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English
The Year in Review 2005-2006

Departmental Activities

Highlights from academic year 2005-2006 (including activities and events our department sponsored, produced, or participated in):

  • We unveiled Cantilevers: A Journal of the Arts (vol. 3), with Connie May Fowler as guest author (and guest reader);

  • We awarded the Ryals Creative Writing Awards to Victoria Sandbrook and Megan Hoak and the FSC Student Writing Awards to Jessica Helm and Worthy Sizemore;

  • We sponsored the "Careers for English majors" seminar series;

  • We co-sponsored the Medieval Symposium on "Monsters and the Monstrous in the Middle Ages";

  • We continued "The English Department Presents . . ." series with presentations by both faculty and students;

  • We co-sponsored a performance of Beowulf: A Tale of Monsters and Men by Chris Vinsonhaler;

  • We had a English majors selected for internships with such diverse organizations as The Tennyson Research Centre in Lincoln, England, and the LPGA;

  • We taught classes in the Study Abroad Program;
  • We taught courses in the Honors Program;
  • We taught courses in the Women's Studies program;
  • We taught courses in the African-American Studies program;
  • We taught various freshman seminar sections (The Examined Life);
  • We taught courses in the various community outreach programs like Upward Bound;
  • Our faculty continued to be involved across campus by writing columns for The Southern and making presentations to student groups such as the Multi-cultural Student Council, to families at Parents' Weekend, and to alumni at Homecoming;
  • We had faculty members make various presentations to the community at large, such as at McKeel Academy and Lakeland High School;
  • We had students and faculty volunteer their time and energy with such charitable organizations as Paint Your Heart Out, Habitat for Humanity, and Best Buddies;
  • We had students get involved in The Mechanicals (the Humanities organization) and attend cultural events around Lakeland;
  • Members of our chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the International English Honor Society, held their annual book sale, participated in Paint Your Heart Out Lakeland, and read poetry to shut-ins;
  • We celebrated having multiple English majors graduate with honors;
  • We admired our graduates going on to graduate study or to work in the legal profession, the fine arts, publishing, and education.

Faculty Achievements

 

Dr. Bernard Quetchenbach, with Dr. John Haldeman (Biology), co-edited Lake Hollingsworth: Reflections and Studies on a Florida Landmark, a collaborative study of the lake by FSC faculty, alumni, students and staff (The History Press, 2005).

Dr. Keith L. Huneycutt presented his paper, “The Florida Correspondence of the Brown Family, 1835-1850, and the Question of Regional Identity Presentation,” at the Florida College English Association (FCEA) conference. Huneycutt was also elected as vice president of the FCEA and conference chair for 2006.

Dr. John T. Crow presented his paper, “Brain-Based Grammar: Why Johnny Can’t Parse,” at the FCEA conference.

Dr. Rebecca Saulsbury wrote six articles on 19th century African American writers to be published in “The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Literature” (Greenwood, 2005): “Henry ‘Box’ Brown,” “Hannah Crafts,” “Elizabeth Keckley,” “Maria W. Stewart,” “Frank J. Webb” and “Harriet E. Wilson.” Saulsbury also presented her paper, “Political Dress: Dress Reform, Cross-Dressing, and Performative Suffrage in ‘Fettered for Life’” at the Midwest Modern Language Association conference in Milwaukee, Wis.

Dr. Pete Schreffler presented “Dangling Modifiers, Misplaced Colons, and Other Things That Bother English Teachers” to the FCEA conference.

Dr. Claudia S. Slate presented “Using African American Women’s Literature to Teach the Emmett Till Story” at The Murder of Emmett Till and the Struggle for Civil Rights Conference in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Dr. Alexander Bruce presented “More than ‘Evil Twins’: The Role of the Monsters in Beowulf” at the annual meeting of The South Atlantic Modern Language Association, “Teaching Tolkien: The Medieval and the Modern” to the meeting of the Florida College English Association, “Who needs a prince?: Re-Evaluating Girls’ Reactions to Disney’s Fairy Tale Films” to the annual meeting of the American Folklore Society, “Frodo wouldn’t have got far without Sam” to the meeting of the Southeastern Medieval Association, and “Awreðed weorðlice . . . engla mægne: Angels in Anglo-Saxon Poetry” to New College Conference on Medieval-Renaissance Studies. Dr. Bruce also published “Skjöldunga saga” in the Reallexicon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2005), 29: 5-7; he had several other works accepted for publication, including “Princesses without a Prince: A Consideration of Girls’ Reactions to Disney’s ‘Princess’ Movies,” accepted by Children’s Folklore Review, "Beowulf 1366a: Fyr on flode as the aurora borealis?” accepted by Archiv für das Studium der Neueren Sprachen und Literaturen, “Building Community: The Folklore of Physical Space at Florida Southern College” accepted by Contemporary Legend, "Tolkien’s Contributions to the Epic Tradition in Lord of the Rings" accepted by Medieval Perspectives, and "Evil Twins? The Role of the Monsters in Beowulf," accepted by Medieval Forum.

Dr. Catherine Eskin had her essay "Literary Figures: Lodge in the Undergraduate Classroom" accepted for publication in Teaching Early Modern Prose, eds. Susannah Monta and Margaret Ferguson (New York: MLA, due 2006). She also reviewed Sick Economies: Drama, Mercantilism, and Disease in Shakespeare’s England by Jonathan Gil Harris (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2004) reviewed for SMART 12.2 (Fall 2005): 95-101. Dr. Eskin also made two presentations to area schools: “The Poetry of Seduction and Rejection: ‘The Passionate Shepherd’ and ‘Nymph’s Reply,’” to AP English students at Lakeland High School and "Brutus, Antony and the Politics of Rhetoric,” to McKeel Academy.

Previous Years: 1999-2000 2000-2001 2001-2002 2002-2003 2003-2004 2004-2005