News
Students and Faculty of the
Department of Languages, Literature, and Philosophy
2009-2010
On November 11, 2009, Dr. Wendy Hennequin made an informal presentation at Vanderbilt University Medievalist / Classicist Research Group. She spoke about her research on the Harry Potter series' connection to the medieval saints' lives tradition. Other presenters presented research on medieval Jewish records in Egypt and medieval Italian law.
November 2009
Dr. Samantha A. Morgan-Curtis presented at the Attending to Early Modern Women conference at the University of Maryland on Saturday, November 7, 2009. Her topic was "Celtic Women Negotiating Exile: Grace O'Maley's Meeting with Elizabeth Tudor."
November 2009
Dr. Samantha Morgan-Curtis lectured at the 2nd annual Twilight Saga Lecture sponsored by the Belmont University English Club & Sigma Tau Delta, Friday, October 30.
Her lecture was entitled "Romeo & Juliet . . . & Jacob?: Stephenie Meyer Takes on the Bard & Other Tales of Literary Adaption."
November 2009
Congratulation! Professor Jane Davis has earned tenure at TSU.
November 2009
Professor Melissa Hull Geil presented a paper, "Generative Poetics in Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis" at the Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies Conference on October 24, 2009, in Dallas, TX.
November 2009
Two LLP faculty inspire the theme for the WoMeNet 2010 Conference, February 4, 2010
Mentoring Today's Young Women
Professors Rebecca Dixon (LLP), Samantha Morgan-Curtis (LLP), and Sheri Browne (History) presented "Yea, but Rihanna had to have said something to get Chris to hit her: Battling Male Celebrity Iconization in Women's Studies Courses" at the TTU Diversity Conference last spring. The panel revealed a disturbing trend in society and provoked a thoughtful debate.
WoMeNet encourages proposals that examine this issue further, for example: What impact do pop culture heroes have on society's perception of gender and domestic violence? What is the scope of the problem? What can we do, specifically, to address this? Are we losing ground since the gains made in the 1970s and 1980s? Is this a backlash? Who are the icons of today? Who should they be? How are women objectified in popular culture?
To submit a proposal or for more information, please contact Dr. Paula K. Hinton at
November 2009
Professor Dixon (second from left, first row)
Professor Rebecca Dixon has been selected for the Maxine Smith Fellows Program.
October 2009
Three TSU faculty, Lynetta Alexander (Library), Betsy Smith (LLP), and Leah Mittelmeier Soule (AEAO) presented at the Middle Tennessee Writing Project Conference Saturday, September 19. They presented the website www.tnstate.edu/writing to elementary and secondary teachers from area schools. They developed the website over the summer as a teacher-centered writing resource for TSU faculty. The project began in Spring 2009 when they were members of a TSU Faculty Learning Community focused on student writing.
September 2009
2008-2009
Professor Betsy Smith with co-authors Michelle Sidler (Auburn University) and Rich Morris (Parkland College) have earned the Distinguished Book Award for the anthology Computers in the Composition Classroom: A Critical Sourcebook (Bedford/St. Martin's). The editorial staff of the field's major journal, Computers and Composition, awarded the honor and presented it at the 2009 Computers and Writing Conference.
Professor Smith uses the book when teaching the graduate class Composition and Computers in the Literature Classroom (ENGL 5050).
June 2009
Michelle Williams an undergraduate majoring in English met with Tennessee legislators in Washington DC as a part of the AACTE Day on the Hill event. The National Education Association and American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education sponsored the trip. June 2009 |
Professor Wendy Hennequin presented the paper "Simpleness and Duty: 'Pyramus and Thisby,' Devotion, and the Corpus Christi Plays" at the Shakespeare Association of America conference. In the paper, she explores the relationship between the performance of 'Pyramus and Thisby' playlet in A Midsummer Night's Dream and the portrayal of its actors to the performances of civic pageants and the portrayal of professional actors.
Honor for Professor Hennequin. Professor Hennequin won the Faculty Course Concepts category of the Digital Media Sandbox Consortium Tournament for the podcast "Reading Middle English Aloud."
Student and faculty participate in 31st TSU Research Symposium
Graduate student Jason Peterson presented his paper "Heroes Ain't Nothing But What They Do: Melissa Hull and Teresa Kent; Jason Peterson
Identity in Alice Childress' Young Adult Fiction."
Faculty also participated:
- Teresa Kent presented "Statistically Significant Social Factors for the Use of Banlieue Language"
- Melissa Hull presented "Reproducing Paper Monsters in Thomas Nashe"
- Betsy Smith participated in the poster presentations with "Networks in Technical Communication Scholarship"
Helen Houston served as judge for the student poster presentations.
April 2009
Book published by Professor Jeffrey Thompson: The Television Horrors of Dan Curtis: Dark Shadows, The Night Stalker and Other Productions, 1966-2006. 
Thompson reviews the work of Dan Curtis, the director of horror films and the television series Dark Shadows. In a recent interview for www.collinwood.net, Thompson described how he discovered Dark Shadows while home sick: "The first scene of the episode involved David, Sarah, and Barnabas, so the sight of kids my own age encountering a vampire hooked me on the show instantly." Curtis's work became the focus of Thompson's dissertation, and this book is an outgrowth of his research. For more information
March 2009
Professor Betsy Smith participated in a poster session at the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing Conference in San Francisco. The poster represents the collection of 20 years of citations from five technical communication journals (almost 60,000 citations). Her research illustrates the history of the discipline and the networks of technical communication scholars. She is also presenting her research at the TSU Research Symposium in April and the Auburn University, April in Auburn event sponsored by the AU English Department and Master of Technical and Professional Communication Program.
March 2009
Congratulations. Professor Timothy Quain's article "From the Altar Boy's Robes to the Professor's Cap and Gown: The Journey of a Gay, Working-Class Academic" has been published in Resilience: Queer Professors from the Working Class, ed. Kenneth Oldfield and Richard Greggory Johnson III. State University of New York Press, 2008. 47-61.
January 2009
Community Service Award. Cheryl Bevill received the Community Service Award from Cumberland Manor Nursing Home in December for two years of service work. She successfully solicited football tickets and basketball tickets along with parking passes from TSU for patients and attendants to attend TSU football and basketball games. Cheryl also successfully solicited both students and faculty from the TSU Athletic Department to work at the Tennessee State Nursing Home Olympics. She arranged for volunteers to conduct patient activities such as playing bingo, and also for volunteers to decorate the outside of the nursing home for Christmas. The award was the first of it's kind to be given by Cumberland Manor.
January 2009
Congratulations. Professor Wendy Hennequin's article, "We Have Created a Monster: The Strange Case of Grendel's Mother" has been published in English Studies (October 2008, 89.5).
| Student Evelyn Moody (English major with Teacher Certification and a Minor in Women's Studies) took part of the 2008 Summer Research Opportunity Program (SROP) at the University of Michigan. SROP pairs undergraduate students in all areas with a faculty mentor to work on various research projects and compile all findings onto a poster to be presented at the end of the eight weeks. Evelyn worked under Dr. Anne Gere, co-chair of the Joint Ph.D Program in English and Education at Michigan. "Throughout the summer, I worked on many projects with Dr. Gere and her graduate students, but my largest project was doing research for the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). "Reading and Writing Differently" will be published by NCTE in November 2008 and focuses on the effect new technology is having on the reading and writing skills of students." handout |
Michelle was one of 12 rising seniors across the U.S. to pilot "literary boot camp"--and boot camp it was! Read Michelle's description: Reflections on Surviving Literary Boot Camp August 2008 Student Michelle Williams attended the 2008 Summer Institute for Literary and Cultural Studies at Wheaton College in Norton, MA. "SILCS aims to increase diversity in English graduate programs and to ultimately increase diversity in the field of English by introducing students to the graduate process, helping students prepare writing samples, and introducing students to other people of color in the field to create networks."
Dr. William Hardy will present "On Locke As Shared Proper Names or As Racial Ambiguity" at the Alain Locke Society 16th Annual Meeting held this year at
August 2008
Department Establishes Lounge for Students and Faculty
The Department of Languages, Literature and Philosophy has established a lounge for faculty and for students majoring and minoring in programs within the department. The lounge is located across the hall from the Department's
The idea for the lounge emanated from the student and faculty focus groups that were conducted during the Department's self-study for the Academic Audit last year. The design and implementation for the project were carried out by Dr. Doris Daniels, Dr. Anna Rueda-Garcia, Dr. Helen Houston, and Dr. Timothy Quain. Faculty in the department will maintain the coffee and tea service.
August 2008
Dr. Dixon Represents
Dr. Dixon was one of three faculty members from
Last year, Dr. Dixon was a member of the 2007 inaugural class of Presidential Fellows, a program designed to foster leadership among junior faculty.
LLP Faculty Active in SACS Reaffirmation Processes
Several faculty members are filling key roles in the University's processes related to the reaffirmation of accreditation by the Commission on Colleges of the Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). Dr. Timothy Quain is serving as Accreditation Liaison and Director of Reaffirmation Processes. He has overall responsibility for the University's accreditation initiatives, including the Compliance Certification and the Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP). Dr. Quain directed decennial SACS self-studies in 1990 and 2000.
Drs. Helen Houston and
Dr. Luke Powers is serving as the Lead Responder for sections of the Compliance Certification which require input from the academic deans and department heads. He will compile the responses and documentation on behalf of the Provost. Dr. Powers served as faculty co-chair for the 2000 self-study.
Dr. Rebecca Dixon will assist the QEP Committee in its task of developing the University's Quality Enhancement Plan. That plan will formulate the University's strategies for reinforcing general education competencies within the upper-level curricula. Dr. Dixon was one of three
Jeannie Z. Taylor's paper "Involuntary Exile: An Introduction to the Life and Influence of Charlotte Smith" has been accepted for publication in the Tennessee Philological Bulletin, a peer-reviewed journal. She wrote the course for Dr. Luke Power's graduate class and presented the paper at the annual meeting of the Tennessee Philological Association in February.
August 2008
2007 - 2008
Dr. Clark Maddux has been invited to speak to a gathering of faculty and students at Purdue University on April 18th, 2008. The College of Liberal Arts and the Purdue Liberal Arts Community Engagement (PLACE) Program has asked Dr. Maddux to present on Humanists and Outreach, and to focus on some of the ways he has employed service-learning in humanities classes at TSU. This presentation will be held in conjunction with Purdue's Annual American Studies Symposium, which will be held April 17th and 18th. April 2008 March 2008 Congratulations to Evelyn Moody, English Major/Women's Studies Minor Evelyn Moody has been selected for the University of Michigan's Summer Internship Program, where she will be researching pedagogical material for teachers. Evelyn has presented with Drs. Sheri Browne, Rebecca Dixon, and Samantha Morgan-Curtis at the WoMeNet Conference the last two years where she has consistently impressed participants from all other universities present. She is also a very active community member on campus and current president of our chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the International English Honor Society. Evelyn represents TSU well where ever she goes, and we're very proud of her latest, well-deserved recognition. March 2008 November 2007
Erica Lee has been accepted into the University of Tennessee Knoxville Graduate School of Social Work. Congratulations!
 |
| Cheryl Bevill |
Congratulations!
November 2007
Dr. Rebecca Dixon has been selected as one of only 5 recipients in the inaugural offering of the President's Fellows Program at TSU. Dr. Dixon was selected from applicants including professional and other faculty members at the University. She will be working with Dr. Sandra Holt, Director of the Honors Program, to complete a service project benefiting the University. Congratulation!
October 2007
Southern Festival of Books, October 12-14, 2007
Dr. H. R. Houston and other TSU family will participate in the Southern Festival of Books. In a writing career of three decades, I've attended a great many literary festivals. Despite the fact that the Southern Festival of Books is one of the largest such events in the nation, I can say with ease that it is, by a good distance, the most elegantly organized and realized that I know of.
The Southern Festival of Books: A Celebration of the Written Word is a free, three-day literary Festival celebrated each year during the second full weekend of October. The Festival welcomes more than 200 authors annually for readings, panel discussions, and book signings. Book lovers have the opportunity to hear from and meet some of America's foremost writers in fiction, history, mystery, biography, travel, poetry and children's literature.
 |
| Professor Samantha Morgan-Curtis |
Dr. Samatha Morgan-Curtis namedTennessee State University 2007 Teacher of the Year.
Both a native Tennessean and a first-generation college student, Samantha Morgan-Curtis initially entered the Masters program at the University of Tennessee because she felt unprepared to begin law school after earning her undergraduate degree. However, at UT, Samantha backed into her destiny, awakening to the realization that she loved the classroom.
At TSU, Samantha chairs the Development Committee for the Women's Studies minor and currently chairs the Women's Studies Coordinating Committee. Having served as a Faculty Senator and on numerous committees at all levels of the University, Samantha's commitment to her students and teaching remains her vocation.
A great deal of Samantha's research transfers from her teaching: Samantha has published on the use of weblogging in Women's Studies, on defining misogyny, and on British writers of the 16th and 17th centuries. Besides her numerous conference presentations in these and other interest and knowledge areas, Samantha is currently working on her first book manuscript. Samantha feels privileged to work for and with her students.