Category: Professional Notes

English Professors Mara N. Scanlon and D. Brady Earnhart’s interview about Walt Whitman and the famed poet’s experiences as a Civil War nurse will be rebroadcast on the public radio program “With Good Reason” beginning Saturday, October 16.

In 1862, poet Walt Whitman went to Fredericksburg to search in field hospitals for his brother who had been wounded in a Civil War battle. Shocked by the bloodshed, Whitman worked as a nurse for years through the end of the war. Scanlon and Earnhart say Whitman helped heal wounded soldiers just as he hoped his poetry could mend the war-torn nation.

Their interview, “Whitman at War,” can be heard online at withgoodreasonradio.org/2010/10/whitman-at-war-2, and it will be rebroadcast on WCVE 88.9 FM Oct. 16 at 4:30 p.m. and on WAMU 88.5 FM Monday, October 18 at 12:30 a.m.

Earnhart and Scanlon worked with UMW instructional technology specialist James Groom on the digital humanities project “Looking for Whitman: The Poetry of Place in the Life and Work of Walt Whitman.” Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the project involved collaboration with three other universities.

At UMW in fall 2009, Scanlon, Earnhart and Groom taught “Digital Whitman,” a seminar incorporating the Whitman archive at the Library of Congress as well as the nearby site of a Civil War hospital, Chatham. A website designed by Groom, http://lookingforwhitman.org, connected students enrolled in the UMW course with counterparts at universities in New Jersey and New York—each in areas pivotal to Whitman’s life and work. As students investigated those locations, they shared research via digital platforms.

Scanlon, associate professor of English, received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia, an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Earnhart, visiting assistant professor of English, received a bachelor’s degree from The College of William and Mary, an MFA in creative writing from the University of Iowa and a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.

To listen to other UMW faculty interviews broadcast on “With Good Reason,” visit http://www.umw.edu/news/faculty.

“With Good Reason” is the only statewide public radio program in Virginia. It hosts scholars from Virginia’s public colleges and universities who discuss the latest in research, pressing social issues and the curious and whimsical. “With Good Reason” is produced for the Virginia Higher Education Broadcasting Consortium by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and is broadcast in partnership with public radio stations in Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Professor of History and American Studies Allyson Poska is participating in a panel discussion of Spanish history at the Sixteenth Century Society & Conference, Montreal, Canada, on October 14. The panel topic is “Honor and Shame in the Early Modern Mediterranean. “

With the help of UMW faculty, graduate students and alumni, the 2010 statewide conference of the Virginia Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages was a success. This year’s TESOL conference, held at UMW’s Stafford campus Oct. 2, drew about 200 practicing teachers from across Virginia.

Mary Gendernalik-Cooper, College of Education dean, (left) gave the welcome address, and Jo Tyler, professor of linguistics and education, served as one of the conference coordinators. Master of Education students, alumni and faculty, including Jane Huffman, associate professor of education; Patricia Reynolds, instructor of education; and John St.Clair, director of distance and blended learning, provided on-site assistance.

The conference theme was “Rekindling Our Joy of Language Teaching.” More than two dozen presenters led workshops and served on discussion panels. As the keynote speaker, bestselling author Richard Lederer addressed the topic “A Joy Ride Through the English Language.”

Mehdi Aminrazavi, professor of philosophy and religion, has recently published Islamic Philosophy: An Online Text Book for Colleges.

“This text book provides the reader with a comprehensive and thorough discussion of the Islamic philosophical tradition from historical and thematic perspectives,” said Aminrazavi. “This work offers a survey of the development of Islamic philosophy (Falsafah-Hikmah) in different periods and schools of thought.” Various themes and debates among philosophers concerning such topics as ontology, epistemology, metaphysics, eschatology, ethics, and political philosophy are among the issues discussed.

This book will be used in the master’s program at Middlesex University and the Islamic College for Advanced Studies, both located in London, and will be used for their online Islamic philosophy courses in 2010 through 2011. The book is available only in electronic format. For more information, visit  www.mdx.ac.uk or www.islamic-college.ac.uk.

In addition, Aminrazavi’s book An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia was selected as one of the superior books in the field of humanities for the International Department of Tehran’s 23rd International Book Fair.  Aminrazavi,  who is director of the Middle Eastern Studies program and co-director of the Leidecker Center for Asian Studies,  accepted the honor at a special ceremony in Tehran in May.

Debra Schleef is participating in a panel discussion, “Nuestra Tierra, Nuestro Hogar: Latinos in Virginia” at the University of Richmond, Library of Virginia Lecture Hall, Thursday, September 30, 6-7 p.m. The discussion will focus on the experiences of recent Hispanic immigrants to Virginia and the opportunities and challenges they face.

Schleef, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, is coauthor, along with H. B. Cavalcanti, of “Latinos in Dixie: Class and Assimilation in Richmond, Virginia.”

A reception and entertainment follow the panel discussion.