Welcome to this first edition of BookLynx, a semi-annual posting from the English Department at Rhodes College. We hope you will enjoy these occasional updates from the upper stories of Palmer Hall. Feel free to pass BookLynx along to fellow students or alums, and let us hear from you. We’re always eager for news of current or former majors.
 
The Department is always lively, but especially so this year, with many new faces on the hallway, and new courses and new research underway. This fall we’ve been delighted to welcome two outstanding new members to the Department: Rashna Richards in Film Studies and Rychetta Watkins in African American and Asian American literature. Already this year Dr. Watkins and Dr. Richards are developing innovative new courses in literature and film. For spring Watkins is planning a class on revolutionary writings by Native American, Asian American, and African American authors in the 1960s and ‘70s. Richards, a specialist on the golden age of Hollywood cinema, will offer a spring course on the 1950s in American film. In addition to these we′ve been fortunate to secure the services of a talented, energetic, and diverse group of shorter-term and adjunct colleagues.
 
This spring we are also launching a completely revised set of core courses in the English major. For many years, graduating seniors have told us that the senior seminar in critical theory has been an important element of the major, a significant intellectual challenge but one that helps students to clarify their own commitment to the study of literature and writing. But why, students often asked, do we have to wait until we’re seniors to read this material? This spring, the critical theory course will move to the junior year. And beginning next fall seniors will choose from a new range of Senior Research Seminars which will replace the old senior paper. Look out for more on these and other new courses in future editions of BookLynx. Until then, on behalf of everyone in the English Department, I send you the warmest of good wishes for the holiday season.

Gordon Bigelow, Department Chair