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May 31, 2005 Volume 29, Issue 35 |
MSU’s Mullen, Polk named Fulbright recipients
MSU literary scholar Noel Polk and Eve Mullen, an authority on world religions, are receiving Fulbright awards.
Mullen, a Harvard Divinity School graduate, was selected for the Fulbright Senior Specialist and traditional Fulbright Scholars Lecture grants. An assistant professor of religion and a member of the Department of Philosophy and Religion since 2001, she will complete both at the Center for Cross-Cultural and Religious Studies at Universitas Gadjah Mada.
Gadjah Mada is located on the main island of Java in the Pacific nation of Indonesia.
The first grant supports her work from June through August. In addition to curriculum development, she will be assessing teaching materials, planning academic programs and conferences, and teaching and advising graduate students. Her instructional topics will include Chinese philosophies and religions, and Chinese gender roles.
From February to June of next year, she returns to teach and advise graduate students in comparative religions, Asian religious traditions, world religions in modernity, and methodology.
“Developing international understanding requires a commitment on the part of Fulbright grantees to establish open communication and long-term cooperative relationships,” said Steven J. Uhfelder in announcing Mullen’s selection. “In that way, Fulbrighters enrich the educational, political, economic, social, and cultural lives of countries around the world.”
Uhfelder is chair of the Washington, D.C.,-based Fulbright scholarship board.
Both of Mullen’s Fulbrights to Indonesia are co-sponsored by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars’ U.S. Scholars Program.
Mullen has previous experience at Gadjah Mada, having been among a team of scholars and researchers working there in 2001 under a U.S. Department of State grant. Teaching world religions in an Islamic context was the team’s focus during that period.
Before first working in Java, Mullen taught courses on world religions at Hamburg University in Germany. The two-year European experience was supported by a private foundation.
In addition to a master’s degree in theological studies from Harvard, Mullen holds a bachelor’s in religion from Washington and Lee University, and master’s and doctoral degrees in religion from Temple University. Beyond English, she is skilled in Tibetan, Sanskrit, French, and German.
At MSU, she teaches courses on world religions, the philosophy of religion, and Hinduism and Buddhism, among others. She is a member of the American Academy of Religion, Association for the Sociology of Religion and Society for Indian Philosophy and Religion, as well as other professional organizations.
Polk, a professor in the Department of English, is a 2005 Fulbright Senior Scholar at the University of Lodz, Poland. He also serves as editor of the university-based Mississippi Quarterly.
Polk left in late April for the Eastern European institution, where he began lecturing on the works of famed Mississippi writers William Faulkner and Eudora Welty.
He was selected for the 2005 Fulbright Senior Specialists Program, which provides short-term experiences ranging from two to six weeks.
“Noel is a Southern literature scholar whose reputation is worldwide, so his having a Fulbright to lecture in Poland is a well-deserved honor,” said department colleague Nancy Hargrove, a William L. Giles Distinguished Professor.
MSU’s Fulbright campus adviser, Hargrove recently received a Fulbright Distinguished Chair Award to teach 20th century American literature at the University of Vienna, Austria.
“As editor of The Mississippi Quarterly and as a respected scholar on the works of Faulkner and Welty, Dr. Polk has brought national and international recognition to our department and to MSU,” said English department head Rich Raymond.
“He also has shared his expertise with local libraries and schools, signaling the importance of the humanities in forming campus-community partnerships,” Raymond said. Observing that Polk came to MSU last fall after 27 years at the University of Southern Mississippi, he added, “We’re delighted Dr. Polk has joined our department.”
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 Faulkner and Welty. He currently is in the process of editing Faulkner’s works for three publishers, 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, another major publishing house.
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).
Founded in 1948 and housed in the English department, the Mississippi Quarterly that Polk edits is a scholarly journal of Southern culture, past and present. The journal is published by MSU’s College of Arts and Sciences.
Named for the long-serving U.S. senator from Arkansas, William J. Fulbright, the scholars program was created by Congress in 1946 to support academic work and study abroad by Americans, as well as to enable overseas students and educators to do the same here.