work with this type of program?
Sure. I think it should be a part of training, especially for new faculty, and those who are teaching these types of writing intensive classes. Or at least faculty who are teaching classes with projects that need some sort of write-up at the end. I think it would be helpful in streamlining the way we think and help students write their paper.
Updated: Nov 6, 2021
Q: Hi Martin, so let’s get straight to the point - is writing important in science?
Of course it is. If you can’t write what about you are working on, then nobody will know it. Then, the whole point of improving the world through science is not achievable. And writing helps guide your thinking - you’re researching what you’re writing and writing what you’re researching. It keeps you organized.
Q: How do your students feel about writing as scientists?
Well, students now think I’m being too mean with them in their writing, but the students who have graduated and are studying in graduate programs often complain to me that I should have been harder on them. They wish they could have learned writing much earlier.
Q: Now you worked with us this semester as part of our Writing Across the Curriculum initiative to integrate reading and writing strategies in your Computer Science Research Methods course. What were you expecting, and did your results match those expectations?
Honestly I had no expectations whatsoever. I was positively surprised that your advice and teaching methods helped in managing my students. Additionally I was very happy to be able to put structure into teaching reading and writing.
Q: We provided you with some resources to help with the Compute Science Research Methods course. Have these resources been useful for you?
Essentially, it allowed me to structure the class better, and to make the [writing] process more meaningful. The most helpful would be the rubrics - it was a starting point where we could expand on various sections for the final paper. Rubrics were something I hadn’t known about, so for me it was very useful. I started with one assignment, and it led me to design them for other parts of the final survey paper. They’ll also be useful for the students and the faculty that will be evaluating them.
Q: Have you seen differences in the way students are writing now that you have the rubrics?
I have quite a lot of students, so it’ll take more time to for me to say for the whole class. But from the papers I’ve read so far, it seems like the students are on the right track. And this feels like it’s better than before. Working with you to develop these rubrics has really helped.
Q: That’s great to know, and we’re happy that you’re experiencing success! Would you recommend faculty to work with this type of program?
Sure. I think it should be a part of training, especially for new faculty, and those who are teaching these types of writing intensive classes. Or at least faculty who are teaching classes with projects that need some sort of write-up at the end. I think it would be helpful in streamlining the way we think and help students write their paper.
Updated: Nov 6, 2021
Poet Teaching Rhetoric: How Creative Writing Informs Academic Writing — By Mariya Deykute
A few months ago, while on home leave in New York, I was chatting to a fellow writer who was finishing an MFA program. We talked about life after the MFA, cats, existential despair -- the usual. “But what will I do now?” He asked. “You could teach.” I ventured. “Well, yes. But I don’t want to teach comp. Everyone is teaching comp. It’s just a waste of time, isn’t?” I got defensive. “Why?” “Well, there’s just no poetry to it.”
We talked for a bit longer (mostly, about the cats). The conversation stuck with me, though, and I found myself thinking. Why? Was I feeling defensive because I agreed with him, but didn’t want to admit it? Was there really no poetry to what I do, day in and day out? Should there be? Then I realized the real issue was the itch of words unsaid. I didn’t explain to him that to me, teaching rhetoric and composition felt like an organic extension of writing poetry, that the two felt like two springs that fed the same river rather than a a boring irrigation channel (necessary, but not scenic) that diverted life-giving water from a pristine stream. His words stuck with me because in the moment, I couldn’t make a convincing argument.
This bothered me. I teach students how to make arguments, after all.
Over the days that followed I found myself arguing with him in my head. In my head, I was deeply eloquent. I would tell him that many of the skills we foster in the MFA workshop transcend creative writing. The ability to navigate difficult, dense text. The ability to appreciate tone, internal logic, allusions, syntax. The ability to create a text that works, whether as a speech, as an essay, as a letter, as a poem.
But then my devious imaginary opponent would say: but Masha, what about the soul? Are you really equating Essay 1 and Macbeth? What about the magic of language, the transcendence, the freedom of it?
I would fumble, but recover, and may be concede a bit, graciously. But I would tell him that there is an even more important component to my teaching than concrete skills. The attitudes and values that inform my life as a poet, the ideas about words, the relationship between myself and language are not absent when I’m teaching underlying assumptions.
They are there when we are paraphrasing, or analyzing, or battling conclusions. The idea that words, even a single word, have incredible power. The idea that, as Jonathan Swift put it, our job as writers really is putting “the right word in the right place”. The idea that all writing exists in conversation (with other writers; with oneself). The idea that the writer is an alchemist -- and sometimes, if one works carefully and precisely and long enough, it is just possible to distill lead into gold. It is just possible to communicate, through the infinitely limited tool of tiny rearranged letters, exactly what one wants to say.
I may never have this discussion in real life. But you’ll read it, now. Perhaps, this is one of the great joys of writing, too: the ability to take a frustrating, joyous, important, confusing argument with oneself, write it down, step back, and invite the world to the conversation.
Updated: Nov 6, 2021
We talked for a bit longer (mostly, about the cats). The conversation stuck with me, though, and I found myself thinking. Why? Was I feeling defensive because I agreed with him, but didn’t want to admit it? Was there really no poetry to what I do, day in and day out? Should there be? Then I realized the real issue was the itch of words unsaid. I didn’t explain to him that to me, teaching rhetoric and composition felt like an organic extension of writing poetry, that the two felt like two springs that fed the same river rather than a a boring irrigation channel (necessary, but not scenic) that diverted life-giving water from a pristine stream. His words stuck with me because in the moment, I couldn’t make a convincing argument.
This bothered me. I teach students how to make arguments, after all.
Over the days that followed I found myself arguing with him in my head. In my head, I was deeply eloquent. I would tell him that many of the skills we foster in the MFA workshop transcend creative writing. The ability to navigate difficult, dense text. The ability to appreciate tone, internal logic, allusions, syntax. The ability to create a text that works, whether as a speech, as an essay, as a letter, as a poem.
But then my devious imaginary opponent would say: but Masha, what about the soul? Are you really equating Essay 1 and Macbeth? What about the magic of language, the transcendence, the freedom of it?
I would fumble, but recover, and may be concede a bit, graciously. But I would tell him that there is an even more important component to my teaching than concrete skills. The attitudes and values that inform my life as a poet, the ideas about words, the relationship between myself and language are not absent when I’m teaching underlying assumptions.
They are there when we are paraphrasing, or analyzing, or battling conclusions. The idea that words, even a single word, have incredible power. The idea that, as Jonathan Swift put it, our job as writers really is putting “the right word in the right place”. The idea that all writing exists in conversation (with other writers; with oneself). The idea that the writer is an alchemist -- and sometimes, if one works carefully and precisely and long enough, it is just possible to distill lead into gold. It is just possible to communicate, through the infinitely limited tool of tiny rearranged letters, exactly what one wants to say.
I may never have this discussion in real life. But you’ll read it, now. Perhaps, this is one of the great joys of writing, too: the ability to take a frustrating, joyous, important, confusing argument with oneself, write it down, step back, and invite the world to the conversation.
Updated: Nov 6, 2021
Many Thanks to the SHSS Writing Center! — By Almira Zhantuyakova
SHSS Writing Center at NU helped me to write better and stress less about papers.
Let me introduce myself: I am Almira; I study biological science here at NU. I am graduating this year. Throughout my studies, I regularly visited SHSS Writing Center (WC). They helped me with my coursework papers, motivation letters and CV; Even emails.
Being a biology major, I struggled a lot with writing social sciences and humanities papers. I took both SHSS 150 and SHSS 250 to improve my writing, since it is inevitably a necessary skill to be able to present ideas and arguments. I visited the WC at every step of my writing process.
They helped me to clearly define my research questions based on my ideas, objectively assess the strength of my arguments, and the flow of my papers. Step by step I became more solid and clear in my writing and was no longer afraid of research papers in 300+ level courses.
The Writing Center also helped me with my CV and motivation letters for scholarship and graduate degree applications. It is not easy to write a solid motivation letter. It took me about 3-4 weeks, and more than 5 WC appointments to write mine. The tutors helped me check the ideas, flow, the-word choice, the mood, and the overall understandability of the motivation letter.
It takes time to find a WC professor with whom you have a good match of writing style and ideas. In my case, I checked my motivation letter with several WC professors. If one professor helped me with ideas and arguments, another professor checked for the word choice, while another helped me to ensure the overall flow of my writing.
I believe there is even more with which WC can help you with. I have some tips for you to make the most of your WC experience:
Updated: Nov 6, 2021
Let me introduce myself: I am Almira; I study biological science here at NU. I am graduating this year. Throughout my studies, I regularly visited SHSS Writing Center (WC). They helped me with my coursework papers, motivation letters and CV; Even emails.
Being a biology major, I struggled a lot with writing social sciences and humanities papers. I took both SHSS 150 and SHSS 250 to improve my writing, since it is inevitably a necessary skill to be able to present ideas and arguments. I visited the WC at every step of my writing process.
They helped me to clearly define my research questions based on my ideas, objectively assess the strength of my arguments, and the flow of my papers. Step by step I became more solid and clear in my writing and was no longer afraid of research papers in 300+ level courses.
The Writing Center also helped me with my CV and motivation letters for scholarship and graduate degree applications. It is not easy to write a solid motivation letter. It took me about 3-4 weeks, and more than 5 WC appointments to write mine. The tutors helped me check the ideas, flow, the-word choice, the mood, and the overall understandability of the motivation letter.
It takes time to find a WC professor with whom you have a good match of writing style and ideas. In my case, I checked my motivation letter with several WC professors. If one professor helped me with ideas and arguments, another professor checked for the word choice, while another helped me to ensure the overall flow of my writing.
I believe there is even more with which WC can help you with. I have some tips for you to make the most of your WC experience:
- It is best to prepare questions about your paper beforehand. I know that sometimes it is hard to point out what is wrong with the writing, but it is worth trying.
- Plan your WC appointment ahead of time, since appointment slots are taken up very quickly
- Most importantly start early. I know there are some people who can write good papers in one day/night. However, if you hate working under time pressure like me, start earlier!
Updated: Nov 6, 2021
Texting at the End of the World — By Patricia Coleman
“Peace, quiet, a dictionary—it was so important, yet at the end nobody had any time for any of it.” John Ashberry
Before the end everyone had given up speaking. They had instead begun to write. To text. Soon no one could speak. For many of us this was a relief, as voices had always in our experience been used to pry some piece of ourselves from us. To hurt or seduce. With all words in writing we now had time to consider. Lovers were not compelled, nor children, parents. Employees and employers, artists and homeless were free of one another to come and go, to be silent.
It was not for everyone. People began to not know how to answer one another. If there were a question (spoken or written) the respondent thought of his answer for as long as he needed solely in terms of text: how do I craft the right answer? The one that will have exactly the right effect, and in this way text absorbed the seduction of voice. Those with questions became ever more oppressed, waiting not only for an answer but for the respondent to indicate the intention of crafting.
The pros outweighed the cons: people became writers, most not good writers, but writers who thought about how their voices translated into the written…through text. For years before the end, teachers had addressed the identical problem in remedial writing classes, often unsuccessfully: “Voice,” “text.” students wondered in those days what application such terms might have. At the time BTE theoretical language became interchangeable with popular language. Now it was known what that jargon stood for. The “text” preceded the voice almost certainly. For all. it became the only means for existing in the world. Speaking had demanded a kind of spontaneity that now was revealed as forced. An employer or a lover dreaded his employee or lover and having to respond immediately. It fell out of fashion to ever do so.
The hard-copy had now become obligatory for every manner of verbal exchange, and yet training had failed to make people ready. As a result, the market for rhetoric in texting exploded. There was too much need. English teachers were the natural first choice for consultants and the first to be treated as philosopher-kings. They were furnished with spaces and audiences who packed those little cubicles, transcribing, recording, using tricks to hold these prophets’ words, and while they were holding court they were adored. But it did not take long for English teachers to show how they failed in making practical the theories of text. Partly, it was that they were stuck in the ancient. Their theories for texting did not much differ from those of old rhetoric, which had lived on too long beyond its expiration.
Well, they did differ, yes, a little, in suggestions of length. Naturally evolving from the demands of the technology suddenly was a wealth of aphorisms. And a not very high standard of minimalist writing, which had been a dying trend anyway.
Poets were the next engaged to teach and to lead. They taught their students to write from experience, from the everyday. To create writing that would function, the texter must combine alchemically the crass and the eternal.
There was reason to celebrate. Parallel to theories of texting our culture had become a culture of writing.
A popular and rampant form that reached new heights, for example, was called sexting: Its essential use turned out to be that it furnished spouses, enemies and lovers of politicians as well as ordinary people all kinds of evidence of transgressions. One would think how foolish. I will certainly not furnish anyone with evidence, but in the moment of writing sexting created a high that outran quotidian sex. Words had a palpable impact for the first time in a very long time.
Gaining control over ones’ sexting impulses required a kind of gymnastics. Texts themselves became documents of those gymnastics. Where usual there were no evidences of such struggles.
Included in the present volume are the Texts that we collected from our dying culture along with notations and critiques by some of the most respected teachers, poets, late-night talk-show hosts, motivational speakers, train conductors, siri, and others who were equipped to discourse on the transition from speech to writing that announced the end.
Author’s Note: I began a writing project entitled "texting at the end of the world" about the phenomenon of “globalizing,” whenever it was that we started to see more and more people with their cellphones out in social situations--including the classroom (2008/9?). I started a blog around 2012 and asked friends to post pictures of themselves in response to questions about how cellphones encourage in us the tendency to apply one life experience to all of life, or one’s death to the death of the entire earth. I just now noticed that one of my creative writing students contributed to the blog just last year (2018)!
Updated: Nov 6, 2021
Before the end everyone had given up speaking. They had instead begun to write. To text. Soon no one could speak. For many of us this was a relief, as voices had always in our experience been used to pry some piece of ourselves from us. To hurt or seduce. With all words in writing we now had time to consider. Lovers were not compelled, nor children, parents. Employees and employers, artists and homeless were free of one another to come and go, to be silent.
It was not for everyone. People began to not know how to answer one another. If there were a question (spoken or written) the respondent thought of his answer for as long as he needed solely in terms of text: how do I craft the right answer? The one that will have exactly the right effect, and in this way text absorbed the seduction of voice. Those with questions became ever more oppressed, waiting not only for an answer but for the respondent to indicate the intention of crafting.
The pros outweighed the cons: people became writers, most not good writers, but writers who thought about how their voices translated into the written…through text. For years before the end, teachers had addressed the identical problem in remedial writing classes, often unsuccessfully: “Voice,” “text.” students wondered in those days what application such terms might have. At the time BTE theoretical language became interchangeable with popular language. Now it was known what that jargon stood for. The “text” preceded the voice almost certainly. For all. it became the only means for existing in the world. Speaking had demanded a kind of spontaneity that now was revealed as forced. An employer or a lover dreaded his employee or lover and having to respond immediately. It fell out of fashion to ever do so.
The hard-copy had now become obligatory for every manner of verbal exchange, and yet training had failed to make people ready. As a result, the market for rhetoric in texting exploded. There was too much need. English teachers were the natural first choice for consultants and the first to be treated as philosopher-kings. They were furnished with spaces and audiences who packed those little cubicles, transcribing, recording, using tricks to hold these prophets’ words, and while they were holding court they were adored. But it did not take long for English teachers to show how they failed in making practical the theories of text. Partly, it was that they were stuck in the ancient. Their theories for texting did not much differ from those of old rhetoric, which had lived on too long beyond its expiration.
Well, they did differ, yes, a little, in suggestions of length. Naturally evolving from the demands of the technology suddenly was a wealth of aphorisms. And a not very high standard of minimalist writing, which had been a dying trend anyway.
Poets were the next engaged to teach and to lead. They taught their students to write from experience, from the everyday. To create writing that would function, the texter must combine alchemically the crass and the eternal.
There was reason to celebrate. Parallel to theories of texting our culture had become a culture of writing.
A popular and rampant form that reached new heights, for example, was called sexting: Its essential use turned out to be that it furnished spouses, enemies and lovers of politicians as well as ordinary people all kinds of evidence of transgressions. One would think how foolish. I will certainly not furnish anyone with evidence, but in the moment of writing sexting created a high that outran quotidian sex. Words had a palpable impact for the first time in a very long time.
Gaining control over ones’ sexting impulses required a kind of gymnastics. Texts themselves became documents of those gymnastics. Where usual there were no evidences of such struggles.
Included in the present volume are the Texts that we collected from our dying culture along with notations and critiques by some of the most respected teachers, poets, late-night talk-show hosts, motivational speakers, train conductors, siri, and others who were equipped to discourse on the transition from speech to writing that announced the end.
Author’s Note: I began a writing project entitled "texting at the end of the world" about the phenomenon of “globalizing,” whenever it was that we started to see more and more people with their cellphones out in social situations--including the classroom (2008/9?). I started a blog around 2012 and asked friends to post pictures of themselves in response to questions about how cellphones encourage in us the tendency to apply one life experience to all of life, or one’s death to the death of the entire earth. I just now noticed that one of my creative writing students contributed to the blog just last year (2018)!
Updated: Nov 6, 2021
Weaving Together Conversations: The Development of Angime Literary Journal
— By Mariya Deykute
— By Mariya Deykute
It’s difficult to talk about a project that hasn’t launched yet. In Russian, there is a saying about divvying up the fur of an uncaught bear; in Kazakh -- a warning about expecting milk from a barren cow; and in English, of course, a familiar admonition about counting unhatched chickens. And yet the process of developing the concept of Angime, and the dialogues that are happening as the journal slowly moves towards its inaugural edition, are valuable in and of themselves.
The idea of Angime, which in Kazakh means story or conversation, was born out of conversations I was having during my first year teaching at NU. Conversations with scholars in Kazakh literature and languages department; in Literature and Linguistics department; at the Writing Center. Conversations about the need for a journal that would highlight not just the academic, but the creative work of NU faculty; the need for a faculty-run publication that would give students the ability to participate in a professional publishing process; and ultimately, the need for a journal in the region that would weave together Kazakh, Russian, English, literary works and scholarly pursuits, regional and international voices.
These conversations continued with the local authors, like the instructors at the Open Literary School in Almaty who visited NU as part of the Kazakhstani author series last year. Those authors were e
xcited by the prospect of launching the first trilingual journal in the region. One of our guests, Kanat Omar -- the prize-winning, Nur Sultan-based poet and translator -- eventually became our Kazakh language and literature editor. Others have already submitted stories, poems, essays to be included in the inaugural edition.
But perhaps the most vocal in the conversations around the start of this journal were the NU students. The journal, after all, while edited and run primarily by NU faculty, was truly created not just from a recognized need but from a recognized abundance -- an abundance of faculty talent, and an abundance of student creativity and enthusiasm. Named after a student-run fiction reading series Angime recognizes the creative potential and desire for professional humanities outlets for students who want to be a part of the global literary conversation. They to see NU’s journal joining the ranks of literary journals that sprung from Western universities: Ploughshares at Emerson, Gulf Coast at the University of Houston, AGNI at Boston University and others.
With dozens of submissions already received from around the globe, this wish will become reality in the Fall of 2020. And while the conversations leading to the launch of this project have been enjoyable and important, the true dialogue lies ahead: the trilingual, international dialogue between NU’s Angime and the world.
To learn more about our mission at NU, please visit the Angime Main Page
Updated: Nov 6, 2021
The idea of Angime, which in Kazakh means story or conversation, was born out of conversations I was having during my first year teaching at NU. Conversations with scholars in Kazakh literature and languages department; in Literature and Linguistics department; at the Writing Center. Conversations about the need for a journal that would highlight not just the academic, but the creative work of NU faculty; the need for a faculty-run publication that would give students the ability to participate in a professional publishing process; and ultimately, the need for a journal in the region that would weave together Kazakh, Russian, English, literary works and scholarly pursuits, regional and international voices.
These conversations continued with the local authors, like the instructors at the Open Literary School in Almaty who visited NU as part of the Kazakhstani author series last year. Those authors were e
xcited by the prospect of launching the first trilingual journal in the region. One of our guests, Kanat Omar -- the prize-winning, Nur Sultan-based poet and translator -- eventually became our Kazakh language and literature editor. Others have already submitted stories, poems, essays to be included in the inaugural edition.
But perhaps the most vocal in the conversations around the start of this journal were the NU students. The journal, after all, while edited and run primarily by NU faculty, was truly created not just from a recognized need but from a recognized abundance -- an abundance of faculty talent, and an abundance of student creativity and enthusiasm. Named after a student-run fiction reading series Angime recognizes the creative potential and desire for professional humanities outlets for students who want to be a part of the global literary conversation. They to see NU’s journal joining the ranks of literary journals that sprung from Western universities: Ploughshares at Emerson, Gulf Coast at the University of Houston, AGNI at Boston University and others.
With dozens of submissions already received from around the globe, this wish will become reality in the Fall of 2020. And while the conversations leading to the launch of this project have been enjoyable and important, the true dialogue lies ahead: the trilingual, international dialogue between NU’s Angime and the world.
To learn more about our mission at NU, please visit the Angime Main Page
Updated: Nov 6, 2021
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