Faculty and Staff

George Abry (M.A., Johns Hopkins University) is an instructor in the Department of English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies. Prior to coming to VMI in 2009, he worked as a professional writer and editor in New Orleans, where he was a regular contributor to The Times-Picayune and The Old House Journal, and covered New Orleans tourism for TravelAgeWest, a West Coast travel industry publication. In addition to feature writing, he has worked on a number of technical writing and public history projects for cultural resource management companies, including URS Corporation. Currently teaching ERH103, Mr. Abry lives in Lexington with his wife, Andrea, and their two daughters.

Instructor
English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies

Dr. Reshef Agam-Segal completed his doctorate in philosophy at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom. Born and raised in Israel, he moved to the United States in 2008. He taught philosophy at Auburn University (AL) before joining VMI in 2012. Dr. Agam-Segal specializes in the philosophy of Wittgenstein, and in moral philosophy, and he has special interests in the logic of figurative language, as well as the relations between philosophy and literature. He has published papers in several professional international journals, including Inquiry, Philosophy, Metaphilosophy, the Journal of Philosophical Research, and the Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy. He is the co-editor of Wittgenstein’s Moral Thought (Routledge, 2017).

Associate Professor

English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies

Lt. Col. Mary Stewart Atwell came to VMI in 2015. Previously, she taught at Cal Poly State University and Missouri State University. She received her B.A. from Hollins University, her M.A. from the University of Virginia, and her M.F.A. and Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis. Lt. Col. Atwell teaches courses in British literature and creative writing, specializing in fiction. She serves as the Institute Pre-Law Advisor and the Alumni Network Coordinator in the Department of English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies.

Lt. Col. Atwell is the author of the novels The Good Ones (forthcoming from Harper Books) and Wild Girls (Scribner). Her short fiction has appeared in Epoch and Alaska Quarterly Review, among other journals, and in the anthologies Best New American Voices and Best American Mystery Stories. Her articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Poets & Writers, and The Writer's Chronicle, and in the anthology Paperback Writer: Literary Advice into the Twenty-First Century (Palgrave).

Associate Professor
English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies

Lt. Col. Julie Phillips Brown is a poet, critic, painter, and book artist. After earning an M.F.A and a Ph.D. as a joint-degree candidate at Cornell University, she served as the N.E.H. Post-Doctoral Fellow in Poetics at Emory University’s Bill and Carol Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry. In both her critical and creative practices, she focuses on the intersections of 19th-21st C poetry and poetics, visual art, the history of the book and book arts, digital technology, and race, gender, and sexuality. Interdisciplinary inquiry and practice are also central to her courses, which include Genre Studies: Poetry, Visual Arts Studio: Painting, Digital Rhetorics, and American Literary Traditions. With Col. Jay Sullivan (Mechanical Engineering), she serves as Co-PI for their Jackson-Hope Grant for New Directions in Teaching and Research, “Fine Arts Collaborations with Engineering (FACE): 3D Scanning & Modeling for Artists & Engineers.”

Lt. Col. Brown is currently completing a scholarly monograph, Tactual Poïesis: Material Translation in Contemporary Women’s Poetry, an examination of tactile innovations in contemporary women’s poetry. Her first collection of poems, The Adjacent Possible, won the 2019 Hopper Poetry Prize and will be published by Green Writers Press in 2020. Other poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Borderlands, Columbia Poetry Review, Conjunctions, Contemporary Women’s Writing, Crab Orchard Review, Denver Quarterly, Harbor Review, The Fight & The Fiddle, interim, Jacket2, Nashville Review, The Oakland Review, Plume, Posit, Rappahannock Review, Tahoma Literary Review, Talisman, Vinyl, Yemassee, and elsewhere.

Associate Professor
English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies

Selected Publications

• The Adjacent Possible. Poetry manuscript, selected by Kathleen Heller as the Winner of the 2019 Hopper Poetry Prize (forthcoming from Green Writers Press, 2020)
• “Archival Theater: Susan Howe’s Tactile Elegies.” (forthcoming in the “Women and Archives” special issue of Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature)
• “Return of the Disappeared: Cecilia Vicuña’s Saboramis.” (forthcoming in North American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Beyond Lyric and Language. Eds. Lisa Sewell and Kazim Ali. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press)
• “Otherbreath: Bare Life and the Limits of Self in Claudia Rankine’s Citizen.” “Extreme Texts” special issue, ed. Divya Victor, Jacket2 (2019).
• “Hinged-Pictures: the Material Poetics of Punctuation.” Talisman: A Journal of Contemporary Poetry and Poetics 46 (2018).

Maj. Adam Cody studies and teaches rhetoric as the art of effective communication. He earned a doctorate in Communication Arts and Sciences from The Pennsylvania State University in 2020 and joined the Virginia Military Institute’s academic faculty later that same year.

In his capacity as Assistant Professor of Rhetoric, Composition, and Oral Communication, it has been Maj. Cody’s pleasure to teach ERH 103: Fundamentals of Public Speaking, ERH 201: Rhetorical Traditions I (covering the ancient, medieval, and Renaissance periods), ERH 202: Rhetorical Traditions II (covering the modern and post-modern periods), ERH 301: Rhetoric and Public Address, and ERH 302: Civic Discourse. Students in Maj. Cody’s classes may expect to encounter practical exercises and open discussions designed to hone their abilities with the transferable skills of communication.

As a scholar, Maj. Cody is a historian of arguments and narratives relating to topics of democracy, citizenship, and empire, with a particular focus on the Greco-Roman rhetorical tradition. His most recent publication, “The Porous Polis: A Critique of Democracy in Old Comedy,” appeared in the Winter 2021 edition of Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric. This essay argues that the narrative form characteristic of Aristophanes’s comedic plays does not support the core principles of democratic rule as is typically claimed but instead repudiates them. Ongoing and future projects focus on the forensic speeches of the Attic orators Antiphon and Lysias.

Maj. Cody also supports the Writing Center as the Oral and Digital Communication Specialist. He encourages any cadets who are interested in or would like help with public speaking to arrange a meeting with him.

Adjunct Professor
English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies

Patrick Eichholz graduated with a BA in English from the University of Dallas in 2006.  He worked five years as a Firefighter/EMT-Paramedic in Corsicana, Texas, before enrolling in the doctorate program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  He joined the faculty at VMI in 2018 after earning his Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature from UNC.  His areas of specialization are literary modernism, aesthetics, and literary theory.  He is currently at work on a book manuscript entitled Emotive Modernisms: An Alternative History of 1922. 

Publications:

 "Joyce, Nussbaum, and the Value of Disgust." Forthcoming in the Journal of Modern Literature.

“Dadaism and Classicism in The Waste Land.” Twentieth-Century Literature, Vol. 67, no. 3, 2021.

"Double-Edged Satire in Zamyatin's We."  Extrapolation, Vol. 56, no. 3, 2015.

Classes Taught at VMI:        

ERH-331         Aesthetics (Spring 2019, Spring 2021, Spring 2022)

ERH-323         Philosophy and Literature.  (Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021)

ERH-230         Artistic Responses to Social and Political Issues: The Literature of the First World War.  (Fall 2018)

ERH-206         American Literary Traditions (Spring 2020 and Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022)

ERH-205         British Literary Traditions (Fall 2018, Spring 2019, and Fall 2019)

ERH-203         Ways of Reading (Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022)

ERH-102         Writing and Rhetoric II (Spring 2019)

ERH-101         Writing and Rhetoric I (Fall 2018, Fall 2019)           

Independent Studies Offered at VMI:

ERH-461         Conrad (Spring 2021)

ERH-461         Nietzsche (Fall 2020)

ERH-461         Joyce's Finnegans Wake (Spring 2019)

ERH-361         Joyce’s Ulysses (Spring 2019)

ERH-361         Wittgenstein (Spring 2020)

Capstone and Honors Projects Directed at VMI:

2021    Carson Knox, “Conrad, Nietzsche, and the Immense Indifference of Things”  

2020    Seamus Bartmess, “The Distinction between Murder and Killing in the Hebrew Bible.”

2019    Dolan Delaney, "Existential Pilgrimage in Hemingway's The Sun also Rises"

Maj. Stephanie Hodde joined the Department of English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies at VMI as an Assistant Professor in 2016. She previously taught at the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia, Mary Baldwin University, and Hollins University, where she offered undergraduate and graduate courses in teacher education, literacy, children’s literature, and the humanities. She holds a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction, with a concentration in Reading, Writing, Literacy, and Culture, from the University of Illinois at Chicago, an M.A. in Humanities from the University of Chicago, and a B.A. in English and Drama from Hobart and William Smith Colleges. She also has over twenty years of experience developing curricula and outreach programming for non-profit organizations, K-12 schools, and directing community theater projects.

Maj. Hodde teaches courses in community-based writing and fieldwork (ERH 411), contemporary drama and literature (ERH 203 & 230), technical communication (ERH 314) and Writing and Rhetoric (101/102). She also advises students on Fieldwork opportunities for completing the English Major and enjoys designing projects in educational research and community writing with cadets. Recent cadet fieldwork includes the Rockbridge Memoir Project with local writers, and the Girls Leadership Exchange S.T.E.A.M. Camp.

Her research and teaching explore intersections between creative discourses, pedagogy, and multimodal forms of social literacy, including community-based narratives, documentary theater, and arts-based learning. She has presented papers at numerous conferences for the American Education Research Association, the Modern Language Association, Comparative Drama Conference, and the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing, and is at work on several research projects. Her chapter, “Up Close and Wide Awake: Participating in Anna Deavere Smith’s Social Theater” appears in the book, Teaching Critical Performance Theory in Today's Studio, Classroom, and Communities (Routledge, 2020). 

Assistant Professor
English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies

Lt. Col. Catharine Ingersoll began teaching at VMI in 2015. She received her Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in Art History from the University of Texas at Austin, and earned a B.A. in Art and a B.A. in Music from Washington College in Maryland. Prior to her work at VMI, she held an Albrecht Dürer Fellowship at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, Germany.

Lt. Col. Ingersoll’s research focuses on the art of northern Europe, especially Germany, during the late medieval and Early Modern periods, particularly in terms of the interdisciplinary intersections among patronage, politics, religion, and visual and material culture. Her most recent article, “Emblems and Hybridity in a Southern German Epitaph Sculpture,” appeared in Hybridity in Early Modern Art (Routledge, 2021). With Alisa McCusker and Jessica Weiss, she edited a volume of essays, Imagery and Ingenuity in Early Modern Europe: Essays in Honor of Jeffrey Chipps Smith (Brepols, 2018). She has also written book reviews for Renaissance Quarterly, Sixteenth Century Journal, Journal of Northern Renaissance Art, and Historians of Netherlandish Art Review of Books, and has presented her work at numerous conferences in North America and in Europe.

In addition to offering a regular rotation of art history and visual culture courses (such as The Language of Art and History of Art I and II), Lt. Col. Ingersoll is frequently sought out by cadets as an advisor to independent studies, Capstones, and Honors projects. She also spearheads the Art History and Visual Culture minor/concentration, maintains the @vmi_ahvc Instagram account, and is the faculty advisor to the Cadet Art Group.

Associate Professor
English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies

An Associate Professor of English, LTC Michelle Iten teaches courses in civic discourse; the history and theory of rhetoric; language and style; rhetoric and democracy; writing for military officers; and writing for business. She earned her B.A. in English / Writing and M.A. in English / Rhetoric from St. Cloud State University, Minnesota, where she served as assistant director of the writing center and later as a full-time instructor teaching courses in research writing, creative nonfiction, business writing, and rhetorical theory. After career experience in corporate communications, public relations, and magazine publishing, she earned her Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition from Texas Christian University, where she held multiple research and teaching fellowships.  

LTC Iten’s research areas are in rhetorical democracy and in the theory and teaching of written rhetorical argument. Ongoing research projects include the rhetorical nature of contemplative practices in democracy, democracy and the self, democratic time, and links between Kenneth Burke and John Dewey. Other research and teaching interests include propaganda theory and criticism, rhetorical approaches to political virtues, and emotional intelligence in everyday democratic interactions. An active member of the Rhetoric Society of Europe and the Rhetoric Society of America, she has published on social class in argument pedagogy, the rhetorical theorization of democracy, and contemplative practices as part of civic discourse pedagogy.

LTC is particularly committed to undergraduate education in rhetoric and advancing student writers’ abilities to develop democratic character, argue with rationality, and write with precision and power.

A Sample of LTC Iten’s Publications, Presentations, & Cadet Research Projects

• “The First Discipline is Class: Aiming at Inclusion in Argument across the Curriculum,” The Writing across the Curriculum Journal, 2017
• “Inventing in Our Own House: Theorizing Democracy from the Standpoint of Rhetoric,” Re-inventing Rhetoric Scholarship, Parlor Press, 2019
• “Contemplative Practices as Rhetorical Action for Democracy,” Journal of Contemplative Inquiry, 2020
• “Thinking with ‘Energy’: How Keyword as Method Illuminates Rhetorical Democracy,” Carolina Rhetoric Conference 2019
• “Becoming Symbol-wise in Democratic Relations: The Whole Self as Rhetorical Action,” Rhetoric Society of Europe Conference 2019
• English Honors Advisor for “A Theory of Rhetorical Appeals to Psychological Certainty: Audience, Motive, Strategies” by Cadet Emma C. Quirk, 2018
• English Honors Advisor for “Fascism as Faith: Nationalist Spain and the Rhetoric of Francisco Franco,” by Cadet Andrew M. Hunt, 2019 

Associate Professor
English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies

Dr. William D. Kimsey, aka ‘MacGregor,’ completed his Ph.D. in Speech at Southern Illinois University. Professor Kimsey’s background and experience include:

• Taught courses in speech and political communication at the University of Virginia and James Madison University.
• Served as a visiting professor of modern business communication for Viet Nam National University Hanoi School of Business and lecturer of public speaking and communication leadership for Ho Chi Minh City Development Learning Center.
• Member of graduate faculties teaching courses in strategic communication, propaganda, and persuasion for the University of North Carolina Wilmington program in conflict resolution and management and James Madison University program in communication studies. 
• Facilitated community disputes as a Commonwealth certified court mediator and published a variety of articles in national journals examining conflict, mediation, and negotiation.
• Co-authored a recent article in American Communication Journal. The effect of narcissism on conflict management message style preference: A look at millennials, 19(1):1-10, December 2017.
• Co-authored the book Mediator Communication Competencies:  Transformative and Problem-Solving Approaches, Pearson.
• Designed and managed US/Ireland student in-country programs examining The Troubles.
• Coached military commanders in strategic speech and negotiation and briefed soldiers and marines pre-deployed for conflict zones on verbal and nonverbal communication.
• Member of the US Marine Corp Marathon Runners Club.
• Own and operate with his wife Candace a small alpaca/sheep fiber farm. 
   

Instructor
English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies

LTC Knepper arrived at VMI in the fall of 2014.  Since then he has taught a wide range of courses, including American Literary Traditions, Ways of Reading, the ERHS capstone sequence, and a seminar on Moby-Dick.  He especially enjoys teaching Philosophy and Literature, where he can discuss big questions with cadets, and American Modernism, which features favorite authors such as Claude McKay, Robert Frost, Willa Cather, Zora Neale Hurston, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.  He has directed capstone projects, SURI projects, independent studies, and honors theses on a variety of topics, from the poetry of Langston Hughes to the philosophy of Simone Weil, from Edgar Allan Poe’s Gothic conventions to Byzantine iconography.  LTC Knepper is the faculty adviser of VMI’s chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the international English honor society, and he organizes an annual trip for cadets to the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Virginia. 

LTC Knepper studied American literature in graduate school at the University of Virginia, and this remains a major teaching and research interest.  He currently serves as book review editor for the Robert Frost Review.  He writes metrical poetry and has published poems in a variety of journals.  Since arriving at VMI, he has become increasingly interested in the intersection of philosophy, aesthetics, and religion.  He is particularly interested in the early twentieth-century philosopher Gabriel Marcel and the contemporary philosophers William Desmond and Byung-Chul Han.  He is currently wrapping up a book project titled “Wonder Strikes: Approaching Aesthetics and Literature with William Desmond.” 

In his free time, LTC Knepper enjoys spending time with his family, gardening, chicken tending, hiking, reading, and writing.  He can often be found in the book sections of local thrift shops looking for gems. 

Col. Christina McDonald joined the VMI faculty as the first Institute Director of Writing in 2002. In addition to teaching courses in first-year and advanced composition, the history of rhetoric, and the rhetorics of particular discourse communities, she is responsible for ensuring the integrity of writing instruction in the disciplines across Post to ensure that VMI graduates are able to communicate effectively for a variety of occasions and purposes.

For nine years before coming to VMI, Col. McDonald taught undergraduate and graduate courses in both literature and writing at James Madison University, where she served as director of composition and founding head of the Writing Program, an independent academic unit in the College of Arts and Letters. An honors graduate of Rollins College, she earned her Ph.D. in English, with a specialization in rhetoric and composition studies, at Texas Christian University under the mentorship of Gary Tate, Winifred Bryan Horner, and Jim Corder. 

Col. McDonald organizes VMI’s nationally recognized Spilman Symposium on Issues in Teaching Writing, and she has become a popular invited speaker on using writing to promote reflective learning, particularly in electronic environments. Her publications include two books, Teaching Writing: Landmarks and Horizons (Southern Illinois University Press, 2002) and Teaching Composition in the 1990s: Sites of Contention(Harper Collins, 1994).

Professor
English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies

Cadet-initiated Research on rhetorical analysis and application:

• Cadet Michelle McCusker ’14 (English major), Institute Honors Thesis, “Why Aren’t We All Healthy? A Rhetorical Analysis of the Dominant Narrative of Health,” (in-progress). 
• Cadet Kylen Schmidt ’15 (English major), Summer Undergraduate Research Project, “An Ethnographic Study of Cowboy Culture in the American West,” a rhetorical study of how the language, literature, art, and music of cowboys intersected and influenced one another and contributed to the identity of the American West and the iconic figure of the cowboy, Summer 2013. 
• Cadet Michelle McCusker ’14 (English major), Summer Undergraduate Research Project: “Rhetoric, Community, Advocacy: Making the Case for a System of Sustainable Health Care in Rockbridge County,” the first research with a service-learning orientation to be funded by V-CUR, culminating in a published strategic plan for the Rockbridge Area Health Needs Assessment, Summer 2012.http://www.rockbridgeareahealthcenter.org/resources/Updates/Rockbridge%20Area%20CHNA_2012_Final.pdf 
• Cadet Cabell Willis ’14 (History major with writing minor), Summer Undergraduate Research Project. Archival research and an ethnographic study, “Writing Under Cover: The Literacy Practices of VMI Cadets,” Summer 2012. 
• Cadet Matthew Waalkes ’13 (Biology major with writing minor), Independent Study project, a written and visual documentary of VMI’s of Engineers Without Borders chapter’s inaugural trip to Bolivia, Fall 2011.
• Cadet Alex Houser ’10 (Biology major with writing minor), Independent Study project, The Rhetoric of Medicine, culminating in a research paper, “Alternative Medicine in America,” Spring 2010. 
• Cadet Josh Kenny ’09 (Biology major with writing minor) and Cadet Alex Snyder (Chemistry major with writing minor), joint Independent Study project, Rhetoric and Scientific Discourse, Spring 2009.
• Cadet Dominik Wermus ’10 (Physics major with writing minor), Independent Study project. Contemporary Rhetoric and Physics, which led to a 10-page research paper, “Scientific Rhetoric in the Modern World,” Fall 2009.
• Cadet Will Flathers ’08 (Electrical Engineering major with writing minor), Independent Study in Reading Classical Rhetoricians: Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, Spring 2008. 
• Cadet Will Flathers ’08 (Electrical Engineering major with writing minor), Independent Study project, “Bombs Away! Portrait of a World War II Pilot.” A research-based nonfiction narrative account of George William Flathers’s wartime service as a B-17 pilot, from 1942 to 1944, Fall 2007. Cadet Flathers created a website for the project: http://www2.vmi.edu/cadetprojects/flathersgw/.  
• Cadet John Terminato ’07 (History major with writing minor), Institute Honors Thesis, “‘Testing’ the Goals of Education: One Student at a Time—A Case Study of the No Child Left Behind Act’s Effects on the Future of Education in Pennsylvania.”
• Cadet Matthew Sharpe ‘04 (Computer Science major with writing minor, Class of 2004), Institute Honors Thesis, “The Role of Rhetorical Studies in Software Engineering and Human Computer Interaction.”

Col. McDonald received the VMI Distinguished Teaching Award in 2006 and was elected as a faculty initiate to the VMI Circle of Omicron Delta Kappa in 2010. In 2011, the Superintendent presented her with the VMI Meritorious Service Medal.

Colonel Rob McDonald joined the VMI faculty in 1992. While serving as Associate Dean of the Faculty since 2001, he has continued to teach as a professor of English and fine arts. Recent offerings include Southern literature, creative writing (nonfiction), and a special seminar—developed in collaboration with cadets—titled Text + Image.

Colonel McDonald is a widely published scholar whose books include Reading Erskine Caldwell: New Essays; Teaching Writing: Landmarks and Horizons (ed. with Christina Russell McDonald); Southern Women Playwrights: New Essays in Literary History and Criticism (edited with Linda Rohrer Paige); Erskine Caldwell: Selected Letters, 1929-1955; The Critical Response to Erskine Caldwell; and Teaching Composition in the 90s: Sites of Contention (edited with Christina G. Russell). From 2005-2015, he served as editor of of the journal Studies in American Culture.

For more than a decade, Colonel McDonald has been exploring photography as a creative extension of his academic interests in the literature and culture of the South. His work has been featured in numerous exhibitions and book publications.

Colonel McDonald’s photographs are in the collection of numerous private and public collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth. In 2013, he became the Institute’s first recipient of a fellowship from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. In 2019, he received a professional fellowship from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

VMI has recognized Colonel McDonald with several awards, including the Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award (1997), the Matthew Fontaine Maury Award for Excellence in Faculty Research (1998), the VMI Distinguished Teaching Award (2001), and the Wilbur S. Hinman, Jr. Award for Undergraduate Research (2009 and 2010). 

In 2007, the Superintendent presented Colonel McDonald with the VMI Achievement Medal in recognition of his contributions to the Institute.

Col. Emily Miller is the Navas-Read Professor of English Literature and Head of the Department of English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies. She taught at Wake Forest University and Washington and Lee University, where she directed the Writing Center, before joining the VMI faculty in 1988.

After earning both a B.A. and an M.A. at the College of William and Mary, Col. Miller attended the University of Virginia, where she completed her doctorate in English. During her thirty five years at Virginia Military Institute, she has taught Shakespeare as well as British Literature and freshman writing, among other subjects. One of her most popular courses has been an Institute Honors Seminar titled “Power and Politics in Shakespeare.” She has regularly arranged for cadets from her Shakespeare courses to present their papers at professional conferences. Her own research has focused on Shakespeare, assessment, and curricular development.

The first woman appointed to be a department head at VMI, Col. Miller has served in this capacity since 1992. During the last decade, her department implemented a new interdisciplinary English major. While national trends have shown sharp declines in the number of English majors, VMI’s English major is thriving. Col. Miller, along with colleagues, has made numerous presentations at national conferences on the curricular design and ongoing development of this program.

In addition to being a member of VMI’s Academic Board, she has served on many Institute committees, e.g., the Academic Planning and Review Committee, the Professorships and Chairs Selection Committee, the Academic Policy Committee, SACS Self-Study Committees, the Institute Honors Committee, the Core Curriculum Oversight Committee, Dean and Superintendent Search Committees, and the Institute Planning Committee.

Col. Miller’s contributions to the Institute have been recognized with the 2007 Virginia Military Institute Achievement Medal, the 2018 Jackson-Hope Prize for Excellence in Academic Advancement, and the 2021 Virginia Military Institute Meritorious Service Award.

MENTORED STUDENT PROJECTS  2018-22

Delaney, John. “A Comic Community in Conflict: The Struggle Between Comedy and Seriousness in William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.” 2022 Honors Thesis.

Butler, Colin, “Shakespeare’s Henry V: Honor Is What You Put In; Honor Is What You Put Out.” Conference of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association, Virtual, November 2021.

Diller, Zachary, “Hamlet and Early Modern Attitudes towards Suicide.” Conference of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association, Virtual, November 2021.

Hamner, Daniel, Henry V and the Education of Women. Conference of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association, Virtual, November 2021.

Rezendes, Rhett, “Ophelia’s Death and Early Modern Attitudes towards Suicide.” Conference of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association, Virtual, November 2021.

Wegrzyn, Thaddeus,“Henry IV and Royal Rebellions in Early Modern England.” Conference of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association, Virtual, November 2021.

Delaney, John, “Portia’s Challenge to Early Modern Views of Women in The Merchant of  Venice.” Conference of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association, Virtual, November 2020.

Hoffman, Michael, “Henry V as the Ideal Military Leader in Early Modern Culture.” Conference of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association, Virtual, November 2020.

McKee, Brendan, “Shylock and Early Modern Views of Jews.” Conference of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association, Virtual, November 2020.

Gummo, Joseph, “Strong Women in Shakespeare’s Plays: Challenging and Reflecting Early Modern Views.” Conference of the American/Popular Association in the South,    Wilmington, NC, September 2019.

Hughes, Joseph, “Suicide in Hamlet.” Conference of the American/Popular Association in the South, Wilmington, NC, September 2019.

Smilie, Bryant, “Et Tu, Queen Elizabeth?: Fears of Tyranny in 1599 England.” Conference of the American/Popular Association in the South, Wilmington, NC, September 2019.

Wainwright, Nicholas, “Natural Power: How Women Exercised Power against Institutionalized Constraints in Early Modern Theater.” Conference of the American/Popular Association in the South, Wilmington, NC, September 2019.

Wilkinson, Reid, “Melancholy: the True Killer in Hamlet.” Conference of the American/Popular Association in the South, Wilmington, NC, September 2019.

Johnson, Carter, “Wrestling with God: Hamlet and the Divine.” Conference of the American/Popular Culture Association in the South. New Orleans, October 2018.

Worsham, Rives, “Shifting Attitudes of Honor and the Victory of Nationalism in Henry IV, Part One.” Conference of the American/Popular Culture Association in the South. New Orleans, October 2018.

Dr. Duncan Richter is the Charles S. Luck III ’55 Institute Professor. He teaches courses on ethics, religion, and aesthetics. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Virginia in 1995, his M. Phil. in Philosophy from the University College of Swansea in Wales in 1989, and his B.A. in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Oxford University in 1988. His research focuses on ethics and the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. He is the author of six books and numerous papers.

His teaching has won him two awards at VMI, and in 2008 he won an Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.

Instructor
English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies

Mattie Quesenberry Smith joined the Department of English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies in 2013. She teaches Writing and Rhetoric I & II.

Currently a candidate for the Ph.D. in Education, Curriculum, and Instruction with a concentration in Integrative STEM Education (I-STEM Ed.) at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Smith explores best practices for integrating STEM and the humanistic studies, such as American literature, creative writing, and rhetoric to support hands-on design thinking in the design-based technology and engineering classroom. Her current research involves impacts for critical reflective writing on design-based learning.

Smith is also a creative writer. Her poems have recently appeared in Poetry X Hunger, The Timberline Review, Phi Kappa Phi Forum Magazine, and several of her poems have been anthologized in publications, such as Tupelo Press’s 30/30 Anthology.

As a screenwriter, Smith shares several awards with husband and VMI peer, Douglas N. Smith. Their documentary film, Between Two Fires garnered a CINE Eagle and Best Documentary of the Show in the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences also awarded Between Two Fires a Bronze Oscar for excellence in graduate student filmmaking. This film is currently distributed by International Historic Films. Additionally, their screenplay “Once to Every Man” was an honorable mention in Virginia Governor’s Screenplay Competition.

Smith’s creative writing often explores the influence of science and technology on the poetic imagination, especially figurative language. Intrigued by dynamical systems and emergent complexity, she and her husband have been writing about unforeseen, chaotic impacts natural events have unleashed throughout the history of mankind. Their recent collaboration has engendered a completed screenplay for a major film project, “Eagle in the Snow,” adapted from the novel Eagle in the Snow, written by Wallace Breem. This story is set on the Rhine River, New Year’s Eve, 406 A.D., when the river froze, and five barbarian tribes crossed, catalyzing the fall of Rome. Most recently, this project was accepted for distribution in four twenty-two page volumes on comiXology.com, and she is hopeful for future, multi-platform success.

An avid hiker, Smith enjoys hiking with her ten children and a gathering host of significant others!

Lt. Col. Ticen is an Associate Professor of English Literature in the Department of English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies. She taught at The University of Montevallo, in Alabama, where she was active in the formation of their program in undergraduate research, before joining the VMI faculty in 2003. Her service in support of VMI’s co-hosting of the Nineteenth National Conference on Undergraduate Research (with Washington and Lee University) earned her a certificate of excellence in 2005.

Lt. Col. Ticen’s graduate work focused on the use of myth and epic in the works of James Joyce, Salman Rushdie, and Derek Walcott. As a specialist in twentieth-century British Literature, she has taught courses in modernism, post-colonial literature, South Asian Indian literature in English, African literature, Caribbean literature, and contemporary literary theory. Her current research centers on the use of the essay by post-colonial writers such as Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiongo, Salman Rushdie, and Arundhati Roy. She has been awarded faculty development grants to attend the Wye Faculty Seminar in 2006 and the Jessie Ball DePont Seminar for Liberal Arts College Faculty in 2003.

Lt. Col. Ticen has been active professionally within her field as a referee/reviewer for scholarly articles that have been published in Currents in Teaching and Learning, College English, and South Atlantic Review. She has been an active member of the South Asian Literary Association for twelve years, serving on its governing board as an executive committee member, organizational treasurer, and conference co-chair in 2004, when she was also co-editor of the conference proceeding.

Associate Professor
English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies

Publications and Presentations:

• “’ We’re Not Adversaries’: An Interview with Bharati Mukherjee”, with Dr. Robin Field, in South Asian Review, 2010 Special Topic: Postcolonial Considerations, 31.1, 247-261.
• Book Review. Rhetorical Investigations: Studies in Ordinary Language Criticism by Walter Jost, in Studies in American Culture 28.2 October 2005, 2002-2005.
• “Demanding Center Stage: Salman Rushdie’s Essays as Public Performance”, South Asian Literary Association Conference, Seattle, WA, 2012.
• “Skeptical Belief and Faithful Questioning: Interrogating Realism and Bolstering Mythology in The Satanic Verses”, South Asian Literary Association Conference, Los Angeles, CA, 2010.
• “’ because fate has conspired to make my voice heard’: Voicing a Woman’s Rage in the Essays of Arundhati Roy”, South Asian Literary Association Conference, San Francisco, CA, 2008.
• “Exploring the Rhetoric of Social Justice in the Essays of Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy”, South Asian Literary Association Conference, Chicago IL, 2007.
• “’ Lines in the Dirt Were All Very Well but They Only Delayed Matters’: Smudging and Blurring the Hard Lines of Nation and History in Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown”, South Asian Literary Association Conference, Philadelphia, PA, 2006.
•  “Ignorant Armies Clashing by Night?: Dueling Paradigms on the Undergraduate Research Landscape”, Modern Language Association Conference, Washington DC, 2005.
• “’ half strange and half strangely familiar’: Love in Pico Iyer’s The Global Soul”, Modern Language Association Conference, Philadelphia PA, 2004.
• “Reading What We Are Not: White Male Readers in the Lands of the ‘Other’”, Modern Language Association Conference, Philadelphia PA, 2004.
• “’ As for myself, the migrant, the man without frontiers’: Exploring Transnational Politics in Salman Rushdie’s Essays”, Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies Conference, Savannah GA, 2004.
• “’ Where the false barriers go down’: Resistance Opportunities in Muriel Rukeyser’s The Life of Poetry”, South Atlantic Modern Language Association Convention, 2003.

Since arriving at VMI, Lt. Col. Ticen has immersed herself in cadet life through her service as Assistant Officer in Charge in Barracks and as a facilitator with Cadet Counseling’s CTT Training Time for Rats. She has led groups of cadets on study tours to London four times in the past decade, helping them to more deeply understand British Literature through cultural immersion via theater, museums, historical landmarks, manuscript archives, and contemporary cuisines. In addition, she has served as a mentor for a number of cadet research projects and presentations, including the following:

• Franzino, Rob: “Energizing Cameron Hall,” Second Place, First-Year Composition, 2012 VMI Academic Writing Contest.
• McCarron, Gabi: “Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses: A Text Intended to Challenge the Level of Man’s Consciousness”, Independent Study, 2011.
• McCauley, Sean: “Thus conscience does make cowards of us all: Shakespeare’s Commentary on Man’s Nature in Hamlet and Othello”, VMI Poetry Symposium: The Power of Poetry, 2011.
• Resetar, Laura: Poems, VMI Undergraduate Research Symposium, 2009.
• Resetar, Laura: Poems, VMI Poetry Symposium, 2009.
• Edwards, Travis: Poems, VMI Undergraduate Research Symposium, 2009.
• Resetar, Laura: Poems, VMI Poetry Symposium, 2008.
• Jones, Shaun: “Reading Conrad: History, Duality, and Imperialism,” National Conference on Undergraduate Research, Virginia Military Institute and Washington & Lee University, 2005.
• Jones, Shaun:“Reading Conrad: History, Duality, and Imperialism”, Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference of Undergraduate Scholarship, Sweet Briar College, 2004.
• Jones, Shaun: “Conrad: A Look at Modernism and Post-Colonialism in Early Twentieth-Century Literature”, SURI, 2004.

Assistant Professor
English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies