UAB English Department Appoints Seven New Faculty Members

The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Department of English has added seven new faculty members, says Marilyn Kurata, Ph.D., chair of the department.

September 24, 2003

BIRMINGHAM, AL — The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Department of English has added seven new faculty members, says Marilyn Kurata, Ph.D., chair of the department.

Matthew DeVoll, Ph.D., is a 2002 graduate of Washington University with a doctorate in English. DeVoll has been appointed to the department as an assistant professor of English, teaching American literature and freshman composition. His research interests include American romanticism and Gothicism, rhetoric and composition. He has an article in the forthcoming book “Occult in 19th Century America,” as well as explanatory notes in the forthcoming book “Selections From Hawthorne’s Notebooks.”

Tina Harris is a 2002 graduate of UAB with a master’s in English with an emphasis in creative writing. She has been appointed as a visiting instructor in the department. Harris teaches English composition, developmental composition and American literature. She has published in journals such as the Santa Clara Review, Poem, Memoir, Story and StorySouth. Her poems were also featured in the anthology, As Ordinary and as Sacred as Blood: Alabama Women Speak. She is the 2003 winner of the Barksdales-Maynard Poetry Award and the 2002 Sigma Tau Delta writing award.

Ann Hoff, Ph.D., graduated from City University of New York in 2003 with a doctorate in English. Hoff has been appointed as an assistant professor of modern poetry in the department. She has published poems in The Falling Rain, Poetry’s Elite: The Best Poets of 2000, Pegasus Review and The Rambunctious Review. Hoff has a forthcoming article on Gertrude Stein in Autobiography Studies and has presented conference papers on Stein, Sylvia Plath and the political poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Sue Kim, Ph.D., earned her doctorate in English from Cornell University in 2002. Before coming to UAB as an assistant professor in the Department of English, Kim was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Rochester. Her research interests include 20th century literature, the novel and narrative studies, ethnic and feminist studies, postcolonial studies, and creative writing. She has published in Race Critical Theories: Text and Context and Asian Journal of Women’s Studies.

Joseph Stitt, M.A., is a 1995 graduate of the University of Alabama. He joins the department as an instructor, teaching freshman and sophomore English and tutoring students in the English Resource Center. Stitt is a writer and editor who has published book reviews and essays for several Birmingham area publications. He has also been a consultant for GreenThink.com.

Karen Tatum, Ph.D., earned her doctorate in English from the University of Alabama in 2001. She has been appointed as an assistant professor in the department, teaching classes in composition and British and American literature. Her research interests include women’s literature, feminist theory, literary biography and 18th and 19th century British literature.

Brad Watson earned his master in fine arts in creative writing from the University of Alabama in 1985. Watson has been appointed as a Visiting Associate Professor of creative writing. His novel “The Heaven of Mercury” was a National Book Award finalist and a co-winner of the Southern Book Award in Fiction from the Southern Book Critics Circle. Watson’s other publications include a collection of short stories titled “Last Days of the Dog-Men.” The book was awarded the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Watson is former director of creative writing at Harvard University.