By Whitney Hale

(April 23, 2015) — The Kentucky Women Writers Conference is trying something new for the 10th anniversary of its Wild Women of Poetry Slam. This nationally renowned all-women slam will open up its first round of competition to poets residing anywhere in the United States, who may submit a video of their spoken-word performance via the Internet through May 10.  

“Live performance is the defining feature of a poetry slam, but we know we’re missing out on so much talent," said Julie Wrinn, conference director. "By moving round one online, we open up possibilities for poets throughout the United States to participate.”

Poets are invited to submit their performances by emailing a video of an original, three-minute slam poem via Youtube or Vimeo link to

By Gail Hairston, Whitney Harder

(April 22, 2015) — The University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences will honor its faculty at 4 p.m. today at the William T. Young Library Auditorium.

The recipients of this year's college faculty awards are:

Charles Carlson, psychology, 2015-16 Distinguished Professor. For more information, visit http://uknow.uky.edu/content/carlson-honored-teaching-research-and-service

Beth Guiton, assistant professor of chemistry ‒ Distinguished Undergraduate Research Mentoring Award

Guiton leads a materials chemistry group in the Center for Advanced Materials, investigates chemistry at the nanometer length scale, working at the intersection between solid state chemistry and advanced

By Whitney Hale, Lydia Whitman

(April 22, 2015) — In celebration of poetry in print, "Verse in Type: Poets & Printers, an Artistic Affinity" is the theme for the 2015 King Library Press Spring Seminar, presented by University of Kentucky's King Library Press at the end of April. This year's seminar will be presented in conjunction with a letterpress printing exhibit and student poetry contest. The King Library Press Spring Seminar and reception will take place starting at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 28, at the Hilary J. Boone Center on campus.

"Poetry, being often more

By Clark Bellar

(April 16, 2015) — On April 23, the Confucius Institute at the University of Kentucky and the Department of English will host a talk by Eugenia Zuroski Jenkins, titled "How Chinese Things Became Oriental." The presentation will begin at 3 p.m. Thursday, at the Alumni Gallery in the William T. Young Library.

Following the presentation there will be a Q&A session as well as refreshments.

Jenkins is an associate professor of English and cultural studies at McMaster University

By Whitney Hale

(April 15, 2015) — University of Kentucky Libraries Special Collections Research Center will host an opening reception for an exhibit highlighting four undergraduates' Learning Lab internship projects from 3-4:30 p.m. Thursday, April 16, in the Great Hall of the Margaret I. King Library Building. The event will feature presentations from the four Learning Lab interns, including commentary on their scholarly projects.

The Learning Lab internship, now in its third year, is an experiential learning program that introduces undergraduate students to archival processing and theory using rare and

By Katy Bennett

(April 14, 2015) — Join the University of Kentucky Student Activities Board's Multicultural Affairs Committee in enjoying poetry readings by the Affrilachian Poets at 6:30 p.m. Wednesay, April 15, in the auditorium of William T. Young Library.

Students, faculty and staff can enjoy exciting and culturally captivating poetry by a group of talented poets brought together by Danville native and UK faculty member, Frank X Walker, who has also served as Kentucky's poet laureate. Five of the poets will share their personal history of being a minority in the Appalachian area and how their identity has been shaped because of their ethnicity. Light refreshments will be served.

“This poetry gives a voice to the Appalachian area,” Lee Mengistu, associate director of

The College of Arts & Sciences is proud to announce the recipients of this year’s College teaching awards, They are Renee Fatemi, physics and astronomy (Outstanding Teaching Award), Moisés Castillo, Hispanic Studies (Outstanding Teaching Award), Charley Carlson, psychology (Outstanding Teaching Award), Anna Voskresensky,

By Jenny Wells

(March 30, 2015) — Pearl James, associate professor in the University of Kentucky Department of English, will deliver the first lecture of this semester's Chellgren Seminar Series. Her talk, "Hollywood's Great War," will take place at 4 p.m. Tuesday, March 31 in the William T. Young Library Auditorium.

"As the recent success of 'American Sniper' reminds us, the war film genre has been a staple in Hollywood for a long time," James said. "This talk will use the current 100-year anniversary of World War I to discuss Hollywood portrayals of World War I. Hollywood brought glamour to the war but also, occasionally, showed its costs. This talk will focus particularly on King Vidor’s wildly popular

By Clark Bellar

(March 24, 2015) — University of Kentucky Association of Emeriti Faculty (UKAEF) presented fellowship awards to three UK graduate students at a ceremony Feb. 10. Each award includes a stipend of $2,500.

Since 1996, 59 fellowships have been awarded totaling $84,500. Three or four fellowships are presented annually to full-time graduate students. These awards are made possible through donations from UKAEF members as well as from the Commonwealth of Kentucky Research Challenge Trust Fund.

This year's UKAEF Fellowship awards are named in honor of Jean Pival, 25-year faculty member in the

By Gail Hairston

(March 24, 2015) — Filmmakers Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle visit the University of Kentucky today, Tuesday, March 24, to screen and discuss their film “Goodbye Gauley Mountain: An Ecosexual Love Story.”

In a news release about the film, Stephens stated, “MTR (mountaintop renewal) must be stopped in order to ensure a future that includes clean air and water, as well as social justice. Our activist strategy is to switch the metaphor from ‘Earth as mother’ to ‘Earth as lover’ to garner more love and empathy for the mountains. It will take time, but we’ll get there.”

The free event is slated at 2 p.m. today, in the auditorium of William T. Young Library. It is co-sponsored by UK College of Arts and Sciences, American Studies Department,

By Lydia Whitman

(March 12, 2015)   The University of Kentucky Gaines Center for the Humanities has chosen 12 outstanding undergraduates as new scholars for the university's Gaines Fellowship Program for the 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 academic years. Gaines Fellowships are given in recognition of outstanding academic performance, demonstrated ability to conduct independent research, an interest in public issues and a desire to enhance understanding of the human condition through the humanities.

Gaines Fellowships are awarded for the tenure of a student's junior and senior years, or for the last two years of a five-year program; students in all disciplines and with any intended

By Kathy Johnson, Gail Bennett

(March 2, 2015) — Today, Monday, March 2, WUKY will broadcast a recording of the induction ceremony of the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame and comments by renowned writer Wendell Berry, the first living writer to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.  On January 28, Berry was honored as well as gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005), University of Kentucky Professor Guy Davenport (1927-2005), Affrilachian poet Effie Waller Smith (1879-1960), New York Review of Books co-founder Elizabeth Hardwick (1916-2007) and Western Kentucky University Professor Jim Wayne Miller (1936 -1996).

The recording of the event will air at 7 p.m. today on WUKY 91.3, the University

By Clark Bellar

(March 2, 2015) — On March 3, the Confucius Institute at the University of Kentucky and the Department of English will host a talk by Eugenia Zuroski Jenkins, titled "How Chinese Things Became Oriental." The presentation will begin at 3 p.m. Tuesday, in the Niles Gallery of the Lucille Caudill Little Fine Arts Library and Learning Center.

Following the presentation, there will be a Q&A session as well as refreshments.

Jenkins is an associate

By Amy Jones-Timoney, Kelli Elam, Kodi Kiser, Whitney Harder

(Feb. 23, 2014) — Basketball players weren't the only ones in the spotlight at Rupp Arena this weekend.  

On Saturday, the University of Kentucky Alumni Association presented its 2015 Great Teacher Awards to six recipients at a recognition dinner.  The award-winners were then recognized on the court of Rupp Arena during the Kentucky vs. Auburn men’s basketball game.

The recipients are:

•  Sameer Desai, College of Medicine, Emergency Medicine

•  Pearl James, College of Arts and Sciences, English

By Sarah Schuetze

Traveling on the winding roads through the mountains of West Virginia, six people quickly realize that the mountains and the mountain folk are their worst nightmare. This is the premise for the film Wrong Turn, which is an example of “hillbilly horror” and a derogatory portrayal of Appalachia in popular culture.

Images of Appalachia and Appalachians in popular media range from idyllic to horrifying, and this semester, students in Professor Carol Mason’s course, Gender, Film, and Appalachia will examine this range of representation. The class is offered for credit through both the American Studies Program and the

· "The Silent Woman," the strange, true tale of a painter who lived with an effigy of an ex-lover and coaxes his scullery maid to play along, by Lydia Blaisdell of Austin, Texas;

· "Sisters/Sistahz," the story of identical twin African-American "sisters/sistahz" who must come to terms with their starkly differing views on black womanhood in America, by 

by: Whitney Hale, Mack McCormick

(Feb. 2, 2015) — Last week, the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning in downtown Lexington held the third annual induction of the Kentucky Writer’s Hall of Fame. The writers recognized in this class include alumni and two former faculty members of the University of Kentucky, as well as the subject of a recent book by University Press of Kentucky.

Created in 2013, the Kentucky Writer's Hall of Fame recognizes Kentucky writers whose work reflects the character and culture of our Commonwealth, and educates Kentuckians about the state’s rich literary heritage.

This year’s inductees have been described as "eloquent, inspirational and

by Sarah Schuetze

Sitting at the front of the room at a seminar table crowded with more students than anyone imagined, professor Francie Chassen-Lopez said, “I always say I have one foot on either side of the border.”

Chassen-Lopez is one of the four instructors teaching Social Theory 600, a graduate seminar called “Transnational Lives.” The professors include Ana Liberato, Cristina Alcalde, and Steven Alvarez—each representing a different discipline and approach to the course. “What makes this so exciting,” Alcalde said, “is we’re all coming at this from different perspectives.”

In many ways,

by Gail Hairston

(Jan. 27, 2015) ‒ From Reverence to Resistance, a series of lectures about Appalachians on film, begins today with “Genre and Jessica Lynch” at 2 p.m. today in William T. Young Library Auditorium.

Stacy Takacs, author of “Terrorism TV,” will discuss how Hollywood can “spin” a war. Her lecture will answer the question “Was West Virginia soldier Jessica Lynch really a female Rambo, and did the military make her a damsel in distress who needed to be saved from Iraqis?”

The next lecture, Hillbilly Horror, is slated Feb. 24, presented by Emily Satterwhite, author of “Dear Appalachia.” The lecture will focus on Appalachian slasher films like “Wrong Turn,” a series of six movies about deformed cannibals hunting in West Virginia.

The last lecture in the series, Goodbye Gauley Mountain, takes place March 24, and welcomes filmmakers Beth

by: Whitney Hale

(Jan. 22, 2015) — Nathan Moore, a University of Kentucky English senior from Louisville, Kentucky, has been selected to present the 21st annual Edward T. Breathitt Undergraduate Lectureship in the Humanities at 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 22, in the UK Athletics Auditorium at William T. Young Library. Moore's free public lecture focuses on intersections of African American literature, history and cultural memory.

The Breathitt Lectureship was named for an outstanding UK alumnus who showed an exceptional interest in higher education and the humanities, Gov. Edward T. Breathitt. The lectureship is awarded to an