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Awards & Appointments 3 Co-sponsored Events 4 From the Editors 5 Gifts & Grants 4 Panels & Presentations 2 Publications 1 Service & Outreach 4 Students & Alumni 4 Transitions 4

Message from the Department Chair: Don Palumbo Academic year 2014-2015 was a difficult one. But amid dwindling budgets and a declining number of majors, our faculty continued to excel. Colleagues published nine books, two monographs, 47 scholarly articles in journals, 12 chapters in books, & one article in a conference proceedings volume. During that same period, faculty presented or had accepted for presentation approximately 112 papers at scholarly conferences and received numerous awards and grants. Well done! The QEP began to gather strong support from departments across campus; and fixed-term faculty completed a yearlong seminar to help craft assignments for ENGL 2201, Writing about the Disciplines. For the fall, offerings on all levels have been streamlined and courses renumbered to better serve the needs of our students.

The Department also moved forward on its Unit Strategic Plan, establishing a 12-member Community Assistance Committee and creating recruitment initiatives such as Go English! At one outreach event, numerous community members received help with a variety of tasks from résumé writing to individual creative projects. Upcoming programs will further cultivate our relationship with departmental alumni and community constituents. During this time of transition, I am delighted to see the revival of The Common Reader.

Together with the redesigned Website, the newsletter will help celebrate our multi-talented faculty and illustrate the public good our department embraces.

Welcome to the Department We welcomed several fabulous new and returning staff members this semester. Lindsay Canting is the department’s lead administrative assistant. Ellen Farris has been hired as a receptionist. Amy Tripp is the administrative assistant for the Director of Undergraduate Studies. Ashleigh Taylor is now in the Writing Center in Joyner. And the department has hired two new student workers, Caitlin Coats and Kendora Taylor. The department is also hosting visiting scholar Jing Yang this academic year. She is an associate professor in the Department of English Language & Culture at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, China, and is researching martial arts cinema in the age of globalization. During her stay, she will complete several papers on Chinese cinema's strategies for commercialization and will be available to present guest lectures.

Publications Will Banks & Stephanie West-Puckett. “UnCommon Connections: How Building a Grass-Roots Curriculum Helped Reframe Common Core State Standards for Teachers & Students in a High Need Public High School” in The Next Digital Scholar: A Fresh Approach to the Common Core Standards in Research & Writing.

Matthew Cox (with Michael Faris). "An Annotated Bibliography of Literature on LGBT & Queer Rhetoric" in Present Tense: A Journal of Rhetoric in Society.

Spring 2015 l Volume 33 l Issue 1 Spring 2015 l Volume 33 l Issue 1 Fall 2015 l Volume 33 l Issue 1

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Margaret Bauer. A Study of Scarletts: Scarlett O'Hara & Her Literary Daughters and Paul Green’s The House of Connelly: A Critical Edition. "An important contribution, Bauer's study thoroughly explores relevant literary criticism of these novels while providing fresh insights and comparisons of her own." —The Southern Literary Review

Matthew Cox (with Travis Webster). "Kairotic Gaze/Gays: LGBTQ Identity & Graduate Student Professionalization in the Humanities" in Metamorphosis: The Effects of Professional Development on Graduate Students. Marame Gueye. “Welcome to the Big Apple” in Transition Magazine. John Hoppenthaler. Domestic Garden.

“In his third collection of poetry, John Hoppenthaler surveils the remnants of an American Dream. What devotion might mean and look like in our time is at the book’s heart. The poems, written in a variety of styles, offer testimony and uncover, row by row, what remains viable in a garden they hope to resurrect.”

Su-ching Huang. "Chinese Obsession, Racial Melancholia, & Male Hysteria: Recuperating Taiwanese American Writer Liu Daren in (Chinese) American Studies" in Ethnic Literatures & Transnationalism. Kirk St. Amant. “Culture and the Contextualization of Care: A Prototype-based Approach to Developing Health and Medical Visuals for International Audiences” in CDQ; “The Global Context for Virtual Teams: Re-thinking Collaboration in the Modern Workplace” in Connexions; & “The REACH Approach to Developing Online Materials for International Audiences” in Intercom.

Luke Whisnant. Above Floodstage: A Narrative Poem. Now available from Finish Line Press.

Alumni Publications Meghan Bliss. The Little Universe. Stacey Cochran. Eddie & Sunny. David Poston. Slow of Study.

Panels & Presentations The annual Autumn Reading in support of the Greenville Food Bank featured Gina Betcher, Julie Fay, Christy Hallberg, & Marc Petersen, as well as two ENGL 2815 students, Monika Dunton & Sarah McKeever. Faculty Speaker Series presenters for Spring 2015 were Erin Frost, “Food Fights: Cookbook Rhetorics, Technical Communication, and Feminism;” Ron Hoag, “Natural Sabbath: Thoreau’s Mild Sublime;” John Hoppenthaler, “You don’t hate the South? They ask. You don’t hate it?’: Natasha Trethewey’s South;” Joseph Horst, “Prometheus;” & Donna Kain, “Cli-Fi & the Rhetoric of Climate Change & Sea Level Rise in North Carolina.” Fall 2015 presenters were Marc Petersen, "Ghosts of Texas in Ennis and Dillon's Preacher Comics;" Tom Shields, "Kicking French Protestant Butt Out of La Florida: Translating Bartolomé de Flores’s Poem La feliz victoria/The Happy Victory (1571)," & Michael Aceto, "Empiricism, Buddhism and Linguistics - or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love my Grammar.” Jeffrey Johnson, Tracy McLawhorn, & MA student Dannielle Lake presented “The John Donne Project: A Gallery View” as part of Joyner Library’s FaculTea Series.

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Marame Gueye read from her short story “Welcome to the Big Apple” at Harvard. Kristy Ulibarri participated in the Downtown Dialogues on the Humanities panel discussion of “Creating, Tending, and Razing the Border: A Pecha Kucha on Division.” An on-campus interdisciplinary colloquium featured several English faculty. Anna Froula presented “Ralph Fiennes’ film Coriolanus,” Thomas Herron discussed “Famine and Rebellion: Contemporary Political Contexts for Shakespeare’s Coriolanus (c. 1608),” & Sean Morris gave a presentation titled “Tragedy and Satire in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus.”

Awards & Appointments Margaret Bauer was named a HCAS Distinguished Professor. She also won a Digital Social Sciences & Humanities Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration Award from ECU’s Division of Research & Graduate Studies as well as the Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ) 2014 Phoenix Award for Significant Editorial Achievement for the North Carolina Literary Review. Jessica Bardill have been accepted in to the 2015 Engagement has Scholars Academy. Lida Cope was awarded a 2015 NEH Summer Stipend. Michelle Eble was named president of the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing. She was also honored during Research & Creative Achievement Week with the Graduate School’s Distinguished Graduate Faculty Mentor Award, Doctoral Category. Helena Feder received the Department’s Research & Creative Writing Award. She was also awarded a travel grant for fall 2015. Gabrielle Freeman won the 2015 Randall Jarrell Poetry Award. Erin Frost received the 2015 College Composition & Communication Outstanding Dissertation Award in Technical Communication. Anna Froula has been awarded a one-course buyout in Spring 2016 from HCAS to be used in preparing an NEH grant on “Dialogues on the Experience of War.”Guiseppe Getto has been accepted in to the 2015 Engagement Outreach Scholars Academy.

The Bill Halberg Creative Writing Award was presented to Ben French, a student playwright from UNC-Chapel Hill. A reading of his work, tiny frightened animals, was held in Speight Auditorium.

John Hoppenthaler was nominated for a 2014 Pushcart Prize & received a North Carolina Community Council for the Arts Regional Artist Project Grant in 2014. He was also awarded a travel grant for fall 2015. Joseph Horst won second place in the 2014 Short Story Competition held by Scribes Valley Publishing. Jeffrey Johnson was appointed director of HCAS’ Voyages of Discovery Lecture Series. Amanda Klein had two of her blogs selected as “Freshly Pressed” by Wordpress editors, a distinction received by only 2% of all posts published to Wordpress. Marianne Montgomery received a 2015 ECU Centennial Award for Excellence in Service. Kirk St. Amant received the Society for Technical Communication’s 2015 Ken Rainey Award for Excellence in Research.

2014-2015 Department Awards Will Banks was the recipient of the Bertie E. Fearing Excellence in Teaching Award. Christy Hallberg was recognized by HCAS with the Treasured Pirate award for service to the English Department. John Hoppenthaler & Margaret Bauer received research & creative activity awards. Timm Hackett & Amanda Klein were presented departmental service awards.

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Service & Outreach 2014-2015 Department faculty chaired 47 graduate student committees (including dissertation, thesis, & CAP) & served on 104 graduate student committees (including dissertation, thesis, & CAP). In addition, faculty chaired two HCAS committees & 13 University committees & served on 14 HCAS committees & 57 University committees. English Department faculty members also performed 237 instances of professional service activities—as committee members, journal manuscript reviewers, & scholarly press book reviewers—for international, national, regional, state, & local institutions, organizations, journals, & presses. Faculty independently performed 70 community service activities. Approximately a dozen faculty assisted 50 community members during an outreach event at Cornerstone Church in Greenville. Faculty - including Joe Campbell, Lida Cope, Cheryl Dudasik-Wiggs, Joanne Dunn, Jeffrey Johnson, & Debbie Shoop - visited Pitt Community College, Johnston Community College, & Craven Community College to recruit English majors as part of the department’s Go English! initiative.

Co-sponsored Events Ilona Bell presented “Sex and Seduction in John Donne’s Poetry,” as part of HCAS’ Voyages of Discovery Lecture Series.

Former NC Poet Laureate Joseph Bathanti read from his works at the Greenville Museum of Art.

William Grabe & Fredricka Stoller were the keynote speakers at the 2015 12th Annual TALGS/Applied Linguistics Graduate Student Conference, which was held on campus.

Poet/journalist Ilyse Kusnetz read from her works at the Greenville Museum of Art.

Ed & Catherine McGuckin presented “Thirty Years with the Gapapai: Cooperative Bible Translation in Papua New Guinea.”

Wes Moore spoke about his book, The Other Wes Moore, which was the 2014 Pirate Read.

Poet Brian Turner was the keynote speaker at the Veterans Writing Workshop.

NC Poet Laureate Shelby Stephenson spoke at the Greenville Museum of Art. Amy Stewart, author of The Drunken Botanist, was the featured speaker at a campus Earth Day event.

Transitions Catherine Anderson, administrative associate for the Director of Graduate Studies, has relocated to Wilmington. Lorrie Coltraine has taken a teaching position at Edgecombe Community College. Julie Fay & Sandra Tawake retired from the department during AY 2014-15. Joe Horst has taken a position as a FEMA training specialist in Georgia. Christine Nicodemus is now a faculty member at Wayne Community College. Lorraine Hale Robinson, retired faculty member, has been appointed to the NC Arts Council. Alfred Wang, who taught in the department from 1967-1994, passed away in September.

Students & Alumni Aimee Callicutt, Gaiselle Cambra, Ava Cook, William Franklin, Lena Greer, Constance Haywood, Justine McClarren, Sarah McKeever, & Stephany Newberry-Davis were inducted in to Sigma Tau Delta. Ava Cook & Kristen Martin were inducted in to Phi Beta Kappa. Katrina Hinson, 2014 graduate of the Rhetoric, Writing, and Professional Communication PhD program, has been appointed Assistant Professor at Tarlton University in Texas. During AY 2014-15, 14 students worked with department-sponsored journals: two graduate students worked on Tar River Poetry, three graduate students worked on Technical Communication Quarterly, three graduate students & five undergraduates worked on North Carolina Literary Review, & one graduate student worked on Explorations in Renaissance Culture.

Gifts & Grants Barbara & McKinley Price presented a gift of $104,000 to the Department for student travel abroad, $4,000 of which was used to support student William Franklin’s trip to London.

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The Franklin David Sanders Trust gave a $94,500 gift to support an Honors student in English. Dr. Sanders, a former faculty member who died in 2013, was the founding director of ECU’s Honors Program. Dave & Judy Whichard gave a $25,000 gift to support a junior or senior in English or in Religious Studies.

The following English faculty were awarded grants totaling $792,360: Will Banks, Nicole Caswell, Seodial Deena, Erin Frost, Guiseppe Getto, Jeffrey Johnson, Mark Johnson, & Marianne Montgomery.

Message from the Editors: Donna Kain & Cheryl Dudasik-Wiggs Welcome to The Common Reader, a tradition that dates back (sporadically!) to the 1980s. The newsletter’s revival began with a series of hallway conversations overheard by the editors: “Congratulations on your award!” and “That was a great piece you wrote!” We realized that most of these life events would be relegated to individual annual reports, read only by a few administrators. A long lunch at a local restaurant gave birth to the idea of reestablishing TCR; and beginning with this issue, the biannual publication will give the department a chance to showcase the scope of its faculty’s talents and accomplishments while maintaining an electronic record of what defines us as a unit. This current edition is a get-acquainted one that contains news from AY 2014-15 and from fall 2015. We have gathered information from departmental minutes, annual reports, and news accounts. With your help, we will expand subsequent issues to include feature articles. So as you add a professional item to your vita—or if we left information out of this newsletter that you would like to see included—let us know. A form can be accessed here, and a link can also be found on the department’s newly designed Website. Many thanks to Don Palumbo for sharing the department’s annual report—from which we plagiarized shamelessly—and to Erin Frost, who chairs the Publicity Committee. We are looking forward to further editions of this newsletter!!