A Newsletter for UMW Faculty and Staff
Professor of English Antonio Barrenechea
Antonio Barrenechea, Professor of English, took his students on a trip to the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia. The excursion was funded by a competitive UMW grant, and was part of the spring 2019 course, “The Groovy Gothic.” The course explores the intersection of sensational 19th century gothic fiction (Shelley, Stoker, and Poe) and the shock aesthetics of the 1960s counterculture (cinema, music, fashion, painting, and drug culture).
Professor of Art History Joseph Dreiss
Professor of Art History Joseph Dreiss was quoted in an article about Notre Dame, after the 850-year-old cathedral was engulfed in a massive fire on April 15 that spared only its main structure and two bell towers. “Viollet-le-Duc was a Gothic revivalist and interestingly, he had an impact on early modern architecture because of the emphasis that he placed on the structural beauty of buildings, which is a really significant aspect of the Gothic style,” Dreiss said. Read more.
Brown Morton, professor emeritus in the Department of Historic Preservation
Brown Morton, professor emeritus of the Department of Historic Preservation, wrote a letter to the editor of the Connection Newspapers in Northern Virginia on the preservation of the Hugo Black House in Old Town Alexandria. “In 1949, I moved with my family to Old Town Alexandria and knew most of its residents from my days delivering the Alexandria Gazette as a youngster,” Morton said. “As I recall, that is how I came to know Justice Hugo Black who lived at a historic home with an unusually large garden at 619 South Lee St.” Read more.
College of Business Dean Lynne Richardson
Read College of Business Dean Lynne Richardson’s latest column in The Free Lance-Star: Bad Boss.
Dear Bad Boss,
Your staff complains about you. You’re a micro-manager. Or maybe you’re a detached manager, showing little interest in your people or the work they do.
Or maybe you put such pressure on your employees that they feel stressed all the time and hate coming to work. Of course, because of this, productivity suffers.
Maybe you have incredibly high expectations that are unachievable, especially because you either don’t know to hire or you don’t train your folks. There is no possible way for the folks in your organization to reach your ridiculous expectations.
Whatever the reason your folks don’t respect you, I want to thank you.
David Rettinger, associate professor of Psychological Science
Associate Professor of Psychology David Rettinger was quoted in an article on the ethics of plagiarism. “It’s a particular problem in academia because we care so much about the process,” says Rettinger, who is also the president of the International Center for Academic Integrity and director of Academic Integrity Programs at UMW. “I say this to my students all the time: I don’t care that you give me a [clean] paper. I care that you write a paper. The point is … it’s like sending someone to the gym for you. It completely defeats the purpose.” Read more.
Stephen Farnsworth, professor of political science
Political Science Professor Stephen Farnsworth continues to provide daily commentary in regional and national media on breaking news items. View a few of his current interviews: Sanders: ‘Trump Likes the Idea’ on CTV News Channel, Many Republicans are Calling It Quits on WVTF Radio IQ, NAACP to Protest Northam’s Second Campaign Stop Since Scandal on WCVE.
Farnsworth will also speak on the topic of his latest book, “Presidential Communication and Character,” at the Lake of the Woods Community Center on April 28. Read more.
Ben LaBreche, Associate Professor of English
Ben LaBreche, Associate Professor of English, along with Ryan Netzley of Southern Illinois University, recently coedited a special issue of Marvell Studies, which publishes the leading edge of research on Andrew Marvell, his texts and readers, words and worlds. This most recent issue is on theoretical approaches to Marvell’s poetry and contains essays by John Garrison (on object-oriented erotics in Marvell’s verse), Jason Kerr (on vulnerability as an ontological feature of humans), and Brendan Prawdzik (on the limits of eco-criticism for Marvell studies and the concept of ‘greenwashing’). In addition, this issue contains reviews of Brendan Prawdzik’s Theatrical Milton: Politics and Poetics of the Staged Body and Alex Garganigo’s Samson’s Cords: Imposing Oaths in Milton, Marvell, and Butler.
Gary Richards, Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English, Linguistics, and Communication
Gary Richards, Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English, Linguistics, and Communication, recently facilitated the discussion of John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces at the Books and Beignets program of the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival held March 27-31 in New Orleans, LA. This program has become a tradition at the festival, and Richards has been leading it now for over a decade, since 2007.
Maya Mathur, Associate Professor of English
Maya Mathur, Associate Professor of English, presented the paper “Twelfth Night in Tragic and Comic Registers” for a panel on “Shakespeare and South Asian Cinema” at the 50th Annual Northeastern Modern Language Association Conference in Washington, DC. Her paper examined two cinematic adaptations of William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (1601), Tim Supple’s Twelfth Night (2003) and Atul Kumar’s Piya Behrupiya (2012), that are set partially or wholly on the Indian subcontinent. In the paper, she considers the changes that both directors make to Shakespeare’s play in order to address local contexts and concerns.
Associate Professor Ranjit Singh, Department of Political Science and International Affairs
Associate Professor Ranjit Singh (Political Science and International Affairs) presented his research on Stafford County private landowners’ attitudes towards land conservation March 26th at the annual Environment Virginia Symposium at Virginia Military Institute in Lexington. Thus far, Singh has interviewed 52 landowners in the county, which is a conservation “hotspot.” His research will continue through support from a Jepson Fellowship in 2019-2020. Singh has been invited to discuss his research at a stakeholders’ meeting with Stafford officials interested in strategic options for land conservation on April 8. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust.
