HOLLAND – Two members of the Hope English faculty are making presentations, or are responsible for them, during the forthcoming annual convention of the Modern Language Association (MLA) in Philadelphia, Pa.

Dr. William Pannapacker is giving a talk on Walt Whitman’s intellectual relationships with the writers, artists and scientists of Philadelphia between 1873 and 1892, scheduled in conjunction with the 150th anniversary of Whitman’s groundbreaking collection of poetry, “Leaves of Grass.” Dr. John Cox, as president of the Conference on Christianity and Literature (CCL), has organized or identified organizers for four events at the MLA convention.

The 15,000-member MLA is the premier international venue for scholarly work in languages and literature. This year’s convention will run Monday-Thursday, Dec. 27-30.

Pannapacker is an assistant professor of English and Towsley Research Scholar at Hope. His current research projects include a monograph called “Walt Whitman’s Philadelphia,” expected in 2006. His most recent book, “Revised Lives: Walt Whitman and Nineteenth Century Authorship,” published in 2003, examines self-reinvention in U.S. culture, with emphasis on Whitman’s poetry.

July of 2005 marks the 150th anniversary of “Leaves of Grass,” and the MLA lecture is the first in a series of four talks that Pannapacker has been invited to give this year at all of the major celebrations of the collection’s sesquicentennial. He will also present “Leaves of Grass as a Call to Discipleship” during the “Leaves of Grass: 150th Anniversary Conference” at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln in April; “Walt Whitman’s Philadelphia” during the “Conference on Walt Whitman and Place” at Rutgers University in Camden, N.J., in April; and “Walt Whitman and the Quaker City” during the American Studies Association conference in Washington, D.C., in November.

Cox, who is the DuMez Professor of English at Hope, was elected last December to a two-year term as president of the CCL. A national organization interested in the historical and theoretical relationship between literature and Christianity, the CCL publishes a scholarly organization in addition to sponsoring local meetings in each of seven regions of the U.S. and Canada as well as during the annual MLA convention.

The CCL has scheduled four events during the MLA conference: a session by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Harvard professor Robert Coles, a session of scholarly papers on J.R.R. Tolkien, and the annual CCL luncheon and board meeting.

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