University of Arkansas at Little Rock

Greeting from the MALS Coordinator

Dear MALS alums, students, faculty & friends,
I’m excited to be sending you this inaugural issue of the MALS Newsletter! We hope this will be a wonderful tool for current students, alumns, faculty, and friends of the MALS Program to stay in touch with us and with each other. The newsletter will come out 3 times a year and will include things like:

• Announcements about events in our department and on-campus
• Interviews with faculty, current students or alums
• Updates on activities of current students, faculty and alums
• Noteworthy accomplishments of students, faculty and alums
• And more…
• What would you like to see?

We are especially interested in keeping contact with our alums, and we are doing our best to find you all! Please keep the MALS Program updated with your current physical and email addresses.

News: As some of you know, the Department of Philosophy and Liberal Studies moved! We’re still in Stabler Hall but now we’re on the third floor in a newly renovated space. We’re in Stabler Hall 307. The new office suite has a meeting/lounge area. I hope you’ll stop by and visit us! In addition, the interdisciplinary programs in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences have some shared office and meeting space in Stabler Hall 409. This is where a MALS GA will be housed next academic year. As you can tell, support for interdisciplinary studies continues to grow at the university, and MALS is excited to be part of it.

I hope you enjoy this edition of our MALS newsletter!

For more information or to send us updates, please contact Prof. Angela Hunter, MALS Coordinator, at 501-683-7066 or via email at anhunter@ualr.edu.

Faculty Spotlight

This section will highlight a faculty person who contributes to the MALS Program. Dr. Paul Yoder agreed to be our first interview, and Angelic Saulsberry (MALS GA and student of Dr. Yoder) interviewed him recently.

Could you tell me about your educational background and how you first became interested in your field?

I have a BA in English from Louisiana State University (1980), an MA in English from Ohio State University (1983) and a PhD in English from Duke University (1992). I’ve always liked stories and poems, and sometime in high school I started thinking about the possibility of being a teacher. It seemed like a great way to make a living — reading and talking about what I read.

What made you decide to become a professor?

I’m a first generation college student, so the idea of being a college professor did not really occur to me until I was nearing the end of my BA. I started college as an English Education major, but I felt like I was not being allowed to take as many English classes as I wanted, so I took some time off, and when I went back to college I switched to an English major. I was in the honors program at LSU, and working more closely with the faculty there, I began to see that teaching college was a real possibility.

Could you give me examples of some the research you’ve completed over the years?

I just signed a contract with Edwin Mellen Press for my book on William Blake’s poem, Jerusalem. That has been the core of my work since grad school, but I’ve also published articles on John Milton’s poem “The Passion,” on Samuel Richardson’s novel Clarissa, and other articles on Thomas Gray and William Wordsworth, and I’ve co-edited two essay collections on Alexander Pope. I’m interested in literary history and in problems of narrative and self-consciousness in literature, so much of my research has been informed by these issues. In my work on Blake I have published on the relationship between Blake and Pope, and on Blake’s use of the Bible in his work. I am currently developing some new research on the Romantics’ engagement with John Locke’s Essay concerning Human Understanding.

What is your view on interdisciplinary studies?

As a Blake specialist I assume that interdisciplinarity will be part of my work. Blake was both a poet and a painter, and he incorporated both text and image into his work. In order to engage his work fully, you have to look at the interaction of image and text (what W. J. T. Mitchell calls Blake’s “composite art”), so I’ve always felt pretty comfortable with that sort of interdisciplinarity. Beyond Blake’s work, I’ve also been interested in visual aspects and visual imagery in literature, as well as the way that images can be made to tell stories — one might think of Hogarth’s series paintings here. My interest in literary history has also led me to breach historical disciplinary boundaries. I like to see how different literary periods talk to each other.

What advice do you have for MALS students working on their thesis or final projects?

Start early. Have fun. Stretch your imagination. Write a paragraph every day. I also suggest trying to find new ways to stimulate your own thoughts, to break out of your patterns of thought. I find that collages work well for me. Just collect images and scraps of text and put them next to each other. See what comes out.

Events

Spring 2007 MALS Presentation Forum

MALS held its annual Presentation Forum on April 14, 2007. Graduating students presented brief presentations of their final projects and theses to an audience of their fellow students, faculty and guests. Each student in the MALS program is required to complete a final project or thesis to complete the program. The efforts of these students is the result of several years of coursework and research in their fields.

The event began with an introduction and welcome by MALS coordinator, Dr. Angela Hunter. This was followed by a presentation by student Larry Lachowsky titled “Ethics and Professionalism for the Arkansas Land Surveyor.” Lachowsky’s research combined his study areas of Philosophy and Higher Education, and focused on creating a professionalism and ethics course for the surveyor curriculum in the state.

Katie Butler, whose study areas include English and Art History, chose magical realism as the focus of her thesis. “A.S. Byatt and Kate Breakey: Literature, Art, and the Magical Real” is a comparison of the use of magical and magic realism in literature and art though the works of Byatt and Breakey.

Deborah Hreczkosij, a student of History, Rhetoric, and English, presented her thesis titled “The Great Depression: A Comparative Literature Examination Through the Use of Newbery Award Books.” Hreczkosij analyzed the American depression era of the 1930s by studying children’s books written during and about that time period.

After a brief intermission, George Lea presented his thesis “Taylor Field: A Diamond in the Rough.” Lea, whose areas of study are History and Political Science, presented his research detailing the extensive 68-year history of a beloved Pine Bluff ballpark.

Jane Rampona utilized her studies in Psychology and Social Work and her volunteer experiences for her thesis, “Psycho-Sexual Politics of Life on the Streets: Narratives of Homeless Women and Women who Experienced Homelessness as Children.” Rampona conducted research on homelessness and mental illness, and then conducted a series of interviews with homeless women in the Little Rock area.

The final presenter, Angelic Saulsberry, combined the areas of English, Rhetoric, and Journalism when researching her thesis “Dropping the Soap: Finding and Defining the Soap Opera Genre in Contemporary Television.” Saulsberry’s thesis involves an analysis of the soap opera television genre and its role in the contemporary television landscape.

Notice: 2007 Feminism(s) & Rhetoric Conference at UALR

This national conference will be held in Little Rock next October! It will be an exciting interdisciplinary opportunity for participants and attendees:

Drawing inspiration from the 50th anniversary of Central High’s integration, the Clinton Presidential Library, Heifer Project International & the Clinton School for Public Service, the conference will explore the question of Feminism(s), Rhetoric(s) and Civic Discourse.

The Double Tree Hotel
October 4-6, 2007
For conference information, go to http://femrhet.cwshrc.org/

Update on Admissions

We accepted 4 students who began in Spring 2007. Welcome to the new students—hope you had a great first semester! We are currently in the middle of another admissions cycle for Fall 2007 and look forward to welcoming more strong students into the program.
Do you have a friend, colleague or family member who is seeking a unique educational experience? If you know anyone who may be interested in MALS, please have them contact Dr. Hunter for information about the program. She is also available to give presentations about MALS at professional or club meetings. Help us spread the work about MALS!

Update on Graduation

Join us in congratulating our recent graduates!

• Melvin Beavers graduated in May 2006 with Rhetoric and Writing major area and a double minor area of History and Journalism.
• Doug Weatherly also graduated in May 2006 with an English major area and History minor area.
• Clay Robinson graduated in August 2006 with a major area in Political Science and a triple minor area of Philosophy, History and Rhetoric.
• Kathy Majewska also graduated in August 2006 with a Music major area and a minor area of Rhetoric and Writing.
• Debbie Hreczkosij graduated in May 2007 and has a History major area and a minor area of English and Rhetoric.

Look for the summer graduates in our next newsletter!

Current Students: Accomplishments

These are a few recent accomplishments of current MALS students. If you’re a current student and you’d like us to showcase an accomplishment of yours, be sure to let us know.

• Regina Gibson received an award from the 11th Annual Harambee Awards Celebration to recognize and celebrate the achievements of minority students for GPAs of at least 3.25 for Undergrads and 3.9 for Grads.
• Jayme Butts-Hall presented a paper about Father Damien at the Phi Alpha Theta Regional Conference (History students’ national honor society) in March 2006. The paper was entitled “Father Damien and the Lepers of Molokai.”
• Vikki Hillis presented some of her recent research at the 7th Annual Curriculum and Pedagogy Conference in October 2006.
• George Lea was inducted into Alpha Epsilon Lambda graduate school honor society.
• Angelic Saulsberry is currently the Features Editor for the UALR Forum newspaper.

Alumnae Updates

Ever wonder what MALS students do after they graduate? Here is a sampling of current positions and noteworthy items about our MALS alums!

If you’re an alum and would like to send in news or noteworthy events (or if our below information is no longer current), please contact us (anhunter@ualr.edu)

Melvin Beavers is an adjunct instructor in the Rhetoric and Writing Department at UALR. He presented some of his thesis research in April 2007 at the Popular Culture Association Conference in Boston, Mass.

Elaine Corum is a writer and a full-time instructor in writing and reading in the University of Central Arkansas’s University College. She also co-hosts a radio show, “Tales From the South,” on KUAR–89.1. “Tales from the South” is a show where Arkansans tell their true stories. She is currently co-editing a book of stories from her radio show’s first year, Tales from the South: Volume I.

Terry Espino-Bright is currently teaching at National Park Community College.

Britney Finley is an instructor in the UALR Health Science department. In addition, she is pursuing her EDD in the higher education department.

Sheila Glasscock teaches drama at Pulaski Academy.

Nancy Griffin is currently a music instructor in the UALR music department.

Dr. Steven A. Jauss is an assistant professor of philosophy in UALR’s Philosophy and Liberal Studies department. He recently published “Associationism and Taste Theory in Archibald Aliston’s Essays” in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism in the Fall 2006 issue.

Brian Kinder writes music, teaches, and performs in and around Little Rock. www.kindersongs.com

Laurie Vescovo is an instructor in the UALR Health Science department.

Doug Weatherly was awarded a Chapman Distinguished PhD fellowship to attend University of Tulsa (English Language and Literature Department). www.cas.utulsa.edu/english/graduate.htm

Lance Watson is currently working as a programmer/web designer at eDocAmerica.com