School of Literature and Language

Department of English

Department of Modern Languages

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Events:

June 2010

Tech-London 2010

2010 Summer Study Abroad Students at Stonehenge.

Fourteen students participated in the 2010 TECHLondon Summer Study Abroad Program. Accompanied by Dr. Ken Robbins (School of Performing Arts) and Dr. Celia Lewis (Department of English), students were based at the Celtic Hotel, across the street from Russell Square in the famous Bloomsbury section of London. While taking classes such as Shakespeare, Contemporary Drama, and Contemporary British Art and Culture, students also attended plays at the Globe Theatre, the National Theatre, and the Open Air Theatre in Regents Park, listened to an evening performance of Brahms's Violin Concerto in D and Berlioz's Symphony Fantastique in the choir stalls of the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank, and toured Oxford, Stratford upon Avon, and Winchester Cathedral.

Photo gallery

The Fourth Annual Shakespeare Birthday Festival!

Much Ado About Shakespeare!

APRIL 23

The Shakespeare Garden

(aka GTM Courtyard)

9:30 am till 2:30 pm

9:30	Greetings	Ed Jacobs & Don Kaczvinsky
10:00	The Battling Bard	Mark Guinn
10:30	Rediscovered Shakespeare	Ken Robbins
11:00	The Tempest and The Forbidden Planet	David Merchant
11:30	Shakespeare Jeopardy	Paul Crook
12:00	Found in Translation	Paul Nelson
12:30	A Comedy of Man, Woman, & Beef: Act IV, Scene 3 Taming of the Shrew	Marcy Culpepper & Christine Strebeck & Puppets
1:00	Design of Rose Benches	Lucas Bridges, Trey Lane Beth Rettig, & Brian Wyatt
1:30	Cultivating a Queen: The Gardener's Planting of "Rue" in King Richard II	Magin Lasov Gregg
2:00	Farewells	Dorothy Robbins & Missy Wallace
Between featured events, Shakespeare’s sonnet sequence (1-154) will be read by volunteers. Festival is sponsored by Sigma Tau Delta, English Honor Society. Contact Dr. Dorothy Dodge Robbins for more info drobbins@latech.edu 318-257-5488 Gallery of Shakespeare's Birthday

April 15, 2010

12th Annual
Louisiana Tech University &
University of Louisiana at Monroe
Graduate Conference

April 15, 2010
Department of English, Graduate Studies

Download the brochure

10:30-11:00 Greetings & Refreshments

11:00-12:00 Morning Panel

1. Caleb Elkins:

A Fisher "Queen":
Regendering a Legend in Virginia Woolf's The Years

2. Vanelis Rivera:

". . . what the New World hath finally wrought":
Exploring the Significance and Definition of Assimilation
in Wole Soyinka's The Strong Breed and Lorraine
Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun 3. Rachel Winchel:

Take Two:
Re-reading Henry James's The Europeans as a Modern
Fairy Tale 12:00-1:00 Luncheon
1:00-2:00 Afternoon Panel
1. Maure Kyser:

The Southern Belle and the American Dream:
Breeding Delusion and Disappointment in
Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie and A
Streetcar Named Desire 2. Scott Whitford:

A Linguistic Gumbo:
A Study of the New Orleans Vernacular through
the Lens of John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of
Dunces 3. Meghan Maxwell:

"What thing it is that wommen moost desiren":
Sovereignty and the Influence of the Wife of Bath
in Thomas Deloney's Jack of Newbury 2:00-2:15 Awards

February 4, 2009

Louisiana's Poet Laureate
to Give Reading
at Tech

Darrell Bourque, Louisiana's Poet Laureate, will give a reading from his new book of poetry with Jack B. Bedell, Call and Response: Conversations in Verse (Texas Review Press, 2009) on February 4th in Adams Parlor, starting at 7pm. Mr. Bourque is Professor Emeritus from University of Louisiana in Lafayette, where he taught in the English Department and in the Interdisciplinary Humanities Program. During his career at ULL, he directed the Creative Writing Program, was theFriends of the Humanities Honor Professor, and served as the Head of hte English Department. He also was the President of the National Association for Humanities Education and edited the journal Interdisciplinary Humanities.

Mr. Bourque's books include Plainsongs (Cross-Cultural Communications, 1994), The Doors Beween Us (the inaugural issue of Louisiana Literature's Chapbook Series, 1997), Burnt Water Suite (Wings Press, 1999), and The Blue Boat (The Center for Louisiana Studies, 2004). Mr. Bourque was appointed Poet Laureate of Louisiana in 2007 and 2009.

The reading is FREE and open to the public.

Fall 2009
The Maya and the World: Interdisciplinary Inquiry in the Liberal Arts

Events for The Maya and the World: Interdisciplinary Inquiry in the Liberal Arts will be taking place during the Fall Quarter. Download the schedule here. Sponsored by: Louisiana Board of Regents Undergraduate Enhancement Grant, Louisiana Tech University's College of Liberal Arts, Department of History, Department of Social Sciences, School of Literature and Language.

Robert M. Carmack, Professor Emeritus, University of Albany, Albany, New York

Thur, Oct 8 6:30 pm, Lincoln Parish Library: "Conducting Anthropological Research in a K'iche-Mayan Community of Guatemala"

Fri, Oct 9, 11 am, Wyly Auditorium, LA Tech: "Maya Historiography: The K'iche'-Mayan Case of Guatemala".

Thomas H. Guderjan, President, Maya Research Program, Fort Worth, Texas Assistant Professor, Anthropology, University of Texas at Tyler

Thur, Oct 15, 6:30 pm, Lincoln Parish Library: "The End of The World as They Knew It! What we really know and don't know about the collapse of the ancient Maya Civilizion."

Fri, Oct 16, 9:30 am, Wyly Auditorium, LA Tech: "Understanding the Ancient Past at Blue Creek, Belize"

Grace Lloyd Boscopé, Project Director, Maya Research Program, Forth Worth, Texas

Thur, Oct 22, 6:30 pm Lincoln Parish Library: "Contemporary Recycling: Uses of Ancient Tools by Modern Maya."

Fri, Oct 23 , 9:30 am, Wyly Auditorium, LA Tech: "Threads of the Past Enrich the Present: The Maya Then and Now."

Monica Bontty, University of Louisiana at Monroe, Monroe, Louisiana

Thur, Oct 29, 6:30 pm, Lincoln Parish Library: "Years Mayan and Hours: The Concept of Time in Ancient Maya and Egyptian Societies,"

Thur, Oct 29, 9:30 am, Wyly Auditorium, LA Tech: "The Notion of Time in Egyptian and Mayan Society"

W. George Lovell, Queens, University, Kingston, Ontario

Thur, Nov 5, 6:30 pm, Lincoln Parish Library: "At Peace in the Corn: A Story of Civil War and Its Aftermath in Guatemala"

Fri, Nov 6, 11 am, Wyly Auditorium, LA Tech: "Surviving Conquest: Geography, Colonialism, and Maya Peoples in Guatemala."

Fall 20, 2009
Triumph over Tragedy

The Grapes of Wrath
The English department just received a signed first edition of The Grapes of Wrath from Lorna Kardatzke. The edition will be displayed on the fourth floor of Prescott Library as part of the Frellsen Fletcher Smith Memorial Collection, during our celebration of Triumph Over Tragedy.
Our thanks go out to Pat Garrett, whose efforts made this acquisition possible.

The Grapes of Wrath (Play)
Oct 28-31, Nov. 4-7
School of Performing Arts
Stone Theater

James V. Hart (Talk)
October 20, 2009
Wyly Tower Auditorium, Louisiana Tech University
4:00 PM (we have the room from 3:30 until 6:00)

Play Monopoly
October 27 (80th anniversary of Black Tuesday)
70 students, faculty, and support staff will play MONOPOLY on the campus to join 21 parishes in the largest game of Tournament Monopoly at one time in the history of Monopoly!

Great Scavenger Hunt
October 27-Nov. 21
Participants will use technology to lead "virtual hunters" across North Louisiana to discover the architectural sites, meet the "Elders," interact with the professional artists, hear storytellers and musicians spin tales and ballads about the impact of the Great Depression in North Louisiana, and listen to historians and economists as they compare and contrast the hard times of 1929-41 to those experienced today. "Hunters" will send "virtual" message time capsules to be delivered and installed at each of the actual sites. A $2,000 Grand Prize will be awarded to the person or team who answers the most questions correctly.

The Grapes of Wrath (Film)
November 10
Film, starring Henry Fonda
Outdoor Screening

Dr. Susan Shillinglaw
October 29, 2009
Wyly Tower Auditorium, Louisiana Tech University
4:00 PM
Steinbeck scholar will present a talk on The Grapes of Wrath and its impact on the era.

John Steinbeck

2009-2010 Press Releases

August 2010
Dr. Robert Rudnicki, associate professor and Coordinator of Graduate Studies in English, published an essay on John Kennedy Toole's novel A Confederacy of Dunces in the Mississippi Quarterly, a prominent scholarly journal of Southern literature and culture.

The essay was written to coincide with the 30th anniversary of Toole's famous 1980 novel set in New Orleans. In "Euphues and the Anatomy of Influence: John Lyly, Harold Bloom, James Olney and the Construction of John Kennedy Toole's Ignatius," Rudnicki uses Tulane University's archives to demonstrate that despite Toole's celebrated imitations of Louisiana dialects and depictions of French Quarter mayhem, many English literary figures shaped the novel, including Shakespeare.

A Confederacy of Dunces won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1981, has sold over 2 million copies worldwide and has long been considered a cult classic as well as an important work in the field of modern Southern literature. Click here to listen to Kate Archer Kent interview Dr. Rudnicki about A Confederacy of Dunces on NPR affiliate Red River Radio on August 23, 2010.

August 2010

Dr. Dorothy Robbins, Associate Professor of English, along with Kenneth Robbins, Director of the School of Performing Arts, just had their edited book Christmas Stories from Ohio, published by Kent State University Press. The book documents the Christmas heritage in fiction and memoir and celebrates the many moods of yuletide in the Buckeye State. With selections from some of Ohio's most highly regarded classic and contemporary authors, including Kay Boyle, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Nikki Giovananni, Langston Hughes, and James Thurber, these tales span the generations, offering readers unique geographical, historical, and cultural perspectives on winter holiday traditions. The selections explore time-honored themes of Christmas: family, compassion, wonder, and the human desire for connections and reconnections. Their charm and wit recall the fun of Christmases past, while still looking to the yuletide magic yet to happen.

July 2010
Donald P. Kaczvinsky, Director of the School of Literature and Language, recently coordinated the 16th biennial On Miracle Ground Conference, from July 7-10 in New Orleans. The theme of the conference was "Durrell and the City: Reconstructing the Urban Landscape" and featured scholars from the United States as well as Canada, France, Turkey, Belgium, Japan, and Egypt. Two keynote speakers, Alan Warren Friedman, from the University of Texas, and H. R. Stoneback, SUNY at New Paltz delivered plenary addresses. Dr. Kaczvinsky also presented a paper entitled "'Where the Blue Algonquin Flows': Durrell and the American Environment." The conference was funded by the International Lawrence Durrell Society, the College of Liberal Arts, and the George E. Pankey Endowed Chair in English.

July 2010
Dr. Dolliann Margaret Hurtig, Associate Professor of French in The School of Literature and Language, presented at the 88th National Conference of the American Association of Teachers of French held in Philadelphia, PA, July 4-July 7. Dr. Hurtig presided over the July Session as Co-Chair of the Promotion of French in the US. The session addressed such issues as problems encountered when adapting a novella to the cinema to pragmatic considerations of how educators teach film in their courses at both the university and the secondary school levels, with particular focus on the Venice Film Festival Award-Winning Film, Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran.

July 2010
Dr. Rick Simmons, the George K. Anding Endowed Professor of English and director of the Honors Program at Louisiana Tech, has just published his third book, Hidden History of the Grand Strand. The book chronicles the often-overlooked aspects of the history of the coastal area of South Carolina from Georgetown to Little River (known as the Grand Strand), which includes Dr. Simmons' home, Pawleys Island, South Carolina. The book looks at events spanning more than 500 years, from the lost Spanish flagship Capitana in 1526 to the German U-Boats that reportedly roamed the Intracoastal Waterway with the help of local collaborators during World War Two. In addition, it examines little-known aspects of local history such as the now-vanished villages of La Grange and Lafayette, the great canal on North Island, the wrecks of the Freeda A Wyley, the USS Harvest Moon, and the City of Richmond, and the stories behind the legend of Old Gunn Church, the Ocean Forest Hotel, the U-Boat pens on the Waccamaw river, and Blackbeard's lair on Drunken Jack Island.

The book is now available online at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, and other national book retailers, as well as at bookstores along the east coast. Hidden History of the Grand Strand follows his previous books Factory Lives: Four 19th-Century British Working-Class Autobiographies (Broadview Press, 2007), and Defending South Carolina's Coast: The Civil War from Georgetown to Little River (The History Press, 2009).

May 2010
We would like to extend our congratulations to the 2010 Spring graduates in the School of Literature and Language.

English (Undergraduate)

Coleen Maidlow

Victoria Perkins

Shanna Thibodeaux

English (Master's)

French

Anna Harvan

Spanish

Christy Cole

Caitlin Hodge

Holly Thompson

David VanHesswijk

May 2010
Congratulations to Dr. Dorothy Robbins, who was chosen as the 2010 F.J. Taylor Undergraduate Teaching Award recipient. The award consists of a plaque and a $1,500 stipend, and the recipient must be a full-time faculty member whose primary duty is undergraduate teaching. Faculty members are nominated by members of the University Senate.

May 2010
Congratulations to the following students, who were recently initiated into P D F (Pi Delta Phi), the National French Honor Society:

Two students also received Certificates of Merit:

May 2010
Dolliann Hurtig, Associate Professor, along with Joyce Beckwith of Boston, MA, were finalists with their presentation entitled "Allons au cinéma" in the 2010 "Best of the Northeast" sessions held by the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. Over two thousand teachers and professors from around the nation attended the conference, which was held in New York City.

May 2010
Dr. Paula Brown, Instructor and Coordinator for the BARC Writing Center, has had her article "Stardust as Allegorical Bildungsroman: An Apology for Platonic Idealism," in Extrapolation. The article will appear in the journal's summer issue.

May 2010
Congratulations to Christine Strebeck, Dr. Dorothy Robbins, and Chad Lyles who received $1,000 in funds to purchase classroom tools and resources to be used by the instructors of ENGL 363: Scientific and Technical Presentations Faculty to provide a more fully developed and useful learning environments for the students in these classes. The Lagniappe Ladies, Louisiana Tech's ladies-only giving society, has made its first grant awards totaling $34,500. Only seven of forty-four grant applications were funded this year.

May 2010
Congratulations to the 9 newly inducted members of the Alpha Omega chapter of S D P (Sigma Delta Pi), the Spanish national honor society:

May 2010
Katie Merryman, French major in the Department of Foreign Languages, has been accepted for the MICEFA Program to Paris, France where she will be studying architecture and French. She will be in Paris XII, one of several universities in the Paris system.

May 2010
The Department of English is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2010 Mary Alice Posey Garrett Scholarship. The scholarship provides up to $1500 for any student with a major or minor in English or English Education and who has at least a 3.0 GPA. The scholarship money is meant to support students as they participate in the TECH-London Summer Study Abroad Program. Students must demonstrate how travel abroad will further their future goals, especially in the field of education. The three students are Caleb Elkins and Don Stevens, both pursuing an MA in English, and Claire Gibson, who is a junior, majoring in English.

April 2010
Christina Cole and Holly Thompson, both Spanish majors in the Department of Foreign Languages, were accepted into the Teach & Learn Program and to the Máster en Enseñanza de la Lingua, Literatura y Cultura en el Mundo Hispánico in Spain for the 2010-2011 academic year.

April 2010
Dr. Kimberly Vanderlaan, Assistant Professor of English, recently had her poem "Arles" published in the April issue of White Pelican Review.

April 2010
Dr. Rudy DeMattos, Assistant Professor of French, presented a paper at the 41st annual NEMLA convention in Montreal Sunday, April 11, entitled "Walter Mehring, Witness to His Age." The paper presented the life and work of the German author Walter Mehring who was exiled in France during the Nazi-era, and the panel examined the dialogues between French and German Exile Writers. Dr. DeMattos also helped organize an art exhibit by French artist, singer, song writer, and television host D'Geyrald. The recent paintings by D'Geyrald draw upon light and inspiration from the desert of Palm Springs, the hills above Hollywood and the bayous of Louisiana. The paintings are currently being exhibited at the Enterprise Center and will move to the Cite des Arts in Lafayette in July.

April 2010
Dr. Anne Reynolds-Case, Assistant Professor of Spanish, presented a paper at the Southeast Coastal Conference on Languages and Literatures (SECCLL). The paper, entitled "Code Switching in the Foreign Language Classroom; A Crutch or a Tool," examined and analyzed the motivations behind code switching (CS) between English and Spanish in Spanish foreign language classes. CS has been studied numerous times in various speech communities; however classroom CS differs in the motivational factors triggering its use. While CS can be viewed negatively both inside and outside the classroom, the data collected for this paper revealed that instructors commonly used CS as a pedagogical tool. The implications for this can be significant in the field of language pedagogy. Teachers can confidently use CS as a tool in the classroom rather than view its use as crutch for themselves or their students.

April 2010
Four students in the School of Literature and Language were recently honored at the College of Liberal Arts Honors Luncheon as the 2010 Outstanding Student in their major field. The four students are listed below:

Joan Rasmussen

Christie Cole

Missy Wallace

Magin LaSov

Congratulations to all our student winners!

April 2010
Dr. Robert Rudnicki, Associate Professor and Coordinator of Graduate Studies in English, has recently published an essay entitled "Euphues and the Anatomy of Influence: John Lyly, Harold Bloom, James Olney, and the Construction of John Kennedy Toole's Ignatius," in in the Mississippi Quarterly, a prominent scholarly journal of Southern literature and culture. Rudnicki's essay on John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces was released to coincide with the thirtieth anniversary of Toole's famous 1980 novel set in New Orleans. A Confederacy won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981, has sold over two million copies worldwide, and has long been considered a cult classic as well as a work of major importance in the field of modern Southern literature. Dr. Rudnicki used Tulane University's archives to demonstrate that, despite Toole's celebrated imitations of Louisiana dialects and his debt to the satire of Jonathan Swift, much earlier English literary figures shaped the novel.

April 2010
Dolliann Margaret Hurtig, Ph.D. presented a paper on three French films at the Spring Convocation of the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (NECTFL). Established in 1954, the NECTFL conference is the oldest multi-language conference in the United States, gathering 2500 professors and teachers to address diverse issues, such as advocacy, assessment, pedagogy, curriculum development, and multiculturalism. Dr. Hurtig presented her work on three films Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran (Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Coran), Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources, starring Gerard Depardieu, Daniel Auteuil, and Emmanuelle Beart. The professor showed film clips and provided booklets to all attendees that she developed as a pedagogical tool for teaching the films during National French Week or for Francophone Day on university campuses. Dr. Hurtig serves as Co-Chair of the Commission of the Promotion of French in the United States, under the auspices of the American Association of Teachers of French, along with Joyce Beckwith (M.A. Harvard University), New England Regional Representative of the AATF, who teaches in Boston, Massachusetts.

March 2010
On March 27, 2010, Dr. John Edward Martin, Assistant Professor of English, delivered the keynote address at the 2010 Honors English Colloquium, hosted by the Sigma Tau Delta, Iota Chi Chapter, and the California State University-Northridge English Department. The theme of the colloquium was "Fantastique," and Dr. Martin's lecture was entitled, "American Gothic: Art and Terror from the Puritans to Postmodernism." The colloquium attendees included graduate students and faculty from the Cal State-Northridge English department, as well as faculty and students from area universities, who delivered scholarly papers on various aspects of "the fantastic" in British and American literature, film, and popular culture. Dr. Martin's lecture was sponsored and funded by the Sigma Tau Delta, Iota Chi Chapter and the California State University-Northridge English Honors program.

March 2010
Five Tech students recently participated in the Sigma Tau Delta International Convention in St. Louis, MO, March 17-20, 2010. At the convention, the students presented their original scholarly work, participated in chapter development workshops, and attended readings by leading authors. In a panel on film and media studies, Crystal Baker presented "Female Genital Mutilation: The Brutality of Male Dominance over Females in Ousmane Sembene's Moolaade." In the critical essay category, Alexandra Gaspar presented "Marie de France: Not a Traditional Courtly Love Writer." Ashlee Clark presented "Anne Bronte's Two-Tiered Morality in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" in a panel on Victorian Literature. In 19^th Century American Literature, Missy Wallace presented "Fathering American Literature: Washington Irving's Anxiety and Cultural Uncertainty." And in a session on World Literature, Bayley Hutton presented "The Odyssey: A Book of Xenia." The students are members of the Rho Gamma Chapter of the English Honor Society.

February 22, 2010
Dr. Donald Kaczvinsky, Professor of English, recently presented a paper at the 2010 Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture since 1900. The paper, entitled "'The Riddle of the Birth and Sex Life of the European Eel": Intertextuality in Graham Swift's Waterland" explored the role of place in Swift's award winning novel and proposed an intertextual link between Swift's setting of the fenlands in East Anglia and Yoknapatawpha County in William Faulkner's novels. The paper developed an "environmental" poetics based on the mysterious reproductive habits of the European eel, a topic discussed in the central chapter of Waterland.

January 2010
Dr. Dolliann Margaret Hurtig, Associate Professor of French at Louisiana Tech University and Co-Chair of the Commission of the Promotion of French in the United States, published an article in the January issue of the National Bulletin of the American Association of Teachers of French. Dr. Hurtig's article, in the column "Promotion in Motion," concerns the teaching of French film in the French Classroom at the high school and the university levels. Dr. Hurtig shows how film can be successfully integrated into the classroom by focusing on the award-winning films of Claude Berri, Jean de Florette and Manon des sources.

January 2010
Dr. Kimberly Vanderlaan, Assistant Professor of English, recently presented her paper, "Touring That 'huge voracious fetish' She Called Culture: Reading Complicated Signposts in Wharton's The Custom of the Country" at the Modern Language Association (MLA) convention in Philadelphia, PA. The MLA is the major international convention for scholars in English and Foreign Languages. The topic of the panel was "Cultural Tourism in Edith Wharton's Life and Fiction."

December 2, 2009
Magin LaSov Gregg, a graduate student in English, has published "Reading Hamlet 3.1.121 as Remembrance of Richard II 5.1.23" in ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes, and Reviews (Volume 22). Her essay argues for a literal reading of Hamlet's famous reference to a "nunnery" to reveal an intertextual relationship between Ophelia and Richard's Queen Isabel.

November 30, 2009
Dr. Rick Simmons, the George K. Anding Endowed Professor of English, and Director of the Center for Academic and Professional Development at Louisiana Tech University, has just published "Jack, Steven, and Jane: Austen's Domestic Discord and Patrick O'Brian's The Mauritius Command" in ANQ 22.4 (Fall 2009). This is his fourth published article or note examining the relationship between the fiction of Jane Austen and Patrick O'Brian.

November 2009
Congratulations to Veronica Schuder and David Merchant, who received Student Technology Fee Board grants this quarter. Veronica received $1,900 to purchase a smart cart (with a working laptop); David Merchant received over $38,000 to purchase new computers for GTM 207.

Both of these grants will help tremendously in keeping our classrooms up to date.

Congratulations again on a job well done!

November 3, 2009
The School recently received signed letters and documents from American writers such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Fenimore Cooper, Washington Irving, and Zane Grey as well as documents with the signatures of James Madison and Louis XIV and Louis XVI of France for the Frellsen Smith Memorial Collection housed on the fourth floor of Prescott Library.

Please stop up on the fourth floor of Prescott Library to see our new manuscripts.

October 29, 2009
To celebrate Halloween and to honor Edgar Allan Poe in his 200th birth year, Sigma Tau Delta will host a party in the Shakespeare Garden on Thursday, October 29. Back by popular demand, Dr. John Martin will channel Poe and perform some of the poet's darkest poems. Several of our English majors have volunteered to join Dr. Martin in the creepy reading; one has even promised to dance! Cake and cider served! Festivities begin at 5:00 p.m. and will be over by 6:00. Join us for all or part! In addition, there will be a display of old and recently acquired "Poe-abilia" in the graduate student lounge before and after the reading...if you have any of your own, please bring it to share!

October 2009
Dr. John Edward Martin, an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, attended the Third International Edgar Allan Poe Conference in Philadelphia, PA from Oct. 8-11. This conference marked the 200th anniversary of Poe's birth and was celebrated by numerous events across the country. The conference brought together leading Poe scholars from around the world for a four-day extravaganza that included scholarly presentations, performances of Poe's works, tours of the city and the Poe National Historic Site (his home in Philadelphia), and a banquet honoring some of the leading scholars and recent books of Poe criticism. Dr. Martin delivered a paper entitled, "'Tamerlane' and the Paternal Scapegoat," that examined Poe's first major published work along with a series of letters to his foster father, John Allan. The paper is a condensed version of a longer article that Dr. Martin will be submitting to the The Edgar Allan Poe Review.

October 14, 2009
The English Department will hold an open house to celebrate the inaugural issue of The Quatrain, an Online Journal of Literature and Culture. The event will be held on Wednesday, October 14th, 11:30-1:00, GTM 103 in Graduate English Research Lab, Classroom, and Commons. Please drop in at your convenience to see the new space, visit with your professors, fellow writers, and have a free lunch!

September 2009
Dr. Rick Simmons, the George K. Anding Endowed Professor of English, and Director of the Center for Academic and Professional Development at Louisiana Tech University, has written the Civil War chronicle, Defending South Carolina's Coast: The Civil War from Georgetown to Little River. The publication will be released by the History Press on September 9, 2009 and will be available for sale on September 15. The publisher, the History Press, is international in scope, with its main offices in London. The main US office is Charleston, South Carolina, with other offices in Ireland, France, Belgium, and Germany. The book is a volume in the Sesquicentennial Civil War Series currently being released by the History Press.

August 2009
The School of Literature and Language congratulates A. J. King, who graduated with a BA at summer commencement on August 20, 2009. A.J. was the first student to graduate with a triple major--English, journalism, and Spanish. A. J. also participated in the Costa Rica Summer Program (2009) and the Tech-London Program (2007).

July 2009
Dr. Dolliann Margaret Hurtig presented at the July 2-5 meeting of the American Association of Teachers of French Annual Convention in the host city of San Jose, California. Her session, held in association with the Commission of the AATF for the Promotion of French, was titled: "Allons au Cinema: Promoting French through Films" (Let's go to the movies).

Galleries:

June 2010
Tech-London 2010. Fourteen students participated in the 2010 TECHLondon Summer Study Abroad Program. They were accompanied by Dr. Ken Robbins (School of Performing Arts) and Dr. Celia Lewis (Department of English).

April 23, 2010
Shakespeare's Birthday 2010. The Sigma Tau Delta Honor Society hosted a celebration of Shakespeare's Birthday on April 23, 2009. The party took place in the Shakespeare Garden in the GTM courtyard and in the GTM foyer.

September 30, 2009
Tailgating 2009. Faculty members from the School of Literature and Language assist in the tailgating for the College of Liberal Arts. The game against Hawaii was featured on ESPN2.

June 2009
Tech-London 2009. The English and Theater Departments sponsor the annual study in England.

April 23, 2009
Shakespeare's Birthday 2009. The Sigma Tau Delta Honor Society hosted a celebration of Shakespeare's Birthday on April 23, 2009. The party took place in the Shakespeare Garden in the GTM courtyard.

April 22, 2009
Earth Day 2009. Faculty and students recited poetry in honor of Earth Day on April 22, 2009.

October 30, 2008
The First Poe Party. The Sigma Tau Delta Honor Society hosted a Poe Party in the Shakespeare Garden in the GTM courtyard. Dr. John Martin channeled the great Edgar Allen Poe, and students presented additional poetry readings.

April 23, 2008
Shakespeare's Birthday 2008. Sigma Tau Delta dedicated a bust of Shakespeare in the Shakespeare Garden in the courtyard of GTM and held other events throughout the day.

April 11, 2008
10th Annual ULM/Tech Graduate Conference. The English Departments at ULM and Louisiana Tech University held their tenth annual conference for graduate students to present their research. Click here for the schedule of papers and events.

Archive for 2007-2008

Archive for 2008-2009

School of Literature and Language Newsletter:

Newsletter 2007-2008	April 2008
Newsletter 2006-2007	April 2007

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