Colin Rafferty has published an essay on Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Kansas, She Said, Is the Name of the Star (#34),” in the newest issue of Bennington Review. He also participated in a discussion regarding nonfiction writing, historical commemoration, and monuments through Fountain Bookstore in Richmond with Connor Towne O'Neill, author of Down Along with That Devil’s Bones: A Reckoning with Monuments, Memory, and the Legacy of White Supremacy. The video of the talk is available here. … [Read more...]

Colin Rafferty, Associate Professor of English, has his second book, Execute the Office: Essays with Presidents, scheduled for publication on February 9, 2021, by Baobab Press. Rafferty's book is described on the Baobab Press website: Colin Rafferty’s Execute the Office uses lyric prose and formal invention to explore the humanity, or lack thereof, that thrived in each of the forty-five American presidents. Whether these powerful individuals were celebrated for infamous deeds and heroism, or forgotten as placeholders in the annals of American history, too often presidents are commemorated by the sterility of simple fact. Execute the Office builds upon factual accuracy with essays that are equally invested in lyrical writing and experimental forms. To balance these factions, Execute the Office uses constraint, metaphor, allusion, and epiphany to explore not just the facts and artifacts of history, but describe the connections between those facts and human nature in thought-provoking … [Read more...]

Professor of English Chris Foss has published a book chapter entitled “‘Here There Be Monsters’: Mapping Novel Representations of the Relationship between Disability and Monstrosity in Recent Graphic Narratives and Comic Books” in The Routledge Companion to Literature and Disability, a significant new collection of essays edited by Alice Hall that according to the press “brings together some of the most influential and important contemporary perspectives in this growing field” of disability studies. Notable names among the contributors include Elizabeth Donaldson, Chris Gabbard, Leon Hilton, Petra Kuppers, David Mitchell, Michael Northen, Sami Schalk, and Jess Waggoner. Foss’s chapter argues that three recent comics texts each present an instructive range of ambiguous, disabling, but above all enabling possibilities where the nexus of disability and monstrosity is concerned: the highly praised comics collections Monstress [Volumes 1 and 2] by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda (2016-17), … [Read more...]

Antonio Barrenechea, Professor of English, recently published "Dracula as Inter-American Film Icon: Universal Pictures and Cinematográfica ABSA" in "Review of International American Studies," the flagship journal of the International American Studies Association. The publication is available online. … [Read more...]

A book chapter by Brenta Blevins, Assistant Professor of English, was recently published in Modern Language Association's Writing Changes: Alphabetic Text and Multimodal Composition, a collection edited by Pegeen Reichert Powell. Blevins’ chapter, “Of Writing and the Future: An Essay on Augmented Reality Composition,” makes the point that Augmented Reality (AR) not only incorporates but depends upon traditional alphabetic literacy. That link between traditional and emerging literacy practices suggests prior knowledge can aid those composing in unfamiliar media, including in media that do not yet exist. This chapter further argues that contemporary AR functions within essayistic traditions begun hundreds of years ago with Michel de Montaigne.     … [Read more...]

Maya Mathur's book chapter “Identities” was published in the volume A Cultural History of Comedy in the Early Modern Age by Bloomsbury Academic. The chapter examines the literary origins of early modern comic characters and considers how their representation is informed by the sexual, economic, and religious mores of their time. … [Read more...]

Antonio Barrenechea, professor of English, recently published a review of Richard Cándida Smith’s “Improvised Continents: Pan-Americanism and Cultural Exchange” in the prestigious Journal of American Studies. The review is available online.   … [Read more...]

Elizabeth Johnson-Young's co-authored manuscript "Understanding Pediatric Residents' Communication Decisions Regarding Anticipatory Guidance About Firearms" was recently published in Journal of Health Communication. The article is now available on their website and will appear in the next print version. The study was co-authored with emergency pediatricians and investigates decisions of pediatricians to counsel on firearm safety during well-child visits, as recommended by organizations, such as the AAP. Using concepts from the Theory of Planned Behavior and the Health Belief Model, ordinary least squares regression testing and a path analysis demonstrated the impact of several variables on the prioritization of firearm counseling, including pediatrician sex, perceptions of parental viewpoints on, self-efficacy, perceptions of training, and comfort discussing firearms. Future plans include further study, as well as training material for residential programs. … [Read more...]

Antonio Barrenechea, Professor of English, recently published a review essay in the journal American Literature. The review discusses recent developments in the literature of the Americas field, with attention to three recent books: The Poetry of the Americas: From Good Neighbors to Countercultures (Feinsod), Anxieties of Experience: The Literatures of the Americas from Whitman to Bolaño (Lawrence), and Whiteness on the Border: Mapping the U.S. Racial Imagination in Brown and White (Bebout).   … [Read more...]