Angela Fulk's Statement

Angela Fulk, Buffalo State College SUNY:

I am an adjunct faculty member at SUNY Buffalo State and Canisius College, both located in Buffalo, NY, where I teach a variety of courses in English, Classics, and writing.  My Ph.D., from Miami University in Ohio, is in medieval British literature, with a secondary field in nineteenth-century British literature.  In this Fall 2014 semester, which is a fairly typical one for me, I am teaching five different courses that range from basic writing to first-year Latin to a graduate seminar in medieval literature.  I have presented twice at NeMLA, once in 2008 on Harry Potter and fan fiction, and most recently in 2013, when I received a C.A.I.T.Y. travel award to present a paper entitled “Earthly and Heavenly Kings as War Leaders in the Anglo-Saxon Genesis Poem.”

At the 2008 NeMLA conference, I attended an academic employment workshop.  When I explained my status as the spouse of a tenured faculty member seeking a tenure-track or at least full-time academic position that would not require me to live in a separate city from my husband, the workshop leader told me, “You don’t need job counseling—you need crisis counseling!” Well, the crisis continues for many of us, but I am hoping that by volunteering to serve on the NeMLA board, I can help alleviate the crisis for others like me.  

Regional conferences like NeMLA are especially important venues for contingent and adjunct faculty who do not receive travel funds from their employers, and whose salaries rarely allow them to travel far from home for professional activities.  I am eager to help NeMLA in a Professional Development capacity to do all I can to help these  scholars, who may only have the resources to attend one professional conference every two or three years, to benefit as much as possible from coming to NeMLA.     

Christopher Varlack's Statement

Christopher Varlack, Morgan State University:

For the past two academic years, I, Christopher Allen Varlack, have served as a lecturer in the Department of English and Language Arts at Morgan State University in Baltimore, MD, where I have taught courses in Freshman Composition and Humanities. While pursuing my doctoral degree in American Literature at Morgan State University, I have been an avid scholar in the areas of African-American literature and culture (with an emphasis on works of the early Harlem Renaissance) while focusing more recently on professional development and trends in both pedagogical and institutional change. For instance, I presented alongside two colleagues at the 17^th annual regional HBCU Summit on Retention in March 2014 on the increased role of composition instructors in addressing student retention issues. I have also organized a panel for the October 2014 Two-Year College English Association Conference on establishing ongoing collaborative partnerships between two-year and four-year institutions as a means of facilitating student success. In addition to forthcoming chapters in several collections such as Baby Boomers and Popular Culture: An Inquiry into America’s Most Powerful Generation (2014), I have an article under consideration with the Journal of Pan African Studies on reimagining pedagogical and institutional practices for humanities education in urban learning environments. This focus on pedagogy and professional life are part of the reason I am eager to serve as Member-At-Large for Professional Development with NeMLA.

In large part, the core focus of the Northeast Modern Language Association remains the promotion of innovation in teaching and scholarship across the areas of language and literature. Through both its cultural conversation and intense pedagogical exchange (in a tradition spanning forty-five past conventions), NeMLA strives to remain at the precipice of new research that will increase our understanding of the texts, languages, and cultures we engage. In the 45th annual convention located in Harrisburg, PA, for instance, I participated in a panel on literary tales of identity (re)construction, presenting a paper on racial indeterminacy and the politics of passing in James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. The panel, filled with four dynamic speakers and stimulating papers, embodied that mission to the core, bringing increased attention to under-represented texts while offering new perspectives for further research. I also had the opportunity to present on a roundtable on ethnic relations, identities, and social equality in diasporic Afro-literature, presenting on the rise of the New Negro artist and themes of social equality in the works of Jessie Redmon Fauset and Langston Hughes. Though relatively new to NeMLA, I am eager to continue surrounding myself with the types of engaged critical discussion that each NeMLA panel, roundtable, and creative session evokes. I am also eager to participate in the strengthening of NeMLA’s professional development programs as Member-at-Large.

In that regard, the areas of pedagogy and professional life are topics of increased debate and necessity at conventions such as NeMLA given the mounting issues of higher education in the twenty-first century. Perusing the list of planned panels for the 46^th annual convention, we are set to engage in critical conversation regarding key topics from writing across the disciplines to current issues in grammar instruction to engaging the online sector and digital Humanities. Still, the area of professional development could be much stronger. Increased attention should be given to bridging the gap between two-year and four-year institutions given the presidential push for eight million new college graduates by the year 2020. Similarly, more conversation should surround the growing role of adjunct faculty in higher education, methods toward approaching a more interdisciplinary pedagogy, and facilitating the professional growth of graduate students pursuing a Humanities PhD. As Member-at-Large, I intend to advocate for expansion in these areas and more in order to continue the tradition of promoting sessions and initiatives that will address the very real issues of a changing academic world. After all, the continued growth of the higher education system nationwide and the challenges this will bring on NeMLA as a center for facilitating such vital discussions demand a vocal and dedicated Member-at-Large. I strive to be that voice of sustained progress and change.

Lisa Perdigao's Statement

Lisa K. Perdigao is an Associate Professor of English at the Florida Institute of Technology. Her research and teaching interests are in the areas of American literature, young adult literature, television, film, and Florida culture. In cultural studies, she has published articles on Florida/Disney studies and the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dollhouse, and Community. She has pieces forthcoming this year on several films and series, including Nolan’s Memento and Inception, Burton’s Big Fish, Whedon’s Firefly and Serenity, ABC’s Once Upon a Time, and NBC’s Grimm. She has developed a curriculum in cultural studies at Florida Tech, designing courses in television, film, and film/television adaptation that she teaches each semester.

Perdigao first joined NeMLA in 2003 while in the Ph.D. program at Northeastern University, and, despite a migration south, she has attended every NeMLA convention for the past twelve years. In addition to chairing sessions and presenting papers, she has worked with NeMLA’s Board in a variety of roles, starting as the elected representative from the Women’s and Gender Studies Caucus (2006-2009), working with the WGSC officers and Board members to promote the Caucus’ membership and activities. She later served as the caucus liaison to the Executive Board (2010-2011), promoting the interests of all the caucuses—WGSC, Graduate Student, LGBTQ, and CAITY. Most recently, Perdigao served as the Special Programs Coordinator (2012-2013), planning, advertising, and overseeing special events for the 2013 convention. 

The Culture and New Media Studies area is a particularly dynamic one. In all the years of her work with NeMLA, Perdigao has focused both on programming and on the vitality of the individual communities within the whole organization, and she will bring that experience and commitment to the area director’s position. She plans to work with board members, for example, to promote workshops in the digital humanities, grant opportunities involving new media, and special sessions/guest speakers in adaptation, graphic novels, and visual culture, in addition to helping NeMLA continue to grow with new media.

Lindsay Bryde's Statement

Lindsay Bryde, Suffolk County Community College:

My name is Lindsay Bryde, and I am a writer and teacher with a myriad of degrees from Fredonia State University (English, Theatre, Film Studies, and American Studies if you really are curious). I finished my Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing, specializing in Dramatic Writing, at Adelphi University. My film and book reviews can be found on The Examiner.com and FlashlightWorthy.com. I have contributed a chapter to the collection, Torchwood: Declassified, that was published last year by I.B. Taurus. My produced work as a playwright includes: “Killing Cupid, Ok,” “Isobel, I Wish You Well,” "The Naked Man," and “Music for the Pain.” Currently I am an adjunct faculty member of Suffolk County Community College, Mandl School, Southern New Hampshire University, and Ashford University. I have presented at conferences held by the Popular Culture Association of the South (thrice), Fordham University, and the New England American Studies Association (four times) in addition to my work with NEMLA.

I have chaired four (soon to be five) panels, seminars, and roundtables on pop culture studies and pedagogy for NEMLA. This is why I am campaigning for the position of Director of Cultural and Media Studies; it is my passion as an academic discipline and I believe that my interdisciplinary approach will serve the organization well. I am a firm believer in cross-disciplinary work when the opportunity arises, as evidenced by each panel I’ve chaired being cross-listed with at least one other field (and could have been listed with others if the system would have allowed). It allows for a wider pool of inquiry and diversity to the panelists themselves (in terms of discipline and career). I also make a concerted effort to open opportunities for first-time panelists, grad students, early career (adjunct or full-time) faculty, and encourage others to do the same. I want to work with the caucuses and other academic areas to develop programming that can appeal to as broad a range as possible.

In any panel (seminar, roundtable, etc…) that I coordinate, I believe in a personalized approach to communicating with everyone that I encounter. We can only grow as an organization if every applicant for a panel feels like their efforts are being recognized and encouraged. The information and development of communication with our chairs is a vital step to the process. The guidance and support of the director stood out when I chaired my first panel, it’s key to staying on track and ensuring a positive experience for everyone. This is why I’m eager to take on the role and pass on what I’ve learned. These are my priorities: interdisciplinary work when applicable, opening opportunities to members across the board, and support to chairs. 

Richard Schumaker's Statement

Richard Schumaker, University of Maryland University College:

Richard Schumaker brings considerable national and international experience, a solid academic background and accomplishments, and very considerable administrative success to his candidacy for the position of NeMLA Director of Comparative Literature and Languages.

Professor Schumaker was originally educated at the University of California and the University of Paris-IV (Sorbonne), from which he holds three graduate degrees.    In Paris, he worked directly with Michel Haar, Henri, Birault, and Emmanuel Levinas.  His main area of interest was the reflection of Nietzsche and Heidegger on modern literature.

For over twenty years, Richard taught a wide-range of humanities courses for the University of Maryland University College in Italy and Germany.  During his time in Europe, he edited and co-edited Focus on Robert Graves and His Contemporaries and helped organize many conferences on Graves, as well as conferences and colloquia on the culture of the Great War and global cinema.  He also taught American political culture and aspects of the research process in the University of Trier’s “Fachspezifische Fremdsprachenausbildung” program.

Starting in the mid-1990’s, Richard Schumaker played a leading role in developing the teaching of online writing and humanities courses for the University of Maryland in Europe.  In 2004, he returned to Metropolitan Washington, D.C. to work as a UMUC administrator and subsequent senior fellow in preparing faculty to teach online classes rigorously and effectively.   From 2004 through 2014 he continued to teach and write, concentrating on the teaching of advanced Shakespeare classes.  In the last two years, he has presented at the International Comparative Literature Conference in Paris (AILC 2013) and at the International Zola Conference in New Orleans (AIZEN 2014), as well as the latest NeMLA conferences at Boston and Harrisburg.  

Richard has received many awards and held many national positions over the years:  Maryland Distance Learning Association President, Maryland Administrator of the Year, University of Maryland University College Presidential Award, UMUC representative to the state academic senate (CUSF), and others.

As director of this NeMLA program, Richard will focus on the following goals:

·         Presenting avenues of scholarship that reflect current global academic trends and practices

·         Developing areas such as distance learning, accessibility, and working-adult themes and practices

·         Integrating contemporary social media into our programs and offerings

·         Developing approaches to literatures and cultures that might ordinarily be neglected

John Casey's Statement

John Casey is Lecturer in English at the University of Illinois at Chicago.  His research focuses on the legacy of the United States Civil War and representations of veterans in American culture.  He has published essays on these topics in American Literary Realism and Civil War History and has a book forthcoming in the spring of 2015 titled New Men: Reconstructing the Image of the Veteran in Late Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Culture (Fordham University Press).

Scholars in the fields of American and British literature are experiencing significant changes to the ways in which they research and teach their subject areas.  My own research would have been substantially more difficult were it not for the growing digital archive of newspapers and other periodicals from the nineteenth-century United States that helped open a window onto the cultural moment examined in my book.  These same digital resources have begun to alter the way I teach students in the classroom.  Increasingly our text is a hypertext with interactive components that not only explain the words on the page but bring the text to life.  Writing assignments have also begun to migrate online, forcing me to consider the next phase in the life of the college literature essay. 

If elected as American/British Literatures Director for NEMLA, I would advocate for panels that explore the impact of technological advancements on our profession.  How have online resources changed the ways in which you understand scholarly “research” in the fields of American and British literature?  What is the future of the literary essay in our classrooms?  What role does the “authoritative” text play in our teaching and research and how much longer can we count on there being such a thing?  How are developments in technology changing (or not changing) the way we present our research at scholarly conferences and why?  These questions are central to the future of our profession.  We should, therefore, be at the forefront of analyzing and directing this change.

Michael Blouin's Statement

Michael J. Blouin is an Assistant Professor in English and the Humanities at Milligan College. His work has appeared in peer-reviewed journals including Extrapolation and The Journal of American Studies, among others. His monograph, Japan and the Cosmopolitan Gothic: Specters of Modernity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), analyzes the depictions of Japan as a supernatural entity in American literature and film. He also recently led a successful effort to launch an Honors Program at Milligan College, a program that he currently co-directs.

Background with NeMLA:

I have participated in the NeMLA annual conferences for the past five years. I have chaired a number of panels on topics ranging from Nuclear Criticism in the United States to Charles Brockden Brown. My goal for serving on the Board of Directors is to continue to strengthen the organization. From working the registration table to serving on the Book Award Committee to fielding question/concerns following a conference, I am willing and eager to assist in any capacity. While I look forward to learning from the diverse members of the Board, I believe that my experiences as a chairperson at the conference as well as the designer/co-director of Milligan’s Honors Program positions me well to work on behalf of the organization. Thank you for your consideration.

Mark Fulk's Statement

Mark Fulk, Buffalo State College SUNY :

I am an associate professor with a specialty in Eighteenth-Century British Literature and Feminist and Queer Studies.  I have published one book (Understanding May Sarton, University of South Carolina Press, 2001) and articles on various topics including John Dryden, Charlotte Smith, Jane Austen, Stephen Sondheim, and Philip Roth.  I am currently working on a book-length study of Susan Sontag's essays.  I been at SUNY Buffalo State for 13 years.  I have served on various conference organizing bodies, including being executive president of The Aphra Behn Society for Women in the Arts, 1660-1830.  In my capacity on these various boards, I have helped to organize seven academic conferences.  I am interested in serving on the NeMLA board because I have attended several NeMLA conferences and find them very high quality and want to continue this tradition.  In particular, I would like to see more of a space made at NeMLA for discussion and application of Literary Theory and Aesthetic Philosophy, as many of us use this material in significant ways in our writing and teaching.

Maria DiFrancesco's Statement

Maria DiFrancesco is Associate Professor of Spanish in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Ithaca College (Ithaca, NY). DiFrancesco holds a Ph.D. from the University at Buffalo, where she studied in what is now the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures. While attending the University at Buffalo, DiFrancesco specialized in 20^th and 21^st century Spanish literature. Her teaching interests range from elementary Spanish grammar and composition to contemporary Spanish culture, literature and film. In her present position at Ithaca College, DiFrancesco has taught diverse courses, from one-credit modules affiliated with the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival (FLEFF) and classes in the Women’s and Gender Studies program, to Ithaca College Seminars, which are courses geared to first-year students who are transitioning from high school to college life. Most recently, DiFrancesco has shown a burgeoning interest in the digital humanities, and as such, she has been working with various student groups on projects where students learn how to tell stories and write poetry in the target language using a combination of tablet and phone apps as well as video cameras.

DiFrancesco’s research interests are as diverse as her teaching interests. She is particularly fascinated by the rich cultural production of writers in post-Franco Spain, and she has written a number of articles, chapters and a book (Feminine Agency and Transgression in Post-Franco Spain) focusing specifically on women, sexuality and gender roles within this period. DiFrancesco has more recently dedicated much time to examining women’s experience of migration as popularly portrayed in Spanish literature and film. DiFrancesco is also a creative writer and hopes to publish her first book of original poetry in the near future.

Statement of Purpose

When a member of NeMLA’s Executive Board contacted me to say that a colleague at another institution had nominated me for the position of Second Vice President of NeMLA, I was thrilled, honored, excited and extremely humbled by the opportunity to serve my fellows in this way. I gratefully accepted the invitation to run for this position and I believe I am well prepared to perform all the duties required of the Second Vice President as stipulated in NeMLA’s bylaws.

I have been an active member of NeMLA since early on in my professional career. As an individual, I have presented papers as well as chaired, organized and prepared panels at NeMLA. Additionally, I have worked with the NeMLA Women and Gender Studies Caucus and Feministas Unidas (an independent non-profit coalition of feminist scholars in Spanish, Spanish-American, Luso-Brazilian, Afro-Latin American, and U.S. Hispanic Studies) to promote the creation of more interdisciplinary panels at NeMLA. My intention in this collaborative endeavor was to bridge gaps in scholarship, research and teaching among peers while engendering dialog among professionals in higher education who might not otherwise have reason to speak to one another.

As a result of my longtime commitment to NeMLA, I have become quite familiar with the organization’s history, mission, goals as well as related policies and procedures necessary for the successful function of the organization. I believe my active research agenda combined with my work as a member of the editorial board of Cubanabooks strengthen my profile as a Second Vice President candidate as these activities make me keenly aware of many issues associated with academic publishing today (from the “publish or perish” mentality, to the status and worth of digital publications, to publishing’s gender gap). Finally, as the Secretary of the Asociación Internacional de Literatura y Cultrura Femenina Hispánica (AILCFH), I have gained a great deal of applicable experience that I will bring to the 2^nd Vice Presidency. Among my strengths, I am able to communicate with a diverse number of individuals from various cultural and linguistic backgrounds with relative ease; I am able to synthesize, organize and disseminate information to a great number of people with dexterity; and perhaps most important, I am keenly aware that a good leader is most effective when she respectfully and actively listens to her constituents and collaborators, with the understanding that a leader must always strive to serve for the benefit of all. I relish the thought of representing the interests of all humanities professors teaching at both private and public liberal arts institutions today, and I look forward to working with all those affiliated with NeMLA.