SEMA Board Elections

It's time to elect new board members!  The board is elected by the membership for a three year term.  We strive to represent all areas of interest.  The board members meet at the annual meeting to oversee the organization and to vote on issues that arise during the year.  The board members also constitute the editorial board for Medieval Perspectives.

Below are bios for the candidates for each position.

For the position in French vacated by Shira Schwam-Baird:

1) Minnie Blackmon SANGSTER 

Dr. Minnie B. Sangster is Professor of French at North  Carolina Central University in Durham, NC, where she has taught for 25 years.  She is currently serving a second term as Chair of the NCCU Faculty Senate and also serves as Interim Co-Chair of the Department of Modern Foreign Languages.  She holds the BA in French and History from St. Andrews College and the MA and PhD in French Language and Literature from UNC in Chapel Hill.  Her research interests include theater studies and art history, on which she has published several articles and given thirty-odd scholarly presentations.  She is a frequent presenter at SEMA and has been a member since 1996.  She is also a member of the American Association of Teachers of French (AATF) and has served the NC Chapter of AATF as Secretary, Vice President, President, and President Emerita.  As a member of the NC Chapter of the American Association of University Professors, she has served as Treasurer of the Chapter and the Foundation and as Representative of Public Institutions.  Her other professional affiliations include membership in the  College Language Association, Foreign Language Association of North Carolina, International Arthurian Society, International Courtly Literature Society, International Marie de France Society, Modern Language Association, and South Atlantic Modern Language Association. In 2005-2006, she taught English at Lycée Jean Moulin in Draguignan, France, as a fellow in the Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program.  Work on which she is currently engaged includes a facing-page bilingual edition of Rutebeuf’s Le Miracle de Théophile with introduction and classroom notes, in collaboration with Prof. Judith Barban of Winthrop University, a collection of photographs and papers on the French iconographic representation of the legend of Theophilus, and an edition of printed versions of the legend of Marie de France’s Lai des Deux Amants in Normandy from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.

2) Mary Jane SCHENCK 

Dr. Schenck specializes in world literature (especially medieval French and Modern African), literary theory and composition. She has published three books: The Fabliaux: Tales of Wit and Deception (Purdue University) about medieval French short narratives; Read, Write, Revise (St. Martin's), a composition textbook for ESL students; and is co-author of Echoes of the Epic: Studies in Honor of G.J. Brault (Summa), a collection of essays on the romance epic. She was a Senior Fulbright Scholar to the University of Benin in Togo and to the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa; has written articles on Old French literature as well as on modern women writers; lectures and published on the stained glass at Chartres; and is completing a book on medieval customary law and literary trial scenes. Among her honors and awards are NEH Summer Seminars, Fellowship to School of Criticism and Theory, Louise Loy Hunter Award for Outstanding Faculty Member, numerous Dana and Delo research grants, and MacArthur Distinguished Alumni Award (Eckerd).

 

1) Laura SMOLLER

Laura Smoller received her Ph.D. in medieval history from Harvard University in 1991 and taught at Stanford University for six years before returning to her native state, where she is professor of history at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.  Her research focuses on areas of intersection between magic, science, and religion in medieval Europe. She is the author of a book, History, Prophecy, and the Stars: The Christian Astrology of Pierre d’Ailly, 1350-1420 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), as well as numerous articles and book chapters on late medieval astrology, prophecy, saints, and miracles.  Recent publications include “Teste Albumasare cum Sibylla: Astrology and the Sibyls in Medieval Europe,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 41, no. 2 (2010): 76-89; “Astrology and the Sibyls: John of Legnano’s De adventu Christi and the Natural Theology of the Later Middle Ages,” Science in Context 20:3 (2007): 423-50; and “A Case of Demonic Possession in Fifteenth-Century Brittany: Perrin Hervé and the Nascent Cult of Vincent Ferrer,” in Michael Goodich, ed., Voices from the Bench: The Narratives of Lesser Folk in Medieval Trials (NY: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2006), pp.149-76.  Her work has been supported by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.  From 2003 to 2005 she was a member of the research group, “Knowledge and Belief,” with the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin.  She is currently completing a book manuscript tentatively titled “The Saint and the Chopped-Up Baby: The Cult of Vincent Ferrer and the Religious Life of the Later Middle Ages.” Smoller  also serves as Medieval European section editor for the journal History Compass.

 

Dr. Dana-Linn Whiteside came to Roanoke College after returning to the United States from teaching at the University of Leipzig, Germany. Whiteside moved to Leipzig in 1995 to research her dissertation on Anglo-German relations during the European Middle Ages and Renaissance. After earning bachelor's degrees in English and German, Whiteside left her home state of California to pursue Masters and Doctoral degrees in Comparative Literature at the State University of New York at Binghamton. She also completed the SUNY Binghamton Graduate Certificate Program in Medieval Studies. Teaching in Leipzig gave Whiteside the opportunity to research at Germany's "Deutsche Bucherei," or Library of Congress. She spent summer and winter breaks at the British Library in London or John Rylands Library in Manchester, England. Currently, Whiteside's scholarship deals with the two areas of medieval literature she says she has been working with since she began graduate school: medieval narrators and fools.

Lisa LeBlanc is Associate Professor of English at Anna Maria College in Paxton, MA.  She received an M.A. In English from Boston College, an M.A. In Medieval and Byzantine Studies from The Catholic University of America, and a Ph.D. In English from Catholic University.  Recent publications include “Social Commentary and the English Mystery Cycle Doomsday Plays” in End of Days: Understanding the Apocalypse from Antiquity to Modernity, ed. Karolyn Kinane and Michael A. Ryan (2009) and several reviews in the Journal of Popular Culture.