"Amy Catanzano" Archive

Symmetry Magazine profiles poet, professor Amy Catanzano

Amy Catanzano

Wake Forest poet and professor Amy Catanzano is currently profiled in online magazine Symmetry, which describes itself as the place where readers can “get the latest news, meet people behind the scenes, and get the background information you need to gain fluency in the language of particle physics.”

Some Symmetry readers may be surprised, initially, to find a poet on the magazine’s cover, but they will not be for long once they start reading the lengthy profile written about Catanzano, who is associate professor of English, poet-in-residence and co-director of the Writers Reading Series.

As the magazine article explains, “Catanzano is an unusual poet.  She has developed and practices a theory of poetry called ‘quantum poetics’ in which she explores poetry in parallel with particle physics, astrophysics and quantum theory.”

Earlier in her career, “Catanzano began bringing science into her poetry after exploring poetry as a ‘philosophical investigation,’ a step that she says drew her into thinking about how poems negotiate time.  That brought Catanzano to physics and Albert Einstein’s theories of special relativity and general relativity.”

As her career has evolved, the poet who has taken only one physics class (and, that was in high school) has read extensively and widely about physics and travelled the United States and the world conducting research for her poetry and visiting some of the most interesting particle physics and astrophysics sites,” according to the article.

The Symmetry article is available to read here.

Symmetry is a joint project of Fermilab and Stanford University’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

Categories: Faculty NewsInside WFU

Conference on the intersections of poetry, science and art, May 13-16

Art and science will come together at Entanglements: A Conference on the Intersections of Poetry, Science, and Art next week from May 13-16.

The 2019 Reynolda Conference at Wake Forest will bring together a diverse range of 10 leading poets, scientists, artists, and scholars from around the world whose work and/or teaching engages with trans-disciplinary investigations into shared principles and methods in literature, science and art.

Featured presenters will be joined by Wake Forest faculty and staff presenters, special guests, visiting attendees and the generalpublic for three days of innovative programming.

The conference is free. No registration is required. A schedule is available here.

Entanglements is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation with an award granted to the conference convener, Amy Catanzano, by the Wake Forest University Humanities Institute and the Reynolda House Museum of American Art.

Additional sponsors are the Wake Forest University Humanities Institute with a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Creative Writing Minor in the Department of English, and the Interdisciplinary Performance and the Liberal Arts Center (IPLACe) at Wake Forest University.

Entanglements is named after the quantum mechanical phenomenon of entanglement in which states of subatomic particles are intertwined with each other despite being spatially separated.

Categories: Inside WFU

Catanzano's poem sparks interest from physicists

A poem written by Associate Professor of English Amy Catanzano is generating considerable interest among physicists.

Entitled “World Lines: A Quantum Supercomputer Poem,” it was featured, recently, in Physics magazine in the article “Poetry Takes on Quantum Physics” by Physics Senior Editor Katherine Wright.

Catanzano’s work as a poet explores the intersections of poetry, science and art. Physics magazine is the major online portal for the Physical Review journals.

Additionally, another article about the poem, “Artist Explains Quantum Physics Through Poetry,” appeared in The Next Web.

Both articles have been shared hundreds of times on social media by a range of individual and institutions including scientists; physics departments at colleges and universities; writers and poets; and literary portals such as Poetry Daily.

Categories: Faculty News

Faculty promotions 2018

Congratulations to Wake Forest faculty who have received promotions, effective July 1.

Promotion to Full Professor

Fred Chen, Economics
Adam Friedman, Education
Jed Macosko, Physics
Rebecca Morrow, School of Law
Lynn Neal, Study of Religions
Wayne Pratt, Psychology
Sarah Raynor, Mathematics and Statistics
Fred Salsbury, Physics
Michelle Voss Roberts, School of Divinity

Promotion to Associate Professor

Mark Alan Brown, Education
Amy Catanzano, English
Benjamin Coates, History
Chanchal Dadlani, Art
Sara Dahill-Brown, Politics and International Affairs
Robert Erhardt, Mathematics & Statistics
Eranda Jayawickreme, Psychology
Eric Jones, Anthropology
Zak Lancaster, English
Ronald Neal, Study of Religions
John Oksanish, Classical Languages
Jennifer Priem, Communication
Ron Von Burg, Communication
Ke Zhang, Biology

Promotion to Full Professor of Legal Writing

Harold Lloyd, School of Law
Abigail Perdue, School of Law

Promotion to Senior Librarian

Steve Kelley, Z. Smith Reynolds Library

Promotion to Associate Teaching Professor

Eric Ekstrand, English
Heath Greene, Psychology
Anna Kate Lack, Biology
Eric Stottlemyer, English
Brian Warren, Classical Languages
Elisabeth Whitehead, English

Promotion to Full Professor of the Practice

Justin Green, Communication

Promotion to Associate Professor of the Practice

Chris Martin, Theatre and Dance

Categories: Inside WFU

Catanzano to serve as inaugural poet in residence at Simons Center in April

Amy Catanzano

Wake Forest Poet-in-Residence Amy Catanzano will spend April 16-20 as the 2018 inaugural poet-in-residence at the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics at Stony Brook University.

In the week-long residency, Catanzano will be giving a public poetry reading, exhibiting a poem on topological quantum computation that she has written for the Simons Center, and visiting a class on the intersections of math and poetry in the Stony Brook Southhampton MFA in Creative Writing and Literature Program.

A press release from the Simons Center describes Catanzano as “a poet and cross-genre writer who explores the intersections of literature, science and, art.  In an integrated artistic practice and theory known as quantum poetics, she investigates shared principles in poetry and quantum mechanics to reinvent common notions of spacetime, language, and reality.”

At Wake Forest, Catanzano is also assistant professor of English in creative writing and co-director of the Dillon Johnston Writers Reading Series.

Categories: Faculty NewsInside WFU

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