Professor awarded grant to co-direct seminar

By The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

ARKADELPHIA - Dr. Clinton Atchley, associate professor of English at Henderson State University, has been awarded an $111,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to co-direct a seminar for K-12 teachers during the summer of 2009.

The five-week seminar, titled “The Isle of Man: Crossroads of Medieval Cultures and Languages,” will bring together 15 teachers from across the United States and from diverse disciplines to explore Medieval languages, literature and culture via texts and artifacts on the Isle of Man and at the University of Glasgow.

The purpose of this seminar, one of only 16 funded, is to provide participants with an enriched appreciation for the multicultural reality of the British Isles and Ireland (the Irish Sea cultural province) in the Middle Ages.

In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Atchley also directs the Master of Liberal Arts program at Henderson. He holds a bachelor’s and an master’s in English from the University of Arkansas and a doctorate in Medievallanguages and literature from the University of Washington.

Atchley has published articles on a variety of medieval and Renaissance topics, and he is currently editing an edition of a Middle English sermon cycle called Jacob’s Well.

Atchley has worked on manuscripts in the Bodley Library, the British Library and the Salisbury Cathedral Library and brings to the seminar an extensive knowledge of philology, paleography, codicology and textual studies.

Co-directing the seminar with Atchley is Dr. Charles MacQuarrie, a Celticist from California State University in Bakersfield.

The National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency, is the largest funder of humanities programs in the United States.

The Endowment accomplishes this mission by providing grants for high-quality humanities projects in four funding areas: preserving and providing access to cultural resources, education, research and public programs.

Tri-Lakes, Pages 57 on 09/04/2008