MVC Students to Present at Sigma Tau Delta International Convention

MARSHALL, MO (01/20/2012)(readMedia)-- Two Missouri Valley College students have been selected to present at the 2012 Sigma Tau Delta International Convention February 29-March 3 in New Orleans, La.

Flannery Crump and Robert Pannell submitted their original work to the organization in October 2011 and were notified in January that they had been selected to present at the International Convention. Over 1,200 papers were submitted and just 613 papers were selected.

Crump, a junior from Marshall, Mo., will present her paper titled "Internalized Misogyny and the Dichotomy of Women's Roles in Flannery O'Connor's 'Good Country People.'"

"Good Country People," a short story by Flannery O'Connor, was published in 1955. The short story revolves around a naive young woman and the antagonist, a Bible salesman. A devout Roman Catholic, O'Connor often used religious themes.

"What I do in the paper is take apart the events of O'Connor's short story 'Good Country People' and show how the actions of the protagonist and the results of her actions represent a larger system of gender dichotomy, which O'Connor subscribed to," Crump said.

Crump is a part-time employee at Murrell Library and on the editing staff for MVC's literary magazine, "The Purple Patch."

Pannell, a junior from Slater, Mo., will present a paper titled "The Arabesque and the Sublime in Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Fall of the House of Usher' and 'Metzengerstein.'"

According to Pannell, arabesque means non-western or oriental, unfamiliar patterns to the western psyche in art and culture.

"The idea of the work is to explore Edgar Allan Poe's use of the word Arabesque in the title of his first collection of short stories," Pannell said. "I chose two short stories to further examine the Arabesque elements. Also I try to prove that Poe was using the element of the Arabesque to separate himself from other American authors of the nineteenth century."

Dr. Jennifer Eimers, MVC professor of English and chair of the Languages and Humanities division, is the Sigma Tau Delta adviser. According to Eimers the MVC chapter has eight members.

"Both students are excellent writers in their own way," Eimers said. "What I appreciate about them is their enthusiasm for literature."

Sigma Tau Delta is an International English Honor Society. A member of the Association of College Honor Societies, it was founded in 1924 at Dakota Wesleyan University. According to the organization's website, Sigma Tau Delta's central purpose is to confer distinction upon students of the English language and literature in undergraduate, graduate, and professional studies.

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