Dr. Lisa Eck and Dr. Bernard Horn organized a panel, Cosmopolitanism in Teaching and Reading: Uses and Limits, for the Modern Language Association convention in Boston. Panelists included Alexander Hartwiger, American University of Beirut, and Youngmin Kim, Dongguk University. Dr. Eck presented a paper, "Cosmopolitanism in the Classroom: Orientalism's Other Ism," and Dr. Horn presented "The Limits of Cosmopolitan Conversation in the Novels of A. B. Yehoshua." Dr. Horn chaired the panel and Dr. Eck was the respondent.
Two members of the English Department contributed entries to the recently published Handbook of Women Biblical Interpreters: A Historical and Biographical Guide, edited by Marion Ann Taylor (Baker Publishing, 2012). Dr. Elaine Beilin wrote the entry on Anne Askew, and Dr. Patricia Crouch co-authored the entry on Lucy Hutchinson with Dr. Shannon Miller of Temple University.
Dr. Kelly Matthews presented her paper, " 'Johnny, I Hardly Knew You!': Sean O'Faolain, the Gaelic League, and Debates over Language and Literature in the Mid-Twentieth Century," at the 2012 Modern Language Association convention in Seattle, Washington. Dr. Matthews' paper was selected for this presentation by the American Conference for Irish Studies as part of their sponsored panel on "Ireland and the Politics of Language." The paper was based on Dr. Matthews' research into the role of The Bell magazine and its founding editor, Sean O'Faolain, in representing and transforming conceptions of modern Irish identity.
Dr. Patricia Lynne will participate in the 2012 Dartmouth Summer Seminar for Composition Research at the Institute for Writing and Rhetoric at Dartmouth College. Participants are selected from national and international writing faculty and writing program administrators. Dr. Lynne will learn quantitative research methods to study correlations between first-year writing placement and grades and to evaluate the success of our placement changes. In addition, she will examine the sequencing of General Education courses for our students, specifically to determine whether the order in which students take history and literature courses in relation to their first-year writing courses may be quantitatively meaningful.
On November 8, Dr. Lorretta Holloway, English Department, was inducted as an honorary faculty member of the Alpha Pi chapter (Framingham State University) of Alpha Upsilon Alpha, the honor society of the International Reading Association. Dr. Holloway was honored for her outstanding contributions to literacy in K-12 and in teacher education.
Dr. Claudia Springer recently published an article, “Taken by Muslims: Captivity Narratives in The Lives of a Bengal Lancer and Prisoner of the Mountains,” in Jump Cut, volume 53.
