Panels & Presentations

Jan Tovey presented "Negotiating the Intersection of Instructional Methods in Distance Education and the Traditional Classroom" at the annual conference of Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication (CPTSC), Utah State University, Logan, UT, Oct. 3-5, 2002.  For those interested in the growing trend toward Distance Education (DE), please see the abstract of Tovey's study.

Lorraine Hale Robinson attended the 2002 conference of the Humanities Educators of North Carolina (HENC), held at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.  She participated in the session on distance learning strategies for humanities educators and attended general sessions on the teaching of native American literature and culture.  Robinson is a member of HENC's state-wide steering committee and the subcommittee on finance.  She will be directing the 2004 conference scheduled to be held at East Carolina University.

Celeste Pottier presented her essay, "Hildegard von Bingen: A Drama All Her Own," at the Texas Medieval Association's Twelfth Annual Conference at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Oct. 4-5.  Pottier writes, "A more extraordinary presence than Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) would be difficult, if not impossible, to encounter.  Hildegard's accomplishments are even more remarkable when we consider the age in which she lived, and the fact that she was a woman in a world dominated by men ... . Hildegard wore many hats:  she was a 'mystic,' visionary, prophet, scientist, healer, counselor/advisor, theologian, preacher, writer, musician, and ... dramatist.  Not only is Hildegard credited with writing the first morality (or liturgical) play, but evidence of Hildegard's 'drama' can be seen in other aspects of her life as well.  Some examples include: her untraditional manner of dressing her nuns as brides to take communion; Hildegard's designation of 'roles' for people of all classes; her many dramatic spiritual visions in which she embellishes the pre-existing Biblical story; in her dramatic epistles where she is unafraid of taking high officials to task, often taking on the persona of God Himself; in her celebrity-like status; and even in her extraordinary death."

On Saturday, Oct. 19, Marie Farr spoke on Randall Kenan's A Visitation of Spirits (1989) at the Wake County Public Library in Raleigh as part of the "Let's Talk About It" library speaker series funded by the N.C. Humanities Council.  Kenan's first novel concerns a black North Carolina family and the personal awakening of Horace Ross to the consciousness of his homosexuality and the social struggles that result.  On Thursday, Oct. 24, Farr spoke on Mary Gordon's The Company of Women (1980) at the Tyrrell County Library in Columbia, NC.  Gordon's novel concerns a young woman, Felicitas Maria Taylor, who comes of age at Columbia University in the 1960s after a disastrous affair and seeks true self-definition in the company of women.

On June 21, 2002, Mike Hamer and Marty Silverthorne gave a reading and concert of original poems and songs at the Emerge Gallery in downtown Greenville.  Emerge, founded on April 14, 2001, began as an art student exhibition space, but then quickly evolved into an independent student/artist run gallery with the generous support of Don Edwards, owner of the University Book Exchange, and the hard work of three ECU art students -- Holly Garriott, Leah Foushee, and Christina Miller.  More recently, Hamer gave a presentation on "The Mysticism in Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" to the book club at Cypress Glen Retirement Center on Wednesday, Oct. 2.

Tom Douglass, John Casey, and Greg Bottoms partcipated in a panel entitled "Breece Pancake Remembered" at the West Virginia Book Festival held in Charleston, WV, Oct. 11-12.  The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake has been reissued by Little Brown in collaboration with the Atlantic Monthly Press and continues to be used in creative writing curriculums at Iowa and the University of Virginia.  Pancake died in 1979 at the age of 26.  Douglass's biographical study of Pancake's life and work, A Room Forever, was published by the University of Tennessee Press in 1998.

C.W. Sullivan III presented an invited lecture, "Denis B. Cashman: Irishman, American, Fenian," in the Arts and Humanities Lecture Series at Buffalo State College, March 15, 2002.  The lecture discussed how Cashman's personal view of home changed while his political view of home stayed the same when he was transported from Ireland to Australia in 1867-1868 to serve out his sentence for felony treason.  Arrangements for Sullivan's lecture were made by Dr. Karen Sands-O'Connor, a tenure-track assistant professor at Buffalo State who was an MA student of Sullivan's at Hollins College in 1994.

On October 17, Resa Crane Bizzaro presented "Folkloric Elements of Native American Story and Poetry" at the annual American Folklore Society meeting in Rochester, NY.  Founded in 1888, the Society publishes the quarterly Journal of American Folklore and the bimonthly AFS News.  The 2003 AFS annual meeting, with the theme of "Folk Culture and the Public Domain," will take place on December 8-12, 2003, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Albuquerque, New Mexico.