arthurian lady

 


SJSU Englsh Department>
The English Department of San Jose State University.
 

 

Contributors

 
Erin Angell

My interest in literature has basic origins: both my parents diligently read to me before bed-time. One of my first memories is being read The Wizard of Oz and being inspired to "drawing" the words of anything written (including the labels inside my shoes) on any scrap of paper I could find. Being read to eventually transformed to reading independently and fostered in me a consistent interest in literature. As an undergraduate at Santa Clara University, studying English was an obvious choice for me since reading and analyzing literature had been the field of study I enjoyed most in high school. At Santa Clara, I gravitated towards Shakespeare and Feminist literary theory. After a short-lived detour to law school, I returned to literature and chose to teach English at the high school level. I find that employing various literary theory makes my students' attempts at analyzing literature more fruitful. I have come to San Jose State to continue my own studying and re-hone my analytical skills in hopes of passing that on to my students.


Charanya Arjun

About my trajectory I was always certain: I was fated, I believed, to become a research scientist. As an adolescent I worked for a large biotech firm in La Jolla, CA and was determined to follow a course of study resulting in those schemes of scientific progress: analysis, design, synthesis. My undergraduate degree, however, is in English. Although it appears an inconsistent intellectual shift, my habits of rigor and scrutiny were never more compatible with another subject. I became intent upon understanding the pragmatic workings of authorship and symbols, of meaning and belief. It was as an undergraduate at UCLA and later as an MFA student at the California Institute of the Arts that I began focusing on Middle English prose and poetry, liturgical drama and medieval mystical texts. My MFA thesis, a novel entitled Corpus, functions similarly on both a scientific and poetic level, combining systemic anatomy, biochemistry, and the scientific method with dramatic structures and tropes from Corpus Christi cycle dramas. Although I have since expanded my scholarly interests, it is this meeting of seemingly incongruous ideas that intrigues me most: economics and devotion, the mythic and the empirical, science and sainthood.


Naomi Hart

Naomi Hart received her Bachelors degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 2005. Her focus while in undergraduate school was wide ranging, her first major being Biomolecular Engineering switching to World Literature and Culture Studies in her second year. Therefore Naomi has programming experience, is an HTML editor, and has a strong interest in information technology and its effect on the human experience. Additionally, Naomi has studied Japanese since 1999 when she traveled, during an international exchange program, to Osaka, Japan, and spent three months there with a host family in total immersion. In her Literature program at Santa Cruz, Naomi focused on Comparative Literature in the ancient Mediterranean, studying works from ancient Ethiopia, Egypt, Greece and elsewhere. Today she is proficient in the translation of Ancient Greek texts with a working ability in Middle Egyptian and Ge’ez, Ancient Ethiopian. In the future, she hopes to continue her research into ancient cosmology and further her examination of the way that man’s idea of himself in the universe has evolved, how technology continues to reshape that evolution, and our intercultural relationships with one another.


Kirk Hinton, Jr.

Kirk Hinton is currently an English teacher at Palo Alto High School , where he teaches Exploratory Thinking (Freshmen) and American Classics (Honors Juniors). He spent the last three years teaching English and English Language Development at Half Moon Bay High School, before which he taught conversational English at the Lycée Malherbe in Caen , France . Hinton earned his single subject teaching credential from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo , in 2003, and his B.A. in English (with a Creative Writing emphasis) and a Minor in French from the same university in 2002. He came to the English department in a roundabout way, majoring in Mechanical Engineering for four years before making the switch to English. As an undergrad, he concentrated mainly on poetry, particularly Twentieth Century Poetry and Poetry Writing, though he took a wide variety of courses to prepare him to teach at the high school level. As a graduate student, Hinton hopes to continue his study of Twentieth Century Poetry, as well as focus on filling in the gaps that exist in his knowledge base, especially in the areas of literary criticism and theory, medieval and renaissance literature, and early American literature.


Lara Hubel

My intellectual curiosity began with a fascination with language, when I learned to read and began to explore the seemingly infinite ways in which words communicate the phenomenal world. My initial individual research was in second grade, when I ordered a copy of a children's book in Spanish from the school book order though I neither read nor spoke Spanish, intending to compare the English and Spanish versions in a quest to understand another language. My interest in foreign languages never waned, and I received a B.A. in Spanish along with English in 2003. Despite my aptitude for reading Spanish literature, I found myself most interested in the relationship between words in any language and the rules that turn a collection of words into a particular text. I began to look into development of the English language and early English literature, in terms of etymology, syntax, and literary forms. While these developments are perhaps most greatly evident in texts in Old English and Middle English, I also found interest in the drastic experimentations exhibited in twentieth century Modern and Post-modern literature. I would like to study the relationship between these two seemingly disparate periods concerning both language and form.


Gayle Lubeck

My intellectual journey began when I was a child. I was an inquisitive, bright child who liked to learn and good grades were a reflection of my persona. Later on, high school came with its own set of challenges, and at that time I excelled in psychology but did not have the desire to continue. I decided to join the California Conservation Corps to see some wilderness and leave Oakland. I did have an opportunity to write by keeping a journal and contribute to the camp newsletter. When I returned, I continued this line of work for East Bay Mud. Then one day, a friend told me that I was too smart to continue doing construction work and convinced me to continue with school. So I did. I received a B.A. in advertising from SJSU, a few years later a certificate in marketing communications, and now pursuing the master’s degree in English and Comparative Literature. I live life with passion, and am fortunate enough to be able to engage in activities that are not only challenging but also life-altering. I hope to continue writing and become a teacher.