Spring 2013 - Division of Languages and Literature Newsletter

Division of Languages and Li terature

2012 -13

VOLUME 17

Communication English FRENCH Journalism Philosophy Spanish Theatre

N E W S L E T T E R

Edward Plough has been named Assistant Professor

of English.

He earned his B.A. in English from Bradley Uni-

versity in Peoria, Illinois, his M.A. in Shakespeare

Studies from Royal Holloway, University of Lon-

don, and his PhD in Medieval & Renaissance Liter-

ature from Purdue University.

In addition to Renaissance playwrights and poets,

Plough’s research interests include Modern Ameri-

can Drama, Musical Theatre, and Adaptation Stud-

ies.

As an active musician and theatre artist, Plough has co-composed three origi-

nal full-length musicals with Stephen Clark and Kalena Dickerson in Chica-

go. The most recent musical, Of Moonjays & Motorcycles, is an adaptation of

Shakespeare’s Pericles.

Natasha Trethewey, 19th US Poet Laureate,

honored Delta State with a fall reading from

her newest book, Thrall. It was Trethewey’s

second campus reading since winning the

Pulitzer Prize for her 2007 volume Native

Guard. The event was sponsored by the Divi-

sion of Languages & Literature and the Diver-

sity Committee. Don Allan Mitchell made the

introduction. Mississippi native Trethewey (at

left) was previously awarded an honorary de-

gree from DSU.

Poet Laureate Trethewey reads on campus

Theatre productions for 2012-13, under direction

of Michael Ewing, continued their long tradition

of excellence.

These Shining Lives, the fall production, por-

trayed the dark side of the 1920s, women exploit-

ed in workplace jobs without health benefits. The

play drew standing room audiences in its three

performances at Jobe Hall.

The hit spring production, A Pleasant Evening

Out, a series of one-act plays, was enhanced by

the presence of author Dennis DiClaudio in the

audience.

Upper photo, Claire Dean, Amber Wright, Megan Ma-neval, and Jackie Kelly in These Shining Lives. Lower photo, Charles Coleman and JaeR Norris in A Pleasant Evening Out.

Theatre lights shine bright

New English professor joins DSU faculty

Edward Plough

Newly-named DSU president William La-

Forge delivered an inspiring keynote ad-

dress at the Honors Banquet of the Divi-

sions of Languages and Literature and So-

cial Sciences and History in April. At the

event Stephen King presented LaForge with

a copy of his book I’m Feeling the Blues

Right Now. King recently accepted a new

position as chairperson of the Communica-

tion Studies Department at Eastern Illinois

University, located in Charleston, Illinois.

At right are LaForge and King.

LaForge speaks at spring Honors Banquet

PAGE 2 2012 -13

Editor’s Easy Chair

As another academic year draws to a close,

we welcome William LaForge as the new

president of Delta State. At the same time,

we say farewell to our esteemed colleague Stephen

King as he pursues new challenges. Thanks to all those

who contributed your news and photos to this year’s

newsletter. — Patricia Roberts, Editor

Congratulations, award winners!

From left, award winners Calli Musselwhite, Florian Mondoloni, Maria Alejandra Torres Perez, Rachel Kelly, and Katie Turner.

English major Wilbanks

wins top academic prize

Olivia Wilbanks

’13 won Delta

State’s highest

academic honor,

the Jack Winton

Gunn Award.

English majors

have won the

prestigious Gunn

award four of the

past five years.

The Southaven

native was also

named most outstanding student from the College

of Education, and a winner of the AAUW Award.

Winners of the spring oratorical competition (at right) were Shelby Wal-ters, a junior biology-premedical science ma-jor, and Jana Holleman is a sophomore pre-nursing major.

State journalism winners

Delta State journalism students won major state

awards in March, including honorable mention for

general excellence for the weekly Delta Statement.

Staff winners (from left) are Shawanda Lee,

Blake McCollough, Elisabetta Zengaro, and

editor Rachel Bush.

Languages & Literature 2012-13 award winners were honored in April at an

Arts & Sciences coffee, as well as the annual Languages & Literature/Social

Sciences Honors Banquet. They are as follows:

Evelyn Hammett Scholarship — Katie Turner

Leola Gregory Williams Scholarship — Elizabeth Bullion /Calley Whyte

Anne Caulfeild Winston Award — Haley Ferretti

Weaver Betts Cotton Scholarship — Rachel Kelly

John Hargrove Tatum Scholarship — Maria Alejandra Torres Pérez

Foreign Language Award — Katie Turner

J’Nell Posey Coffman Scholarship — Amy Morris

Hazel Thornell Award — Kristy Pyron

Allen and Rose Drake Burrell Scholarship — Katie Turner

John Merrill Award — Florian Mondoloni

Ellen Douglas Scholarship- — Calli Musselwhite

Dr. William Arthur Pennington Award — Courtney Clark

The Initiation Ceremony for the Delta Iota Tau Chapter of Lambda Iota Tau was held in April. From left, Rebekah Vaught, John Cassibry, Shanice Mitchell, Lindsey Funk, Yvonne Tomek (sponsor), Rachel Kelly, and Taylor Hawkins.

Wilbanks accepts Gunn award

PAGE 3 2012 -13

Whatever happened to….

Dr. John Merrill, an English major, DSU ’49, passed away in October. As a renowned journalism

professor and author of 33 books, the Cleveland native became a major icon in the world of journalism

education.

Merrill followed his DSU English degree with a master’s in journalism from

LSU, a master’s in philosophy from the University of Missouri, and a doctorate

in mass communications from the University of Iowa.

The Merrill legacy lives on at Delta State University. The John Merrill award is

given annually to the top journalism major, and the annual John C. Merrill Lec-

ture Series features lectures from outstanding journalists. He has been named to

the Alumni Hall of Fame, and copies of his published works are preserved at

Capps Archives.

Division chair Bill Hays remembers Merrill as “a man with a keen intellect, a

razor-sharp wit, and an infectious smile, one who extended the hand of generosi-

ty to his alma mater in extraordinary ways.”

Journalism professor Patricia Roberts recalls Merrill as “an inspirational figure,” who “loved journal-

ism, loved young people and loved Delta State University.”

Memorial donations to the John Merrill Award and the John Merrill Lecture Series may be made

through the Delta State University Foundation.

Matthew Baker ’12, a French minor, is in Australia working on

a dual masters in international law. He will study in France next

semester.

English major John Cassibry ’13 has been promoted to the posi-

tion of Marketing and Communications Officer at the Cleveland

State Bank. Cassibry has worked at the bank since 1994.

Cayman Caven writes: “I hope you are having a great start to

the semester!! I have met all of my professors at Alabama, and I

really like them, but it's definitely no Delta State! I'll be thinking

of my DSU family during the semester, and will definitely miss

all of you!”

Tony Cruz writes: “Things are fine in the Charlotte-area. I re-

cently finished the MAT program at The University of North

Carolina at Charlotte. I’ve been teaching

7th grade language arts for the past two

years at a low-performing, high-poverty

school which is challenging but can also

be rewarding.”

Jackie Day Barnett received a master’s in English Education

from Ole Miss and now teaches at Center Hill High School in

Desoto County. She is now active in the University of Missis-

sippi Writing Project. Her site is in charge of designing training

for the Mississippi Department of Education’s Common Core

training. She also received a grant to work with rural schools in

the Oxford area.

Morgan Dean has been appointed principal of the D.M. Smith

Middle School in Cleveland.

Taylor Hawkins ’13, an English/journalism major, has been

named Sports Editor of the Yazoo Herald in Yazoo City. Haw-

kins follows in the tradition of Taylor Mitchell ’11 and Bryan

Davis ’09, who previously held the position. Mitchell was re-

cently named assistant sports editor at the Victoria Advocate in

Victoria, Texas.

Michael Maloney and Hattie Frank Maloney, M.

Ed. ’12 are the proud parents of Hattie Grace, born

March 12, 2013. The Maloneys live in Greenwood.

Music/English major Andrew Owen ’09 will pre-

sent a paper on the composer Holst at a conference

at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, in September,

2013. The conference is "Enchanted Modernities: Theosophy

and the Arts in the Modern World." Owen received his Master of

Music from LSU in 2012, and is now completing the first year of

his work toward a PhD. in musicology at LSU.

Dana Patton is teaching 10th grade English at S.B.E.C.

Stephan Roberts ’10, a doctoral candidate in mathematics at

Ole Miss, finds the French reading skills he acquired from cours-

es with James Tomek invaluable in translating classic French

language needed for his thesis work in functional analysis.

French major Ben Shaman ’11 is in France work-

ing on a Masters of Arts degree from Bowling

Green University. At right, Shaman and friend.

Nick White, ’09, had a short story accepted for

publication in The Kenyon Review—one of the

world’s oldest and most prestigious literary journals. Nick will

soon be starting his third year in the MFA program in fiction at

Ohio State.

Dr. Robert Hamblin, DSU

’60, a prominent poet and

Faulkner scholar returned to

his alma mater in March

for a poetry reading and

lecture. He read from his

new book of poetry, Dust

and Light, and presented a

lecture entitled “Legacies of

the Battles of Ole Miss: The

Meredith Crisis and the

1965 Southern Literary

Festival.”

Dr. Hamblin is Director of

the Center for Faulkner

Studies at Southeast Mis-

souri State University,

where the Brodsky Collec-

tion, the largest single col-

lection of Faulkner memo-

rabilia in the world, is

housed and maintained.

PAGE 4 2012 -13

PRESENTATIONS In February, Ben Burgos and son

Mark attended the 2013 MVSU

World Languages Workshop at Itta

Bena. In April and May, Burgos

made presentations on Mexican toys,

Mayan and Aztec art at Washington

High School in Greenville.

At an April event, Georgene Clark

was honored for her 35 years of Delta

State service.

Susan Allen Ford made two presen-

tations at the annual meeting of the

Jane Austen Society of North Ameri-

ca in Brooklyn in October. She partic-

ipated in a live-streamed international

reading of Pride and Prejudice cele-

brating the 200th anniversary of its publication in January. She

spoke about Pride and Prejudice and Fordyce’s Sermons in New

Orleans in April.

In September, Stephen King presented, “Between Jennings and

Jones: Jamey Johnson, Hard-Core Country Music, and Outlaw as

Authenticating Strategy,” as part of the First Tuesday lecture

series. King also attended the 13th Biennial Public Address Confer-

ence at the University of Memphis. In February, King attended the

Mississippi Communication Association conference. In March,

King presented a lecture, “Blues, Race, and Reconciliation,” at

the Capps Building on campus.

The lecture was sponsored by the Diversity Advisory Committee

and the Division of Languages and Literature. In March, King

and Renee Foster co-presented “Revolutionary Words: Reggae’s

Evolution from Protest to Mainstream,” at the Popular Communi-

cation Association convention (Washington D.C.). Also in April,

King presented a lecture entitled, “The History of Blues Tourism

in Mississippi,” at the Robinson-Carpenter Memorial Library.

Don Allan Mitchell has been elected as Faculty Senate President

for 2013-2014.

Ed Plough made a number of spring presentations. He presented

“Plagiarism: What It Is and How You Can Avoid It,” at the

spring Academic Support Lab’s Workshop Series; “Titus An-

dronicus Underwater,” Shakespeare’s Blood Seminar at the 44th

Annual Convention of the Northeast Modern Language Associa-

tion at Tufts University in March; “From R&B to Bollywood:

Masculinity in Two Shakespearean Musical Adaptations” at the

41st Annual meeting of the Shakespeare Association in Toronto

in March; and “Titus Andronicus Underwater” at the first inter-

national Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Thought at

Sam Houston University in April.

Patricia Roberts presented “Children on the Edge,” an explora-

tion of how the global media cover issues involving children, at

the national conference of the College Media Association in New

York City. Co-presenter was world-class National Geographic

photographer Alison Wright, a colleague

from Roberts’ days as an international cor-

respondent based in Kathmandu, Nepal. In

March, Roberts also attended the 100th Cen-

tennial celebration of her New York City

alma mater, Columbia University Graduate

School of Journalism.

Marilyn Schultz traveled to Las Vegas,

NV, for the 2012 National Council of

Teachers of English (NCTE) meeting and

the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents

of the National Council of Teachers of Eng-

lish (ALAN), where she presented a paper

entitled “Epiphanies, Insight, and Intuitive

Thinking in the Assessment Climate: Can

Students Still Dream, Connect, and Ignite?”

During the conference, Schultz also participated in the Program

Reviewers Work Session. She reviewed the updates implement-

ed for NCTE/NCATE program assessment plans. This training

will help her in dealing with issues related to the English lan-

guage arts program assessment, and she also reviews English

education programs for other universities.

Clint Tibbs presented a paper, "Helena Petrovna Blavatsky:

Madame of the Esoteric Tradition," during a Gender Studies

Group Brownbag in March. Tibbs' article "Possession Amnesia:

A Cross-Cultural Phenomenon of Spirit Possession Found in

Greco-Roman, Early Jewish and Christian Texts on Inspired

Speech" has been accepted for publication by the Journal of Re-

ligion of the University of Chicago.

James Tomek constructed and presided over the introductory

interdisciplinary course (Graduate Liberal Studies 600) for the

new Masters of Arts in Liberal Studies program in the

fall. Along with Yvonne Tomek, Sally Paulson, and Arlene

Sanders, he participated on a panel on “personhood” at the Mis-

sissippi Philological Association meeting in February at William

Carey University He looked at the subject through apostrophe in

abortion poems and Levinas’s Talmudic method of reading. Al-

so, Tomek has finished his thesis to complete a Masters of Arts

degree in theology at Spring Hill College. The work is a study of

narrative theology in light of two philosophers, Simone Weil and

Emmanuel Levinas and two literature pieces.

Yvonne Tomek attended the June 2012 weekend writing work-

shop of Michael Morse entitled “Psalms Ancient and Mod-

ern: Sing and Praise, Bitch and Moan” at the University of Io-

wa Summer Writing Festival. She also read her personal poetry

at the Writing Festival. In February, she participated in a legal

and literary panel on the subject of “Personhood” at the Missis-

sippi Philological Association Conference at William Carey Uni-

versity with a presentation of her essay “Pushing the Enve-

lope: The Leaning Toward Personhood in French Women’s

Epistolary Writing.” In April, she and the panelists repeated their

presentation at a Friday Brown Bag Session in Kethley Hall.

U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey meets up

with Mike Smith and English students Katie

Turner and Alissa Chadwick at the Southern

Literary festival at Columbus State University in

Columbus, Georgia.

PAGE 5 2012 -13

PUBLICATIONS

Mike Smith’s third

book of poetry, Multi-

verse— chosen by one

publisher as one of the

10 best volumes of

poetry of 2010 —

received a favorable

review in The Huffing-

ton Post.

The Chawton House

Press released a facsim-

ile reprint of the 10th

edition of Dr. James

Fordyce’s Sermons to

Young Women, a best-

selling conduct book in

Jane Austen’s day.

Susan Allen Ford, who

has done extensive re-

search at the Chawton

House Library in

Hampshire, U.K., wrote

the introduction to the

new edition of the

Fordyce text. Like a

Jane Austen heroine,

Susan addressed

Fordyce’s suppositions

and the responses of his

readers with a sharp,

analytical wit.

After illustrious careers at Delta State, Stephen King

and wife Renee Foster depart this summer for Charles-

ton, Illinois, where King has been named chairperson

of the Communication Studies Department at Eastern

Illinois University.

Meanwhile, King’s books continue to win praise from

critics and scholars. In December, King was selected to

represent Delta State University in a University Press of

Mississippi ad awareness campaign called “Voices of

Mississippi Scholars.”

Reviewer Gregory Hanson recently praised I’m Feel-

ing the Blues Right Now in the Arkansas Review:

“King’s…writing conveys the deep understanding of

a talented writer and scholar, who clearly understands

the blues and appreciates the history of Mississippi.”

Another favorable review was published in CHOICE, a national resource used to determine what books

are purchased for various collections. The reviewer rated the book as “highly recommended,” and

wrote, “[King] makes some groundbreaking observations in this original, extensive study.”

“Ska and the Roots of Rastafarian Musical Protest,” a chapter from King’s 2002 book, Reggae, Rasta-

fari, and the Rhetoric of Social Control, was recently republished in Music and Protest, Ashgate Press

(London), Music and Protest is a 500+ page survey textbook on social protest music. Barry T. Bays III

and P. Renee Foster are listed as contributors.

The paperback version of I’m Feeling the Blues Right Now: Blues Tourism and the Mississippi Delta was

released in April. King serves on the editorial board for the Western Journal of Communication. He serves

as a manuscript reviewer for Popular Music and Society. He also served as a reviewer for the National

Communication Association’s Instruction Communication Division.

2012 Tapestry authors (from left) are Bill Hays, Mike Smith, Don Allan Mitchell, Ronald Douglas (cover designer), Terry Everett, Dor-othy Shawhan, Bonnie Horton, Jack Phillips, Stephen King, Jim Tomek, Ben Burgos and Yvonne Tomek. The collection of faculty writing is published annually by the Division of Languages & Literature.

2013 Confidante, a DSU tradition,

showcases student writing talent The 2013 issue of Confidante was released in April. The student

literary magazine includes award winning fiction, formal essays

and poetry by DSU students. Student winners, named at a Febru-

ary reading, are Kristy Pyron, first place and honorable men-

tions for fiction; Alissa Chadwick honorable mention for fiction;

and Katie Turner, winner for formal essay and poetry. At right,

a cluster of Confidantes on display at the launch party.

HuffPost reviews

Smith’s Multiverse

Stephen King (right) with student Jim Burt ’13

Ford writes intro

for classic text

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PUBLICATIONS

2012-13 publications of the

Division of Languages and

Literature are available. To

order Tapestry ($5) the facul-

ty journal, and/or Confidante

($3), the student journal, mail

us a check or money order to

the address below.

CONTACT US

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hear from you. Please phone,

mail or e-mail us a brief sum-

mary of your news. Include

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tion.

Division of Languages

& Literature

P.O. Box 3215

Delta State University

Cleveland, MS 38733

Phone: 662-846-4060

E-mail: [email protected]

English major Lindsey Funk collaborated with Healthy Campus/Community Initiative to teach the art of the hula hoop. At right, Division English professor Marilyn Schultz and Chair Bill Hays pose with Funk and her hula hoop. The spring event drew more than thirty participants and numerous spectators.