2013-2014
USA DEPARTMENT
OF ENGLISH
The GradLetter
New Faces, New Places
As we welcome incoming students, we salute M.A graduates!
INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Graduate
Opportunities
2
Nuts And
Bolts
4
Spotlight
Events
5
Faculty
Research
6
Alumni
News
8
Student
Achievements
9
Available
Scholarships
9
Course
Preview
10
“Never think that
war, no matter how
necessary, nor how
justified, is not a
crime.”
-Ernest Hemingway
The 2013-2014 school year is off to a good start with recent books
by Nicole Amare, Carolyn Haines, Richard Hillyer, Justin St. Clair,
Steven Trout, Sue Walker, and Jesmyn Ward. Steven Trout, our
department chair, has established an interdisciplinary center for
War and Memory on campus, and he will be hosting the “War,
Memory, and Gender” conference in Mobile this spring. John
Halbrooks will be giving the eleventh Hamner Lecture for the
Graduate Program in English this fall, a talk titled “Of Heroic Anachronism and Double-Horned Sheep.” We also host an active chapter of the English honor society Sigma Tau Delta, which is advised by Kern Jackson.
We welcome new students in 2013, including Tiffany J. Barnes, Mary Virginia
Clause, David Collins, Bailey Hammond, Katie Pope, and Tyler Williams. Congratulations to our recent graduates: Marlena Braun, Catelin Breland, Elizabeth Butt, Matt
Crutchfield, Abigail Pagan, Jamie Poole, Julie Respress, and Jeff Roper.
"War, Memory, and Gender": Spring Conference
The past several decades have seen an explosion of scholarly interest in the subject
of war and gender. At the same time, the study of collective or cultural memory,
especially in connection with armed conflict, has become a veritable cottage industry. This conference seeks to bring these two areas of intensive study into dialogue
with each other, exploring the complex ways in which gender shapes war memory
and war memory shapes gender. Comprised of a select number of presentations
(so that all participants will be able to hear every paper), together with a keynote
address by Professor Jennifer Haytock (SUNY-Brockport) and a panel discussion
featuring women military veterans, the conference will address multiple conflicts
and nationalities from the perspectives of multiple disciplines.
Continued on page 2
Graduate Opportunities
THE GRADLETTER
2
"War, Memory, and Gender": Spring Conference
The Department of English offers Hosted by the Center for the Study of War and Memory and
the Gender Studies Program at the University of South Alastudents the tools they need to
bama, "War, Memory, and Gender" will be held in the History
understand and interact with the
Museum of Mobile, a beautiful structure located in the heart
world around them: reading,
of the city’s scenic and historic downtown. Nearby Restaurants
writing, and interpretation. A
will host receptions for conference registrants, and a downvariety of courses in writing, lantown hotel will offer a block of rooms at a reduced rate. Local
guage, and rhetoric develop
attractions include Alabama Gulf-Coast beaches, the U.S.S. Alaeffective, critical communication bama Memorial Park on Mobile Bay, the African-American
and thinking skills. Courses on
Heritage Trail, the Bellingrath mansion and gardens, the Blakeliterary genres, periods, theories, ley Civil War battlefield, the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta, and
and themes, and on literary criti- the charming nearby towns of Daphne and Fairhope. Check
out the English department website for more details.
cism, provide opportunities to
Mission Statement
engage with and in literary traditions and practices and an under-
Conference at a Glance:
standing of the role and value of
literature in our own world.
Conference Dates: March 27-29, 2014
Co n t a c t In fo
Co-Directors: Professors Martha Jane Brazy (History) & Steven Trout (English)
English Department
Humanities 240
(251) 460-6146
www.southalabama.edu/english
Location: History Museum of Mobile
Graduate Coordinator:
Dr. Ellen Harrington
(251) 460-7326
eharrington@southalabama.edu
Possible Topics: remembering male and/or female bodies at war; war propaganda
and gender; women and forgotten conflicts; gender, race, and war; women of color
and war memory.
The Oracle: Now Taking Submissions
USA's literary and fine arts magazine publishes student and
community work in fiction, painting, creative non-fiction, illustration, poetry, photography, stage or screenplay, printmaking,
essay, and sculpture.
Submissions due: Thursday, October 31, 2013.
For more information visit southalabama.edu/oracle/.
Editor/Layout: Katie Pope
kjp1224@jagmail.southalabama.edu
All graphics are courtesy
of Google and USA. All information has
been provided by USA English/Theatre
Departments as well as city organizations
and educational associations.
2013-14 Staff:
Editor-in-Chief: Joseph Kees
Fiction Editor: Katie Pope
Non-Fiction Editor: Mary Beth Lursen
Poetry Editor: China Barber
Art Curator: Justin McCardle
Art Director: Austin Sims
Editorial Boards Needed for this issue:
Editorial and Art Board memberships are
open to all students. If you are interested in
serving on the Art, Fiction, Nonfiction, or Poetry Boards or in being a part of the design
team, email your areas of interest along with
your name and phone number to oracle@southalabama.edu.
Graduate Opportunities
3
Daddy’s Girl Weekend: Conference: April 3-6, 2014
Daddy's Girl Weekend, a writers conference inspired by Carolyn Haines’ Bones series, will be
held April 3-6, 2014, at the Battle House Hotel in Mobile, AL. Guest speakers include: New York
Times bestselling author (and original Big Daddy) Dean James; Tyrus Books’ publisher Ben
LeRoy; Sullivan Maxx Agency’s author and agent Holly McClure; Alabama Poet Laureate, Negative Mystery publisher, and Young Adult author Greg Herren; Poet Patricia Harkins-Pierre of the
Virgin Islands; multi-published and Harper Lee Award-winning author Carolyn Haines; playwright Sarah Bewley; and a host of new voices in fiction, including USA grad student Robert B.
Warren. Visit www.daddysgirlsweekend.com for registry info.
2013 Hamner Lecture with Dr. John Halbrooks:
“Of Heroic Anachronism and Double-Horned Sheep”
Dr. John Halbrooks will deliver the eleventh Eugenie L. Hamner Lecture for the Graduate Program in English on
Wednesday, November 13 at 3 p.m. in the Library Auditorium. This lecture recognizes the intellectual contributions of
retired faculty member, Dr. Eugenie “Genie” Hamner, to USA’s English department and to the Mobile community.
Each fall, a member of the Graduate Faculty in English delivers the lecture. Please plan to attend to show your support
for the English graduate program!
Sigma Tau Delta: English Honors Society
To join Sigma Tau Delta, students must be enrolled in a graduate program in English,
USA Chapter: Pi Pi
or one of its specializations, have completed six semester hours of graduate work or
the equivalent, and have a minimum grade point average of 3.3 on a 4.0 scale. Each Contact: Dr. Kern Jackson
new member pays a one-time international induction fee of $40 KEMjacks@southalabama.edu
for a lifetime membership. Members receive key benefits: a Sigma Tau Delta membership certificate and the official society pin; scholarship eligibility for a variety
of Sigma Tau Delta scholarships valued at up to $5,000 each or a merit-based $1,000 scholarship to
attend The Fund for American Studies; potential publication in The Sigma Tau Delta Rectangle and The Sigma Tau Delta Review. Works selected for publication or presentation are also eligible
for overall awards and monetary prizes. Sigma Tau Delta offers career advancement and more! Visit
niu.edu/sigmatd/members/benefits.
Other Words Literary Conference: Nov 7-10, St. Augustine, FL
2013 marks the 500th anniversary of Juan Ponce de Leon’s voyage and discovery of Florida. The Other Words Conference honors this historic milestone. Themed “Writing Florida: The First 500 Years,” the conference expressly focuses on Florida’s varied historical and literary masks while also providing a
platform for seasoned and novice writers. The annual conference is held in St. Augustine, the nation and Florida’s oldest settlement. The historical backdrop of the city adds to the importance of
this year’s honorific conference. Cost of attendance is $25 for a non-member student. Register at
www.floridarts.org/other-words-conference/2013-conference-registration/.
Text in Context: A Graduate Student Journal Deadline: Feb 28, 2014
Text in Context is a graduate student journal published electronically by Southern Connecticut State University. The
journal seeks submissions exploring text and its functions and implications, both internally and externally—literary
analysis, poetry studies, critical theory, popular reception of a particular work, close readings, historical relevance,
etc. Please send submissions electronically to: textincontext.southernct@gmail.com as MS Word email attachments.
Submissions are reviewed anonymously; thus, author name and contact information should appear in a separate file
and not in the manuscript itself. Visit http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/52063 for additional requirements.
Graduate Opportunities
4
THE GRADLETTER
Expand Your Experience & CV: Regional Conferences and Lectures
During graduate school, it is important to get involved in the academic community by presenting at conferences and
publishing in journals or at conferences. Doing so not only offers students professional experience, but it opens up
many opportunities for scholarship and development. Listed below are a few conferences that welcome graduate student submissions. Graduate students with accepted paper presentations at academic or creative conferences can apply for limited travel assistance from the English department. Forms are available in the English department office. For
more information on any of these events, visit their individual websites.

Louisiana State University English Graduate Association hosts the Mardi Gras Graduate English Conference in
Language and Literature during Mardi Gras week each year.

University of Florida English Graduate Organization’s Annual UF-EGO Interdisciplinary Conference takes place in
Gainesville each fall.

The South Central Modern Language Association Conference, held annually, connects students with MLA opportunities.

The Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association hosts an annual national conference.

Sigma Tau Delta National English Honors Society Conference will take place February 26 - March 1, 2014 in Geor-
Nuts and Bolts
Foreign Language Proficiency
Don’t forget to plan to meet the foreign language requirement! All graduate students should
work to meet this requirement in the first year of coursework, prior to registering for thesis
hours or preparing for the comprehensive exam. This requirement can be met by taking the
Foreign Language Translation Exam in an approved language or by taking approved coursework. Spanish exams can be arranged with Dr. Harrington, but other languages exams
should go through the foreign languages department office.
Graduate Teaching Assistantships
Graduate and Teaching Assistantships are competitive positions awarded each year
by the department. GAs work in the Writing Center and assist with faculty research.
TAs teach composition. The position covers 10 hours of tuition and offers a yearly
stipend. If interested in applying for an assistantship during your grad track, visit the
English department website for more information on guidelines and requirements.
Course Caps: Keep Track of How Many You Take
Be sure to track the number of cross-listed courses you take. The USA Graduate School rules stipulate that no more
than eighteen hours from dual-listed 400/500 level seminars may be used to meet the requirements of the M.A. degree. Also remember that 590 special topics courses can only be counted for credit up to three times, as long as the
topics vary. The same stipulation applies to 592 seminar courses, but only two separate topics are allowed.
Your Time to Defend?
English students must defend by the deadline in order to make any required revisions in time for the graduate school submission deadline. Please contact Dr. Harrington for thesis advising.
Next Defense Deadlines
Spring 3/8/13
Summer 6/10/13
Spotlight Events
5
Independent Music Collective
The Independent Music Collective (IMC) is a student organization at U.S.A. dedicated
to improving Mobile’s music scene. Each semester the IMC hosts several concerts,
attracting regional and national acts that otherwise might not visit Mobile. The organization is actively soliciting new members, and officer positions are available. Please
visit http://www.musicinmobile.org/ for more information on the IMC.
On Friday, November 15th at 8pm, the IMC will host a benefit show featuring Al
Trout (Denver, CO), Eric Erdman (Mobile, AL) and Carey Murdock (Nashville, TN). Admission by donation.
Shakespeare at UA
“Shakespeare and American Integration” will take place Friday, November 15, 2013. It will be an
all day event held at Bryant Conference Center at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. The
event is a two-day symposium that addresses knowledge of Shakespeare's roles in the movement
for American Integration. Many guest speakers will attend. Mr. Marsalis's Octet will perform
"Sweet Thunder," an interpretation of Duke Ellington's "Such Sweet Thunder," a composition inspired by the works of William Shakespeare and first recorded in 1958. For more info, visit
www.throughthedoors.ua.edu
Fall and Spring Plays
A Murder is Announced
The Tempest
By: Agatha Christie
November 1 , 2, & 8, 9 - 7:30pm
November 3 & 10 - 2pm
Chickasaw Civic Theatre
by William Shakespeare
April 11, 12, 17, 18 & 19 - 7:30 pm
April 13 - 2pm
Laidlaw Performing Arts
Agatha Christie returns to the CCT
stage with this exciting mystery. Her
beloved heroine, Miss Jane Marple,
sorts through a Christie collection of
amusing, exotic, and dangerous characters, puzzling out just which ones
are not who they
claim to be and
solving a murder
staged by a daring criminal before the very eyes
of invited guests.
Time is of the very essence in this play
which combines sorcery, passion, stupidity, treachery, revenge, and ultimately forgiveness. As Prospero famously says, “We are such stuff as
dreams are made on.”
All My Sons
by Arthur Miller
Feb 21, 22, 23, 27, 28 - 7:30pm
Feb 23 2pm
March 1 - 7:30pm
Laidlaw Performing Arts
Joe Keller, a businessman in W.W. II
serves as the central character in
this classic play that places social
responsibility in conflict with American profit motive. Often described
as a play of extraordinary power
and emotional depth, this play is
timeless, seeing more than its fair
share of war.
Faculty Research
THE GRADLETTER
6
Nicole Amare
Nicole Amare recently co-wrote A Unified Theory of Information Design: Visuals, Text & Ethics, a book on visual rhetorical grammar. Her next book project is a simplified approach to
English grammar using minimalist syntax. On October 25, 2013, she will present on visual
formatting and parallel structure at the Association for Business Communication conference
in New Orleans. Amare’s other projects include editing Dr. Steven Picou’s and Dr. Keith
Nicholls’ book on the social, behavioral, and physical impacts of Hurricane Katrina on the
Gulf Coast community.
Larry Beason
Dr. Beason specializes in composition, rhetoric, sociolinguistics, and science fiction. He directs the Freshman Composition Program. In spring, he published an essay entitled
“Grammar Interventions in Gaming Forums: Intersections of Academic and Non-Academic
Standards,” which appeared in the book Rhetoric/Composition/Play through Video Games:
Reshaping Theory and Practice of Writing. He is working on a new edition of Commonsense
Guide to Grammar and Usage and is beginning a project on the linguistic and rhetorical significance of zombie speech as represented in popular literature and film.
Patrick Cesarini
Patrick Cesarini teaches courses in colonial literature in English, American literature before 1900, literary
theory, Native American literature, and composition. He is currently co-editing (with Becky McLaughlin) a
collection of essays entitled Captivity/Writing/Unbound, and he is in the early stages of a project on Henry
James and the institutions of literature.
Annmarie Guzy
Annmarie Guzy specializes in composition pedagogy, professional communication, honors education, and
gender studies. Her forthcoming publication entitled “The Confidence Game in Honors Admissions and
Retention” will be published in the Fall/Winter 2013 issue of the Journal of the National Collegiate Honors
Council. She will also be presenting the paper “Constructing an Honors Composition Course” to Support a
Research-based Honors Curriculum at the National Collegiate Honors Council, New Orleans, LA, November
6-10, 2013.
Carolyn Haines
Award-winning author, Carolyn Haines has three books coming out in spring: The Seeker, a
literary horror novel; Pirate Bones, the 14th book in the Sarah Booth Delaney Mississippi Mystery series; and Bone-A-Fied Delicious, a cookbook based around her Bones series. She is an
assistant professor and the fiction coordinator for the English creative writing program and
teaches fiction workshops each fall and spring. She is also president of Good Fortune Farm
Refuge, an animal refuge and activist center with a focus on reducing pet populations.
On Nov. 7-8 the mobile spay unit from Mississippi State University School of Veterinary Medicine will
be in Lucedale, MS to neuter over 170 animals at the city shelter, in an effort to reduce pet population
and help find homes for the animals. Haines is proud to be able to assist so many animals.
John Halbrooks
John Halbrooks works primarily with Medieval and Renaissance literature. He recently delivered a paper on
the poetry of Michael Drayton at the Transformative Literacies Conference at the University of Maryland.
This paper was excerpted from his current book project, which proposes that Renaissance poets, especially
Sidney and Spenser, invented the anachronism of the heroic Middle Ages.
Faculty Research
7
Ellen Harrington
Ellen Burton Harrington specializes in Victorian literature, the short story and novel genres. Her article,
“Suicide, Feminism, and ‘the miserable dependence of girls’ in Joseph Conrad’s ‘The Idiots,’ The Secret
Agent, and Chance,” was published in the Autumn 2012 issue of The Conradian. Her essay “‘Dead Men
Have No Children’ in Conrad’s ‘The Idiots’ and ‘Amy Foster’” will be published in a special issue of Conradiana this winter. In the spring, she will present “Conrad’s ‘Damaged Women’: Alienation and Rehabilitation in Chance, The Arrow of Gold, and The Rover” at SAMLA. She is working on a project considering
heroines in the late novels of Joseph Conrad.
Richard Hillyer
Richard Hillyer’s latest book Divided between Carelessness and Care: A Cultural History, is close to publication. He is scheduled to complete the index in early October. This book is primarily a word study
(focusing on care and its derivatives—careful and so forth), but doubles as a cultural history because
such terms have been for English users of great (albeit overlooked) significance for long time (since the
Anglo Saxon era). It combines close readings of a very wide variety of texts from all periods of English
writing with historical perspectives on science, art monarchy, sleep (literal and figurative), childhood,
gender, and libertinism.
Cris Hollingsworth
At the moment, Cris Hollingsworth is writing a paper on the motives of non-literary uses of elements taken from Lewis Carroll's Alice books. He will present this paper as part of a rhetoric panel at SCMLA 2013.
He is also researching changes in the way the experience and memory of combat gets represented. He
plans to deliver this paper at USA's upcoming conference on War, Memory, and Gender. His future projects will include a look at Romantic poetry.
Kern Jackson
Kern Jackson is the director of the African-American Studies Program. He specializes in African-American
and Southeastern United States folklore and oral narrative. He presented at the Annual 2013 American
Folklore Society Conference in Providence Rhode Island this fall, entitled "The Spook Who Sat by the
Door: A Performative Interpretation of the Folkloric 04-10 Appropriation of Black Subjects."
Becky McLaughlin
Becky McLaughlin’s main interest is in human relations—specifically, how we interact with one another
in situations highly fraught with difficulty: dilemmas involving the linguistic, the sexual, the religious, the
ethical. Essays she currently has under review are “Learning to Shudder: Sex and the Affect of Horror”
with an edited collection entitled “Scary Stuff: Pedagogy of Horror”; “Gothicizing Apotemnophilia: Live
Burial, Secret Desire, and the Uncanny Body of the Amputee Wannabe”; “From Punishment to Punctuation: The Primal Scene and the Pedagogy of Psychoanalysis”; and “Crying’s Diaper.”
Chris Raczkowski
Chris Raczkowski's scholarship focuses on Anglo-American modernism, modernity and the modernist
novel more precisely. His most recent publication "Chester Himes, Franz Fanon and the Literary Decolonization of Harlem" was published in LIT: Literature, Interpretation, Theory (Spring 2012), and he is currently at work on a book-length manuscript titled "Criminal Modernism" that investigates the historical, aesthetic and rhetorical importance of crime to American modernism. He was awarded a sabbatical from the
College of Arts and Sciences for the Spring of 2014 to complete this project.
Faculty Research
8
THE GRADLETTER
Justin St. Clair
Justin St. Clair teaches courses in postmodern and contemporary fiction, and much of his research occurs at the intersection of contemporary fiction and media studies. His first book,
Sound and Aural Media in Postmodern Fiction: Novel Listening (Routledge) came out in
April. His current project is a cultural history of sound-tracked fiction.
Steven Trout
Steven Trout spent the past year wrapping up two projects—the forthcoming collection of essays on Ernest Hemingway’s early life called War+Ink and an anthology of American World War I short stories. He also
completed two articles on World War I remembrance. He also co-edited the latest issue of The Willa Cather Newsletter and Review. In order to conduct research for his latest monograph, which will focus on the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Angel Fire, New Mexico, Trout made an epic drive all the way to the memorial, where he examined several boxes of materials and visited the Vietnam War Archives at Texas Tech on
his way back.
Sue Walker
Sue Walker will be delivering a paper on James Dickey’s Puella at the South Atlantic Modern
Language Association Conference in Atlanta, Georgia on November 8-10. She is currently
working on an abecedarian poetic book of prose poems and lyric essays that is part memoir,
part history, part cultural study in which the narrator explores issues of identity and tries on
various personas. Sue Walker’s book, The Ecological Poetics of James Dickey was published in
July 2013 by Mellen Press and was awarded The Adele Mellen Prize for its distinguished contribution to scholarship.
Jesmyn Ward
Jesmyn Ward is an award-winning American novelist. She currently is on a book tour for her
2013 memoir, Men We Reaped. She teaches creative non-fiction writing including a memoir
class offered in the spring. Her National Book Award-winning novel, Salvage the Bones, has
been named one of The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2012.
Alumni News
Karma deGruy
After Karma deGruy completed her M.A. in English at
USA in 2007, she went into the doctoral program in
medieval literature at Emory. She is currently completing a dissertation reexamining the popular medieval genre of soul-and-body addresses, works which
dramatize confrontations between the soul and its
body after death or on Judgment Day. While the project spans nearly a thousand years of literature in order
to contextualize early medieval soul-and-body works,
its focus is on often-overlooked Anglo Saxon contributions to penitential theology and the history of subjectivity and the body.
The English Department is proud to announce that
Alumni Chris Cowley and Karma deGruy have joined
our team as full time faculty. Both individuals are
working on their dissertations while teaching composition and literature survey courses.
Christopher Cowley
Christopher Cowley received his B.A. in 2005 from
USA’s English Department. After receiving his M.A. in
English from the University of Florida in 2008, Chris
began work on his Ph.D. in nineteenth-century American Literature, where he is working to complete his
dissertation. Entitled “Liberty’s Austerity: National
Panic and the Liberalization of the Antebellum U.S.
Public Sphere, 1820-1860,” Christopher’s dissertation
focuses on how the increasing national experience of
economic crises (national panic) contributed to the
historical emergence of American cultural liberalism
and middle-class genres of sentimentality.
Student Achievement
9
More Alumni News
Frank Ard
Frank Ard manages the USA Writing Center. He received his M.A. in English from
USA and is currently studying popular fiction in the Stonecoast low-residency MFA
program at the University of Southern
Maine, where he is the managing editor of Stonecoast
Review, a literary journal. His fiction and poems have
appeared in Ideomancer, Dead Mule, Every Day Poets, Suspense Magazine, Kaleidotrope, Birmingham
Arts Journal, and The Future Fire, as well as the anthology Broken Time Blues: Fantastic Tales in the
Roaring 20’s.
Teresa Grettano
Alumna Teresa Grettano earned her Ph.D. in
English Studies with a concentration in Rhetoric
and Composition from Illinois State University
when she successfully defended her dissertation
"Subjects of Terror: Rhetorical Education after
9/11" this summer. She is an assistant professor in the Department of English & Theatre at the University of Scranton.
Her most recent publications are "Information Literacy on
Facebook: An Analysis" and "Teaching Metaliteracy: A New
Paradigm in Action," both published in the Reference Services
Review.
2013-2014 Graduate and Teaching Assistantship Recipients
GAs: David Collins, Bailey Hammond, Dana Johnson, Melissa Kmiec, Katie Pope, Tyler Williams
TAs: Daniel Commander, Danielle McWhorter, Jennifer Shelby
2013 Grad Scholarship Awards
2013 M.A. Graduates
Endowed Scholarship: Matthew Crutchfield
Shelley Grad Essay: Blake Cunningham
Stokes Grad Poetry: Dana Johnson
Stephens Scholarship: Meg Lundberg
Dendinger Scholarship: Abigail Pagan
Marlena Braun, Catelin Breland,
Elizabeth Butt, Matt Crutchfield,
Abigail Pagan, Jamie Poole,
Julie Respress, Jeff Roper
Available Scholarships 2013-2014
For more information visit the English department website or contact Scholarship Committee Chair, Nicole Amare.
Father James F. Dorrill Endowed Scholarship: An annual award of $1,000 to be given to the English M.A. student who
has produced the best critical (as distinct from creative) thesis, defended during current academic year.
Lloyd Dendinger Memorial Scholarship: Named after a former faculty member in the English Department, the scholarship provides a $100 annual award for an outstanding graduate student essay in American literature.
English Department Endowed Scholarship and Graduate Student Essay Contest: Scholarship is an award of $500 to an
outstanding second-year graduate student who is nominated by the faculty. Contest provides an award of $100 for the
best graduate student essay written during the previous academic year.
Shelley Memorial Scholarship: This scholarship awards $400 to one graduate for excellence in poetry writing. Applicant must be full-time, have taken one poetry course prior to applying and have 2.5 or above GPA.
Dr. Patricia Stephens Memorial Scholarship: An award of $450 will be given to a graduate student for the best essay in
Renaissance and/or 17th or 18th century studies in even years, and for a non-designated area of study in odd years.
Steve and Angelia Stokes Scholarships: One fiction/one poetry $1000 award is given spring semester.
Course Preview
10
THE GRADLETTER
Graduate Spring Classes
EH 502 Introduction to Critical Theory
Pat Cesarini’s course will survey major movements, statements, and interconnections among a range of critical and
theoretical approaches to the study of literature, aesthetics, and culture, such as formalism, structuralism, poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, and political criticism, as well as newer developments such as 'evocriticism' and the digital humanities. In addition, we will discuss the relations between the study of literature and the humanities within
larger institutional and nationalist frameworks. Our guiding (and deceptively simple) question will be: what is literature good for, and who says?
EH 526 Sexual Economies in the Eighteenth-Century Novel
John Halbrooks’s course will survey constructions of gender in eighteenth-century narrative in the context of the radical cultural shifts during the period. We will also consider the transformation of troubling economies of sex into an
idealized narrative form, a form that departs from older structures of romance and becomes something new: the
modern novel. As we will see from cinematic adaptations and revisions of our primary texts, film has both codified and
deconstructed these kinds of narratives. Primary texts will include Defoe's Moll Flanders, Fielding's Tom Jones, and
Austen's Sense and Sensibility.
EH 572 Modern American Fiction
Steven Trout's course will focus on a variety of modernist writers whose works respond to the violence and cultural
upheaval of the Great War. We will pay particular attention to the treatment of gender in works that helped shape
popular memory of the conflict. Primary texts will include Willa Cather's One of Ours and The Professor's House, Dos
Passos's 1919, Faulkner's Flags in the Dust, Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms. Critical readings will include Pearl James's The New Death: American Modernism and World War and Trout's Memorial
Fictions: Willa Cather and the First World War.
EH 577 Studies in Genre: Creative Nonfiction
In Jesmyn Ward’s class, students will write and critique short nonfiction, chapters, or on-going projects. Students will
sharpen their writing skills while learning the elements of good nonfiction with an emphasis on craft and structure.
EH 583/584 Fiction Writing
In Carolyn Haines’s class, students will write and critique short fiction, chapters, or on-going projects. The course is
writing intensive, and the goal is to produce publishable work in the student’s preferred fiction genre. Students will
sharpen their writing skills while learning the elements of good fiction with an emphasis on plot and structure.
EH 585/586 Poetry Writing
Sue Walker's course will ask you to define what heights you would like to reach – and make getting there a reality. So
you always wanted to write a novel? Well why not a Verse Novel? You always wanted to be an entomologist; then
write the ant hill, the hive – or cook like Julia Child. Then write food poems like Pablo Neruda. Write history in verse.
Write fables, murder, a myth, write a comic, write vispo. Write the music of poetry, the poetry of music. Write Jazz.
EH 590 The History of Rhetoric
Nicole Amare’s course explores contemporary rhetorical theory and its development from classical rhetoric with emphasis on the differences between philosophical and rhetorical approaches to speeches and the written word. Because principles taught and employed by classical and enlightenment rhetoricians largely underscore modern pedagogical methods of oral, written, and visual communication, students will create a poster, an annotated bibliography,
and three short papers about historical, cultural, linguistic, and social intersections of rhetoric.