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
Non-Profit
Organization
U.S. Postage
PAID
Permit No. 103
Cleveland, MS
Division of Languages & Literature
P.O. Box 3215
Delta State University
Cleveland, MS 38733
Return Service Requested
ORDER
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
DSU graduates, we want to
hear from you. Please phone,
mail or e-mail us a brief sum-
mary of your news. Include
your name, address, phone
number and year of gradua-
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.