The Janet Grayson Lecture in Literary Studies
All presentations are in 211 Parker Hall from 12:30 to 1:20 PM. Refreshments will be served. Students, faculty and staff are welcome. Please join us! For more information, please contact William Stroup , chair of the department of English.
A Failed Saracen Princess? The Case of the Assassin Woman
Dr. Meriem Pagès
The Old Man of the Mountain, leader of the sect of the Assassins, Nizari Isma'ilis, and the beautiful pleasure garden ( from an early fifteenth-century manuscript of the travelogue of Friar Odoric of Pordenone (d. 1331) found in the Livre des Merveilles, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris).
The English department kicked off its spring Third Tuesday series on February 20th with a presentation by assistant professor of English, Meriem Pagès. From the eighth century onwards, medieval European writers and historians treated Islam with a mixture of awe, fascination, and dread. The ambiguous nature of the medieval image of the Saracens—as Muslims were known to medieval Europeans—and their world is perhaps expressed most clearly in the literary motif of the Saracen princess, the Muslim woman who converts to Christianity and betrays her kin out of love for a Christian knight. Dr. Pagès focused on a unique example of the Saracen princess, Ivorine in the fourteenth-century Baudouin de Sebourc , highlighting how this extraordinary portrait of an Assassin woman both responds to and departs from the established conventions of the motif.
The Third Tuesday series continues on March 20th with a presentation by professor Robin Dizard. “My Life in Blue: Encountering Autobiography, Chapter Two,” will continue where Dr. Dizard left off two years ago with her first chapter, "My Life in Red."
And on Tuesday, April 17 th, professor William Stroup will present “ Peace and Love on Trial: Rereading Shelley's The Cenci
Fall 2006 Third Tuesday Series
On October 17 
The English department’s Third Tuesday series featured a presentation by Dr. Fiona Mills, “Telling the Untold Tale: Afro-Latino/a Identifications in the Work of Gayl Jones.” The talk explored intersections among African, African American and Latin-American peoples and experiences in the work of author Gayl Jones. Dr. Mills focused special attention on these intersections in Jones’ latest novel Mosquito. The presentation was drawn from Dr. Mills' edited collection of essays entitled After the Pain: Critical Essays on Gayl Jones.
On 19 September over thirty faculty, students and staff attended a talk by Dr. Sara Hottinger, assistant professor of Women’s Studies and Philosophy, present “Abuse is not Demonstration”: Mathematical Knowledge Production and the Social Process of Proof in Eighteenth Century Britain.” Dr. Hottinger examined a disagreement between Reuben Burrow and Charles Hutton that takes place in a series of articles in mathematical publications in the eighteenth century to explore epistemological approaches to mathematics that existed during this period. Of interest in this exploration were the standards of mathematical and natural philosophical truth Burrow and Hutton relied upon, the kinds of mathematical argumentation and evidence that was considered sufficient for obtaining true mathematical knowledge, and finally the social construction of both the intellectual identity and the intellectual integrity of the mathematician.