Marie E. McAllister, Professor of English, authored the lead article in volume 9 of Eighteenth-Century Novel, “Pox Imagery in Clarissa.“
UMW English Professor Awarded National Fellowship
Ben LaBreche, assistant professor of English at the University of Mary Washington, has been awarded a Solmsen Fellowship for 2013-2014. The fellowship will support a year of research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Institute for Research in the Humanities.
As a fellow, LaBreche will research 17th-century conceptions of natural law and the problems of rationality in modern politics.
The Institute for Research in the Humanities offers four to five external Solmsen Fellowships each year to scholars working on literary and historical studies of the European classical, medieval and Renaissance periods up to about 1700.
“Although still early in his career, Ben LaBreche has already established himself as a meticulous scholar publishing ground-breaking, award-winning analyses of John Milton and other elements of 17th-century British literature and culture,” said Gary Richards, associate professor and chair of the Department of English, Linguistics, and Communication. “It’s so gratifying to see that work acknowledged and enabled by fellowships like the Solmsen.”
An expert on 16th- and 17th-century British literature and history, LaBreche received the Milton Society of America’s James Holly Hanford Award for the most distinguished essay on John Milton in 2010. He also has received fellowships from the Folger Institute and the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, the Beinecke Library, and the Mellon Foundation, and he has recently been a seminarian at the National Humanities Center and the Folger Shakespeare Library.
LaBreche has published on authors including John Milton, Edmund Spenser, and Francis Bacon, and topics that include free speech and religious liberty, the politics of gender, and Elizabethan patronage strategies. He is currently working on a book that will examine John Milton’s changing conception of liberty both in its historical contexts and in connection with the debates of 21st-century political theory.
LaBreche received a bachelor’s in comparative literature and a Ph.D. in English and renaissance studies from Yale University.
As a fellow, LaBreche will research 17th-century conceptions of natural law and the problems of rationality in modern politics.
The Institute for Research in the Humanities offers four to five external Solmsen Fellowships each year to scholars working on literary and historical studies of the European classical, medieval and Renaissance periods up to about 1700.
“Although still early in his career, Ben LaBreche has already established himself as a meticulous scholar publishing ground-breaking, award-winning analyses of John Milton and other elements of 17th-century British literature and culture,” said Gary Richards, associate professor and chair of the Department of English, Linguistics, and Communication. “It’s so gratifying to see that work acknowledged and enabled by fellowships like the Solmsen.”
An expert on 16th- and 17th-century British literature and history, LaBreche received the Milton Society of America’s James Holly Hanford Award for the most distinguished essay on John Milton in 2010. He also has received fellowships from the Folger Institute and the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, the Beinecke Library, and the Mellon Foundation, and he has recently been a seminarian at the National Humanities Center and the Folger Shakespeare Library.
LaBreche has published on authors including John Milton, Edmund Spenser, and Francis Bacon, and topics that include free speech and religious liberty, the politics of gender, and Elizabethan patronage strategies. He is currently working on a book that will examine John Milton’s changing conception of liberty both in its historical contexts and in connection with the debates of 21st-century political theory.
LaBreche received a bachelor’s in comparative literature and a Ph.D. in English and renaissance studies from Yale University.Paul Fallon Presents Research on Cushitic Languages
Paul D. Fallon, Associate Professor of Linguistics, presented a paper at the 41st annual meeting of the North American Conference on Afroasiatic Linguistics (NACAL), held at Yale University on 16-17 February 2013. His paper, “Appleyard’s Proto-Agaw vis-à-vis Ehret’s Proto-Cushitic” compared the historical reconstruction of the Agaw (Central Cushitic) languages of Eritrea and Ethiopia by two different scholars, analyzing 200 proposed roots and categorizing them. The paper contributes to the the study of Agaw and Cushitic linguistics by providing a critical assessment of two reconstructions of the same language family.
Gary Richards Featured on Radio Show
University of Mary Washington Associate Professor of English Gary Richards will discuss images of the U. S. South in Broadway musicals during an interview scheduled to air on the “With Good Reason” public radio program. The show, “The Gospel Roots of Rock and Roll,” will air beginning Saturday, Feb. 16.
During the program, Richards will argue that despite the popularity of musicals like Porgy and Bess and Showboat, musicals with southern themes tend to have a negative view of the region and don’t reflect its diversity today. As part of the program, Longwood University professor Chris Kjorness will discuss the legacy of gospel musician and singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
Richards, who serves as chair of the Department of English, Linguistics, and Communication, is an expert on southern literature and culture, American fiction, contemporary drama and sexuality studies. His book Lovers and Beloveds: Sexual Otherness in Southern Fiction, 1936-1961 was named Choice Outstanding Academic Title in 2005. He has written several book chapters, including most recently “Everybody’s Graphic Protest Novel: Stuck Rubber Baby and the Anxieties of Racial Difference” in Comics and the U.S. South. His articles and essays have been published in Journal of American Studies, North Carolina Literary Review and Mississippi Quarterly, among other publications.
Richards earned a Ph.D. and an M.A. from Vanderbilt University and a bachelor’s degree from Trinity University (San Antonio). His understanding of various southern cultures draws in part on his years of residence in several major southern cities, including Dallas (1969-1987), San Antonio (1987-1991), Nashville (1991-1997), New Orleans (1997-2008), and now Fredericksburg.
“With Good Reason” airs weekly in Fredericksburg on Sundays from 1-2 p.m. on Radio IQ 88.3 Digital. To listen from outside of the Fredericksburg area, a complete list of air times and links to corresponding radio stations can be found at http://withgoodreasonradio.org/when-to-listen/.
“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.
During the program, Richards will argue that despite the popularity of musicals like Porgy and Bess and Showboat, musicals with southern themes tend to have a negative view of the region and don’t reflect its diversity today. As part of the program, Longwood University professor Chris Kjorness will discuss the legacy of gospel musician and singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
Richards, who serves as chair of the Department of English, Linguistics, and Communication, is an expert on southern literature and culture, American fiction, contemporary drama and sexuality studies. His book Lovers and Beloveds: Sexual Otherness in Southern Fiction, 1936-1961 was named Choice Outstanding Academic Title in 2005. He has written several book chapters, including most recently “Everybody’s Graphic Protest Novel: Stuck Rubber Baby and the Anxieties of Racial Difference” in Comics and the U.S. South. His articles and essays have been published in Journal of American Studies, North Carolina Literary Review and Mississippi Quarterly, among other publications.
Richards earned a Ph.D. and an M.A. from Vanderbilt University and a bachelor’s degree from Trinity University (San Antonio). His understanding of various southern cultures draws in part on his years of residence in several major southern cities, including Dallas (1969-1987), San Antonio (1987-1991), Nashville (1991-1997), New Orleans (1997-2008), and now Fredericksburg.
“With Good Reason” airs weekly in Fredericksburg on Sundays from 1-2 p.m. on Radio IQ 88.3 Digital. To listen from outside of the Fredericksburg area, a complete list of air times and links to corresponding radio stations can be found at http://withgoodreasonradio.org/when-to-listen/.
“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.ELC Department’s First Reading Features Lee Zacharias
The Creative Writing Concentration of the Department of English, Linguistics & Communication invites you to our first reading of the spring 2013 semester:
Lee Zacharias, professor emerita at UNC Greensboro, will be reading from her new novel, “At Random” (Fugitive Poets Press) on Thursday, Jan. 31 at 5 p.m. in Combs Hall, Room 139. A book signing and reception will follow the reading.
Zacharias is the author of “Lessons,” a novel, and a short story collection, “Helping Muriel Make It through the Night.” She has published numerous essays, short stories and photographs, and is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the North Carolina Arts Council.
On a rainy November night in 1991, Guy Ferrin and his wife, Eva Summer, are on their way home from an opera when a nine-year-old Montagnard boy runs in front of their car. Although his blood alcohol measures well below the legal limit, Guy is charged with felony death by motor vehicle. In luminous prose “At Random” reveals the complex mix of old vulnerabilities and new resilience in both characters, who badly want to do the right thing even as Guy’s case is sensationalized in the media and bungled through the judicial system, his guilt and sorrow turn to anger, and her relationship with their own son becomes erratic, alternately over-protective and resentful of the middle-class privilege he doesn’t appreciate. When the victim’s brother comes to them seeking ‘American insurance’ to help his sister escape an abusive marriage, Eva is drawn into the local community of Montagnard refugees. Compellingly real and beautifully told, “At Random” is at once the story of a middle-aged couple struggling to maintain their values, their marriage, and an increasingly tenuous hold on the middle class and the tale of a refugee family caught between a younger generation’s desire to assimilate and the older generation’s drive to preserve their own culture.
“Though the central dramatic incident that drives this novel is about as tragic as you can imagine, ‘At Random’ is filled with moments of tenderness and grace. It’s also a page turner in the very best sense: we want to know not only what happened, but how it will effect these characters, who are as complicated and flawed as the world they inhabit. ‘At Random’ is so satisfying because it refuses to sugarcoat the various ways in which our existence is precarious, our time limited, and our need to compromise–in life and in love–vital to our survival.”
— Michael Parker, author of “The Watery Part of the World,” “If You Want Me to Stay,” and “Virginia Lovers.” Parker is the recipient of the Hobson Award for Arts and Letters, and the North Carolina Award for Literature, among other honors.
This reading is sponsored by the Department of English, Linguistics & Communication and The Writing Center/WI Program and the Arrington Professor of Poetry.
For other readings this semester, please see the attached calendar.
English Faculty Present at MLA Conference
Gary Richards
Two professors and one recent alumnus of the Department of English, Linguistics, and Communication presented at the Modern Language Association Conference that met Jan. 3 through 6 in Boston, Mass. Assistant Professor Zach Whalen presented the paper “OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and the Vestigial Aesthetics of Machine Vision” on the panel Reading the Invisible and Unwanted in Old and New Media. Associate Professor Gary Richards presented the paper “Tennessee Williams and the Burden of Southern Sexuality Studies” on the panel The South and Sexuality. Alumnus Tyler Babbie, ’08, presented the paper “Another Term: Richard Aldington and Imagism(e)” on the panel From Imagism to “Amygism” to Vorticism.
Zach Whalen
English Faculty Publish Work, Receive Accolades
Assistant Professor of English Colin Rafferty’s essay “Reflections from Virginia: Signifying a Hospital” appeared in the Used Furniture Review as part of the literary magazine’s post-election coverage. Rafferty’s essay “Albums of Our Lives: Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town’” appeared in The Rumpus. His short story, “Wake Up, Doctor West: An Essayistic Exploration of a Possible Alternate History of Kanye West and African-American Musicology (in Three Acts),” is forthcoming in the anthology “#GOODLitSwerveAutumn: An Anthology of Independent Literature about Kanye West,” published by NAP Literary Magazine.
Professor of English and Creative Writing Coordinator Warren Rochelle’s story “The Boy on McGee Street” was recently published in Queer Fish, Volume 2 (Pink Narcissus Press).
Visiting Assistant Professor of English Elizabeth Wade’s poem, “Selling the Saddle,” which was originally published in Cave Wall, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Arrington Distinguished Chair Claudia Emerson’s book, “The Opposite House,” has been accepted for publication by LSU Press.
Writing Center Assistant Amanda Rutstein’s poem “Chasing the Hawk,” will be published in fall 2012 issue of The Greensboro Review.
Chris Foss Presents at Conference
Chris Foss, professor of English, organized a roundtable discussion on autism studies at the South Atlantic Modern Language Association Annual Convention in Raleigh/Durham, N.C., on Nov. 10. For this special extended session panel, Foss joined four prominent national voices in offering short presentations to introduce threads of discussion that initiated a two-hour conversation on topics such as the nexus of autism and aesthetics, the nexus of autism and neurocosmopolitanism, and the nexus of autism and rhetoric.
Gary Richards Led Talk at Louisiana Book Festival
Gary Richards, associate professor of English, led the book talk “One Book One Festival: ‘A Confederacy of Dunces'” at the Ninth Annual Louisiana Book Festival in Baton Rouge, La., on Saturday, Oct. 27. At the same event, he was part of a panel discussion by contributors to “Comics and the U.S. South” (University Press of Mississippi, 2012), edited by Brannon Costello and Qiana J. Whitted. Richards contributed the essay “Everybody’s Graphic Protest Novel: ‘Stuck Rubber Baby’ and the Anxieties of Racial Difference” to that collection.
Ben LaBreche’s Article Accepted for Publication
Assistant Professor of English, Linguistics and Communication Ben LaBreche’s journal article “‘The Wheat From the Tares’: Areopagitica and the Limits of Pluralism” has been accepted for publication by Milton Studies. The article will appear in volume 53 in 2013.