Christine Holmlund, professor in the Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures and the Cinema Studies Program, recently spoke at the third annual Midwest Undergraduate Film Conference hosted by Notre Dame University. Holmlund gave the keynote address “Jackie Chan and the Art of Aging in Action.”

Erec R. Koch, professor of French and head of the Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures department, delivered an invited lecture at the doctoral seminar on the epistolary genre in seventeenth-century France, Centre d’étude de la langue et la littérature françaises des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, Université Paris-Sorbonne/CNRS. Koch discussed the interrelation of philosophy and literature in philosopher René Descartes’ correspondence with Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia.

La Vinia Jennings, associate professor of English, received the College Language Association’s Outstanding Book Award for her book Toni Morrison and the Idea of Africa. The CLA is the primary organization of African American literary and language professors.

Dawn Coleman, assistant professor of English, has been named an American Academy of Arts and Sciences Visiting Scholar for 2009-2010. She was awarded the fellowship for a book project entitled “Preaching and the Rise of the American Novel,” which draws on her expertise in American literature, religious studies, and American studies.

Amy Billone, associate professor of English, recently had her book Little Songs: Women, Silence, and the Nineteenth-Century Sonnet published by The Ohio State University Press.