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28 March
ISU's English Department has closed
the Unit for Contemporary
Literature. The Unit was home of production for American
Book Review, Fiction Collective 2,
Spoon River Poetry Review,
the and LitLine, including that site's
various supported projects. It supported the Illinois
Literary Network, sponsored literary readings, and was a major component of
ISU's publishing program. It also employed regular zine contributors Brooke Nelson
and Jeremy Coulter, among others. We have no information yet as to how the Unit's
closing will play out, except that obviously this is a major loss. (See Curtis White's
ISU English Department Chronology, below). We at fkal'b have begun work on a special
issue focused on this closing, and will post new information here as we receive it.
Curt's ISU English Department Chronology
or
Gabe's Morale Problem: The Big Picture*
1984: FC2/ISU National Fiction Competition
over a ten year period published works by Gerald Vizenor, Richard Grossman, Eurudice, R.M. Berry, Alex Shakar, Constance Pierce and more. These writers also visited campus.
1988?: FC2 and Spoon River come to ISU
1990: Publication Unit is established with FC2, Spoon River, and Andrei Codrescu's Exquisite Corpse
1991: John O'Brien and Dalkey Archive Press brought to campus
1992: Visiting writers series which featured Ishmael Reed, Carole Maso, Paul Auster, Raymond Federman, Nathaniel Mackey among others.
1993: David Foster Wallace hired.
1993: Unit for Contemporary Literature established attracting major programs and grants from Mellon, Lila Wallace, NEA, and IAC
1995: American Book Review included within Unit for Cont. Lit.
1995: Major national articles on Unit, Dalkey, and Normal as home to avant garde in Publisher's Weekly, Lingua Franca, Chicago Reader, Michael Berube's The Employment of English [and the Chicago Tribune in 1998 or -99, I remember. —Tim].
1996: We wake up to realization that we have program with national reputation attracting faculty and students of the highest caliber from the best schools. (Jason Hamek, Scott Rettberg, Stacey Gottlieb, Greg Howard, Adam Jones, etc.)
1997: Provost kills deal with Council for Literary Magazine and Presses.
2001: Publications Program approved.
Since 1997:
FC2: Gone.
FC2 central office: Gone
Exquisite Corpse: Gone
David Wallace: Gone
Dalkey Archive Press: Gone
Visiting writers and poets: Gone
Publications Program still born [sic] due to failure to fund.
Unit for Cont. Lit.: Gone.
American Book Review: Gone.
Pub Unit??? What's left? Does one poetry review make a unit?
*because at the previous meeting Gabe brought up what closing the Unit does to general departmental morale.
diligently retyped by Tim. all typos = Curt's, and he said that he might be off on the chronology.
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