Tara Powell

Assistant Professor

Office: 120 Gambrell Hall
(803) 777-4498
tfpowell@gmail.com

Education

PhD, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, 2004

Specialization Areas

• 20th Century American Literature
• Southern Literature
• Poetry

Recent Courses

See Course Descriptions for detailed information.

• ENGL 102: Composition and Literature, honors section: Responding to Themes and Techniques in Contemporary Southern Writing
• ENGL 285: American Smooth: Honors Themes in American Writing (honors section)
• ENGL 427: Southern Literature
• ENGL 752: Modern American Novel
• SOST 301: Introduction to Southern Studies

Current Research Project(s)

“Mind Matters: Representations of Intellectual Life in Contemporary Southern Literature.”
This book-length project explores the portrayal of the life of the mind in post-1950 creative literature from the American South, and includes studies of works by Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, Doris Betts, Tim McLaurin, and Gail Godwin, among others.

“Washerwoman.” A manuscript of original verse.

Selected Publications

Guest Editor. Women Poets of the New South Special Feature for Spring 2006. storySouth: the best from new south http://www.storysouth.com/backissues.html

“Ringing His Being: An Overview of Michael McFee’s Career.” Appalachian Heritage. 33.2 (2005): 9-13.

“What Constitutes the Life of a Man: ‘The Darkness of the Familiar’ in Tim McLaurin’s
Keeper of the Moon.” The Southern Quarterly. 41.4 (2003): 109-126.

“Fiction of Mercy: Suffering Delight in Reynolds Price’s The Promise of Rest.” Mississippi Quarterly. 53.2 (2000): 251-264.

Selected Poems Online

“Adults Should Not Swim Alone” and “Catfish.” Poetryfish. Autumn 2004. Available at <www.poetryfish.com>.

“Tempest Following Fortunes.” Amarillo Bay. 6.2 (2004). Available at <http://www.amarillobay.org/>.

“Daffodils Had Just Begun Nodding,” “Motoring Home Down the Canal, I Heard the NPR Astronomer Claim,” “Valentine,” “Wardrobe,” and “Woman in Hibernation." Poets Under 30 Feature. storySouth: the best from new south writers. Winter 2004. Available at <http://www.storysouth.com/winter2004/poetsunder30.htmll>.

Selected Recent Presentations

“Intellectual Labor and Race Consciousness in Fiction by Percival Everett, Randall Kenan, and Ernest Gaines.”  4/2006 Society for the Study of Southern Literature Conference.  Birmingham, AL.

“‘Guts to Stir that Earth’: Time, Space, and the Faithful Dead in Fred Chappell’s Midquest.” Place and Personality in the Works of North Carolina Poets. 2/2005 18th Southern Writers Symposium. Fayetteville, NC.

“Intellectual Carpetbaggers: Maryland, Mencken, Barth, and the Southern Experience.” MELUS Ethnic and Regional Identities Panel. 11/2004 South Atlantic MLA Conference. Roanoke, Virginia.

“Where the Textbook Ends: A Case Study from Poetry 101.” Pedagogy of Creative Writing Panel. 10/2004 Rocky Mountain MLA Conference. Boulder, Colorado.

“Beyond the Wallpaper: Crossroads of Region, Gender, and Intellectual Life in the Fiction of Doris Betts and Gail Godwin.” Southern Literature Panel. 4/2004 Popular Culture Association Conference. San Antonio, Texas.