Interview With Scott Bateman

Here is a link to an interview with Scott Bateman (1986 Puget Sound Alum), a professional animator and cartoonist who is visiting Tacoma because his first feature animation, Atom Age Vampire, will be screened at the Tacoma Film Festival, and who is also visiting campus on October 5 at 4:00 in Wyatt 109 (free admission):

http://talkingwithtim.com/wordpress/2009/08/27/scott-bateman-on-atom-age-vampire-animation/

Tacoma Film Festival Starts This Week

The Tacoma Film Festival begins at the Grand Cinema this week and will run through October 8.  Here is a link to more information:

http://www.grandcinema.com/page.php?id=43

A new one from Margaret Atwood

During the Flood

Margaret Atwood, a writer of tremendous range and vision, returns to her dystopian futuristic visions with The Year of the Flood (Nan A. Talese, 2009). As the title suggests, this new novel bears a strong link to a Christian past as well as an apocalyptic post-human future, and takes up some of the themes Atwood dealt with in Oryx and Crake (Anchor Press, 2004)—human hubris, friendship, climate crisis, retribution—as well as introducing or expanding on others, like gender, theology, and redemption. Atwood’s fiction has proved to be alarmingly prescient in envisioning human self-destructiveness and environmental devastation, and this new novel promises to be equally rich in conceptualization and resonance.

Award-Winning Animator (and Alum) to Visit Campus

Puget Sound alum Scott Bateman (class of 1986) will visit campus on October 5 (Monday).  He will discuss “The Life and Art of an Animator” at 4:00 p.m. in Wyatt 109, and he will also screen some of his animations.  The presentation is free and open to the public, and it’s sponsored by the Writers’ Guild and the Dolliver NEH Professorship.

Scott’s first animated feature film, Atom Age Vampire, is screening as an Official Selection at the Tacoma Film Festival on Sunday, October 4 at 4:30 PM at Grand Cinema. More info at http://www.grandcinema.com/page.php?id=43 and http://www.atomagevampire.org
Links to other animations by Scott may be found at

http://batemanimation.com/

Incidentally, Scott used to draw cartoons for The Trail.

September 30: Focus on Careers

Kris L. Hay has informed us that a Career Fair is scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 30, from 4-7:00 p.m. in WSC Marshall Hall.

Kris notes that “even first-year students can benefit from walking through and checking it out.”

Arthur Miller’s THE CRUCIBLE Down Under

Arther Miller’s renowned play, The Crucible, in some ways a quintessential American work of drama, was produced in Sydney, Australia, earlier this year.  Here is a link to information about the production:

http://broadwayworld.com/article/Arthur_Millers_THE_CRUCIBLE_Comes_To_The_Sydney_Theatre_Companys_Wharf_2_1_May_30_May_20090330

Joan of Arc

Here is a link to an article by Denise Despres, Professor and Chair of English at the University of Puget Sound; the article is titled “Joan of Arc and Sacrificial Authorship,” and in appeared in Christianity and Literature:

http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=K8zfvLB18Wk22tHtdR0WF3dmVGb792VzdvlGGMnwh9CDBJq3Jb8Q!-16895359!1815510056?docId=5005973233

The Collins Press

The University of Puget Sound now has a press, literally: a letter press; and figuratively: a home for publications produced artfully by a professional printer.

It is the Collins Press, overseen by Jane Carlin, Director of the Library, and here is a link:

http://www.pugetsound.edu/x34200.xml

An Article About Poet Laura Jensen

One of the finest poets in the land lives in Tacoma. Her name is Laura Jensen. Thanks to Professor William Kupinse for sending along a link to a story about her:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/article.html?id=237704

Good Economic News For English Majors

Professor Peter Greenfield notes that English majors may have reason to advise their families and friends to relax:   Being an English major can serve your pocketbook as well as your soul.

An MSN Encarta article puts English (and humanities) at #4 in its “Top Ten Most Versatile College Degrees.” As the article notes, “Nearly any job relies on a handful of transferable skills: oral and written communication, analytical reasoning, research, and problem solving ability.”

So, to paraphrase Suzan-Lori Parks in her lecture the other night, you can follow that inner voice that tells you to read and write, without fear that you’ll stuck in a job you don’t like until you’re 64.

http://encarta.degreesandtraining.com/articles.jsp?article=featured_top_ten_most_versatile_college_degrees&gt1=27001