Two of Theresa’s students have won a $500 undergraduate research competition from the Virginia Academy of Science. Erin Haynes and Browyn Wang were awarded for their proposal to study “Comparative Development and Evolutionary Studies of New Caenorhabitis Species in Virginia.”

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. “

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.

James Harding is a recipient of a 2010-2011 DAAD Visiting Professorship in the Institut für Theaterwissenschaft at the Freie Universität Berlin. The DAAD is the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (the German Academic Exchange Service) and is financed by the German Government. Harding, a professor of English, linguistics and communication will spend a year in Berlin teaching graduate and undergraduate courses on the history of American experimental theatre.

Claudia Emerson, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and the current Poet Laureate of Virginia, will read from her work at Writers in the Library at 7 p.m. Sept. 27, in the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Hodges Library auditorium.
Emerson’s four books, “Pharaoh, Pharaoh (1997),” “Pinion, An Elegy (2002),” “Late Wife (2005),” and “Figure Studies (2008),” were published as part of Louisiana State University Press’ signature series, “Southern Messenger Poets,” edited by Dave Smith. “Late Wife” won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for poetry.
Her poems have appeared in “Poetry,” “Prairie Schooner,” “Smartish Pace,” “The Southern Review,” “Shenandoah,” “TriQuarterly,” “Crazyhorse,” “New England Review,” and other journals. An advisory and contributing editor for “Shenandoah,” Emerson has been awarded individual artist’s fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Virginia Commission for the Arts and was also a Witter Bynner Fellow through the Library of Congress. She was awarded the 2008 Donald Justice Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Emerson is a professor of English and the Arrington Distinguished Chair in Poetry at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Va.
A reception will be held following the reading. Both are free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase and signing at the event.
Emerson’s reading is sponsored by the Department of English and the UT Libraries. For more information, visit http://www.lib.utk.edu/writersinthelibrary/.