Author and Texas A&M University Distinguished professor Jerome Loving, a Mark Twain biographer, is set to give a lecture at ECU.

Author and Texas A&M University Distinguished English Professor Jerome Loving, whose published works include a Mark Twain biography, will give a lecture titled, “Mark Twain’s Civil War Confession,” as part of FaculTea. The event will take place at 3:30 p.m. April 25, at Joyner Library.

Loving, author of 2010′s “Mark Twain The Adventures of Samuel L. Clemens,” also has written biographies of Walt Whitman and Theodore Dreiser.

Loving’s honors include a 2007 National Endowment of the Humanities Fellowship, and the 2007-2008 “We the People” project for biography for the Mark Twain John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.

He earned his Ph.D. in English from Duke University.

Dave Smith, a well-known Southern poet and professor, will give two readings in Greenville.

Noted poet and professor Dave Smith of Johns Hopkins University will give a free reading at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 9, at the Greenville Museum of Art. On Wednesday, Smith will give another reading as the guest speaker at the Robert Penn Warren Exhibit at Joyner Library, part of the Contemporary Writers Series, hosted by the library from 4 to 5:30 p.m. 

Smith is the Elliott Coleman Professor of Poetry at the Maryland university. His poetry depicts our country’s changing landscape and its changing South. Smith’s influences include the late Robert Penn Warren, a writer, critic, and professor, who won three Pulitzer Prices, and served as the first Poet Laureate. Warren’s impact on Smith makes the library exhibit an ideal venue for his performance.

Smith’s other influences include the late James Dickey and the late A.R. Ammons, a North Carolinian, who was a renowned poet and novelist.

The event will be held amid an exhibit that contains some of the most notable work from the Stuart Wright Collection and the largest collection of Warren material outside of Yale University.

For information, contact Tom Douglass at 328-6723 or email him at douglasst@ecu.edu.

Andrew Hadfield

Gerald Prokopowicz

A roundtable discussion titled, “Biography or Creative Nonfiction?: Problems and Possibilities,” will feature a guest literature scholar and an ECU historian at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 9, at Joyner Library, Room 2409. Then, at 6:30 p.m., a paper on a topic about Early Modern England, will be presented at the Science Technology Building.

Andrew Hadfield, of the University of Sussex’s Department of English, Centre for Early Modern Studies, will lead the afternoon discussion, along with ECU’s Gerald Prokopowicz.

Hadfield is the author of the 2012 book, “Edmund Spenser: A Life,” and Prokopowicz, is the author of the 2008 book, “Did Lincoln Own Slaves? And Other Frequently Asked Questions about Abraham Lincoln.”

Hadfield also will present a paper in the evening at the Science Technology Building, OC Room 309, titled, “The Culture of Lying in Early Modern England.”

The free event includes coffee afterward. It’s jointly sponsored by Wichard Chair funds, the English and History departments, the Medieval and Renaissance Studies program, and the journal, “Explorations in Renaissance Culture.”

Six graduate students in the English Department will read their original works at 7 p.m., Wednesday, April 10, at Sheppard Memorial Library.

The free event will be held in Room A, and will feature creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry.

The Department of English remembers our colleague and friend, Debbie O’Neal. We will greatly miss her vivacious spirit and passion for teaching.

Memorials may be made to the Beaufort County Association for the Blind, PO Box 491, Washington, NC 27889, or Wright Flight, PO Box 2105, Kill Devil Hills, NC 27948.

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English professor Kenneth Price of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is the guest speaker at an event featuring ECU digital humanities projects.

Kenneth Price, the Hillegass University Professor of American Literature at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, will share his expertise on the topic of “Literary Studies in a Digital Age,” at a free event held at the Greenville Museum of Art from 5 to 8 p.m. on Wednesday, April 3.

Price is the featured speaker at the Downtown Dialogues on the Humanities: Digital Humanities at ECU and Beyond event.

In addition to Price, highlights of the program will include about seven ECU digital humanities projects, including two from the English Department:  associate professor of English Thomas Herron’s “Centering Spenser: A digital resource for the Munster Plantation” and Whichard Professor of English Gary Stringer’s “Digital Donne”.

To attend, please RSVP by March 29 to http://www.ecu.edu/downtown/forms/rsvpform.html

For information, contact Kate LaMere at lamerek@ecu.edu

Amber Flora Thomas

ECU’s Creative Writing Department will present readings from poet and assistant professor Amber Flora Thomas, and five graduate students, from 3 to 4 p.m. on Wednesday, April 3, at the Greenville Museum of Art.

Anna Froula

The body of work of Sci-Fi filmmaker Terry Gilliam will be the focus of the third talk in the Faculty Speaker series, featuring assistant professor Anna Froula.

Froula, associate editor of ECU’s ”Cinema Journal,”  the journal of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, will read excerpts from the book, “The Cinema of Terry Gilliam: It’s a Mad World,” at 4 p.m. Thursday, April 4, at Bate 1001.

If you have a yen to discuss Sci-Fi and fantasy fare with kindred film buffs, or you just want to explore a new genre with an emphasis on an “outsider” filmmaker known for delivering movies with a satirical edge, come and learn more. Good conversation and eats are free.

Native American writer Sherman Alexie will speak in Wright Auditorium on March 26, 2013, 8:00 PM in Wright Auditorium as part of the Contemporary Writers Series.

Sherman Alexie has received numerous awards for his work, including the National Book Award for The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, the PEN/Hemingway Award for The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, and the PEN/Faulkner Award for War Dances.

The novel, “Sula,” by Toni Morrison (pictured) will be discussed at the Faculty Speaker Series at 4:30 p.m. March 21.

English instructor Erika Galluppi will discuss the “silence prophet” aspects of Shadrack, a character in Toni Morrison’s novel, “Sula,” by “going around the world … tracing his origins from Cassandra in classic Greek mythology to Septimus in Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway,” and Pays in Ousmane Sembene’s African film, “Camp de Thiaroye.”

Galluppi’s talk, titled “Cassandra ‘Pays it Forward’: Tracing Toni Morrison’s Shadrack as “silenced prophet” from Greek mythology to Virginia Woolf and Ousmane Sembene” is the second in the free series of Faculty Speaker events. It will be held at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, March 21, in Bates Room 1001.

Good conversation is promised, accompanied by snacks and beverages.