Panels & Presentations

Allison Green presented "'All the Crown's Men:' British Colonial Caribbean's Driftwoodness in V.S. Naipaul's The Mimic Men and Samuel Selvon's The Lonely Londoners" at the University of Chicago's 14th Annual "Eyes on the Mosaic" Graduate Student Conference held April 21.  About Naipaul's novel from the publisher:  "A profound novel of cultural displacement, The Mimic Men masterfully evokes a colonial man's experience in a postcolonial world.  Born of Indian heritage and raised on a British-dependent Caribbean island, Ralph Singh has retired to suburban London, writing his memoirs as a means to impose order on a chaotic existence. His memories lead him to recognize the paradox of his childhood during which he secretly fantasized about a heroic India, yet changed his name from Ranjit Kripalsingh. As he assesses his short-lived marriage to an ostentatious white woman, Singh realizes what has kept him from becoming a proper Englishman. But it is the return home and his subsequent immersion in the roiling political atmosphere of a newly self-governed nation that ultimately provide Singh with the necessary insight to discover the crux of his disillusionment."  About Selvon and his novel:  Sam Selvon (1923–1994) was a Trinidad-born writer of mixed Trinidadian-European descent who lived in Trinidad, England, and Canada.  His most well-known works are A Brighter Sun (1952), The Lonely Londoners (1956), and Moses Ascending (1975). The Lonely Londoners concerns the immigration of West Indians to Britain in the 1950s and the cultural differences that existed in a fading ideal of white empire. Selvon illustrates the many different cities within London, as it is with any major city, due to class and racial boundaries.  According to critics, his work preceeds the work of Zadie Smith and Hanif Kureishi.

Pat Bizzaro presented "In Our Image: English Departments and the Colonization of Writing in the University" on February 9 at the Southeastern Writing Center Association meeting in Nashville, TN.  The 2007 Conference was titled "Static & (dis)Harmony" and was co-hosted by Middle Tennessee State University and the Tennessee Writing Center Collaborative. At the Brody School of Medicine at ECU, Bizzaro conducted two seminars -- "Results and Discussions: Having a Point and Proving It" on February 8 and "Documenting Sources: Ethics, Rights and Permissions" on February 15. In addition, Bizzaro ran a 6-session "Institute in Teaching Writing Intensive Courses" to 11 faculty from departments around the university from January 16 until February 20. Bizzaro also spoke to the group on "Methods for Evaluating Writing Across the Disciplines." On February 19, he also spoke to Junior North Carolina Teaching Fellows in the Speight Building on "Methods of Evaluating Writing."  For the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Bizzaro delivered an invited lecture, "Writers' Self-Reports, (Com)positioning, and the Recent History of Academic Creative Writing" on February 22.  More recently, Bizzaro delivered a paper at the Conference on College Composition and Communication in New York on March 22 titled "Imitation, Modeling, and Originality in the Creative Writing and Composition Classrooms."

The Emerge Gallery on Evans Street in Greenville hosted several dramatic readings courtesy of Holly Garriott and Bob Siegel.  Readings were held on February 20 for Steven Ackerman's "Fenton and Davis" -- a one-act play in which "two gentleman consider dinner and murder;" a screenplay by Will Cyrus titled "The Sasquatch Show" in which "Mitchell and Dave have shot a Sasquatch and now they're famous," and on April 24 Heather Huston's screenplay "One Night Dream."  Works by Cyrus and Huston were performed as a Masters thesis in creative writing.  For information regarding upcoming events and readings at Emerge Gallery, please see: http://www.emergegallery.com/

Donna Kain presented "Risk and Resilience: Understanding the Complex Role of Community in Communication about Natural Hazard Risks" at the 2007 Annual Conference of the Association of Teachers of Technical Communication in New York.  The presentation focused on the work of a multi-disciplinary research team from East Carolina University including Donna Kain and Catherine Smith, English; Tom Crawford, Geography; John Howard, Communication; and Heather Ward, Coastal Resources Management.  The group is studying the ways that professionals and lay persons access, exchange, and use information about risks and emergencies in coastal North Carolina communities.  Donna Kain also presented "Teaching Conflicts in Professional Writing Courses" at the 2007 Annual Conference on College Composition and Communication held March 19-22 in New York.  The presentation focused on opportunities that courses in technical and business writing provide for students to explore the political implications of professional communication and rhetoric, including globalization, localization, and outsourcing; risk and risk mitigation communication; "corporate-speak" vs. "eco-speak" and others.  The presentation suggested ways to bring these issues into professional writing courses.

Ellen Arnold spoke at the American Comparative Literature Association Conference titled "Trans, Pan, Inter: Cultures in Contact"  in Puebla, Mexico, on April 19-22.  There she delivered a paper on Leslie Marmon Silko's novel Almanac of the Dead for the panel on "The End of Apocalypse."  Arnold's paper focused on Silko's layering of Mayan cosmology, Pueblo creation myth, and chaos theory which, in effect, re-envisions "apocalypse" as the emergence of new forms of knowledge and new epistemologies.

Sherry Southard presented "E-discussion: A Multifaceted Learning Activity" and "Overview and FAQs about Teaching Online" for the 2007 Missouri State's 4th Almost-Annual Conference on the Teaching of Technical Writing held April 27 in Springfield.

Michelle Eble delivered "Rhetorical Engagement: Defining Community-Based Organizational Partnerships" at the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing, New York, in March.  According to Eble: "Based on critical research methodologies informed by cultural studies and rhetorical theory, this presentation provided a discussion of rhetorical engagement, using two examples of community based research, to define the work -- research and/or praxis conducted with community based organizations."  Eble also presented "Digital Delivery and Communication Technologies: Applying Rhetorical Theory to Online Teaching and Learning" at the concurrent Conference on College Composition and Communication in New York.