News & Events
City Tech Faculty Duo Turns Passion for Literature into Global Anthology
Willams (left) and Ferrell
A dynamic duo in the English department of New York City College of Technology (City Tech) is out to change the face of college English courses -- literally. Assistant Professors Monique S. Ferrell and Julian Williams, who both came to City Tech in 2003, have won a City University of New York (CUNY) Faculty Fellowship Publication Program grant to produce an anthology for writing-based classes that reflects the cultural diversity of CUNY students.
The new anthology, Lead, Follow, or Move Out of the Way: Global Perspectives in Literature, will be published by Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company this coming fall. It contains, alongside pieces from the traditional literary canon, unusual works and voices: American and foreign Muslim women, Oklahoma Pawnees and Tohono O-odham women in Tucson, Sioux and Apaches, African women and Afghanis, passages from the Koran -- and topics that guarantee discussion, such as female circumcision and honor killings.
But, says Dr. Ferrell, “Not everything that takes place across the world is horrific; some people are just enjoying their daily lives, enjoying writing, living in their own skin. At the same time, as human beings we are all navigating the process of life. Literature, in whatever form, allows us to pause, reflect and share.” The anthology will convey that commonality of experience.
Dr. Ferrell’s passion for creating the anthology evolved from her days as the only African American in Oklahoma State University’s PhD program. “A Native American student took me into her family,” she explains, “and I spent four and a half years with the Pawnee Nation, my adopted tribe.” Similarities between her friend’s experience and her own background stimulated her thinking, and, says Dr. Ferrell, “enabled me to understand what it felt like to be marginalized and how important it is for all students to have a global college experience.”
Hundreds of hours browsing in Barnes & Noble convinced Dr. Williams of the need for the book: “No one book speaks to all students. Other books are repetitive and use the same writers. The students feel disconnected from them. A lot of what’s in textbooks these days is so safe. We’re trying to go against the grain, to pick more provocative material, to deal with real issues and to pick authors from all walks of life. “
Those issues include social responsibility, violence, sexism, racism, class, death, religion, sexuality, and poverty and wealth. Under those headings the book addresses ageism, hate, political strife, domineering mothers, absent fathers, music, harassment, love, justice, revenge, survival, disaster and the supernatural.
Among those whose words will appear in the anthology are Wooden Leg, Tahira Naqvi, Khaled Hosseini, Louie Crew, Elie Wiesel, Vine Deloria, Buchi Emecheta, Ernesto Quinonez and Ralph Waldo Emerson, for his classic essay, “Self-Reliance.”
The book is also a practical solution to a problem. Textbooks are expensive
($50-$75), but instructors rarely use one book, often photocopying pieces from
other texts. Says Dr. Williams, “We have desk drawers filled with material
that never shows up in just one textbook, and those are the writers who really
speak to the students. This book will open up the world: it’s filled
with human stories, in all different types of writing -- plays, poems, journals,
articles, essays and fiction. We wanted to put together a book professors can
be proud to order.”
The book, which will be about 600 pages, includes critical essays to teach
critical writing and thinking, supporting arguments and questioning, and
information and insight for applying different critical lenses. Dr. Ferrell
says the English department has been “very supportive” of their
effort, and the book will be the suggested required text for second-semester
English, known as the introduction to research. Though the anthology can
be used by all colleges and universities, because it was developed with CUNY
in mind, it is expected to lead to higher pass rates on the CUNY Proficiency
Exam (CPE).
“One piece in every section will have charts and graphs, which will condition students for the kinds of questions they will be asked on the CPE,” Dr. Williams says. “None of the anthologies we’ve looked at, and we did an extensive study, have anything like this.”
It was seemingly inevitable that Drs. Ferrell and Williams would become working partners. Though she grew up in the Lafayette Gardens projects of Bedford Stuyvesant and now lives in Clinton Hill, and he, a South Side Chicagoan, is a Manhattan Upper East Side resident, they were hired at the same time, their offices are across the hall from each other, they’re close in age and are the two African Americans in the department, sharing many common interests. Dr. Williams explains, “It’s as if the Universe and the University system conspired to put us together to create this textbook!”
Drs. Ferrell and Williams also collaborate on other projects: they developed a course, “Women, Violence and Victimization,” for Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois, that they teach during the winter intersession. They will use materials from that course for a gender studies book, which will include excerpts from the Bible, the Torah, the Koran and other sacred texts, as well as essays discussing images of women in Hip Hop and in Walt Disney animated movies.
Dr. Ferrell, a prolific poet, has given readings at bookstores, universities and literary festivals. Her work has appeared in anthologies and the Antioch Review, New York Quarterly and North American Review, among other publications; she received the 1993 Audre Lorde Award for Poetry from Hunter College. Before coming to City Tech, the Hunter College graduate taught at Millikin University and Oklahoma State University, where she received her master’s degree and doctorate in English literature. She is now working on a book of short fiction, Screaming Mimis, Laughing Black Medusas, and Other Tales from the Yoke, for which she won two PSC-CUNY grants.
Dr. Williams formerly taught at York College (CUNY), Nassau Community College, Teachers College at Columbia University and Clark Atlanta University in Georgia, and has presented on literary methods in college classrooms, urban schooling, and the novelist Charles W. Chesnutt, at conferences of the American Educational Research Association, the National Council of Teachers of English and the Modern Language Association. Currently writing a book of short stories, he holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Morehouse College, a master’s in English from Clark Atlanta University, a master’s in education from Teachers College, Columbia University and a doctorate in English from Columbia University.
2/6/06
