Neal Karlen

“I always told Prince I knew he really didn’t consider me a friend, but as one of the few people in Minneapolis who was probably awake, like he always was, in the middle of the night, and was ‘Willing and Able,’ as my favorite song of his is titled, to talk about loneliness and death,” Karlen wrote.

“I even rubbed it in, in the opening of my second Rolling Stone cover story on Prince, published in 1990.

‘The phone rings at 4:48 in the morning,'”

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Many believe that the first two acts of the play were written by an unknown playwright, but that the final three acts were written by William Shakespeare. Others believe that Shakespeare started the work early in his career and finished it after he had gained more experience. One piece of evidence in support of dual authorship is the play’s absence from the “first folio,” the first collection of plays Shakespeare published.

“If it’s not in the First Folio, people are skeptical,” said Green. “Almost from the get-go, the first two acts don’t look like Shakespeare. We know it was played by the King’s Men and it sounds like Shakespeare but it is pretty clear that Shakespeare had a major hand in the last three acts.”

Read: on the Star Tribune site.

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In 2013, the MFA will offer four genres: fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and screenwriting. A fifth genre, playwriting, will be added in 2014.  A national book prize and concentrations in publishing, teaching and translation will also begin that year.

“An Augsburg MFA leverages our distinguished faculty and the strength of our undergraduate programs while delivering things no other program in Minnesota or the surrounding states offers, including a book prize, a screenwriting track, and low-residency programming for all four of our genres,” said Augsburg College President Paul C. Pribbenow. “The program and its format show the ability of our school to meet marketplace demand and to use technology to increase accessibility and contain costs.”

The Augsburg MFA includes three 10-day summer residencies, complemented by online coursework as well as individualized mentorship semesters. During the residency, students will participate in daily workshops, readings, and mini-courses focused on literary craft, career skills in teaching, editing, publishing, book arts, advertising, translation, adaptation, and new media. Learn more on the website.

Clark is a writer of fiction, creative nonfiction, and screenplays. Stories from Vladimir’s Mustache were published in such literary journals as Witness, Ninth Letter, and Cincinnati Review. His creative nonfiction has been recognized as notable in Best of the Web 2009 and Best American Essays 2009 and 2010. Professionally represented as a screenwriter while living in Los Angeles, Clark has optioned two scripts and seen his screenwriting honored by the Monterey County Film Commission and Francis Ford Coppola’s American Zoetrope film studios. Clark worked as a print and radio journalist before returning to academia.

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And while they weren’t really given a choice—their professor assigned the reading as their final major project—the students in Bob Cowgill’s senior keystone course took on a bit of a challenge in reading Ulysses. They’re doing it aloud, in a marathon reading over the course of three weeks, and in several locations around the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood.

From April 13 to May 4, the students will take turns reading from the novel. Some readings will take place in settings related to the text, like the April 14 reading on the Mississippi Riverbank.

Senior Susan Woehrle says Cowgill assigned the staged reading as a way for students to engage the text. Not only do they have to do the reading, they need to get people to the venues to listen. “We thought it would mean less work, but then we started to look at promotions and multi-media aspect and realized it was harder than it seemed,” she says. The students worked with Darcey Engen, a professor of theatre at Augsburg, on vocal projection and dramatic reading techniques so they’re presentations would be more engaging, “And not droning on,” Woehrle says.

Woehrle has become invested in the promotion of this event. “Unlike other students in the class, I’m coming back to college after a while away. I’m excited about this as the prodigal’s son who is returning,” she says. She adds that after graduation, it will be more difficult to have this same kind of opportunity, so she wants to make the best of it. “After I leave, this kind of opportunity is not going to be as easy to find.”

You can find event details on . Also read the Daily A-mail or check the Inside Augsburg calendar for information.

Three-Week Marathon Ulysses Reading

(Schedule subject to change)

Wed, 4/13/11, 7 p.m.

Lindell Library, Room 301

Thursday 4/14, 11 a.m.

Boneshaker Books

2002 23rd Ave. S. (Franklin & 23rd)

Thursday 4/14, 4 p.m.

Mississippi Riverbank

S 4th St & W River Pkwy

Monday, 4/18, 7 p.m.

Lindell Library, Room 301

Wednesday 4/20, 2 p.m.

Christensen Center

Wednesday 4/20, 7 p.m.

Lindell Library, Room 301

Monday 4/25, Noon

Lindell Library, Room 301

Monday 4/25, 7 p.m.

Lindell Library, Room 301

Tuesday, 4/26, 2 p.m.

The Quad

Wednesday, 4/27, 7 p.m.

Lindell Library, Room 301

Thursday, 4/28, 7 p.m.

Lindell Library, Room 301

Friday, 4/29, Noon

Murphy Park

Monday, 5/2, 7 p.m.

Lindell Library, Room 301

Tuesday, 5/3, 7 p.m.

Lindell Library, Room 301

Wednesday, 5/4, Noon

Christensen Center

Wednesday, 5/4, 3 p.m.

Christensen Center

Wednesday, 5/4, 7 p.m.

“Black Box” Theater

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Hao is dean of the foreign language department and a professor of 19th-century American literature at Anqing Teachers College, a four-year college of about 20,000 students in Anhui Province. While at Augsburg, he observed three literature classes, two taught by Professor Colin Irvine—an American Literature class for Weekend College students and Environmental Literature—and English Novels, taught by Professor Dallas Liddle, who also helped him with research at the University of Minnesota’s Wilson Library. Hao has also continued his own research on British novelist Thomas Hardy.

Several Augsburg faculty, staff, and students took advantage of Hao’s offer to teach an eight-week informal class in Chinese. Because of the difficulty in reading Chinese characters, Hao focused on phonetics and pronunciation to learn basic everyday conversation, repetition after repetition.

Hao helped the group understand differences between the two languages—the fact that English has many more words than Chinese, rendering it better for precise definitions of law or descriptive passages in literature, while the sparser Chinese can express layers of nuanced meaning in poetry.

Rebecca John, assistant vice president for marketing and communication, joined the conversation group to get a feel for a language so different from anything she had studied.

“It was phenomenal to have a native speaker as a model, listening to his tones,” John says, “and because he has studied English, he knew where we, as English speakers, were coming from.”

John knew nothing about language tones, and at first everything sounded totally foreign. Now, when she hears a new word, she knows she can learn it and retain it. “I have a place in my brain now for Chinese.”

What Hao found interesting in the classes he observed and carries back home with him is greater understanding of the similarities and differences between American and Chinese students.

“The biggest difference,” he says, “is the importance attached to liberal arts.” American students have a wide range of knowledge, and American classes are “student-centered.” That is to say, most of the class time is taken up by students, and if they want to participate, they need to prepare. American students learn both from their teachers and their peers.

China’s “knowledge-based” system is the reverse. Teachers occupy most of the class time, and students generally don’t speak up or ask questions.

Hao attributes this difference to American individualism and Chinese collectivism. Chinese teachers are considered authority figures, and despite most attempts to encourage students to speak out, they remain reticent. As China becomes more globalized and interacts with the West, however, Hao believes students are gradually becoming more creative and critical thinkers.

Next week, Hao returns to finish out the last two months of the Chinese term at his college, which began in March and runs through July.

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He served his country during the Vietnam War. He and his wife raised three kids. He flew as a pilot for Northwest Airlines for 33 years, retiring as a 747 pilot.

But he never earned a college degree. That, however, will change on Sunday.

While each of the 167 undergraduate students eligible to go through commencement on Sunday has their own story, the 69-year-old Osborn will certainly be among the oldest Augsburg for Adults students to ever graduate.

“This has just been a tremendous experience,” said Osborn, who will graduate with honors and a degree in English.

Osborn spent two years at Michigan State University right out of high school but said that college wasn’t right at that time of his life. He joined the Naval Reserve, and his unit was called up. When he got out of the Navy in 1964, he earned an Associates degree at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and began flying for Northwest shortly after.

Since piloting his final Northwest flight, he has worked part-time at the University of Minnesota’s Academic Health Center, role playing with students learning to be doctors.

“After five years of that, I said, ‘I’m going to go back to college,'” Osborn said. “Three years ago when my wife came home one day and I said, ‘I’ve got something to tell you.'”

His family was thrilled with the decision, and his friends have been complementary and supportive through the process.

After originally planning to study in the biological sciences, Osborn was hooked by English 111 and began studying creative writing. Like many adult learners, Osborn had times when he wondered what he had gotten himself into—and he wasn’t balancing school, work, and a young family like many students.

“It was the middle of my first year and I was taking macroeconomics and an English course,” said Osborn, who made the dean’s list several times during his time at Augsburg. “The work was piling on and I thought, ‘Why am I doing this?’ But I just plugged along.”

There have been times over the past few years when he was in classes with both weekend and day students. In those classes, Osborn was close to 50 years older than some of his classmates. And it’s possible some of those day students have grandparents younger than Osborn.

“I was very well accepted by everyone at Augsburg,” Osborn said. “After my Keystone class, a couple of young guys gave me hug and told me that I was a good addition to the class. That was nice.”

With his degree complete, Osborn is going to continue living his motto of refusing to grow old while sitting down.

“I’d like to do volunteer work with high school students who have problems writing,” he said. “I am going to continue to write. I’ll probably never be John Updike, but I enjoy it.”

And on Sunday, he’ll have his college degree.

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Writers may enter the contest by submitting fiction, creative non-fiction, or poetry, but may win in only one category. Fiction and creative non-fiction submissions must be no longer than 15 pages. To enter the poetry competition, writers must submit at least three poems. (Poetry entries with fewer than three poems will not be considered.)

Each entrant’s work must be accompanied with a cover sheet that includes the author’s name and the title of each piece submitted.  Any manuscript with the author’s name printed on it will not be considered.  Submissions, with five copies of the manuscripts, must arrive in the English Department office, 221A Memorial Hall, by 1 p.m on Monday, Dec. 17. Winning entries may be published in the Echo, Augsburg’s student newspaper.

For questions about the John Engman Writing Prize, contact Robert Cowgill at cowgill@augsburg.edu

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