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

Funeral Services are being handled by Wilkerson Funeral Home.
A memorial service will be held Wednesday, April 3 at 1 p.m. at Rock Spring Center, 4025 NC Highway 43 N, Greenville.

Couple’s deaths ‘a huge loss’

Instructor dies in plane crash

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.

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.

Andrew Hadfield, of the University of Sussex’s Department of English, Centre for Early Modern Studies, will lead the 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 at 6:30 p.m. 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.”

Poet Dave Smith of Johns Hopkins University will speak at a Contemporary Writers Series event on Wednesday, April 10.

Poet and professor Dave Smith of Johns Hopkins University will speak at the Robert Penn Warren Exhibit at Joyner Library at a free event in the Contemporary Writers Series, hosted by the library and ECU from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 10.

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. 

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.

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.

City Art Gallery’s opening night exhibit of an art show based on the poetry of well-known North Carolina poet James Applewhite attracted attendees who viewed works created by artists with ties to East Carolina University.
Photo courtesy of The Arts Connection

Three poems penned by renowned North Carolina poet James Applewhite served as the muse for the creation of more than 20 artworks recently displayed at City Art Gallery in Greenville. The February event marked the third annual James Applewhite Poetry Invitational Reception.

The poems, “Reading the Science News,” “Hemlock Hill,” and “Written Beside Bass Lake” inspired paintings, ceramics, sculpture and mixed media. At last  month’s opening reception, Applewhite read the poems aloud. The opening drew a good turnout, said Jaclyn Morgan of the gallery.  The event was hosted by the gallery and the North Carolina Literary Review, a publication of East Carolina University and the N.C. Literary and Historical Association. Applewhite is a frequent contributor to the literary review.

ECU faculty contributing works to the show included Mike Dorsey, Seo Eo, Hanna Jubran, and Jeff Kiefer. Work by graduate student Sally Sutton also was shown. Artists included alumni Richard Fennell, Jeff Kiefer, Michael Knoch, and Bob Rankin, as well as art from the estate of former faculty member Paul Hartley.

Dr. Gary A. Stringer, scholar of English Renaissance Literature and visiting professor at East Carolina University, will give a free, public lecture at 7 p.m., Feb. 7, in room 1031 of the Bate Building. He will discuss “The Making of the 1633, ‘Poems, by J. D. with Elegies on the Author’s Death,’ An Illustrated Detective Story.” A reception will follow in the foyer of the Bate Building.

http://www.ecu.edu/cs-cas/articles/gstringer.cfm