Off to a New Year!

New Colleagues

The Department of English and Modern Languages is pleased to welcome new and visiting faculty this fall.

 Dr. Elizabeth Canon hails from the Atlanta area. She completed her PhD. in linguistics at the University of Georgia, where her dissertation involved a corpus-based, computer-assisted analysis of verbal patterns in the polemical works of the first translator of a printed English Bible. She is a recognized expert on the Tyndale Corpus.  She also conducts research on the use of dialects of American English to characterize the individuals who speak them, with particular attention to language-based discrimination.  In her teaching, Dr. Canon asks students to conduct their own research on dialect prejudice.  Additional interests: analyzing electronic corpora to examine images in the work of English Reformation authors, innovative word formation in Early Modern English, and analysis of lexical innovations in the writings of medieval German and English mystics.

Dr. Gaywyn Moore completed her PhD. at KU and has returned to the Midwest after teaching in Minnesota. A specialist in British literature before 1800 and Shakespeare, Gaywyn’s dissertation, “Exhuming Henry VIII’s Court: The Tudor Household on the Jacobean Stage,” takes up Henry VIII’s historical significance when England’s government was again undergoing the transition from Elizabeth to James. Her research engages with the fissures in Henry’s household as part of a larger conversation about the queen’s role in the commonwealth and spiritual health of England.  Additional interests are Renaissance literature, drama from ancient Greece to today, and Utopian literature. Dr. Moore values the impact of study abroad, having led students to England and Scotland. Her teaching emphasizes viewing the text within its historical moment, such that students can grasp the connections between historical and contemporary performance of textual theme and description.

Joining us from China, Liu Yiming brings expertise in the relevance of culture in translation. She is currently an instructor of English at the School of Foreign Languages at Xidian University. She is also a researcher with a focus on literary translation. Liu received her M.A. from Northwest University in 2010. Her dissertation was entitled “On Translation of Culture-loaded Words in the Relevance-theoretic Account --- A Case Study of Mo Yan’s novel ‘Big Breasts and Wide Hips.’” . She is fond of teaching and has high expectations for students; she tries to make her classes lively and interesting. In 2012, she ranked second in the SFLEP National Foreign Language Teaching Contest (Shaanxi Division).

Paul Dijkzeul will teach German as a Fulbright scholar this year.  Born and raised in Hamburg, Germany, he has spent the last five years studying in the central German town of Göttingen, which is roughly the size of St. Joseph and also features the lower Saxony State University, where he completed his degrees in Mathematics and English last year. For the last two years, he has been teaching semantics to undergraduate students, which led to teaching English as well. He has come to the US hoping to improve his teaching skills as well as share some of his German culture.  In his free time, he enjoys dancing in a wide variety of styles, from European ballroom dances to Latin American classics. He also serves as chairman of a self-organized student café, where he spends most of his breaks during the day. Besides that, he loves travelling, especially to neighboring European countries.

Summer Celebration

Dr. Marianne Kunkel and husband Dave anticipate the arrival of a bundle of joy later this fall. Colleagues and friends joined in the baby shower hosted by Brooksie Kluge. It is said that delicious food and lovely gifts were enjoyed.

Publications and presentations                            in splendid settings

Kaye Adkins participated in the Rocky Mountain Writers Retreat held July 24-27 at Grand Lake, Colorado. The Retreat brings researchers together in a supportive environment to develop, write, and share projects in professional writing.

Claudine Evans attended the annual convention of the American Association of Teachers of French in Saguenay, Quebec. She moderated a session and presented  "La réforme territoriale en France: enjeux, réactions et activités pédagogiques / French Territorial Reform: issues, reactions, and pedagogical activities."

Susie Hennessy’s book, Consumption, Domesticity, and the Female Body in Emile Zola’s Fiction, was published by the Edwin Mellen Press.