Contact: Phil Hearn
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Mississippi State literary scholar Noel Polk will be the featured speaker at an April 7 public event on the eve of the university's third annual Graduate Student Association Research Symposium.
The MSU English professor and editor of the Mississippi Quarterly will speak at 7 p.m. in 125 McCool Hall, home of the College of Business and Industry. His presentation, "Living Outside History," will follow a 6:30 p.m. reception in 130 McCool.
The research symposium takes place on the 8th at the Wise Center, home to the MSU College of Veterinary Medicine.
A specialist in American fiction, Polk has published and lectured widely in this country, Europe, Japan, and the former Soviet Union on the works of Mississippi writers William Faulkner and Eudora Welty. He joined the MSU faculty last fall.
"Dr. Polk is a world-renowned literary expert and one of our own," said Lakiesha Claude, GSA president. "He's a reflection of some of the extraordinary talent encompassed within MSU.
"Our GSA Research Symposium the following day [April 8] will provide an avenue for more displays of the many aspects of research and outstanding talent here at MSU," she added.
GSA treasurer Danielle Poche' said approximately 95 abstracts representing a cross section of student research will be presented orally and in poster displays during the symposium.
Polk's more than 25 book publications include "Children of the Dark House: Text and Context in Faulkner" (1996); "Eudora Welty: A Bibliography of Her Work" (1993); and "Outside the Southern Myth" (1997).
He currently is in the process of editing Faulkner's works for the Library of America, Random House and Vintage International. Also, he recently edited a new edition of Robert Penn Warren's "All the King's Men" for Harcourt Brace.
For more information, contact Poche' at (662) 325-3178 or dnp2@grad.msstate.edu.