Panels & Presentations

Laura Micciche presented "Emotional Subjects for Composition" as part of a panel entitled Professional Life, Emotion, and Rhetorical Agency at the Conference on College Composition and Communication in Chicago, IL, March 19-23.  Her research was based on responses she received to an informal survey distributed on the Writing Program Administrators Listserv. She argued that "emotion shapes workplace activities." Her respondents showed that emotion is inextricably tied to writing program administration: "Rather than characterizing their emotional experiences as disabling because of frequent anger and frustration, the respondents made clear that these 'negative' emotions have a politicized, strategic purpose insofar as they enable people to effect change, protect subordinates, and preserve important relationships with colleagues."

Seodial Deena presented "Bhaka's Rejection of Christianity: A Question of Justice" for the Fifth Southeast Regional Faculty Conference in Augusta, GA, February 8-10. Later in the month, Deena read "Reviewing Colonial History and Forging Postcolonial Analyses through Autobiography, Part One" at the Eleventh Annual British Commonwealth & Postcolonial Studies Conference, Savannah, GA, February 22-23, 2002. Also at this conference, graduate students Valerie Jones read her essay "Racialized Patriarchy in Michelle Cliff's novel Free Enterprise"and Dawn Keller presented "Fluid Identity and Power: A Critical Queering of Michelle Cliff's Novels."

Sherry Southard and Philip Rubens presented "Students and Web-based Learning Environments" for a session on "High School Outreach: How Can You Get Involved?" at the Society for Technical Communication Annual Conference in Chicago, IL, 2001. Rubens presented their collaborative paper "What Do We Really Know about Audience and Online Information" at the International Professional Communication Conference in Santa Fe, NM, October 24-27, 2001. Southard was lead presenter for "Improving the Quality of Distance Education though Community: Peer Teaching/Learning and Faculty/Student Interactions" given as part of the Association of Business Communication "Digital Discourse" sessions at MLA in New Orleans, LA, December 27-30, 2001.

Margaret Bauer served as program co-chair of the 2002 Conference of the Society for the Study of Southern Literature held in Lafayette, LA, March 14-16. Bauer also introduced writer Tim Gautreaux. Also on the program from ECU were Tom Shields, reading "John Lawson: The Uses of a North Carolina Explorer," and TPC graduate student Carolyn Dunn, reading her paper on Ellen Glasgow, "Illness and Deception in The Sheltered Life."

Patrick Bizzaro and Resa Crane Bizzaro participated in the workshop "After the Fall: Reinvigorating and Reinstituting Writing Programs" at the Conference on College Composition and Communication in Chicago, IL, March 20-22. Patrick Bizzaro presented "Writing Program Administrator as Problem Solver: An Overview of Our Times" and Resa Crane Bizzaro, "WPA as Agent of Decentralization: Moving the Writing Center from the English Department to Academic Affairs." In addition, Resa Crane Bizzarowas a CCCC featured speaker; her presentation was titled "Composition Pedagogy in Native American Colleges: Connecting the Past to the Present." She also served as the co-chair of the Caucus for American Indian Scholars and Scholarship.

On February 22, in Savannah, GA at the Annual British Commonwealth and Post Colonial Studies Conference, ECU Lecturer Sharon Raynor presented "She Had No Self Left: The Sacrificial Love of Miriam in D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers and Hagar in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon." Graduate student Colena Gardner delivered her essay, "Running Away From the Natural World: Marxism, Cultural Theory, Modern Society Opposing Mama Day's World," and Jenee Hulin presented "Evolution of Speech: Analyzing the Voices of Liberation in the Selected Speeches of Nineteenth Century African American Women." Also at the Conference, ECU alumnus Washella Turner presented "The Effects of Industrialization on an Indian Society as Portrayed in Kamala Markandaya's Nectar in a Sieve."

On March 14-16, in Valdosta, GA at VSU's Seventh Annual Women's Studies Conference, co-sponsored by the Southeast Women's Studies Association and the Women's Studies Program of Valdosta State University, four ECU faculty members -- Marie Farr, Richard Taylor, Roberta Martin, and Ellen Arnold -- participated in the roundtable discussion: "Women and the Academic Hiring Process: A Progress Report." Graduate student Celeste Pottier presented her paper "Women's Value Changes in Epistolary Styles: From Madame de Sevigné's 'tittle tattle' to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's 'good Sense.'"