About Our People
Several English professors presented papers at the annual West Regional Conference on Christianity and Literature, held at California Baptist University in Riverside, Calif., March 25-27. Presentations were made by Kathleen Heininge (“Virginia Woolf and Her Quaker Aunt, Carolina Stephenâ€), Ed Higgins (“RE/Reading the Moral Cap on Alisoun’s Gat-totheâ€), Melanie Springer Mock (“Love, Marriage, Horse and Carriage: The Family in Amish Romance Fictionâ€) and Abigail Rine (“Destabilizing the African American Patriarch: Alice Walker’s By the Light of My Father’s Smileâ€).
In addition, recent graduates Kohleun Adamson (Philosophy/Gender Studies) and Jeff Bilbro (English) presented papers, the former presenting “Mamma Knows Best Daddy’s Needs: Matriarchal Patriarchy in Trans-national Women’s Fiction†and the latter “Wendell Berry’s Good Work: Uniting Affection and Fidelity in The Memory of Old Jack.†Kohleun and Ed also read selections of their respective poetry in a session titled “Creative Writing: Poetry in Action.â€
Paul Anderson (Religious Studies) will teach a free six-week series (April 18 to May 26) at Reedwood Friends Church (2901 S.E. Steele, in Portland) on “The Riddles of the Fourth Gospel.†Sessions meet from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Wednesdays and from 11 a.m. to noon on Sundays. Also, Marcus Borg will join Paul for a public dialogue on the “Gospels and Jesus in Bi-Optic Perspective†on May 19 and a special Saturday, May 22, session.
Laura Gifford (History) presented “Girded with a Moral and Spiritual Revival: The Christian Anti-Communism Crusade and Conservative Politics†at the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians in Washington, D.C., April 7-10. She also had a chapter, “The Education of a Cold War Conservative: Anti-Communist Literature of the 1950s and 1960s,†published in Pressing the Fight: Print, Propaganda, and the Cold War (University of Massachusetts Press, 2010).