College Merchandise Now Available at Scottie’s in Downtown Chestertown

CHESTERTOWN, MD—Washington College merchandise is now available in downtown Chestertown, at the place where many Kent County residents pick up their newspapers, Scottie’s Shoe Store. The store’s owner/operator Anna Cole, known to her customers as “Miss Anna,” now sells College t-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs and Teddy bears.

Cole says she approached WC President Mitchell Reiss, one of her newspaper customers, about the idea, and he put her in touch with Shannon Wyble, the director of the WC Bookstore on campus, to work out the business arrangement. The first items went on display in early June. “Miss Anna is fantastic, completely enthusiastic about Washington College and what we’re doing here. She’s a wonderful supporter and I can’t talk about her enough,” states Wyble about the partnership.

Cole says her WC offerings are convenient for those who can’t get to the campus bookstore and that Scottie’s especially fills the void on summer weekends, when the campus bookstore is closed. “I thought College merchandise was needed downtown, and that the customers wanted this,” says Cole. A recent case in point was a Scottie’s customer from Florida who was thrilled to find a WC sweatshirt for her nephew, an incoming first-year student.

The Washington college paraphernalia that Scottie’s Shoe Store offers includes white t-shirts, gray sweatshirts, a vintage-look baseball cap, mugs, and teddy bears embroidered with “Someone At Washington College Loves Me.” So far, the best selling item is the classic t-shirt. Customers can also request other items from the WC line and campus bookstore staff will deliver them to Scottie’s, usually the same day.

Scottie’s is open for business Monday through Saturday, 6 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Sunday 6 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The Washington College bookstore summer hours are Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. During the school year, the bookstore is open Saturdays 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. It is closed on Sundays year round. For more information, contact Scottie’s at 410-778-4944 and the Washington College bookstore at 410-778-7749.

Photo: "Miss Anna" Cole shows off her best-selling WC item, the classic t-shirt.

WC English Professor's New Book Introduces Readers to the Novels of a Legendary Austrian Writer

Chestertown, MD — Thomas Cousineau, Professor of English at Washington College, has completed his fourth book of literary criticism, Three-Part Inventions: The Novels of Thomas Bernhard.

Published in the United States by the University of Delaware Press and in England by Associated University Presses, this new book is designed to introduce English-speaking readers— among whom Bernhard is virtually unknown— to the pleasures of reading an author whom the Italian writer Italo Calvino once called "the greatest writer in the world."

"Throughout Europe," Cousineau points out, "Bernhard is revered as a modernist writer who has not only received the highest critical acclaim but whose work is also known and admired by the general public.

"When he died in the winter of 1989, one obituary writer in France declared that his death was a 'catastrophe' for literature, another regretted that he had not received the Nobel Prize that his achievement clearly merited, and a third affirmed that Bernhard was not only the greatest contemporary writer but also the only readable one.

"Fellow postmodern writer Walter Abish even went so far as to say that we are living in 'the Age of Bernhard.'"

Such tributes have not yet, however, translated into significant popular recognition of Bernhard's greatness in the English-speaking world. The critic Donald G. Daviau concluded his overview of the American reception of the Austrian writer's work by commenting that "a good beginning has been made over the past twenty years, but a great deal still remains to be accomplished before this 'major author of Western literature' will actually be widely read in the United States and not just appreciated by a select audience."

Cousineau hopes that Three-Part Inventions will be a small but effective step in this direction. His general overview of Bernhard's life and work, originally written for The Review of Contemporary Fiction, is available online at www.thomasbernhard.org.

Three-Part Inventions is available from the Washington College Bookstore by calling 410-778-7749, 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, or online via the websitehttp://washcoll.bncollege.com.

Advance Praise for Three-Part Inventions

"The novels of Thomas Bernhard, one of the most brilliant and provocative writers of the post-World War II era, have long been underground classics in the United States, but discussion of what these sardonic, cruel, and elliptical novels really mean is still in its infancy. Thomas Cousineau here gives us one of the first book-length readings of Bernhard's novels, adapting René Girard's theory of mimetic desire to understand the triangular relationships between protagonist, adversary, and scapegoat that are at the heart of Bernhard's intricately patterned fictions. This excellent, closely argued study will be indispensable to Bernhard's growing audience, as well as to readers of postmodern fiction in general."
—Marjorie Perloff, Sadie D. Patek Professor Emerita of Humanities at Stanford University

"Long hailed as a master of prose by America's foremost stylists like William Gaddis and Gary Indiana, Thomas Bernhard has nevertheless suffered from a relative neglect in English-speaking countries. This omission has been repaired by Cousineau's informed critical reading of the Austrian writer; in a series of astute readings of Bernhard's major novels, Cousineau shows that the master of incantatory rant and relentless vituperation is the only rightful heir of Samuel Beckett. Bernhard's musical denunciation of social and ethical ills offers an indispensable vaccination against our age's weak follies and facile despair."
—Jean-Michel Rabaté, Vartan Gregorian Professor in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania

September 2, 2008