University of Arkansas at Little Rock

Jeremy Scott Ecke, PhD

Educational Background

PhD, Linguistic Emphasis, University of California at Berkeley, 2009
BA, Highest Honors, University of California at Davis, 2000

Teaching and Research Positions

• Assistant Professor of English, Belmont University, 2010-2012
• Holloway Postdoctoral Fellow in Poetry and Poetics, UC Berkeley, 2009-2010

Areas of Focus

Literary Linguistics, The History and Structure of English, Poetics, and Medieval Literature

Selected Presentations

• “Translating the Feminine in Anglo-Saxon Literature,” Liberating Voices: Negotiating the
  Challenges of Representing the Other. Belmont Humanities Symposium, September 2011.
• “Sound, Play, and Poetics in the History of English,” Creativity and Invention in Teaching,
  5th Annual Teaching Center Symposium. Belmont University, August 2011.
• “The Development of Form & Genre in 15th & 16th Century Alliterative Verse,” International
  Congress on Medieval Studies. Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, May 2011.
• “Voice and Performance in Anglo-Saxon Poetry,” Sewanee Medieval Colloquium, Voice, Gesture,
  Memory, and Performance in Medieval Texts, Culture, and Art. April 2011.
• “The Metrical Imagination,” The Marco Manuscript Workshop. Department of English,
  University of Tennessee, February 2011.
• “The Riddle of Reading Runes & Intertextuality in the Franks Casket,” God is in the Details:
  A Reflection on Methodology in the Humanities. Università degli Studi di Milano,
  June 2010.

Current Projects

• Dr Ecke is currently revising his recent presentations on runic interpretation, alliterative style, and the transmission of the feminine in Anglo-Saxon literature for publication. He is also working on a metrical treatise and an anthology of alliterative verse that will trace the formal and cultural lineage of the alliterative tradition from Old to Modern English, with particular attention to historical, national, and dialectical innovations.

Nicole Seymour, PhD

Educational Background

PhD, Vanderbilt University
MA, Vanderbilt University
BA, University of California at Los Angeles

Areas of Focus

Modern American and British Literature, Environmental Studies, Queer Theory, Gender and Women’s Studies, Film Studies, Social Justice

Selected Publications

• ‘It’s Just Not Turning Up’: Cinematic Vision and Environmental Justice in Todd Haynes’ Safe.” Cinema Journal 50.4 (2011): 26-47.
• “Somatic Syntax: Replotting the Developmental Narrative in Carson McCullers’s The Member of the Wedding.” Studies in the Novel 41.3 (Fall 2009): 293-313.
• Strange Natures: The Ecological Imagination of Contemporary Queer Fictions (book manuscript).
• “Irony and Contemporary Ecocinema: Theorizing a New Affective Paradigm.” Moving Environments: Affect, Emotion, Ecology and Film. Ed. Alexa Weik von Mossner. Forthcoming from Wilfred Laurier UP.

Laura Barrio-Vilar, PhD

Educational Background

PhD, University of Kentucky
MA, University of Kentucky
BA, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela

Areas of Focus

African-American Literature, Ethnic Literature, Post-colonial Studies, and Gender and Women’s Studies

Selected Publications

• “Racial Uplift Ideology and Black Womanhood in Frances Harper’s Serialized Novels.” Popular Nineteenth-Century American Women Writers and the Literary Marketplace. Eds. Earl Yarington and Mary De Jong. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars, 2007. 405-31.
• “Getting a Taste of the Other: The Eighteenth-Century British Novel as the Epitome of Masquerade.” Cultura, Lenguaje y Representación / Culture, Language and Representation 1 (May 2004): 55-67.
• “Narrating the African Self in the Late Eighteenth Century: Issues of Voice, Authority, and Identity in Gronniosaw’s 1770 Narrative.” Journal of Kentucky Studies 20 (September 2003): 117-22.
• “Narrating the Slave Self in the Americas: Issues of Authority, Voice, and Identity in Cuban Narratives of Slavery.” Journal of Caribbean Studies 17.1-2 (Summer-Fall 2002): 33-50.

Nickole Brown, MFA

Educational Background

MFA, Vermont College of the Fine Arts
English Speaking Union Scholar, Oxford University
BA, summa cum laude, English, University of Louisville

Areas of Focus

Creative Writing, Poetry Writing, Form and Theory of Poetry

Awards

• National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship
• The 2010 Orlando Prize for Poetry from A Room of Her Own Foundation
• Three Artist Enrichment Grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women
• Al Smith Individual Artist Support Grant
• Individual Artist Professional Development Grant from the Kentucky Arts Council
• 2008 ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year finalist

Selected Publications

Author

• A Book of Birds: Poems (manuscript in progress)
• Sister: A Novel-in-Poems (Red Hen Press, 2007)

Co-editor

• All of Us, by Elisabeth Frost (The Marie Alexander Poetry Series of White Pine Press, 2011)
• Angles of Approach, by Holly Iglesias (The Marie Alexander Poetry Series of White Pine Press, 2010)
• Cut Away: A Novel, by Catherine Kirkwood (Arktoi Books of Red Hen Press, 2010)
• Air Fare: Stories, Poems & Essays on Flight (Sarabande Books, 2004)

Kris McAbee, PhD

Educational Background

PhD, University of California at Santa Barbara
MA, New York University
BS, Vanderbilt University

Areas of Focus

Renaissance British Literature, Print History, Digital Humanities

Selected Publications

• “‘No public glory vainly I pursue’: The Paradox of Printing Sonneteers.” Early Modern Culture 8 (2010)
• “Vexed Impressions: Towards a Digital Archive of Broadside Ballad Illustrations” (with Patricia Fumerton) in New Technologies in Medieval and Renaissance Studies 3 (ITER, 2011): 259-87.
• “Broadside Ballads” in The Encyclopedia of English Renaissance Literature (Blackwell, 2011): 104-08.
• “Love Pleasant” and “Humours, Frollicks, etc.” in Broadside Ballads from the Pepys Collection. Forthcoming from ACMRS.

Dr. James Levernier

Reaching Out for Student Success

His colleague, Dr. Moira Maguire, described Dr. James A. Levernier as the very definition of a master teacher.

“Many teachers like to believe they change students’ lives, but few garner the kinds of praise that make the claim a reality,” she said. “The four former students of Jim Levernier’s, who wrote letters on his behalf, all identify this amazing quality in him.”

The professor of English is a noted scholar who has published quintessential texts in his field. However, his main true impact is his work mentoring students, particularly those whom statistics predicted would never reach their true potential.

“Dr. Levernier stands apart in that he has produced exceptional scholars not only from obviously bright and talented students but also from those students whose potential everybody else doubted,” said Jay Jensen, a 2009 UALR graduate and now an M.A. student at the University of Chicago.

In addition to his classload and scholarly responsibilities, Levernier has been an active participant in the McNair Scholars Program since it was established at UALR. Because McNair students often require extra patience and guidance, most mentors work with a single student. Levernier routinely mentors two students.

“As a student in three of (Levernier’s) American literature courses, I witnessed the stunning transformation of numerous students who imagined that they had little hope of graduating and pursuing successful careers until they ended up in his classroom,” Jensen said.

Levernier first came to UALR 35 years ago. He earned a B.A. degree in English from Marquette University in 1971 and an M.A. degree in 1973 and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1975.

Patricia Smith, Pushcart Prize winner and four-time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam, read her works at 6 p.m. Monday, Feb. 6, 2012 in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall in UALR’s Fine Arts Building. Smith is the author of six books of poetry. Her books include “Blood Dazzler” that chronicled the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina and was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award. It also became one of National Public Radio’s top five books of 2008. She also wrote “Teahouse of the Almighty,” a National Poetry Series selection, and “Shoulda Been Jimmie Savannah,” which is due for release spring 2012. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, TriQuarterly, Tin House, and both Best American Poetry 2011 and Best American Essays 2011. Smith has read her work at venues around the world, including the Poets Stage in Stockholm, Rotterdam’s Poetry International Festival, the Aran Islands International Poetry and Prose Festival, and on tour in Germany, Austria, and Holland.

In the U.S., she has performed at Carnegie Hall, Bumbershoot, the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and St. Mark’s Poetry Project. She has shared the stage with noted writers such as Adrienne Rich, Sharon Olds, Rita Dove, Joyce Carol Oates, Allen Ginsberg, Walter Mosley, Gwendolyn Brooks, Billy Collins, Galway Kinnell, and “Lord of the Rings” star Viggo Mortensen.

Smith is a professor of English at the City University of New York/College of Staten Island, and she is also a faculty member of both Cave Canem, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit home for black poets, and Sierra Nevada College.

The reading was sponsored by UALR’s William G. Cooper Jr. Honors Program in English.

On Sept. 20, the Departments of English and Rhetoric and Writing hosted a reading by local author Kevin Brockmeier. Brockmeier read from his latest novel, “The Illumination,” where a person’s wounds or illness begins to illuminate for everyone to see. The characters are no longer able hide their pains from the world.

His other novels include “The Brief History of the Dead,” “The Truth About Celia,” two story collections, “Things That Fall From the Sky” and “The View From the Seventh Layer,” and two books aimed at younger readers, “City of Names” and “Grooves: A Kind of Mystery.” He has also received the O. Henry Award three times, a Guggenheim Fellowship and an NEA grant among others. He also has taught at UALR and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Brockmeier, who lives in Little Rock, read to a crowd of about 150 in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall and signed books afterward. Marcia Smith, instructor of rhetoric and writing and associate director of the Donaghey Scholars Program, said that she once asked Brockmeier to meet with her book club in Hot Springs. “I told him there were only 15 people in the club, but he said that was okay and was happy to do it,” she said.

At the end of his reading, Brad Minnick, associate professor of English, told the crowd that Brockmeier was a “meticulous keeper of lists.” As evidence, Brockmeier announced that he had brought copies of a list of his 50 favorite books of all time to share with the audience. The list was organized alphabetically by author’s last time, and he put an asterisk beside his favorite books.

Charles Anderson, professor of rhetoric and writing, said that Brockmeier’s writing is a literary feast. “When I read ‘The Illumination,’ there were times that I could read only a few pages in a sitting, because there was so much to digest,” said Anderson. “His writing offers the kind of stylistic experience that forces readers to simply stop now and again to absorb and fully appreciate the beauty of the language.”

Dr. Zabelle Stodola Wins the 2010-11 College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Research Award

Nationally recognized in the field of Early American Studies, Dr. Zabelle Stodola has been described as “the premier scholar” in this field. Her research of American women writers has evolved into a focused study of the captivity narrative. A colleague stated: “Dr. Stodola’s work . . . her many presentations, articles, and books made possible the tremendous explosion in thinking and writing about American captivity that has occurred over the past two decades.”

Dr. Stodola’s monograph, The War in Words: Reading the Dakota Conflict through the Captivity Literature, has garnered an impressive array of positive reviews from scholarly publications, including the American Literature and American Indian Culture and Research Journal. She is co-editing a narrative for a new book that will be published next year.

A professor of English, her skill and persistence in pursuit of excellence in her research field are thoroughly integrated with her teaching and service scholarship. She has chaired both the campus-wide and college-level Undergraduate Research Committees, served as director of the William G. Cooper Jr. Honors Program in English, and served on editorial boards for prestigious journals.

A founding member of the Society of Early Americanists, Dr. Stodola received both a Ph.D. and an M.A. degree from Pennsylvania State University and a B.A. degree from the University of Kent at Canterbury, England.

English Students Gain Publishing Industry Insights from The Oxford American

What is it like to work at a major literary journal? How can an English major gain a foothold in the publishing industry? What’s the best way to submit story ideas or manuscripts?

Those questions and many more were topics of conversation as Carol Ann Fitzgerald, Managing Editor of The Oxford American, accompanied by Wes Enzinna, Associate Editor, visited with UALR English students on a rainy day in March.

A few weeks earlier in February, the Publisher of The Oxford American, Warwick Sabin, offered his insights on the topic of magazines in the digital age. View the entire video below.

Laura Barrio-Vilar, PhD

Educational Background

PhD, University of Kentucky
MA, University of Kentucky
BA, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela

Areas of Focus

African-American Literature, Ethnic Literature, Post-colonial Studies, and Gender and Women’s Studies

Selected Publications

• “Racial Uplift Ideology and Black Womanhood in Frances Harper’s Serialized Novels.” Popular Nineteenth-Century American Women Writers and the Literary Marketplace. Eds. Earl Yarington and Mary De Jong. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars, 2007. 405-31.
• “Getting a Taste of the Other: The Eighteenth-Century British Novel as the Epitome of Masquerade.” Cultura, Lenguaje y Representación / Culture, Language and Representation 1 (May 2004): 55-67.
• “Narrating the African Self in the Late Eighteenth Century: Issues of Voice, Authority, and Identity in Gronniosaw’s 1770 Narrative.” Journal of Kentucky Studies 20 (September 2003): 117-22.
• “Narrating the Slave Self in the Americas: Issues of Authority, Voice, and Identity in Cuban Narratives of Slavery.” Journal of Caribbean Studies 17.1-2 (Summer-Fall 2002): 33-50.

Nickole Brown, MFA

Educational Background

MFA, Vermont College of the Fine Arts
English Speaking Union Scholar, Oxford University
BA, summa cum laude, English, University of Louisville

Areas of Focus

Creative Writing, Poetry Writing, Form and Theory of Poetry

Awards

• National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship
• The 2010 Orlando Prize for Poetry from A Room of Her Own Foundation
• Three Artist Enrichment Grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women
• Al Smith Individual Artist Support Grant
• Individual Artist Professional Development Grant from the Kentucky Arts Council
• 2008 ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year finalist

Selected Publications

Author

• A Book of Birds: Poems (manuscript in progress)
• Sister: A Novel-in-Poems (Red Hen Press, 2007)

Co-editor

• All of Us, by Elisabeth Frost (The Marie Alexander Poetry Series of White Pine Press, 2011)
• Angles of Approach, by Holly Iglesias (The Marie Alexander Poetry Series of White Pine Press, 2010)
• Cut Away: A Novel, by Catherine Kirkwood (Arktoi Books of Red Hen Press, 2010)
• Air Fare: Stories, Poems & Essays on Flight (Sarabande Books, 2004)

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