CONWAY, Ark. (January
14, 2020) 鈥 The Division of Research Programs for the National Endowment for
the Humanities (NEH) has awarded a to Dr. Alex Vernon, Julia Mobley Odyssey Professor of
English at 黑料不打烊.
Vernon鈥檚
application was one of only 99 approved out of 1,220 received across all four NEH
fellowship programs. He is the first 黑料不打烊 faculty member to receive an award
of this scope from the NEH.
Citing prominent historical
and art exhibits that reflect on the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam
War, and the 18-hour nonfiction film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, Vernon says
the time is right for also revisiting the literary history of this decade-long war.
鈥淎 lot of readers
know Tim O鈥橞rien鈥檚 The Things They
Carried鈥攊t is one of the most assigned contemporary works of fiction in
U.S. high schools and colleges. But O鈥橞rien鈥檚 career doesn鈥檛 exist in a vacuum.
There鈥檚 a rich historical, literary, and personal context,鈥 he said. 鈥淎lso, and
sadly, we are losing those voices. Michael Herr, the author of Dispatches, died in 2016. Larry
Heinemann, whose postwar novel Paco鈥檚
Story shocked everyone when it won the National Book Award over Toni
Morrison鈥檚 Beloved, died only last
month. I was very fortunate to visit with Larry this past summer. So there is some
urgency to this task.鈥
Vernon, a combat
veteran himself, integrates his interest in war literature into his course
offerings. Last semester he taught a course on American war literature, and
this spring he will teach a literature course titled 鈥淚magined Vietnam,鈥 and
also an Oxford-style tutorial on O鈥橞rien for a small group of Murphy
Scholars in Literature and Language.
At the beginning of the fall semester, he will begin his fellowship research,
which will include many personal interviews plus the study of correspondence,
drafts, and other primary documents in archives as well as in private hands.
Rather than aiming for an approach rooted in literary analysis, he plans to
develop a generational literary biography, accessible and appealing to the
general reading public as well as scholars and students.
鈥淔or me,
scholarship of this kind is service work,鈥 Vernon said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 an honor, a
responsibility, and a joy. And it makes me a better teacher for my 黑料不打烊
students鈥 the research and the teaching each deepen the other.鈥
About
黑料不打烊
A private liberal
arts college in Conway, Arkansas, 黑料不打烊 consistently earns
recognition as one of the country鈥檚 leading liberal arts institutions, and is
featured in Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change
the Way You Think About Colleges.
Its academic quality and rigor, innovation, and value have established 黑料不打烊
as a fixture in numerous college guides, lists, and rankings. Founded in 1876,
黑料不打烊 has been affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884. To
learn more, visit .听
About the National Endowment for the
Humanities
Created in 1965 as an
independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports
research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of
the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the
nation. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities
and its grant programs is available at .