With three faculty members giving papers, the department was well represented at the annual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, held in Ft. Lauderdale the third week of March: Donald Palumbo presented "Chaos Theory and the Cosmogonic Cycle: The Monomyth's Fractal Structure and the Deep Aesthetic of Herbert's Dune Series"; Pat Bizzaro presented "The Science Fiction Writings of Fred Chappell"; and as part of a panel on the Harry Potter series and the Harry Potter publishing phenomenon, C.W. Sullivan III presented "Harry Potter: Fantasy Lite."

<  Farr

 
Same state, different venue: in Boca Raton, at the Southeastern Women's Studies Association Conference, Rick Taylor gave "The Correlative Squirrel: Spousal Violence in Eliza Haywood's The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless," and Marie Farr presented "A Century of Feminist Literary Utopias: Blueprints for Change" ...

... while closer to home, Farr lectured on "John Steinbeck's Life and Work" on March 29th at Kinston's Neuse County Library.

And now we jump to the international appearances:

Anges Bolonyai gave "Indefinite Loss: Definiteness Agreement in Hungarian-English Bilingual Children" at the Third Bilingualism Symposium in Bristol, UK, April 18-20; she also organized and chaired a panel entitled "Can Spiders Forget How to Spin Spider Webs?: Language Attrition and Some Unresolved Questions."

In late March, Michael Aceto was an invited speaker at University of Sienna in Sienna, Italy. He presented "The Linguistic Matrix of Panama with Special Focus on Anglophone Creoles" at the Centro Interdipartimentale di Studi sull'America Indigena/CISAI dell'Università di Sienna. 

Also in March, at the Collegium for African American Studies Conference "Crossroutes: The Challenge of Race for the 21st Century," in Sardinia, Italy, Julie Fay presented " Race, History and the Literary Imagination," while Gay Wilentz gave "Healing Narratives in Africa and the Diaspora: The Relationship of Culture to Health in Works by Women Writers of African Descent."

Meanwhile, back in the States:

The March MELUS conference in Knoxville featured Gay Wilentz presenting "Drowning in the Mainstream: Jewish Writers and the Multicultural Agenda."

In Philadelphia, at the 31st Popular Culture Association Annual Conference, Don Palumbo presented "'Victory Snatched From the Jaws of Defeat': Twenty Fractal Variations on a Theme in the Conclusions of Asimov's Robot / Empire / Foundation Metaseries."

Julie Fay was busy this spring, giving a poetry reading and participating in a roundtable on teaching poetry in high schools at Western Carolina University; conducting a poetry workshop, "Sonnets, Sestinas and Ballads," for the Albemarle Literary Center; and serving on two panels at the Associated Writing Programs Conference in Palm Springs, CA: "Writing Through Disease" and "Internet in the Creative Writing Classroom."

<  Raynor

 
Sharon Raynor is a new participant in the 2001-2002 North Carolina Humanities Forum: A Speakers' Bureau. Her lectures are entitled "Celebrating Wild Women: Identifying and Exploring the 'Wild Woman' Archetype in Women's Literature"; "Telling My Father's Story: Implications of the Vietnam War on Family and Community"; and "Trauma, Memory, and Silence: Oral Histories of Vietnam Veterans of Eastern North Carolina."

In February, at the Southeastern Writing Center Association in Auburn, Alabama, Pat Bizzaro gave "Writing Consultants and the Discourse of the Disciplines." In March, he lectured on "A Reception Theory Model for Responding to Student Writing" at the Conference on College Composition and Communication in Denver. And in April, he gave a poetry reading at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh.

On April 18th, ECU English faculty and graduate students gave a poetry reading at Barnes & Noble in celebration of National Poetry Month. Reading from their work were Mary Carroll-Hackett, Brett Hursey, Randall Martoccia, Eric Rondeau, Chris Salerno, and Jeff Stewart.
 

 

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