News

THE GATHERING OF NEWS Since its beginning RM-MLA has had a news bulletin. The aim of the Bulletin is to strengthen a community of interest among regional faculties of language and literature. The interests are many. They include changes in curriculum and courses; conferences and institutes; experiments and innovations in teaching, testing, and counseling; faculty travel, research, and publication; visits of lecturers and changes in staff; positions vacant; activities of students and alumni in the humanities; personal notes of degrees, promotions, honors, retirement, leaves of absence; and—why not?—something of the profession's 'Desires and Adorations, winged Persuasions and veiled Destinies,' as they move into sight. The business of collecting news demands faithful reporters who see news before it is history. This year the editor has tried to be in regular touch with all chairmen of departments in the region—some 115 of them. The response has been excellent, but there are some departments still to be heard from. As with any newspaper, the gathering of news never ends. The September issue of the Bulletin will be put to bed early in August! All members are urged to send in news of the fall term now. FROM THE CAMPUSES James H. Sledd (English, University of Texas) will conduct a fourweek program in linguistics and modern grammar during the summer session at Montana State University. This will provide Montana State summer school students with the opportunity to obtain an authoritative introduction to modern language studies. The English faculty of the College of Santa Fe assists in team-teaching a sophomore general education course called Introduction to the Humanities. The course attempts an integration of history, literature, music, and the arts in significant periods of western civilization. The language department of Brigham Young University has recently been divided into four separate departments : French and Italian (chairman , Thomas Brown); Spanish and Portuguese (chairman, Carl Gibson); Germanic and Slavic Languages (German , Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Dutch, Russian; chairman, Max Rogers); and Classical and Oriental Languages (Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean; chairman, J. Reuben Clark). Summer courses in the Classics Department at the University of Colorado , 16 June to 26 August, will include readings in Horace, Caesar for teachers, Classical satire, and a critical study of the elegies of Propertius. The Colorado Woman's College Department of English, in collaboration with the Library Associates, has been offering a symposium on American women writers as social critics, Wednesday evenings, 1 March through 10 May. The series has been open to the public and has served as a basis for a course on problems in American studies. Guest speakers include Barbara Welter (Hunter College), John Tomsich (Reed College), Stuart James (University of Denver), Herbert W. Edwards (New York University), Judith McDowell (Texas Woman's University) and Leslie Fiedler (State University of New York, Buffalo) . The staff for the symposium includes the following Colorado Woman's College faculty members: Rod W. Horton, John Livingston, Michael Lafferty, and Lucy Crum. The series will be ended on 10 May with Mr. Fiedler's talk on "Two Mothers of Us All: Pocahontas and Hannah Dustin." 32 RM-MLA Bulletin June 1967 Beginning 1 September the foreign language department at Texas Technological College will be divided into two separate departments: Classical and Romance Languages (Arabic, French, Greek, Italian, Latin, Portuguese , and Spanish; chairman, Harley D. Oberhelman) and Germanic and Slavonic Languages (German and Russian, with Chinese projected for 1968; chairman, Carl Hammer, Jr.). A new building to house the two departments is nearing completion. The expanding M.A. and Ph.D. program in Comparative Literature at the University of Colorado will include among the course offerings for the coming year: "Literary Theory," "The Modern European Novel," "Literary Genres: Drama," "German Influences on French Literature," "Renaissance Drama (French, English, and Italian)," "Comparative Literary Criticism ," and "The Age of Enlightenment ." The Department of English at the USAF Academy is offering a new major in American studies which is administered by the department in conjunction with the history, economics , political science, and law departments. The new courses which will be added are "The American Identity," "Seminar in American Issues ," "Arts of the United States," and "American Philosophy." The English Department at Washington...