Meeting the Dead

a novel by Andrew Geyer

Set on a plantation in northern Peru, against the backdrop of El Niño and the resulting storms and floods, Meeting the Dead tells the story of two young Americans who get caught up in a blood feud between two powerful Peruvian families.

by Trey Philpotts
Associate Professor of English

"The Companion to 'Little Dorrit' provides the most extensive information yet available on the political, cultural, and personal backgrounds of a novel that today is considered a central text of Dickens's 'dark' period, and a major work of nineteenth-century literature." -- from the book jacket

"It is a mistake to see the novel as 'simple' and 'unhistorical' and 'semi-fantastic', as lacking in 'particulars'. On the contrary, it is stuffed to bursting with particulars – with the language, conceits and images of life in the mid-1850s and the memories of years earlier – and may well be Dickens's most allusive novel." – from the Introduction

by Sam McGuire Worley
Assistant Professor of English

"Drawing upon the works of several important contemporary thinkers ... Sam McGuire Worley argues that the mature thought of Emerson and Thoreau is deeply embedded in community, and that their best social criticism is immanent rather than transcendent in character. Their encounters with specific historical figures such as Daniel Webster, Theodore Parker, and John Brown reveal a political philosophy that cannot easily be labelled liberal or conservative, and a meticulous reconsideration of their political writings and their encounter with abolitionism show both to be working with as complex and ironic a vision of self and community as can be found in antebellum American letters." -- from the back jacket.

by Paul Lake
Professor of English

"Paul Lake's lucid, disquieting narratives are admirable in their playing of the talking voice against one measure oor another . . . Part of the considerable distinction of Walking Backward is its unifying Conradian search for the dimensions of human nature, and for the border at which inhumanity and disgrace may be said to begin." -- Richard Wilbur

by Paul Lake
Professor of English and Creative Writing

Though the interest of science and art frequently seem to inhabit opposite poles, The Measured Word assembles a brilliant anthology of twelve essays that illumine the historic -- and newly emerging -- relationships between the poetic and scientific imaginations. Assembling the writings of leading contemporary poets, essayists, and thinkers, Kurt Brown highlights ways in which poets use scientific discoveries and mathematical ideas to their artistic advantage -- and offers insight on the recently apparent integration of technology and other discoveries into postmodernist poetry. -- from the University of Georgia Press description.

by Paul Lake

Professor of English and Creative Writing

"Among the Immortals is a fast-paced thriller rooted in the Faustian dangers of literary ambition. Set in San Francisco -- with poets both living and undead -- author Paul Lake weaves an ingenious story rich with brilliant minds, rare manuscripts, poetics, sexual tension, and vampirism." -- from the back jacket of Immortals.

"Not since Ken Russell's film Gothic has so enthusiastic an eye been cast toward the mythopoetic relationship among the Romantic poets and their role in the evolution of our horrific imagination . . . readers will thrill to the plot's literary intrigue and author's elegant skewering of the dark side of the poetic sensibilities." -- Publishers Weekly.

"Recent Dickens Studies: 1996" in
Dickens Studies Annual:
Essays on Victorian Fiction, Vol. 27.

by Trey Philpotts
Associate Professor of English

"Enough Already! So a weary reviewer is likely to declare after having waded, sometimes slogged, through more than 100 academic books and articles on Dickens this year. The overwhelming volume of material might be seen as testimony to his continuing relevance as we approach the millenium. Of course, it might also be seen as rather tremendous overkill."

-- Trey Philpotts in "Recent Dickens Studies"

"Traditional Arkansas Foodways" in
An Arkansas Folklore Sourcebook

"Fast-food chains such as McDonald's, Pizza Hut, and Kentucky Fried Chicken create the illusion that there is a uniform American cuisine. This illusion can be quickly dispelled by having a 'company' meal with an Arkansas family: it might include fried chicken, potatoes and gravy, corn-on-the-cob, a fresh garden salad or 'garden sass,' homemade pickled beets, and fresh apple pie, or perhaps baked ham, red-eye gravy, rice, baked sweetpotatoes, fried okra, steaming hot rolls, and peach cobbler or pecan pie."

--Earl F. Schrock, Jr. in "Traditional Arkansas Foodways"

by B.C. Hall and C.T. Wood

retired Professor of English and Creative Writing

"An anecdotal tour through America's most colorful region. From the Tidewater through Appalachia, down the sunbelt, B.C. Hall and C.T. Wood take us through the American South, inviting us to listen to its music -- blues, country, gospel, rock -- and to the voices that have shaped its extraordinary, distinctive literature. Interweaving interviews with people both ordinary and famous with thought-provoking reflections on Southern life, history, politics, humor, religion, and cultural icons, The South is a matchless, impressionistic portrait of a people and a place. -- from the back jacket of The South.

"Beautifully written, as enchanting as Spanish moss in the moonlight, as easy going down as a mint julep on the front porch. This is one of those rare books that is so entertaining, you don't realize how much you've learned until a few days after you've finished reading it." -- Nelson DeMille, author of The General's Daughter.

"Fascinating." -- President Bill Clinton.

by B.C. Hall and C.T. Wood
retired Professor of English and Creative Writing

"I enjoyed Big Muddy all the way from Minnesota down the Mississippi bayous. What a good book." -- Norman Mailer

"Mark Twain would delight in Big Muddy. B.C. Hall and C.T. Wood have not only created a great travel book -- telling the dark side along with the good -- they have also held true to the spirit of Huck Finn in their journey down the Mississippi." -- Dee Brown, author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.