English Department Newsletter

Mike Duncan (Ph.D. candidate) presented "Introducing Prose Rhythm to the Composition Classroom" at the CCCC in New Orleans, April 4, 2008. In May, he presented "Reconsidering Prose Rhythm" at the RCA in Seattle.

Two of our M.F.A. students have recently had work published in national journal and magazines. The New York Times Magazine published an article by Patrick Walters, and The Missouri Review accepted and published work by Trevor Gore.

Undergraduate Honors student, Jason Eley's research for the Works in Progress Symposium was chosen for  "Posters at the Capitol" in Nashville, February 6th. Dr. Barbara Ching, his thesis director, and Dr. Susan Popham, English Honors Director, accompanied him on this trip.

Ph.D. candidate Peter Olson's article "John Bealle's Public Worship, Private Faith: A Review," appears in Journal for the Society of American Music (II.1: 2008). Olson has several articles published in the Encyclopedia of Appalachia, Univ. of Tennessee Press, and "Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section" is forthcoming in the online Enclycopedia of Alabama, Auburn Univ.

Ph.D. candidate Michael Duncan gave a presentation titled "Faith Is Shared Food, and Other Rhetorical Agricultural Metaphors in the New Testament Gospels" at the PCA/ACA Conference in Boston, April 7, 2007.  His article, "Whatever Became of the Paragraph?", was published in College English (69:5).

Ph.D. candidate Donna Daulton participated in a panel on "Wireless Computer Use in a Freshman Learning Community" at the annual convention of the Conference for College Composition and Communication, March 23, 2006.

Ph.D. candidate Anne Reef's essay, "When You Can't See the Forest Because There Are No Trees: Ecocriticism, Postcolonialism, and Environmental Advocacy in Dalene Matthee''s Circles in a Forest and Ben Okri's The Famished Road,"  won the Children's Literature Association's 2007 Graduate Student Essay Award. Ns. Reef  will present a portion of her paper during the Association's Conference in Newport News, June 14-16, 2007. Professor Lori Cohoon sponsored the submission.

Ph.D. candidates, Jon Forbus, Mary Gwynne Millione, and Sharese Willis, participated in a panel presentation at the 56th Annual Conference On College Composition and Communication, March 17, in San Francisco. The title of the presentation was "Opening the Gates of Grammar and Usage: The History of the Grammar Controversy and Teaching Usage Effectively."

Ph.D. candidate, Linda Kerns, has just received a book contract with Edwin Mellen Press to publish a revised version of her M.A. thesis, "A Modern Translation of James Yonge's 1422 Translation of 'The Governance of Princes.'"

Janel Amador Duffy de Vries (M.A., 1998) is currently working as a logistics coordinator in an American biotech company in the Netherlands. In addition, she has contributed to Access, an English quarterly, since 2005.

Warren Perry (M.A., 2000) recently received the award for Best Director of the New York  Riant Strawberry One-Acts for his play, The Sitters, which will be published next summer in Best of the Strawberry One-Acts, Volume IV. Perry's adaptation of Walt Whitman's Civil War journals and poetry, Swift to My Wounded, was produced by Smithsonian National Protrait Gallery Public Programs in November, 2006.

Alice Long (M.F.A., 1998) and Mark Ridge (M.A., 1998) have published a pictorial history of Holly Springs, Mississippi.

Profile: Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery News (Winter 2004-05) featured a book review by E. Warren Perry (M.A., 2000). Perry reviewed Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of "The Birds of America" by William Souder (New York: North Point Press, 2004).

We welcome two new assistant professors, two visiting assistant professors, one new instructor, and a new chair who join us for the 2008-2009 academic year:

Dr. Shelby Crosby joins our literature concentration this fall. She  received her Ph.D. from State University of New York at Buffalo in 2007. She comes to us this year after serving as a Visiting Assistant Professor at D'youville College in Buffalo.

Dr. Philip McCarthy is returning as a visiting assistant professor in Applied Linguistics. Since receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Memphis in 2005, he has worked as a research scientist for the Institute for Intelligent Systems in the Department of Psychology. 

Dr. Dmitri Stanchevici joins us from Texas Tech University, where he received his Ph.D. in Professional and Technical Writing.

James Brasfield is joining the Creative Writing faculty as a visiting assistant professor. An accomplished poet and teacher, he joins us from Pennsylvania State University.

Jan Smith Coleman received her M.F.A. in Creative Nonfiction from The University of Memphis, and she will be joining the faculty as an instructor.

Dr. Eric Carl Link assumes the duties of department chair this fall. He joins us from North Georgia College and State University, where he was the Hugh Shott Professor of English.

 Dr. Charles Hall received an honorary doctorate from the University of West Bohemia in the Czech Republic on November 14, 2007. The honorary degree, which was awarded at the annual ceremonial meeting of the University of Bohemia Scientific Board, was granted in recognition of Dr. Hall's almost twenty years of contributions in the areas of English language teaching at UWB and his representation of the institution outside the Czech Republic. The nominating speech outlined Dr. Hall's contributions to the field of applied linguistics, as well as his important contributions to the University of Bohemia. The ceremony was attended by University Board members, representatives of the City of Plzen, and representatives from the U. S. Embassy in Prague, the Czech Republic.

Cary Holladay won the Miami University Press annual novella contest. The prize includes publication of the novella in book form and $1,000. The novella, A Fight in the Doctor's Office, was chosen from more than 150 entries.

Dr. Emily E. Thrush and Dr. Teresa S. Dalle have been awarded a $1.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education.  The grant's primary objective is to prepare teachers in the Memphis and Shelby County school systems to work with non-native speakers of English. Grant recipients will also work with the University's College of Education to infuse the curriculum and the knowledge and strategies needed by all teachers because of the rapid growth of the ESL population in the local K-12 schools.

S. Beth Bishop is the author of a recently published book of poems, Shouldering Zero, published by CustomWords, in Cincinnati, OH.

Dr. Susan Popham's article, "Forms as Boundary Genres in Medicine, Science, and Business," has been nominated for the NCTE award for Best Article Reporting Historical Research or Textual Studies in Technical and Scientific Communication.

Part-time instructor, Dr. Heidi Kenaga received a Historical Society of Southern California/Haynes Grant in support of her research in California State University-Northridge's Urban Archives Center. In October, 2007,  Dr. Kenega will present a paper, "The Studio Girl Project," at the University of Texas-Austin's Media and History Conference.

Congratulations to two faculty members who were honored at this year's Faculty Convocation. Dr. William O'Donnell received the Distinguished Research in the Humanities Award, and Dr. Charles Hall  received the Alumni Association Distinguished Teaching Award.

Cary Holladay has won two fiction awards. Her story, "A Thousand Stings," which appeared in Shenandoah's Fall, 2005 issue, won The Goodheart Prize. Her novella, "Heart on a Wire," which will appear in the 2007 issue of Glimmer Train, won First Prize in the Glimmer Train Fiction Open.

Dr. Heidi Kenaga presented a paper, "'You're Not Extras but a Nation of Believers!' Promoting Hollywood Extra Girl (1935)," and participated in a workshop, "Media Consolidation and Independent Cinema in the US," at the annual Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference in Vancouver, Canada, in March, 2006. In June, 2006, Dr. Kenaga will present "'What Every Extra Knows': Women Trade Writers Tutor the Female Fan, 1925," at the 4th Annual Women & the Silent Screen Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Dr. Joseph Jones, Dr. Susan Popham, and Donna Daulton participated in a panel on "Wireless Computer Use in a Freshman Learning Community" at the annual convention of the Conference for College Composition and Communication, March 23, 2006. The research was funded by an IEL grant awarded Dr. Popham by the Advanced Learning Center.

On March 22, 2006, Dr. Susan Popham presented "Button Pushing Behavior: Electronic Patient Charts in a Juvenile Mental Health Facility," at the annual conference for the Association for the Teachers of Technical Writing.

Cary Holladay has been awarded a $20,000 fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts for 2006. Her new short story collection, The Quick Change Artist, is scheduled to be published by Swallow Press in Fall, 2006.

Dr. Reginald Martin has been appointed to the Board of Directors of the African-American Academy of Arts and Letters and has been named editor of the Academy's monthly newsletter.

Dr. Tom Carlson, Professor Emeritus, has recently published Hatteras Blues: A Story from the Edge of America (U of N.C. Press).

Dr. Kristen Iversen received an Early Career Research Award from the College of Arts and Sciences. Among her accomplishments are a prize-winning biography of Molly Brown and a textbook on creative nonfiction. Dr. Iversen has just completed a book about the problems at a nuclear testing and waste site. She is currently editor of River City, our nationally-recognized journal.

Dr. Catherine Martin has been named Dunavant Professor by the College of Arts and Sciences. Awarded for an exceptional research record, a Dunavant Professorship lasts for three years and carries a research stipend of $5,000 per year. Dr. Martin's first book on Milton, The Ruins of Allegory, won the Milton Society of America's Holly Hanford Award in 1998. Her most recent publications are an edited collection of essays on Milton and gender, published by Cambridge University Press in 2004, and a co-edited collection on Francis Bacon, published by Ashgate in 2005.

We congratulate Drs. Michael Albers, Loel Kim, and Verner Mitchell on their promotions to Associate Professor with tenure.

Dr. Loel Kim has been appointed Director of the Center for Research in Rhetoric and Applied Communications. The Center, which is a cooperative effort between our department and the departments of Art and Communication, is housed in the new FedEx Technology Building and is currently focusing on medical communication.

Dr. Mary Leader was named "Poet of the Month" by the website Poetrynet.org, which is edited by Mark Jarman of Vanderbilt University. An essay and several of her poems appear on the website. Dr. Leader's poem "Tallis with Stripes from the Book of Judges" is published in the latest issue of Yale Review.

Michael Compton, instructor, has been notified that his screenplay Rudy Tooty has been selected as a finalist for the IFP Market Gordon Parks Award for Screenwriting. The winner, who will receive a $5,000 prize, will be announced September 22, 2005 in New York.

Dr. Stephen Tabachnick's Fiercer than Tigers: The Life and Works of Rex Warner (Michigan State University Press, 2002) has been praised as "well-documented, profound and illuminating" by Leonidas Donskis, head of the Philosophy Departament at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania and a member of the European Cultural Parliament, in a review in the winter 2005 issue of Utopian Studies.

Dr. Heidi Kenega, a part-time instructor, co-edited an anthology on the films of John Sayles. Sayles Talk: New Perspectives on Independent Filmmaker John Sayles will be published by Wayne State University Press in November, 2005. Dr. Kenega's essay, "Making the 'Studio Girl': The Hollywood Studio Club and Industry Regulation of Female Labor," will appear in a special issue of Film History in the spring of 2006.

Dr. Loel Kim and Dr. Susan Popham, co-investigators, were awarded a Greenwall Foundation Grant for $83,000, for developing an interactive tool to support the informed consent process at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. The award was made through the Center for the Study of Rhetoric and Applied Communication (CSRAC) and the Center for Multimedia Arts (CMA) at the FedEx Institute.

Drs. Sage Graham, Loel Kim, and Susan Popham gave a presentation to a group of marketing and communication specialists from Baptist Memorial Hospital, August 12, 2005. The presentation was to explain the research projects these professors are pursuing in conjunction with the Center for the Study of Rhetoric and Applied Communication, the Center for Community Health, and the Center for Multimedia Arts.

Dr. Mary Sue MacNealy has been named a "Fellow" by the Society for Technical Communication (STC). This is the highest rank that STC can confer upon a member, and fewer than 1% of its members receive this recognition for service which has distinguished both the Society and the profession.

Congratulations to Dr. Reginald Martin and Ms. Yvonne Leatherwood, who are recipients of the 2004-2005 Distinguished Teaching Award.

Congratulations to Dr. Gene Plunka who is this year's recipient of the Distinguished Research in the Humanities Award.

Dr. Susan Popham gave a poster presentation at the Association for Teachers of Technical Writing Conference, March 16, 2005, in San Francisco. The title of the presentation was "Developing Interactive Media Support for Informed Consent." On March 17, Dr. Popham led three of our Ph.D. candidates in a panel discussion at the 56th Annual Conference for College Composition and Communication.

A recent article in the Commercial Appeal cited a cooperative effort between St. Jude Children's Research Hospital doctors and a team of specialists from the University of Memphis. Drs. Loel Kim and Susan Popham, working with the FedEx Institute's Center for Multimedia Arts, represent the English department in this effort.

Albers, Michael. Design for Complex Situations: Analysis and Creation of Dynamic Web Information. Mahwa, NJ: Erlbaum, 2004.

Battle, Mary Vroman. "Integrating Computational Linguistics into the [Technical Writing] Curriculum." PreSeedings FORUM 2003 (International Technical Communications Conference).Milan, Italy, 30 June-July 2, 2003. Ed Ron Blicq. Stuttgart, Germany: tekom, 2003: 225-229.

_________. "Computational Linguistics for Clarity." Meeting the Cross-Cultural Challenge: PostHarvest [Proceedings] FORUM 2003. Milan, Italy, 30 June-2 July 2003. Ed. Thomas L. Warren. CD-ROM. Stuttgart, Germany: tekom, pdf, 2004.

Bensko, John. Sea Dogs. Graywolf Press, 2004.

Dalle, Teresa. "Narrative Activities: Inexpensive to Implement Yet Valuable to Literacy." Tennessee English Journal 15 (October 2004): 34-37.

_________ and Emily Thrush. "Practicing Oral Skills in Large Classes." Teacher's Edition 13 (November 2003): 4-8.

Fulton, DoVeanna. "Comic Views and Metaphysical Dilemmas: Shattering Cultural Images through Self-Definition and Representation by Black Comediennes." Journal of American Folklore (Winter 2004).

Kim, Loel. "Fitting Academic Programs to Workplace Marketability: Career Paths of Five Technical Communicators." Technical Communication 51.3 (2004): 376-386. With Christie Tolley.

_________. "Potential for Teacher Response in Online Writing Courses: A Comparison of Voice and Written Modalities." Research in the Teaching of English 38.3 (2004): 304-337.

Martin, Catherine Gimelli, ed. Milton and Gender. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2004.

_________. "The Erotology of Donne's 'Extasie' and the Secret History of Voluptuous Rationalism." Studies in English Literature 44.1 (Winter 2004): 121-147.

__________. "The Non-Puritan Ethics, Metaphysics, and Aesthetics of Milton's Spenserian Masque." Milton Quarterly 37 (December 2003): 215-244.

Mitchell, Verner D., ed. Where the Wild Grape Grows: Selected Writings by Dorothy West, 1930-1950. Amherst: U of Mass. P, 2005. With Cynthia Davis.

O'Donnell, William H., ed. The Speckled Bird, by William Butler Yeats: New Edition. Japanese translation. Tokoyo: Jimbum Shoin, 2004.

Shaheen, Naseeb, "Collecting pre-King James English Bibles." The Private Library. (5th series, Vol. 6; 2003), 52-61.

__________. "The World of Books." UML News 9 (March/April 2003), 4-5.

__________. "Shakespeare's Sonnet 146." English Language Notes 41 (June 2004), 15-19.

Tabachnick, Stephen. Lawrence of Arabia: An Encyclopedia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004. Ethan Pullman, a librarian at the University of Pittsburgh, recently reviewed the book in The Library Journal. A brief excerpt follows: First of its kind, Tabachnick's encyclopedia extensively chronicles the life of Lawrence of Arabia (1888-1935), the romantic yet engimatic historical figure who led the famous Arab revolt against the Turks during World War I, as recalled in his classic Seven Pillars of Wisdom. . . . The task of assembling this work couldn't have been in better hands. Tabachnick is an expert on British literature from 1880-1940 and has written extensively about Lawrence. . . . Bottom Line: Because of the popularity of the subject and the uniqueness of this work, fans, researchers and educators would find it to be an incredible resource.

During the awards ceremony held in our department on April 24, 2008, the following students won awards. We congratulate all of them, and thank all of the award donors for their generosity.

Undergraduate Awards

Honors Thesis Award:

Jason Eley, "Could You Be the One They Talk About?: Men and Women; Love and Marriage; Rock and Roll" (Dr. Barbara Ching)

Honors Thesis Award Honorable Mention:

Marian R. Stillman, "Menghibur Keluarga Korban--Burying Their Dead" (Dr. Susan Popham)

Joseph R. and June W. Riley Essay Contest:

1st place--Holly Whitfield (Dr. Jeffrey Scraba)
2nd place--David Smith (Dr. Carey Mickalites)
3rd place--Sara Althoff (Dr. Brad McAdon)

2201 Research Award:

1st place--Susanne Salehi (Dr. James Newcomb)
2nd place--John Ryan Morehead (Dr. Barbara Ching)

English 1020:

1st place--Melissa F. Williams (Mr. James McClain)
2nd place--Yashi Monzon (Mr. Carlos Bolton)

English 1010:

1st place--Ashley Watts (Ms. Laura Snyder)
2nd place--Chad Muller (Mr. Mike Duncan)
3rd place--Steven Snyder (Mr. Mike Duncan)

Elizabeth C. Phillips Memorial Scholarship:

Angelica M. Woods
Kashief A. Crain

Graduate Awards:

Composition Studies: Candyce Sweet

Creative Writing: (Fiction) Matt Pertl; (Poetry) Liza Kirk; (Non-Fiction) Lee Griffith; (Service Award) Marsha McSpadden

Applied Linguistics: Benjamin Duncan

Literature: Elizabeth Thompson

The Dr. Lawrence Wynn Award: Sarah Beth Tyler

Outstanding Graduate Student:  Elizabeth Thompson

Dissertations:

Paula M. Hayes, "Robert Lowell and the Confessional Voice"(Dr. Reginald Martin)

Pamela Kaiser, "Out in the Cold: Science Fiction, the Bomb and National Identity" (Dr. Jennifer Wagner-Lawlor)

M.F.A. Theses

Zachary Adcock, "The Quiet Season" (Prof. Richard Bausch)

Trevor Gore, "Winning the Game of Love" (Prof. Richard Bausch)

Ellen Hendry, "Collected Stories" (Dr. John Bensko)

Glen Ivey, "No Olivadado & Other Disguises" (Dr. Thomas Russell)

Manny Karkowsky, "Untitled" (Dr. Thomas Russell)

Liza Kirk, "Staggered Symmetry" (Dr. John Bensko)

Marsha McSpadden, "What Gets Left Behind" (Prof. Cary Holladay)

Anna Mullins, "How I Am Like My Mother" (Prof. Richard Bausch)

Matt Pertl, "Untitled" (Prof. Richard Bausch)

Danielle Prachel, "Striking a Stone in the Desert" (Prof. Richard Bausch)

Richard Thompson, "Untitled" (Dr. John Bensko)

M. A. Theses

Raina Nichole Adelman, "Doubling, Monstrous Desire, and Homosexual Panic in Frankenstein" (Dr. Theron Britt)

Caroline Allen, "The Sovereign Self: Margaret Fuller's Woman in the Nineteenth Century" (Dr. John Ronan)

C. Brooke Caldwell, "Please Have Correct Change: Commodity Rituals in J.M. Barrie's Thrum Novels" (Dr. Carey Mickalites)

Sarah Craig, "Print and Online Technical Communications" (Dr. Loel Kim)

Ashly Hood, "Mother-Daughter Relationships in Immigrant Literature" (Dr. Leigh Anne Duck)

James Corey Latta, "Functioning Fantasies: Theology, Ideology, and Social Conception in the Fantasies of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien" (Dr. Lorinda Cohoon)

Fallon Renee Mills, "Lacanian Theory and Children's Literature: Subjectivity in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials" (Dr. Lorinda Cohoon)

Erika Pryor, "Hip Hop Lyrics: How Their Influence Shape Generations" (Dr. Reginald Martin)

Nikkele Shelton, "Criteria of Negro Art: DuBois and a Critique of Contemporary Hip-Hop" (Dr. LaDrica Menson-Furr)

Adrian Wesley, "Grant Writing for Municipalities" (Dr. Reginald Martin)

Lisa Wong, "The Legibility of Online Fonts for Older Users" (Dr. Reginald Martin)