the newsletter of the ialjs literary jjournalism

T H E N E W S L E T T E R O F T H E I A L J S

LLiitteerraarryy jjoouurrNNAAlliissmmVOL 9 NO 1 INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR LITERARY JOURNALISM STUDIES WINTER 2015

Ihave been thinking about our upcom-ing conference in Minneapolis, May 7-9, hosted by Tom Connery and the

University of St. Thomas. Fond memoriesand the anticipation of new conferencepresentations have come to mind. Myfirst job out of college was with UnitedPress International in Minneapolis. I left

the warm con-fines ofChampaign,Illinois, dur-ing a verycold Januaryfor the eight-hour drive.For the lasthundredmiles I fol-lowed snow-plowsthrough ablizzard. InMinneapolis,my car didn’tstart for a

week because of icy cold weather. When I could drive again, I

enjoyed the look of the city: steep walls ofplowed snow along the Interstate high-ways, vast snow-covered fields andneighborhoods of quality houses. I hadnever been colder except during the sum-mer in England. Yet a woman in the UPIoffice walked more than two miles towork every day when the temperaturewas above zero (-18ºC.). Minnesotansmeet winter head-on. When springarrived—and it will be spring when wegather in May—the glory of the UpperMidwest came alive. The vast fields, it

turned out, were lakes. Everyone wasfriendly, even the politicians. I was attract-ed to the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party,founded in Minnesota in 1918 as a legacyof the Progressive Era.

The recent elections in the U.S.,along with several research papers andstandard journalism reports, suggest thatwe are returning to financial conditionsfrom the era before the Great Depression.As James Fallows once said, people aremoving one direction or the other out ofthe middle class—“jump up or falldown.” The middle class seems to be hol-

lowing out. The Economist recentlyreported that the top 0.01% of Americanscontrol 11.2% of wealth, and the top 0.1%hold 22% of America’s wealth. Those fig-ures approximate conditions between1916 and 1929, and not seen since. A NewYork Times reporter says that only 100 peo-ple are mega-donors in politics and thatfewer than 500 contribute the vast majori-ty of political money in the U.S.

Those figures come from stan-dard journalism. My question is: Who iswriting literary journalism about theseclass changes today? It’s nearly impossi-ble to write about the top 0.01% becausetheir publicists won’t give access to writ-ers. Literary journalism can be a vehicle tounderstand and feel what people areexperiencing. We need to know moreabout ordinary people today.

Literary journalism has a longhistory of such reporting. Finley Peter

MEMBERSHIP REPORTAs of December 2014, we are happy to be ableto report that the association currently has 163paid-in-full members. PPlleeaassee nnoottee:: FFoorr aallllmmeemmbbeerrss,, tthhee 22001155 IIAALLJJSS mmeemmbbeerrsshhiipp ffeeeessaarree dduuee bbyy 11 JJaannuuaarryy 22001155.. See “MembershipPayments” at <www.ialjs.org>.

FUTURE SITES FORANNUAL MEETINGSThe following future IALJS convention venuesare confirmed and/or planned:

IIAALLJJSS--1100:: University of St. Thomas, St.Paul, Minnesota, U.S.A, 7-9 May 2015.

IIAALLJJSS--1111:: Pontifícia Universidade Católicado Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Rio Grandedo Sul, Brazil 19-21 May 2016.

IIAALLJJSS--1122:: University of King's College,Halifax, Nova Scotia, 11-13 May 2017.

IIAALLJJSS--1133:: Universitat de Barcelona,Barcelona, Spain, 17-19 May 2018.

IIAALLJJSS--1144:: Brock University, St.Catharines, Ontario, Canada, 9-11 May 2019.

IIAALLJJSS--1155:: University of Nova Gorica,Slovenia, 16-18 May 2020 (pending).

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PRESIDENT’SLETTER

WWW.IALJS.ORGContinued on next page

FOND MEMORIESAND ANTICIPATIONIALJS-10 is in Minneapolis inMay 2015. See you there.

By Norman Sims,University of Masachusetts-Amherst (U.S.A.)

My questionis: Who is writing literary

journalism aboutthe class changes that are

happening today?


PAGE 2 LITERARY JOURNALISM / WINTER 2014

The University of St. Thomas, locatedin the scenic and upbeat Twin Citiesmetropolitan area, offers students

an educational experience that inspiresthem to think critically and be morallyresponsible in their work for the commongood, as per the university’s mission

statement. Founded in

1885 byArchbishop JohnIreland, theUniversity of St.Thomas was origi-nally named St.Thomas AquinasSeminary, after thepatron saint of stu-dents in the RomanCatholic Church.Ireland opened theschool to serve as a

high school, college and seminary for St.Paul’s growing immigrant population. In1894, the seminary portion of the schoolsplit off to become the St. Paul Seminary,and the liberal arts program remained tobecome the precursor to today’sUniversity of St. Thomas.

To this day, most undergraduatesstudy at the College of Arts and Sciencesat the scenic St. Paul campus, located atthe junction of Summit Avenue and theMississippi River, a site that was still con-sidered very rural when the universitywas founded. With two campuses—themain one in St. Paul and a Minneapoliscampus hosting the business, educationand law schools, as well as IALJS-10—theUniversity of St. Thomas is Minnesota’slargest private university, with more than10,000 students enrolled across all disci-plines.

Out of about 2,500 degrees con-

ferred every year at the Universityof St. Thomas, there are five differ-ent types of bachelor’s degrees,spanning 88 major fields, 59 minorfields and 7 pre-professional pro-grams, as well as 49 secondarydegrees, including master’s degreesand doctorates. The University ofSt. Thomas prides itself on an excel-lent faculty, whose members teacheach class at St. Thomas, and morethan 90 percent of them hold thehighest degree in their fields ofstudy. There are no teaching assis-tants here, so students get to inter-act with and learn from the peoplewho understand their respectiveacademic subjects the most.

Research opportunities,personal attention and affordabilityare three of the biggest things thatdraw so many students to apply for andenroll at St. Thomas each year. Combiningthe abundant resources of a major univer-sity with the small class sizes of a liberalarts college, St. Thomas prides itself in itsability to offer students exciting projectsand approachable professors to workwith. Almost every student at St. Thomasreceives some form of merit-based finan-cial aid, so they can have more time tofocus on their academics in lieu of worry-ing about finances.

A SPECIALPLACE

With its reputation for academicexcellence and an extensive alumni net-work spread throughout the world, theUniversity of St. Thomas is a proudMinnesota institution, cultivating aninspired and global-minded communitywithin its accomplished student body. ©

Literary JournalismWINTER 2015 Vol 9 No 1Editors: Bill Reynolds and David AbrahamsonISSN 1941-1030 (print)ISSN 1941-1049 (online)© 2015 The Newsletter of the International Association forLiterary Journalism Studies. All rights reserved.

ST. THOMAS BEGAN OFFERING CLASSES IN 1987 AT AREMODELED DEPARTMENT STORE IN DOWNTOWN

MINNEAPOLIS. IN FALL 1992, THE UNIVERSITYOPENED A PERMANENT, $25 MILLION, 150,000-SQUARE-

FOOT CAMPUS IN THE CITY. THE BUILDING, NAMEDTERRENCE MURPHY HALL IN MAY 2000, IS

HEADQUARTERS TO THE COLLEGE OF BUSINESS.

Continued on next page

THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. THOMAS, OUR IALJS-10 HOST The school focuses on personal teaching to cultivate morally responsible citizens.

By Megan Suckut, Northwestern University (U.S.A.)

Dunne, Josiah Flynt, Jack London, JohnReed, Jacob Riis and Walter Wyckoffwrote about the underclass in the U.S.before 1915. The Great Depression was“discovered” by literary journalists suchas John Dos Passos, Edmund Wilson andMartha Gellhorn before standard journal-ists were willing to admit what they wereseeing. Later, James Agee and WalkerEvans’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

became a landmark of the era. As we’velearned at IALJS conferences and in theLJS journal, writers in England such asGeorge Orwell and in France, Portugaland other countries also ventured intoimpoverished neighborhoods in search ofstories.

I’d like to know who is creating

PRESIDENT’S LETTER Continued from previous page


LITERARY JOURNALISM / WINTER 2014 PAGE 3

IIAALLJJSS--1100 CCOONNFFEERREENNCCEE SSCCHHEEDDUULLEE SSUUMMMMAARRYY

WWeeddnneessddaayy,, 66 MMaayy 22001155

Session 0 16.00 – 18.00 Executive Committee Meeting

TThhuurrssddaayy,, 77 MMaayy 22001155

Sign in 8.00 – 9.00 Pick up conference materialsSession 1 9.00 – 9.15 Welcome and IntroductionSession 2 9.15 – 10.45 Work-in-Progress Session I Session 3 11.00 – 12.30 Panel I (President’s Panel) Lunch 12.30 – 13.45Session 4 13.45 – 15.15 Research Paper Session ISession 5 15.30 – 17.00 Work-in-Progress Sessions II, III and IVSession 6 17.15 – 18.45 Panel II (Conference Host’s Panel)Session 7 19.15 – 21.00 Conference Reception

FFrriiddaayy,, 88 MMaayy 22001155

Session 8 7.30 – 9:00 Breakfast for Your Thoughts (free to students)Session 9 9.30 – 10.30 Keynote Speech Session 10 10.45 – 12.15 Work-in-Progress Sessions V, VI and VIILunch 12.15 – 13.30Session 11 12.15 – 13.30 Working Lunch: Publication Committee and LJS StaffSession 12 13.30 – 15.00 Research Paper Session IISession 13 15.15 – 16.45 Panels III, IV and VSession 14 17.00 – 18.00 President’s Greeting & Annual Business MtgSession 15 19.00 – 21.00 Conference Banquet (per reservation)

SSaattuurrddaayy,, 99 MMaayy 22001155

Session 16 9.00 – 10.30 Work-in-Progress Session VIII and Panels VI and VIISession 17 10.45 – 12.15 Panels VIII, IX and XSession 18 12.30 – 13.00 Closing Convocation

Continued from preceding pagePRESIDENT’S LETTER

literary journalism about current condi-tions among either the underclass or themiddle class. If contemporary candidatescome to mind, please let me know<[email protected]>. I’ll reportback in the spring newsletter if I hearfrom enough people.

Whatever your thoughts on lit-erary journalism, I look forward to hear-ing them. Please think about submitting awork-in-progress abstract or a paper pro-posal. The deadline is December 1. If youhave something in mind that you haven’tcompletely developed, please consider awork-in-progress abstract of 250 words.Paper and work-in-progress proposalsshould be submitted to Josh Roiland<[email protected]>. Panel pro-posals can be sent to Rob Alexander<[email protected]>. Guidelines forproposals are here: <http://ialjs.journal-ism.ryerson.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/IALJS-10_2015_CFP_v06.pdf>.

Minneapolis will be the tenthconference of an amazing collaboration ofinternational colleagues who, I suspect,might never have met without IALJS. Wenow have a second generation of scholarstaking active roles in the organization.Members are collegial, friendly and help-ful—an encouraging vibe has grownwithin the organization. I’ve alwaysloved that most of our paper sessions areattended by almost everyone at the con-ference.

Minneapolis is the perfect placeto share your thoughts on research andget helpful feedback on your scholarlyefforts, as well as to get together againwith friends. ©

IALJS-10will be the tenth conference of

international colleagueswho I suspect might never have met

without our association



2015 IALJS CONVENTION REGISTRATION FORM7-9 May 2015

University of St. ThomasCollege of Arts & Sciences and Department of Communication and Journalism, Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A.

1.a. PRE-REGISTRATION FEES (MUST BE POSTMARKED ON OR BEFORE 31 MARCH 2015)Please indicatethe applicableamounts:

Current IALJS Member – $120 (rate for those already having paid their 2015 dues)Current IALJS Member retired – $100 (rate for those already having paid their 2015 dues)

Student – $5 (rate for those already having paid their 2015 dues)Student – $30 (Includes a one-year IALJS membership)

Non-IALJS member – $170 (Includes a one-year IALJS membership)

Spouse/Partner – $50 (This fee is required only if a spouse will be attending scheduled research sessions and/or panels)

1.b. REGISTRATION FEES POSTMARKED AFTER 31 MARCH 2015(Note: Meals & special events may not be available to those who register after 31 March 2015)

Current IALJS Member – $155 (rate for those already having paid their 2015 dues)

Current IALJS Member retired – $135 (rate for those already having paid their 2015 dues)Student – $30 (rate for those already having paid their 2015 dues)

Student – $55 (Includes a one-year IALJS membership)Non-IALJS member – $205 (Includes a one-year IALJS membership)

Spouse/Partner – $85 (This fee is required only if a spouse will be attending scheduled research sessions and/or panels)

1.c. ON-SITE REGISTRATION – $180 for IALJS members, $230 for non-members (includes a one-yearIALJS membership). NOTE: Meals & special events may not be available to those who register on site.

2. SPECIAL EVENTS:Please indicate the number of meals required next to each item below

Number of meals needed: Regular Vegetarian"Breakfast for Your Thoughts" (Friday morning) Number attending x $20*

Conference Banquet (Friday evening) Number attending x $60

*NOTE: Breakfast on Friday is FREE to students, who, in a collegial IALJS tradition, have a chance to present their work and career goals to the IALJS's faculty members.

Make registration checks payable to “IALJS” TOTAL ENCLOSED:

Please return completed formwith a check or bank transferpayable to “IALJS” to >>>

To register on-line via PayPal,see “Conference Payments” atWWW.IALJS.ORG

BILL REYNOLDS,IALJS PresidentSchool of JournalismRyerson University350 Victoria St.,Toronto, Ontario M5B 2K3CANADATel: +01-416-979-5000 x6294Fax: [email protected]

For a reservation at the convention hotel,DoubleTree Suites by Hilton Hotel Minneapolis

special IALJS rate information (single/double: $175.11)hotel and the registration form can be found at the following link:

http://www.ialjs.org/?page_id=21

3. REGISTRATION INFOName:Address/Department

School/University

City, State, Zip, CountryPhone

E-mail Address

Name of Spouse (if attending)



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CALL FOR PAPERSInternational Association for Literary Journalism Studies

“Literary Journalism: Media, Meaning, Memory”The Tenth International Conference for Literary Journalism Studies (IALJS-10)

The University of St. ThomasDepartment of Communication and Journalism

St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S.A.

7-9 May 2015

The International Association for Literary Journalism Studies invites submissions of originalresearch papers, abstracts for research in progress and proposals for panels on Literary Journalism for the IALJS annual convention on 7-9 May 2015. The conference will be held atthe University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S.A.

The conference hopes to be a forum for scholarly work of both breadth and depth in the field ofliterary journalism, and all research methodologies are welcome, as are research on all aspects ofliterary journalism and/or literary reportage. For the purpose of scholarly delineation, our definition of literary journalism is "journalism as literature" rather than "journalism aboutliterature." The association especially hopes to receive papers related to the general conferencetheme, “Literary Journalism: Media, Meaning, Memory." All submissions must be in English.

The International Association for Literary Journalism Studies is a multi-disciplinary learned society whose essential purpose is the encouragement and improvement of scholarly research and education in Literary Journalism. As an association in a relatively recently defined field ofacademic study, it is our agreed intent to be both explicitly inclusive and warmly supportive of avariety of scholarly approaches.

Details of the programs of previous annual meetings can be found at:http://www.ialjs.org/?page_id=33




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I. GUIDELINES FOR RESEARCH PAPERS

Submitted research papers should not exceed 7,500 words, or about 25 double-spaced pages, plusendnotes. Please regard this as an upper limit; shorter papers are certainly welcome. Endnotesand bibliographic citations should follow the Chicago Manual of Style. Papers may not besimultaneously submitted to any other conferences. Papers previously published, presented, accepted or under review are ineligible. Only one paper per author will be accepted for presentation in the conference’s research sessions, and at least one author for each paper must beat the convention in order to present the paper. If accepted, each paper presenter at a conferenceResearch Session may be allotted no more than 15 minutes. To be considered, please observe thefollowing guidelines:

(a) Submission by e-mail attachment in MS Word is required. No other format or faxesor postal mail submissions will be accepted.

(b) Include one separate title page containing title, author/s, affiliation/s, and the address, phone, fax, and e-mail of the lead author.

(c) Also include a second title page containing only the paper’s title and the paper’s abstract. The abstract should be approximately 250 words in length.

(d) Your name and affiliation should not appear anywhere in the paper [this information willonly appear on the first title page; see (b) above].

II. GUIDELINES FOR WORK-IN-PROGRESS PRESENTATIONS (ABSTRACTS)

Submitted abstracts for Work-in-Progress Sessions should not exceed 250 words. If accepted, each presenter at a conference Work-in-Progress session may be allotted no more than 10 minutes. To be considered, please observe the following guidelines:

(a) Submission by e-mail attachment using MS Word is required. No other format or faxes or postal mail submissions will be accepted.

(b) Include one separate title page containing title, author/s, affiliation/s, and the address, phone, fax and e-mail of the lead author.

(c) Also include a second page containing only the work’s title and the actual abstract of thework-in-progress. The abstract should be approximately 250 words in length.

III. GUIDELINES FOR PROPOSALS FOR PANELS

(a) Submission by e-mail attachment in MS Word is required. No other format or faxesor postal mail submissions will be accepted.

(b) Panel proposals should contain the panel title, possible participants and their affiliation and e-mail addresses, and a description of the panel’s subject. The description should beapproximately 250 words in length.

(c) Panels are encouraged on any topic related to the study, teaching or practice of literary journalism. See http://www.ialjs.org/?page_id=21.

CALL FOR PAPERS Continued from previous page




3

IV. EVALUATION CRITERIA, DEADLINES AND CONTACT INFORMATION

All research paper submissions will be evaluated on originality and importance of topic;literature review; clarity of research purpose; focus; use of original and primary sources and howthey support the paper’s purpose and conclusions; writing quality and organization; and thedegree to which the paper contributes to the study of literary journalism. Similarly, abstracts ofworks-in-progress and panel proposals will be evaluated on the degree to which they contributeto the study of literary journalism. All submissions will be blind-juried, and submissions fromstudents as well as faculty are encouraged.

Please submit research papers or abstracts of works-in-progress presentations to:

Prof. Josh Roiland, University of Maine, Orono (U.S.A.)2015 IALJS-10 Research Chair; e-mail: <mailto:[email protected]>

Please submit proposals for panels to:

Prof. Rob Alexander, Brock University (Canada)2015 IALJS-10 Program Co-Chair; e-mail: <[email protected]>

Deadline for all submissions: No later than 1 December 2014

For more information regarding the conference or the association, please go to http://www.ialjs.org or contact:

Prof,. Norman Sims, University of Massachusetts – Amherst (U.S.A.)IALJS President; e-mail: <mailto:[email protected]>

Prof. Isabel Soares, Universidade de Lisboa (Portugal)IALJS First Vice President; e-mail: <[email protected]>

Prof. Bill Reynolds, Ryerson University (Canada)IALJS Treasurer; e-mail: <[email protected]>

Prof. David Abrahamson, Northwestern University (U.S.A.)IALJS Secretary; e-mail: <[email protected]>

Prof. John S. Bak, Nancy-Université (France)Founding IALJS President; e-mail: [email protected]>

CALL FOR PAPERS Continued from previous page

and social cri-tique. Theexquisitelypointed protes-tant pen ofHubert Butler(1900-1991)struck a distinctively Anglo-Irish note ashe probed the nature of the new stateduring the second half of the twentiethcentury. He was no doubt encouraged bythe vividly expressed views of disillu-sioned nationalists such as Sean O’Faolainin The Bell (1940-54), a journal of manygenres.

Another distinctive body ofwork is that written in the Irish language(Gaelic). Eibhlín Ní Chionnaith's collec-tion of the journalism of Padraic ÓConaire—who is commemorated todayby a statue in Galway's main square—reminds one that the media may provideboth a mode of expression and a wideaudience for ideas that are literary in stylebut not necessarily about literature. A vol-ume by John Horgan, the national PressOmbudsman, which is rather grandlyentitled Great Irish Reportage (2013), is a



LITERARY JOURNALISM IN IRELANDThe genre has a long history in the country, but many of its most prominent practitionershave excelled in other spheres that have brought greater notice or praise.

By Colum Kenny, Dublin City University (Ireland)

Irish writers have long engaged in liter-ary journalism as a means of commu-nicating with and transforming their

society. During the struggle for nationalindependence before 1922, for example,their work encompassed short and longforms of journalism—including reportage

and commen-tary, as well asthe poetic, his-torical and fic-tional. Irish cen-ters of mediastudy, such asDublin CityUniversity andthe DublinInstitute ofTechnology, tendto discuss liter-

ary journalism ina broad profes-sional contextand generally donot usually allo-

cate it a discrete module on their pro-grams. Chris Morash, the SeamusHeaney Professor of Irish Writing atTrinity College Dublin, thinks that, “themore prominent practitioners of literaryjournalism in Ireland had other claims tofame, and thus are written about by histo-rians or literary critics.”

Among the best-known writerswho used newspapers and periodicals toshowcase their ideas before independencewere James Clarence Mangan, ArthurGriffith, Maud Gonne, William Bulfin,Daniel Corkery, John Millington Synge,and even sometimes James Joyce (e.g. hisarticle in Italian about Fenianism forTrieste’s Il Piccolo della Sera). The biogra-pher Patrick Maume observes thatCorkery’s contributions to The Leader, aninfluential Irish organ of the early twenti-eth century, are “full of vehement socio-aesthetic criticism”. Even W.B. Yeatswrote hundreds of articles, albeit mainlybut not exclusively about literary matters.

The fact that Irish nationalist

AROUND THEWORLD

newspapers such as the United Irishmanand Sinn Féin, or the Irish-ArgentinianSouthern Cross that Bulfin edited, allowedseries of related pieces to run from issueto issue facilitated long-form literary jour-nalism. Because many Irish emigrated,one may recall also the contribution ofIrish diasporic writers to literary journal-ism. Where William Bulfin rode the pam-pas, others have ranged from Chicago(Finley Peter Dunne) to the Crimea(William Howard Russell and EdwinGodkin—the latter subsequently editor ofNew York’s Evening Post), the Caspian Sea(Edmond O’Donovan) and beyond.

Bulfin’s journalism was pub-lished regularly in Buenos Aires andDublin as well as in U.S. journals such asEverybody’s Magazine and TheWorld’s Work. He and others inter-preted their vocation as being part-ly that of reimagining their nation’scultural identity and doing soeffectively.

In The Wretched of the Earth(1961) the Martinican Frantz Fanondescribed the challenge for leadersof public opinion in colonizedcountries in words that echoed theperspective of some writers of jour-nalism in Ireland: “We ought touplift the people; we must developtheir brains, fill them with ideas,change them and make them intohuman beings.”

Since independence, Irishwriters have continued to engagein journalism as a form of political

He strucka distinctively Anglo-Irishnote as he probed the

nature of the new state in the secondhalf of the twentieth century




useful reference point whendebating what constitutes Irishliterary journalism. Otherrecent volumes on the devel-opment of journalism inIreland (edited by FelixLarkin, Mark O’Brien andKevin Rafter) are also helpful.

Today, the media inIreland as elsewhere face eco-nomic crisis and afford jour-nalists little time or space toengage in long-form journal-ism. Forums for longer writtenarticles are scarce, although the DublinReview and niche journals such as Studiesor The Furrow offer some opportunitiesfor journalistic essays. While a newsreport in print or on web services such asthejournal.ie may sometimes evince skills

corresponding to those of a haiku writerto do justice to reality, journalists can alsoseek to diversify into the book or docu-mentary as a forum for reflection andanalysis.

A significant number of estab-lished Irish feature writers, including

GeneKerrigan,FintanO’Tooleand thelate MaryRafteryhavemade seri-ous contri-butions topublicconscious-ness byresortingto thewriting oflow-cost

paperback accounts of matters that are ofpublic interest. Others striving to addresscomplex matters in a stylish fashion havefound an outlet on radio. Raidió TeilifísÉireann, the state-owned Irish broadcast-er, has a weekly “Documentary on One”slot. Internationally its productions havewon many awards, while nationally anaudience that has traditionally enjoyedoral arts appreciates many of the station’s“radio stories about real life”. RTÉ alsoprovides a platform for the renownedjournalist Olivia O’Leary, the novelist JoeO’Connor and others to deliver pungentsociocultural monologues as part of itscurrent affairs output.

Leading modern Irish writers arealso associated with newsprint and theairwaves in ways that anchor their subse-quent work in earlier experiences of jour-nalism. These include the late BrianO’Nolan (a.k.a. Flann O’Brien and Mylesna gCopaleen), Maeve Binchy, ColmTóibín and John Banville. Banville, aBooker Prize winner in 2005, was forexample earlier employed as a subeditoron the now-defunct Irish Press daily news-paper, an organ long supportive of thethen-leading political party in Ireland. Italso gave an outlet to the playwrightBrian Friel as well as to new young writ-ers and to eloquent feminists such asMary Kenny who continues to write jour-nalism for papers in both London andDublin.

Banville’s Book of Evidence (1989)is a novel that some fear blurs the distinc-tion between fact and fiction, ostensiblybased as it is on a notorious Irish scandal.Edna O’Brien’s In The Forest (2002),inspired by a brutal murder, also givesrise to questions about the boundaries ofliterary journalism. ©

He was earlieremployed as a subeditor of the

now-defunct Irish Press,an organ long supportive of the

leading political party

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS: JOINT JOURNALISM ANDCOMMUNICATION HISTORYMEETING IN NEW YORKThe Joint Journalism and Communication HistoryConference —the joint spring meeting of theAmerican Journalism Historians Association andthe AEJMC History Division—will be held onSaturday, 21 March 2015 from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00p.m. at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute atNew York University, 20 Cooper Square, 6th Floor,New York, NY 10003. You are invited to submit a500-word proposal for a panel or an abstract fora completed paper or research in progress.Innovative research and ideas from all areas ofjournalism and communication history, as well asfrom all time periods, are welcome. Scholars fromall academic disciplines and stages of their acad-emic careers are encouraged to participate. Theconference offers participants the chance toexplore new ideas, garner feedback on their workand meet a broad range of colleagues interestedin journalism and communication history in a wel-coming environment. Your proposal should includea brief abstract detailing your presentation topicas well as a compelling rationale why theresearch is of interest to an interdisciplinary com-munity of scholars.

The conference is also looking for partici-pants for a “Meet the Author” panel. If you pub-lished a book in 2014 or have a book coming outin the spring of 2015 and would like to spend afew minutes touting your book at the conference,please contact Jennifer Moore at <[email protected]> with a brief description.

This year submissions will again beprocessed through the Media History Exchange,an archive and social network funded by theNational Endowment for the Humanities andadministered by Elliot King of Loyola UniversityMaryland, the long-time organizer of this confer-ence. To join the Media History Exchange (mem-bership is free) go to <http://www.mediahisto-ryexchange.org> and request a membership.Once you have joined, follow the step-by-stepinstructions describing how to upload an abstractto a specific conference.

If you have any questions or run into anyproblems, please contact Jennifer E. Moore forprogramming or submission questions (e-mailaddress above) or co-organizer Carolyn Edy at<[email protected]>. Submission due by 7January 2015; acceptance notifications will besent by 4 February 2015.

More information on the Joint Journalismand Communication History conference can befound by visiting <http://journalismhistorians.org>.

IRELAND Continued from previous page

DECODING THE SLAVICPERIODICAL - PRINCETONWORKSHOP IN MARCHA workshop entitled "Decoding the Periodical”will be hosted by the Program in Slavic, EastEuropean and Eurasian Periodical Studies atPrinceton University on 27 March 2015. In thedepths of archives and special collections,scholars of Slavic, East European and Eurasianstudies have long scoured the pages of periodi-cals—journals, magazines, and newspapers—to better understand literary, artistic, social, andpolitical culture. Today, digital initiatives arerestoring many of these rare and ephemeraltexts to wider audiences and enabling newdirections in research and teaching. This digitalshift in humanistic studies has been instrumen-tal in shaping a new community of practice thatreorients the conventional readings of periodi-cals “merely as containers of concrete bits ofinformation” to an approach that treats them as“autonomous objects of study .” Periodicalstudies is an interdisciplinary framework thatforegrounds the journal, magazine or newspa-per as a cultural form. It poses questions suchas: How does editorial practice, serialization, orpublication in a multi-authored journal impactthe production of art and literature? How doperiodicals create intellectual networks thatgenerate new ideas and a unique frame forreception? What insights can we draw fromstudying the distinct paratext created by period-icals: their layout, illustrations, indices, editorialcolumns, and letters to the editor? This work-shop will bring together Slavists from variousdisciplinary backgrounds to engage with period-ical studies methodologies. For more informa-tion, please contact Natalia Ermolaev <[email protected]>.

CALL FOR ANNUAL MEDIAHISTORY ARTICLE PRIZEThe AEMJC History Division has announced the31st annual competition for the Covert Awardin Mass Communication History. The $500award will be presented to the author of thebest mass communication history article oressay published in 2014. Book chapters in edit-ed collections also may be nominated.Nominations, including seven copies of the arti-cle nominated, should be sent by 1March2015, to Nancy L. Roberts, CommunicationDepartment, University at Albany, 1400Washington Ave., SS-351, Albany, NY 12222U.S.A.



LITERARY JOURNALISM IN CHINAI suspect that the prospects for the genre are quite good.

By John Hartsock, State University of New York College at Cortland (U.S.A.)

In October, I was invited by Dr. Li Meiof the School of Journalism andCommunication at the South China

University of Technology in Guangzhouto lecture on the American NewJournalism. Of course, the hospitality andcongeniality were exceptional, as I had

been warned toexpect. But thevisit also con-firmed for me thatChina is a promis-ing place for thepractice of literaryjournalism. Onereason is becauseof China’s own tra-dition of baogaowenxue, whichtranslates as“reportage litera-ture,” and whichbears similarities to

literary journalism. However, those simi-larities can also be superficial, as my hostsemphasized, given the perception todaythat baogao wenxue is largely a tendentiousjournalism with a political moral. Thatplaces it at odds with the kind of subtleambiguities and complexities of a journal-ism that is indeed literary. The result is aneed to break with the past.

My lectures focused on the usualsuspects, Wolfe, Capote, Didion, amongothers. I noted that the United Statesentered the 1960s as a nation confident inits values, but that during the decadeincreasing social and political turmoil leadto national self-doubt. In a sense, what we

saw in theNewJournalismduring thisperiod wasquestioning ofthe comfort-able platitude of the “American Dream.”In our discussion, some students seemedreticent to respond. But not all. One said,they too have a “Chinese Dream.” Andthey have many of the same problems.Another added that they have a lot of cor-ruption. Nor was he the only one to raisethat issue in China’s economy.

Tom Wolfe’s concept of statusdetails also seemed to register. An exam-ple in the 1960s and today, I noted, wouldbe someone in the U.S. who drives a newCadillac and what they wanted it to sayabout themselves to others. “Do youknow what a Cadillac is?” I asked. “Yes,we know,” students responded, othersnodding. After all, Guangzhou, China’sthird largest city, was filled with newLexuses, BMWs, Audis, Bentleys and, yes,Cadillacs. If you take time to think aboutit, I told the students, the Cadillac is asymbol for what it says about someone.There were further nods. Such details in asociety undergoing tremendous stress andturmoil tend to resonate more deeply,And I added, “In America, we needed toengage in a self-examination in order torecognize the disparity between realityand what the country wanted to believeabout itself.”

Afterwards, someone said with ahearty chuckle that one professor drove acar like a Cadillac for the sake of the mes-sage it would send others. Clearly, Ithought, there is a place for a literaryjournalism in China that examines statusdetails.

Of course, on looking backmaybe I was a little jealous. Because Idrive an 11-year-old Pontiac Vibe, whichis just a notch above a Chevy. And theydon’t make Pontiacs anymore. Such is thenature of self-examination—and the dis-parity between reality and illusion. ©

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The IALJS sponsored another outreach panel, this time inthe eastern Slovakian city of Kosice, the country’s sec-ond largest city behind Bratislava. The panel was part of

the twelfth biennial congress hosted by the European Societyfor the Study of English. IALJS members participated in pastcongresses in Istanbul, 2012; Turin, 2010; and Aarhus, 2008.The focus of this year’s panel was the role of the second city

in literary journalism. The cen-tripetal forces of supra-nationalism,along with the concentrative effectsof globalization, have a checkeredhistory in the last 150 years—enjoy-ing great favor in some eras andfalling into decline in others.Nevertheless, the idea of thenation-stateremains com-pelling, andwith it the roleof the capitalcity as the cen-ter of a nation’spolitical, eco-nomic, intellec-tual, sociocultur-al and religious

life. However, one of the unique strengthsof literary journalism—a genre of nonfic-tion prose that lies at conceptual intersec-tion of literature and journalism—is its ability to “tell theuntold story,” to explore roads less traveled, to find lessons

not in the spotlight but inthe realms less lit. As aresult, the concept of thesecond city—Chicago toNew York, Manchester/London, Marseille/ Paris,Aarhus/ Copenhagen,Thessaloniki/Athens,Porto/Lisbon, even Kosiceto Slovakia’s capital,Bratislava—is both a robust theme and a critical setting in muchliterary journalism. The session focused on the ways in which avariety of national traditions of literary journalism have encoun-tered and employed “second city-dom,” with particular empha-sis on how various representations (both in individual works

and in national traditions) have explicatednotions of identity, ideology and values,as well as the resulting tension betweenbelonging-ness and other-ness.

I had the honor of openingthe panel invoking the particularities ofChicago as a second city (the moniker hasstayed despite the fact that Chicago isnow third or fourth in terms of populationin the United States). Having read MikeRoyko as a young man, I cited the impor-tance of the city’s blue collar identity ashaving played a major role in forming its

literary journalists. Frequently using literary conventions suchas satire, irony, wit and understatement to make his points,Royko also resorted to “conversations” with his dramatis per-

sonae (i.e., Slats Grobnik, a popular literary char-acter of Polish working-class descent), settinghimself up as the journalistic straw man to hischaracters’ more sardonic, often unpolitically-correct social and political criticism.

These literary journalistic techniqueswere not new to Royko’s brand of journalism,however. The Chicago tradition dates back to theend of the 19th century to writers George Adeand Finely Peter Dunne of the Whitechapel Club,and into the early 20th century with Ben Hecht,co-author of The Front Page. Norman Sims, emeri-tus professor from the University ofMassachusetts - Amherst, spoke about each ofthese journalists and how their columns andsketches, dating from the World’s Fair hosted byChicago in 1893, sparked a realist literary jour-nalistic tradition in the city that has lasted wellinto the 21st century. Less urbane than their NewYork brethren, these Chicago literary journalistswore the city’s working class image proudly, and

IALJS OUTREACH


Many national traditions of literaryjournalim seem suited

to explicate notions of identity andthe tension between

belonging-ness and other-ness

IALJS/ESSE IN KOSICE, SLOVAKIAThe roundtable topic was “Literary Journalism: Explaining Second Cities to Themselves.”

By John S. Bak, Université de Lorraine (France)


SLOVAKIA Continued from previous page


their newspapers were willing to tryseemingly risky content.

Raised in one of the many Polishenclaves of Chicago, I was able to pointout how the second city’s Slavic immi-grants have helped build and shape thecity. It seemed a natural transition to hearMateusz Zimnoch, a doctoral candidatefrom Jagiellonian University in Poland,speak next about the literary journalism inhis country’s second city, Kraków.Mateusz began by describing the extraor-dinary status of Kraków as a Polish sec-ond city (after Warsaw), since it was thecountry’s capital city for 500 years. Theshifting of the capital from Kraków toWarsaw has had a significant impact onthe two cities’ identities, and this is reflect-ed in their journalism.

The majority of Polish journalismis written by Warsaw journalists, who seethemselves as public servants of a busi-ness city with world-class aspirations.Consequently, Kraków is trying to defineitself in opposition to Warsaw’s traditionaljournalism, and thus it focuses on journal-ism that is more literary in nature, fash-ioning itself as the little Vienna. To illus-trate these particularities of the Cracovianmediosphere, Mateusz discussed RadekKnapp’s book on Poland.

Lisa A. Phillips, assistant profes-sor of Journalism at SUNY New Paltz,spoke next about John Hersey’s Hiroshima,often called the most important work ofjournalism in the 20th century. Lisaexplored, through a contextualization andclose reading of the work, how Herseyused Hiroshima’s “second city” status toamplify his work’s historically ground-

breaking depiction of thehumanity of an enemynation’s citizenry.Hiroshima was not the sec-ond largest city in Japan butit was second in many otherways. For example, it wassecond in line to be theImperial Headquarters ofJapan, should Tokyo be cap-tured. Lisa notes that it wasthis quality of Hiroshimaresidents that allowed themto struggle through thehardships immediately following thebomb’s detonation and that earnedHersey’s, and eventually a good portionof America’s, earnest respect.

Finally, a prepared text was readfrom Mateus Yuri Passos, a doctoral can-didate at the Universidade Estadual deCampinas (São Paulo) in Brazil. Mateus,who could not make the long trip, wroteabout the differences between São Pauloand its celebrated sibling, Rio de Janeiro.When Brasilia was inaugurated as thecountry’s capital in 1960, Rio ceased to be

the nation’s first city; Rio gradually fellinto second position not only in popula-tion but also in economy, culture and sci-ence. A compelling account of Rio as asecond city appears in Zuenir Ventura’sRio de Janeiro: Cidade Partida (“Rio:Severed City”), but Mateus wrote insteadabout a series of pieces on São Paulo writ-ten by reporter Joel Silveira in 1943 thathelped us to understand not only whatSão Paulo was—and what it was tryinghard to be then—but also how Rio saw itevolving. Silveira’s story “Grã-finos emSão Paulo” (“Nouveau riches in SãoPaulo”) in the Rio weekly magazineDiretrizes portrayed paulistanos as wealthybuyers of style and culture, who lack thesophistication to understand or appreciatewhat they have purchased.

All in all, the speakers demon-strated that the greatest advantage ofbeing a literary journalist in a second cityis that the press there does not have toprotect its conservative sense of superiori-ty and thus there is more room for anexperimental journalism that has come todefine literary journalism. With the first-city press being obliged to fill its paperswith the nation’s “serious” news, second-city journalists have more leeway to coverthose stories that seem at first less impor-tant but are the ones that we tend to readyears or decades later.

The next ESSE congress will beheld in Galway, Ireland, in September2016. A call for presenters will be sent outin the coming months. ©

The press ina second city does not have

to protect a senseof superiority, and thus there is

more room to explore

PREVIOUS PAGE, THE COLORFUL FLAG OF SLOVAKIAAND ONE OF THE THE BEAUTIFULCATHERDRALS IN DOWNTOWN KOSICE. ABOVE, ON LEFT, MATEUSZ ZIMNOCH. LEFT, FROM LEFT, NORM SIMS, DIANE DEGROAT, JOHN BAK AND LISA PHILLIPS ENJOY ACOLLEGIAL SLOVAKIAN MEAL..



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wanted to publish in his newspaper. Hewas one of the greatest letter writers ofhis time, and his editorial influence wastransmitted mainly through the letters hewrote.4 He had a small editorial team andlow budget, but his idea of promotingtruth and critical thinking through jour-nalistic work was so powerful that thenewspaper quickly became famous. ManyPoles from different parts of the world-subscribed.

Stefan Kisielewski5 (1911-1991):Students seemed to appreciate hiscourage to fight communistic absurditywith the weapon of words. One of thestudents also wrote that she appreciatednot only Kisielewski’s rebellious attitude

towards communistic reality, but also hisview of people’s mistakes, stupidity orintellectual laziness. A lot of studentsliked his style—“full of metaphors, anec-dotes and surprising comparisons.”Students also pointed to an ironic attitudetoward reality which allowed him to criti-cize without being offensive—which, asone of the students claims, is rare in con-temporary journalism. Students also likedthe feauture of Kisielewski’s style whichthey call “light writing.” They appear toconsider it a notable talent to write in aninteresting way and to give the reader thepleasure of reading.

Ryszard Kapuscinski (1932-2007): According to students, one aspectof Kapuscinski’s writing was the mulit-sensuality of his reporting (showing whathe saw, heard, touched or even sniffed).They also liked the suspense in his narra-tion and praised the determination whichhelped him to survive in very difficultjournalistic situations. Very often

Kapuscinski is appreciated for the curiosi-ty and passion seen in his journalisticwriting. His constant attempts to under-stand the world better also inspired stu-dents. One of them pointed out that themost important value he shared withKapuscinski is the respect for everyhuman being and empathy towards the“other.” Students also appreciatedKapuscinski’s methods of gathering data,particularly his ability to participate inthe reality he wrote about. Young peoplealso pointed out that he always tries tofind the way to the common-persons’ per-spective by living or eating with them.One student stressed that the most impor-tant skill of Kapuscinski was his ability toget people to talk to him and tell himtheir stories. She claimed that it shows thetrust they had in Kapuscinski as an hon-est reporter. Another pointed out thepoetic aspects of Kapuscinski’s language.The student added that it may be difficultto use such language in contemporarymedia, but in her opinion picturesquenarration is still very attractive to thereader. Many students appreciatedKapuscinski’s ability to combine thosetwo modes of writing: the metaphoricand the factual.

Anna Politkovskaia6 (1958-2007): What students appreciated was theparticipant reporting of the journalist: theeffort to be among civilians suffering dur-ing the war in Chechnya, the attempt toshow the influence of war on their fearsand everyday life and the courage to riskher life to be the voice of the people whowere voiceless. Students acknowledgedher mission of telling the truth, whichwas not present in Putin’s propaganda.As one of the students assessed, it is par-ticularly inspiring nowadays when wecan observe Russian propaganda aboutthe conflicts in Ukraine.

[ [ [

In this second part of my article I willpresent students’ answers to the ques-tion: What journalists seem to be out

of date and why? You will notice that thissection is much shorter. In fact, students

TEACHING TIPS Continued from Page 24


IALJS/IAMCR PANEL CALLFOR JULY MEETING IN MONTREAL CANADAA call has been announced for an IALJS/IAMCRliterary journalism panel entitled "How To Meetthe Challenges of the Long Form: In Ethics andthe Print to Digital Transition" to be held at theIAMCR annual meeting in Montreal, Canada on12-16 July 2015. The International Associationfor Media and Communication Research(IAMCR)—one of the oldest and most recog-nized organizations supporting the promotion ofresearch in communication worldwide—has,since 1957, organized annually an annual con-ference comprised of about 30 sections andworking groups. Please indicate your interest bysending Beati Josephi at <[email protected]> a 150-200-word abstract by 15 December2014. The decision on the abstract submissionwill be made in early January 2015, and thepanel submission to IAMCR will have to be madein late January 2015. More information on theconference can be found at <http://congresiam-cr.uqam.ca/>.

IDA B. WELLS EVENT ATSEC MEETING IN MARCHThe School of Journalism & Electronic Media atthe University of Tennessee, Knoxville, U.S.A. willhost a special day-long, pre-conference event,"Ida B. Wells and Beyond"—featuring a keynote,peer-reviewed paper presentations, and panelsessions—in conjunction with the 40th AnnualAEJMC Southeast Colloquium on 26-28 March2015. Scholarship will focus on the life, careerand legacy of social reformer Ida B. Wells-Barnett or the work of like-minded social justicecrusaders in the nineteenth, twentieth, andtwenty-first centuries. For further information,please contact Amber Roessner at<[email protected]>.

DUBLIN CONFERENCE ONIRISH REGIONAL PRESS An interdisciplinary conference entitled "TheIrish Regional Press: Past & Present" will be heldat Dublin City University on 12 December 2014.The conference will address the historical andcontemporary development of the regional pressin the major urban centers and rural areasacross Ireland. Open to all disciplines, and early-career researchers and postgraduate studentshave been particularly encouraged to contribute.For more information, please contact IanKenneally <[email protected]>.

His ironic attitudetoward reality allowed him to

criticize withoutbeing offensive, which is rare in

contemporary journalism



were muchmore eager todescribe whatthey liked inworks ofmasters theyread than to

express a morre critical attitude.Boleslaw Prus7 (1847-1912) :

Students found his journalism toofocused on definitions and statistics. Theyalso criticized the chaotic, associative dis-course of the author, who wrote about toomany subjects in one text.

Henryk Sienikiewicz: Studentsdid not like the domination of descriptionin his reportage from America. Some of

them also find Sienkiewicz too sentimen-tal and romantic. They also did not accepthis attitude toward African Americans,which is very colonial. Some students alsocriticized him for using lengthy sentences.

Stefan Kisielewski: One of thestudents wrote, “I like his journalism, butone of its features seems not to be current,though it was very useful during commu-nism. I mean the allusive, allegoric style,which is not useful in contemporarydemocratic media.”

Melchior Wankowicz: As weread fragments of Wankowicz’s opus mag-num—reportage about the Battle of MonteCassino—many students complained thathis narration is too detailed, that there istoo much information and that it is diffi-cult to understand such vast and compli-cated material.

Anna Politkowska: A few stu-dents pointed out that her journalism istoo emotional.

Ryszard Kapuscinski: Only one

student out of the group of 30 criticizedKapuscinski. What she did not like was thepersonal narration, which in her opiniondominates Kapuscinski’s reportage andchanges much of it into a diary. It also madethe student suspicious of the factual layer ofKapuscinski’s works, which in some partsseem to be made up.

[ [ [

The information presented above showsthe personal, sometimes contradictoryopinions of the group of students.

Many of the claims are disputable, but theaim of this article is only to present them.The hermeneutic aspect of the subject I teachencourages students not only to know theheritage of appreciated journalists but alsoto verify its relevance. It involves subjectivepoint of view but also encourages studentsto be more engaged in the subject. ©

ENDNOTES1. The book was first published in Berlin in1923 under the title: Klassischer journalismus :die meisterwerke der zeitung gesammelt. ThePolish version, Klasycy dziennikarstwa, waspublished in 1959 in Warsaw.2. Students read letters by H. Sienkiewicz,which were published in Polish newspapersat the end of 19th century. The collection ofthese letters —which are in fact literaryreportages—was published in English withthe title Portrait of America. Letters of HenrykSienkiewicz, translated by Charles Morley,New York, Columbia University Press, 1959.3. “Culture” was a newspaper for Polishintellectuals printed in Paris from 1947 to2000 and then distributed to communistPoland and to Polish emigrants all over theworld. Giedroyc was the main editor of themagazine for more than 50 years.4. Many collections of Giedroyc’s letterswere published in Poland.5. The most famous Polish columnist duringcommunistic period.6. Russian journalist reporting on the war inChechnya. Author of A Dirty War. A RussianReporter in Chechny, translated by J. Crow-foot, London, Harvill, 2001. In 2006 she wasshot in the elevator in her apartment block.It is widely believed that the murder had apolitical context.7. Famous Polish novelist and columnist.

TEACHING TIPS Continued from previous page CONFERENCE ON LITERARYJOURNALISM AND AFRICA’SPAST, PRESENT & FUTUREA conference entitled “Literary Journalism andAfrica’s Wars: Colonial, Decolonial andPostcolonial Perspectives” will be held on theNancy campus of the Université de Lorraine from5-6 June 2014. The meeting hopes to bringtogether scholars of literary journalism,reportage, le journalisme littéraire, jornalismoliterário, el periodismo literario, literaire non-fic-tie, giornalismo letterario and literarischeReportage from England, the U.S., France,Belgium, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Italyand Germany to discuss a topic that hasreceived little attention in the academic commu-nity: Africa’s colonial wars at the interdisciplinarycrossroads of literature, history and journalism.Reporting at the crossroads of documentary andopinion, literary journalism is a fertile groundfrom whence to apprehend war from bothWestern and African perspectives. Americanreporters Richard Harding Davis and Howard C.Hillegas offer their first-hand accounts of theSecond Boer War in With Both Armies in SouthAfrica and With the Boer Forces, and MarkBowden covers the U.S. military’s involvement inSomalia during the Battle of Mogadishu In BlackHawk Down. War correspondent Henry T. Gorellcovers the American and British fronts in NorthAfrica during World War II in his memoir Soldierof the Press. Celebrated Polish journalist RyszardKapuscinski recounts his experiences of theAngolan Civil War in Another Day of Life, a con-troversial book that some see as reproducing theWestern biases found in colonialist literature andhistory. Another Polish journalist, WojciechJagielski, describes in The Night Wanderers theLord’s Resistance Army on-going military use ofchildren in Northern Uganda and South Sudan.As for two of France’s grand reporters, JeanHatzfeld details the gruesome atrocities of theRwanda genocide by both the survivors and theirattackers in Récits des marais rwandais, andPatrick de Saint-Exupéry denounces France’srole in the genocide in L’inavouable, La Franceau Rwanda and Complices de l’inavouable. Oneof the hopes of the conference is that, as anti-colonialist prejudices dissipate over time, literaryjournalism will eventually gain gravitas amongAfrican journalists and writers. As a result, therewill no doubt be many more reportages writtenin the near future. Perhaps there are alreadyseveral reportages out there that we areunaware of today. For more information, pleasecontact John S. Bak at <[email protected]>.

I encouragemy students not only to know

the heritage of greatjournalism but also to verify

its relevance



IALJS OFFICERS AND CHAIRS, 2014-2016PPRREESSIIDDEENNTTNorman S imsUnivers i t y o f Massachuset ts , Amhers tCommonwea l th Honors Co l legeAmhers t , MA 01003U.S.A.h/[email protected]

FFIIRRSSTT VVIICCEE PPRREESS IIDDEENNTTIsabe l SoaresTUn ivers idade de L isboaIns t i tu to Super io r de C iênc ias Soc ia is e Po l í t i casPó lo Un ivers i tá r io do A l to da A juda, Rua A lmer indo Lessa1300-663 L isboaPORTUGALw/[email protected] l i sboa.p t

SSEECCOONNDD VVIICCEE PPRREESS IIDDEENNTTThomas B. Conner yUn ivers i t y o f S t . Thomas Depar tment o f Communica t ion and Journa l i sm2115 Summit Ave.St . Pau l , MN 55105U.S.A.w/+1-651-962-5265, h/+1-651-647-0048, fax/+1-651-962-6360tbconner y@st thomas.edu

TTRREEAASSUURREERRBi l l Reyno ldsRyerson Un ivers i t ySchoo l o f Journa l i sm, 350 V ic to r ia S t .Toronto , Ontar io M5B 2K3CANADAw/+1-416-979-5000 x6294, h/+1-416-535-0892reyno [email protected]

SSEECCRREETTAARRYYDav id AbrahamsonNor thwestern Un ivers i t yMed i l l Schoo l o f Journa l i sm, 1845 Sher idan Rd.Evanston, IL 60208U.S.A.w/+1-847-467-4159, h/+1-847-332-2223, fax/+1-847-332-1088d-abrahamson@nor thwestern .edu

CCHHAAIIRR,, RREESSEEAARRCCHH CCOOMMMMIITTTTEEEEJoshua Ro i landUn ivers i t y o f Ma ineDepar tment . o f Communica t ion and Journa l i sm + Honors Co l lege416 Dunn Ha l lOrono, ME 04469U.S.A.h/+1-314-550-9156joshua. ro i [email protected]

CCHHAAIIRR,, PPRROOGGRRAAMM CCOOMMMMIITTTTEEEERob A lexanderBrock Un ivers i t yDepar tment o f Eng l i sh Languages and L i te ra tureSt . Ca thar ines , Ontar io L2S 3A1CANADAw/+905-688-5550 x3886ra [email protected]

CCHHAAIIRR,, PPUUBBLL IICC IITTYY CCOOMMMMIITTTTEEEEL indsay Mor tonAvonda le Co l legeDepar tment o f Humani t ies & Creat i ve Ar tsCooranbong, New South Wales 2265AUSTRALIAFax/+61- (02)-4980-2118l indsay.mor ton@avonda le .edu.au

CCHHAAIIRR,, EESSSSEE OORRGGAANNIIZZIINNGG CCOOMMMMIITTTTEEEEJohn BakUn ivers i té de Lor ra ineCent re de Té lé-ense ignement Un ivers i ta i re (CTU)42-44, avenue de la L ibera t ion , B.P. 3397

54015 Nancy FRANCEw/+33- (0 )383-968-448, h/+33- (0 )383-261-476, fax/+33- (0 )383-968-449john.bak@univ-nancy2. f r

CCHHAAIIRR,, AAEEJJMMCC OORRGGAANNIIZZ IINNGG CCOOMMMMIITTTTEEEEL isa Ph i l l ipsSta te Un ivers i t y o f New York a t New Pa l t zDepar tment o f D ig i ta l Med ia and Journa l i smNew Pa l t z , NY 12561U.S.A.w/+1-845-257-3573ph i l l ip l@newpa l t z .edu

CCHHAAIIRR,, AACCLLAA OORRGGAANNIIZZ IINNGG CCOOMMMMIITTTTEEEERob A lexanderBrock Un ivers i t yDepar tment o f Eng l i sh Languages and L i te ra tureSt . Ca thar ines , Ontar io L2S 3A1CANADAw/+905-688-5550 x3886ra [email protected]

CCOO--CCHHAAIIRRSS,, CCOONNFFEERREENNCCEE PPLLAANNNNIINNGG CCOOMMMMIITTTTEEEEHi lde van Be l leKa tho l ieke Un ivers i te i t LeuvenCampus AntwerpenS in t-Andr iess t raa t 2 / 2000 AntwerpBELGIUMw/+32-3-206-0491hi lde .vanbe l le@less ius .eu

Dav id AbrahamsonNor thwestern Un ivers i t yMed i l l Schoo l o f Journa l i sm, 1845 Sher idan Rd.Evanston, IL 60208U.S.A.w/+1-847-467-4159, h/+1-847-332-2223, fax/+1-847-332-1088d-abrahamson@nor thwestern .edu

CCHHAAIIRR,, GGRRAADDUUAATTEE SSTTUUDDEENNTT CCOOMMMMIITTTTEEEETob ias Eberwe inTechn ische Un ivers i tä t DresdenIns t i tu t fü r Kommunika t ionswissenschaf tZe l lescher Weg 17D-01069 DresdenGERMANYw/+49-351-463-35484, fax/+49-351-463-37067tob ias .eberwe [email protected]

MMEEMMBBEERRSS,, NNOOMMIINNAATTIINNGG CCOOMMMMIITTTTEEEE ( inc ludes F IRST V ICE PRESIDENT)Thomas B. Conner yUn ivers i t y o f S t . Thomas Depar tment o f Communica t ion and Journa l i sm2115 Summit Ave.St . Pau l , MN 55105U.S.A.w/+1-651-962-5265, h/+1-651-647-0048, fax/+1-651-962-6360tbconner y@st thomas.edu

Isabe l le Meure tUn ivers i té L ib re de Bruxe l lesCampus du So lbosch, ULB CP123, avenue F.D. Rooseve l t 501050 Bruxe l lesBELGIUMw/+32- (0 )2-650-4061, fax/+32- (0 )2-650-2450imeure t@ulb .ac .be

WWEEBBMMAASSTTEERRNicho las Jackson804 Anacapa St ree t Santa Barbara , CA 93101U.S.A.ce l l /+1-815-341-8122nicho las .b . jackson@gmai l .com

MMEEMMBBEERRSS,, AAWWAARRDDSS CCOOMMMMIITTTTEEEEIsabe l Soares (cha i r )Un ivers idade de L isboa




IALJS OFFICERS AND CHAIRS, 2014-2016 Continued from previous page

I ns t i tu to Super io r de C iênc ias Soc ia is e Po l í t i casPó lo Un ivers i tá r io do A l to da A juda, Rua A lmer indo Lessa1300-663 L isboaPORTUGALw/[email protected] l i sboa.p t

H i lde van Be l leKa tho l ieke Un ivers i te i t LeuvenCampus AntwerpenS in t-Andr iess t raa t 2 / 2000 AntwerpBELGIUMw/+32-3-206-0491hi lde .vanbe l le@less ius .eu

Mar ia Lass i la-Mer isa loLass i lan t ie 5313430 Hameen l innaF INLANDce l l /+358-50-525-5819mar ia . lass i la-mer isa lo@ik i . f i

CCHHAAIIRR,, PPUUBBLLIICCAATTIIOONN CCOOMMMMIITTTTEEEEAl ice Donat Tr indadeUn ivers idade de L isboaIns t i tu to Super io r de C iênc ias Soc ia is e Po l í t i casPó lo Un ivers i tá r io do A l to da A juda, Rua A lmer indo Lessa1300-663 L isboaPORTUGALw/+351-213-619-430, fax/+351-213-619-442a t r [email protected] l i sboa.p t

EEDDIITTOORR,, LLIITTEERRAARRYY JJOOUURRNNAALLIISSMM SSTTUUDDIIEESS Bi l l Reyno ldsRyerson Un ivers i t ySchoo l o f Journa l i sm, 350 V ic to r ia S t .Toronto , Ontar io M5B 2K3CANADAw/+1-416-979-5000 x6294, h/+1-416-535-0892reyno [email protected]

AASSSSOOCCIIAATTEE EEDDIITTOORRSS,, LL IITTEERRAARRYY JJOOUURRNNAALL IISSMM SSTTUUDDIIEESS Lynn Cunn inghamRyerson Un ivers i t ySchoo l o f Journa l i sm, 350 V ic to r ia S t .Toronto , Ontar io M5B 2K3CANADAw/+1-416-979-5000 x6294, h/+1-416-203-0803lcunn [email protected]

Wi l l i am DowAmer ican Un ivers i t y o f Par isDepar tment o f Compara t i ve L i te ra ture147, rue de Grene l le75007 Par isFRANCEw/+33-1-4062-0600 ex t 718wi l l i am.dow@wanadoo. f r

Mi les Magu i reUn ivers i t y o f Wiscons in - OshkoshDepar tment o f Journa l i smOshkosh, WI 54901U.S.A.w/+1-920-424-7148 magu i [email protected]

Rober ta Magu i reUn ivers i t y o f Wiscons in - OshkoshUn ivers i t y Honors Program / Depar tment o f Eng l i shOshkosh, WI 54901U.S.A.w/+1-920-424-7364magui [email protected]

BBOOOOKK RREEVVII EEWW EEDDIITTOORR,, LL IITTEERRAARRYY JJOOUURRNNAALL IISSMM SSTTUUDDIIEESS Nancy L . Rober tsUn ivers i t y a t A lbany (SUNY)Depar tment o f Communica t ion1400 Wash ington Avenue

A lbany, NY 12222U.S.A.w/+1-518-442-4884, h/+1-518-583-8965, fax/+1-518-442-3884nrober [email protected]

MMEEMMBBEERRSS,, BBOOAARRDD OOFF AADDVVIISSOORRSSJohn Bak ( f ound ing pres ident )Un ivers i té de Lor ra ineCent re de Té lé-ense ignement Un ivers i ta i re (CTU)54015 Nancy FRANCEw/+33- (0 )383-968-448, h/+33- (0 )383-261-476, fax/+33- (0 )383-968-449john.bak@univ-nancy2. f r

Jo Bech-Kar lsenB I Norweg ian Bus iness Schoo lDepar tment o f Communica t ion , Cu l tu re and LanguagesN-0442 Os lo NORWAYw/+47-90-566-907 jo .bech-kar lsen@bi .no

Susan GreenbergUn ivers i t y o f RoehapmptonDepar tment o f Eng l i sh and Crea t i ve Wr i t ing80 Roehampton LaneLondon SW15 5PHUNITED K INGDOMw/+44-20-8392-3257 s .g [email protected] .uk

John Har tsock( found ing ed i to r, L i te rar y Journa ism Stud ies )S ta te Un ivers i t y o f New York Co l lege a t Cor t landDepar tment o f Communica t ion S tud iesCor t land, NY 13045U.S.A.w/+1-607-753-4103, h/+1-607-749-6756, fax/607-753-5970har tsock j@cor t land.edu

Richard Lance Keeb leUn ivers i t y o f L inco lnL inco ln Schoo l o f Journa l i sm, Bray ford Poo lL inco ln LN6 7TSUNITED K INGDOMw/+44- (0 )1522-886-940rkeeb le@l inco ln .ac .uk

Jenny McKayUn ivers i t y o f Sunder landResearch Cent re fo r Med ia and Cu l tu ra l S tud iesSunder land SR6 0DD, Scot landUNITED K INGDOMw/+44- (0 )191-515-2157jenny.mckay@sunder land.ac .uk

John J . Pau lyMarquet te Un ivers i t yD ieder ich Co l lege o f Commuicat ionMi lwaukee, WI 53201U.S.A.w/+1-414-288-3588, ce l l /+1-414-313-7949. fax/414-288-6400john.pau ly@marquet te .edu

A l ice Donat Tr indadeUn ivers idade de L isboaIns t i tu to Super io r de C iênc ias Soc ia is e Po l í t i casPó lo Un ivers i tá r io do A l to da A juda, Rua A lmer indo Lessa1300-663 L isboaPORTUGALw/+351-213-619-430, fax/+351-213-619-442at r [email protected] l i sboa.p t

Doug UnderwoodUnivers i t y o f Wash ingtonDepar tment o f Communica t ion , Box 353740Seat t le , WA 98195U.S.A.w/[email protected] ington.edu



Iteach the course called “Classics ofJournalism” at University of Gdansk,Poland. Students are studying mainly

20th century literary journalists, but theystart with letter by Pliny the Youngerfrom the anthology Classics of Journalismby Egon Erwin Kisch.1 This year after the

course I asked agroup of 30 stu-dents to answertwo questions:Which journalistsyou have studiedduring the courseare important toyou and why?And: which jour-nalists are todayout of date fromyour point ofview—and why? Inthis article I onlywill refer students’

point of view, and I will present some ofthe masters we studied in chronologicalorder. Half of them are famous Polishjournalists who may not be widely recog-nized outside of Poland, and that is why Iam giving the dates of their life to helpthe reader of this text put them in somehistorical context. And for coherence, Iwill also give the dates after such lumi-naries as Orwell or Hemingway.

Let me first present answers tothe first question: Which journalists you

LITERARY JOURNALISMTHE NEWSLETTER OF THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR LITERARY JOURNALISM STUDIESWINTER 2015 VOL. 9 NO. 1

have studied during the course are impor-tant for you and why?:

Henryk Sienkiewicz2 (1846-1916): Students who chose Sienkiewicz asa still-current master of journalismpraised his gift of observation and abilityto describe the world vividly in hisreportage. Students also like Sienkie-wicz’s narrative techniques, which helpthe reader to identify with the narrator,follow him in his adventures and travels.One of the students also pointed out thewriter’s ability to make quick decisionsand follow subjects he finds somewherealong his way.

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961):Many students claimed that the subjects

Hemingway wrote about are not fascinat-ing, but his precise style—which perfectlydescribes human and animal behaviorand engages the reader’s emotions—stillcaptures people’s imagination. Other stu-dents appreciated his attention to and

WHO IS AND WHO IS NOT MY MASTER OF JOURNALISM?Comments from Polish students after classes on the “Classics of Journalism.”

By Magdalena Horodecka, University of Gdansk (Poland)

ability to write about detail. George Orwell (1903-1950): We

read his essays and autobiographicreportage, Down and Out in Paris andLondon. For students of journalism the lat-ter was much more interesting. Theyappreciate Orwell’s devotion, such as hisdecision to live in a bad conditions andperform a hard work in a Paris hotel.They also like Orwell’s style, particularlythe way he describes people’s faces.

Melchior Wankowicz (1892-1974): Students appreciate his practicalattitude which helped him to combine theprofession of journalism with a comfort-able financial standard of living. He wasone of the first Polish journalists to be soself-confident that he negotiated hissalary with editors. He was also one ofthe first Polish copywriters and earned alot of money for a two-word advertise-ment for a sugar company. Of course itwas the personality and talent ofWankowicz which enabled him to be sosuccessful, but his high position in stu-dents’ rating shows their need for theexamples of well-paid journalists.

Jerzy Giedroyc (1906-2000): Heis inspiring because of his determinationand stubbornness in editing Kultura.3

Giedroyc had a commendable talent toorganize the editorial board of Kulturaand to inspire the authors whose texts he

TEACHINGTIPS Students like

him because he had theself-confidence

to negotiate his salary withhis editors

Continued on Page 18

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