ALERT: Utility/Power Failure on Campus – UPDATE

June 11, 2025 - 11:28 AM

UPDATE: Utility/Power Failure on Campus

Meadville Water Authority is just completing the the main water line repair on the north side of campus and and the water line should be pressurized shortly.

CAUTION FROM THE WATER AUTHORITY: A loss of positive water pressure is a signal of the existence of conditions that could allow contamination to enter the distribution system through back-flow by back‑pressure or back‑siphonage. As a result, there is an increased chance that the water may contain disease-causing organisms.

DO NOT DRINK THE WATER WITHOUT BOILING IT FIRST. Bring all water to a rolling boil, let it boil for one minute, and let it cool before using; or use bottled water. You should use boiled or bottled water for drinking, making ice, washing dishes, brushing teeth, and food preparation until further notice. Inadequately treated water may contain disease-causing organisms. These organisms include bacteria, viruses, and parasites, which can cause symptoms such as nausea, cramps, diarrhea, and associated headaches. These symptoms, however, are not caused only by organisms in drinking water, but also by other factors. If you experience any of these symptoms and they persist, you may want to seek medical advice. Guardians of infants and young children and people at increased risk, such as pregnant women, some of the elderly, and people with severely compromised immune systems, should seek advice from their health care advisors about drinking this water. General guidelines on ways to lessen the risk of infection by microbes are available from EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Hotline at 1 (800) 426‑4791.

The Water Authority will inform local residents when the water is safe to drink. An updated message Emergency Message will be sent from Public Safety.

Students, faculty and staff should monitor e-mail, the college web site, social and local media for updated information and further updates.
Contact Campus Safety in the event of an emergency: 814-332-3357.

More information on Emergency website

Benjamin Slote


IMG_0025Title : 
Professor Emeritus
Department: English & Journalism
Research Fields of Interest : American Literature and Culture.
Degrees: B.A., Northwestern University; M.A., Yale University; Ph.D., Yale University.

Contact Info:
Email: bslote@allegheny.edu
Phone: (814) 332-4322

Office Location: Odd Fellows 235

Publications
Essays

  • Slote, Ben. “`Packed to Its Rafters with Grief’: America’s Kentucky Romance and the Rememorializing of Beloved.” Journal of American Culture. 41:1 (March 2018), 45-55
  • Slote, Ben. “Jewett at the Fair: Seeing Citizens in ‘The Flight of Betsey Lane.'” Studies in American Fiction, 36, 1 (Spring 2008).*
  • Slote, Ben. “Review, Henry Wonham, Charles W. Chesnutt: A Study of the Short Fiction” (NY:Twayne, 1998) in African American Review, 36, 1 (Spring 2008).*
  • Slote, Ben. “Wilbur’s ‘Mayflies’ and the Call of Artifice,” with “Commentary,” Allegheny College Writing Center website 1999*
  • Slote, Ben. “Listening to ‘The Goophered Grapevine’ and Hearing Raisins Sing,” in Henry Wonham, Charles W. Chesnutt: A Study of the Short Fiction, (NY: Twayne, 1998) *
  • Slote, Ben. “Revising Freely: Frederick Douglass and the Politics of Disembodiment,” a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, 11, 1 (Spring, 1996) *
  • Slote, Ben. “Narrative Jujitsu: Twain’s ‘Studied Fictions’ and Their Plot Against Audience,” Prospects, Vol. 20 (1995) *

Selected Conference Papers and Readings

  • “The Hospitalities of Fiction: Reader Affiliation in U.S. Literary Culture,” Allegheny Faculty Lecture Series, April 2022
  • “What Comping Means,” keynote address, the Cook-Lahti Symposium, May 2022
  • (invited)  “Beloved’s Aggression, Beloved’s Acclaim.”  Imagining Slavery, Envisioning Freedoms, a symposium at the University at Albany, State University of New York, April, 2018
  • “Habitat”–one-act play, performed October 2020, Allegheny College
  • “The Messiness of Civil Rights: What Justice Looks Like in the Land of Employment Discrimination,” Allegheny Faculty Lecture Series, March 2014
  • Calling Ida—one-act play, performed April 2014, Allegheny College
  • “Passing for Authentic: the Midwesternizing of Laura Bush in An American Wife.” Midwestern Modern Language Association Conference. St. Louis. (November 2009)
  • “Our Old Kentucky Home: Chensutt, Morrison, and the Passing of Plantation Romance.” Midwestern Modern Language Association Conference. Cleveland. (November 2007)
  • “Floating in the Backwater: American Academic Novels and the Problem of the Local,” Narrative: An International Conference, Louisville. (April 2005)
  • “Matriotic Vision and the Anti-Imperial in Jewett’s ‘The Flight of Betsey Lane,'” Narrative: An International Conference, East Lansing. (April 2002)
  • “Upgrading the Server: Reanimating the Liberal Arts through Computer-Mediated Pedagogy,” poster co-presentation, A.A.C&U conference, New Orleans. (2000)
  • “Dickinson and Doctors,” Humanities Lecture Series, Allegheny College. (Spring 1998)
  • “Race as Hypochondria: Howells’s An Imperative Duty and the Cure of Realism,” Narrative: An International Conference, Gainsville, FL. (April 1997)
  • “The Road to Wellville through Emily Dickinson,” American Studies Association Conference, Pittsburgh. (November 1995)
  • “Narrative Freedom as Biographical Bondage? The Conditions of Douglass’ Authority,” Narrative: An International Conference, Vancouver, B.C. (April 1994)
  • “Listening to ‘The Goophered Grapevine’ and Hearing Raisins Sing,” Narrative: An International Conference, Albany. (April 1993) “Capitalism, Consumerism and the Novel” (moderator) Narrative Conference, Nashville. (April 1992)
  • “Audiences in Mark Twain,” Humanities Lecture Series, Allegheny College. (November 1991)