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Information Packet for Senate Award Nomination for
Dr. Robert Jungman
I would like to begin by thanking my colleagues, especially those in my
college, for nominating me for the University Senate Award. For those of you
who do not know me, I would like to provide a brief statement of my background.
I have taught English at every level from freshmen to graduate students at
Louisiana Tech for thirty-six years now, and hold the Doug and Mabel McGuire
Professorship in English. Although active in research and service, I have
always focused more on my teaching because I regard teaching as the most
important thing that I do professionally. As a consequence, much of my research
is tied to my classroom teaching, whether it be a sophomore survey course in
British literature, a 400-level course on Chaucer, or a graduate seminar on
Shakespeare. That said, I have managed to publish one well-reviewed book and
thirty-eight articles in national and international refereed academic journals.
In the last five years, my publications include eight papers, and I am currently
finishing three more, all three involving Shakespeare. I would, of course, like
to publish more, but as a senior member of my department I carry a heavy service
load which involves among other things co-coordinating the graduate program in
English studies, chairing various departmental committees including the Graduate
Committee, the Search Committee for New Faculty in English, the Advanced Course
Rotation Committee, and often the English Tenure and Promotion Committee. I
serve also on the University Library Committee and have served multiple terms on
the University Senate. More specific information on my education, teaching,
service, and research will follow.
Education
Post-Doctoral Study: Yale University. 1981 National Endowment for the Humanities
Summer Seminar on Recent Literary Theory, conducted by Dr. Paul de Man.
Post-Doctoral Study: University of Wisconsin. 1977 National Endowment for the
Humanities Summer Seminar on Medieval Literature, conducted by Dr. Jerome
Taylor.
Graduate School: Florida State University. Ph.D. in English, June, 1972. M.A. in
English, December, 1968.
Foreign Study: One year of German studies at Ludwig-Maximilian Universität,
München, Germany, 1966-1967.
Post-Graduate Work: Northwestern University. Courses in philosophy, German, and
English, September, 1965 - June, 1966.
Undergraduate School: Washington and Lee University. B.A. in German, June, 1965.
Area of Specialization: Classical Influences on Medieval and Renaissance English
Literature.
Other Interests: Intertextuality, Comparative Literature, Art, Philosophy, and
Foreign Languages.
Languages Read: Old English, Middle English, Middle High German, Modern German,
French, Italian, Old Provençal, Latin, and Classical Greek.
Teaching Philosophy
Because much of my early academic training was in philosophy, I propose to
begin a description of my teaching philosophy quite literally with a little
philosophy. Plato, we recall, moved away from the Pre-Socratic philosophical
emphasis on Anaximander’s kosmos and nature (physis) to a focus on man
(anthropos). In The Euthypho, for example, Plato says that because what
distinguishes man from the other animals is his rational mind, this rational
mind
duty
mind
this
must therefore be the reason or purpose for man’s existence. Man’s chief
to himself and to the divine, therefore, must be to develop his rational
as much as possible. In The Apology, Plato’s spokesperson, Socrates, calls
activity “cultivating the soul” (epimeleisthai tes psyches).
But how, then, do we best do this? Aristotle will argue in The Poetics
that we develop our minds by pursuing knowledge in one of its three main forms:
history (which deals with particular facts), philosophy (which deals with
universal truths), and best of all poetry (which arranges particular facts so
that universal truths become self-apparent). The Roman Stoic philosopher and
orator Cicero will later define these studies in his Pro Archia as the liberal
arts (studia humanitatis) and in his De Officiis will connect them with Stoic
duty. These classical ideas resurface in the Renaissance work of figures like
Ficino and Pico della Mirandola, the latter in his On the Dignity of Man linking
classical thought with the Renaissance goal of fulfilling one’s full potential
as a human being.
From here we move to a modern philosopher, Martin Heidegger. In his early
work Sein und Zeit (Being and Time), Heidegger describes man as a Dasein
(literally in German as a “being-there”). But “being-there” involves not only a
person’s being rationally aware of being alive at a given time and space, but
also his or her awareness that being alive means to be alive with other human
beings (“mit-sein”). In other words, to be human means to be human with others.
Putting all of these ideas together, therefore, we could argue that if
man’s chief purpose is to cultivate his soul, he or she can only do this fully
by helping others to do the same. This helping others to realize their full
potentiality as human beings is what I call teaching.
The particular subjects I teach involve the traditional humanities,
Cicero’s studia humanitatis, and I thought that I might conclude by describing
one of my courses, moving as the Greeks would say from theory to practice. I
could describe one of my graduate seminars on Shakespeare or Homer and the
Western Epic Tradition, but I prefer instead to focus on a course for freshmen.
Every fall I teach a section of Honors 103: An Introduction to the Greeks and
Romans. I specifically request the 8:00 section, which is usually reserved for
Engineering and Non-Liberal Arts majors, because I feel that this course is
often their one opportunity in a demanding technical curriculum to have some
exposure to the humanities. In this freshman seminar, we discuss Greek and
Roman literature, history, and philosophy. I say “discuss,” because we actually
use the Socratic method as we sit around the table considering what I like to
call the cultural DNA of Western thought (Homer, Sophocles, Herodotus, Plato,
Aristotle, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Juvenal, Julius Caesar, Cicero, and St.
Augustine). If who we are as persons is at least partially determined by our
biological DNA inherited from our ancestors, who we are as 21st Century
Americans is also determined by our earliest cultural ancestors, the Greeks and
the Romans. It is by engaging these cultural ancestors in a four-part dialectic
involving text, scholarship, student, and teacher that we begin the life-long
process of cultivating our souls, becoming the persons we should be.
Courses Offered
In the last five years, I have taught multiple sections of the following:
Honors 103 Introduction to the Ancient World
English 201 Survey of English Literature
English 403 Chaucer
English 415 Shakespeare
English 422 History of the English Language
English 515 Seminar on Shakespeare
English 583 Homer and Western Epic Tradition
For these courses, my overall teaching evaluations have been 2002/3 (3.2);
2003/4 (3.3); 2004/5 (3.4); 2005/6 (3.7); and 2006/7 (3.7)
University and Departmental Service (representative examples)
Graduate Director for English, 1993-.
Graduate Advisor for numerous M. A. candidates, 1972-.
Graduate Faculty, 1972-.
Undergraduate Honors Faculty, 2000-.
Head, Departmental Promotions Committee, 2000-2002, 2005-6.
Head, Departmental Graduate Committee, 1996-.
Head, Departmental Search Committee for New Faculty, 1990-6, 2007.
Head, Departmental Undergraduate Curriculum Revision Committee, 1998-99.
Head, Departmental Advanced Courses Scheduling Committee, 1998-.
Member, University SACS Criteria for Undergraduate Programs Committee, 1992.
Member, University Library Committee, 1990-.
Member, University Self-Study Committee for the Library, 1983.
Member, Graduate School Committee for Research Stipends, 1988.
Member, University Senate, 1980-83, 1987-90, 1999-2001.
Member, College of Arts and Sciences Committee on Tenure, Merit Raises, and
Promotions, 1989-94.
Member, Departmental English 201 Committee, 1994-.
Member, Departmental Tenure/Promotions Committee, 1989-94; 1998-99, 2000-.
Member, Departmental SACS Self-Study Evaluation Procedures Committee, 1993.
Member, Departmental English Competency Exam Committee, 1992.
Member, Departmental Freshman English Collateral Committee, 1989.
Member, Departmental SACS Self-Study Committee, 1983, 2003.
Member, Department of Foreign Languages New Faculty Search Committee, 1992-93.
Honors
2003 Louisiana Tech University Foundation Professorship Award.
Fellowships and Grants
Summer, 1993. Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities grant ($ 50,000.) to
conduct a Summer Institute in Greek Mythology, Art, and Literature at
Louisiana Tech University for local high school teachers.
Fall, 1992. Louisiana Endowment of the Humanities grant to teach an adult
education seminar on Modern American Literature, in Arcadia, Louisiana.
Spring, 1992. Louisiana Endowment of the Humanities grant to teach an adult
education seminar on The Literature of World War Il and Viet Nam, in
Haynesville, Louisiana.
Spring, 1991. Louisiana Endowment of the Humanities grant to teach an adult
education seminar on Modern American Literature, in Homer, Louisiana.
Summer, 1981. National Endowment for the Humanities grant to attend a postdoctoral seminar on Recent Literary Theory, conducted by Dr. Paul de Man
at Yale University.
Summer, 1977. National Endowment for the Humanities grant to attend a postdoctoral seminar on Medieval Literature, conducted by Dr. Jerome Taylor at
The University of Wisconsin.
Books
On Being Foreign: Culture Shock in Short Fiction. Yarmouth, Maine: Intercultural
Press (now owned by Rutledge), 1986. Rpt. 1990. (Co-author)
Reviewed by R. F. Comeau (Harvard University) in Modern Language Journal,
72(1988): 76.
Refereed Journal Publications
“Eve as a ‘Fair Defect’ in Book 10 of John Milton’s Paradise Lost.” Forthcoming
in The Explicator.
“Mining for Augustinian Gold in John Donne’s Meditation 17.” Forthcoming in
ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews.
“The Death of a Pirate: Ecclesiastes 4.9-11 and Ernest Hemingway’s To Have and
Have Not.” The Explicator 62.4 (Summer, 2004): 224-27.
“Henry James on Safari in Green Hills of Africa.” The Hemingway Review 22.2
(Spring, 2003): 82-86. (Co-author)
“’Untainted’ Crime in Shakespeare's Sonnet 19.” ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of
Short Articles, Notes and Reviews 16.2 (Spring, 2003): 19-21.
“’Trimming’ Shakespeare's Sonnet 18.” ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short
Articles, Notes, and Reviews 16.1 (Winter, 2003): 18-19.
“Leaf Imagery as a Virgillan Topos in Shakespeare's Sonnet 73.” Shakespeare
Jahrbuch 138 (2002): 128-34.
“A Homeric Allusion in Swift’s A Modest Proposal.” The Scriblerian 34.1-2
(Autumn, 2001 & Spring, 2002): 76-78.
“Augustinian Voices in Part 3 of The Waste Land." Yeats Eliot Review 18.2
(December, 2001): 28-32.
“’A Generation of Leaves’: Homeric Allusion in Chapter V of Hemingway's In Our
Time.” The Hemingway Review 19.2 (Spring, 2000): 108-12. (Co-author)
“Chaucer's The Knight's Tale 2681-82 and Juvenal's Tenth Satire.” The Explicator
55.4 (Summer, 1997): 190-92.
“Ball Playing in Ben Jonson's Volpone.” Notes and Queries O.S. 239 (March,
1994): 64-66.
“Milton's Affair with a Bar-maid: Virgillan Echoes in Lycidas 64-84." Notes and
Queries O.S. 237 (December, 1992): 453-55.
“Some Unnoticed Classical Allusions and Topoi in the Last Paragraph of the
Preface to Lazarilio de Tormes.” Classical and Modern Literature 12.4
(Summer, 1992): 327-32. (Co-author)
“Western Wind and Tibullus 1, 45-48.” English Language Notes 27 (1989): 1926.
“A ‘Privy’ Pun in Lycidas, 128-9.” The Explicator 46.2 (Winter, 1988): 8-9.
“His Mother's Curse: Kinship in The Friar's Tale.” Philological Quarterly 64
(1985): 256-59. (Co-author)
“Greville as a Source for Lycidas, Lines 8-9.” Sidney Newsletter 4.2
(Fall/Winter, 1983): 13-15.
“’Amor vincit omnia’ and the Prioress's Brooch.” Lore and Language 3.9 (July,
1983): 1-8.
“Lycidas, Line 114.” The Explicator 41 (Summer, 1983): 11-13.
“Carew's The Spring: Lines 22-3.” The Explicator 40 (Summer, 1982): 11-18.
“Mak and the Seven Names of God in the Wakefield Second Shepherds' Play.” Lore
and Language 3.6 (January, 1982): 24-28.
“Bird Imagery in Thomas Carew's To Ben. lohnson.” The Explicator 40 (Fall,
1981): 17-18.
“’Coven’ in The Summoner's Tale.” Mississippi Folklore Register 14 (1980): 2023.
“Thomas Carew's The Spring: A Renaissance Imitation of Horace.” Classical and
Modern Literature" 1 (1980): 47-55.
“Henry Vlll's Pastime With Good Company.” Notes and Queries O.S. 224 (October,
1979): 397-99.
“The Sestet in Drayton's Sonnet 61.” Renaissance and Renascences 1 (1979): 1-5.
(Co-author)
“St. Augustine's On Christian Doctrine and the Pardoner's ‘Confession.’”
The Chaucer Newsletter 1 (1979): 16-17.
“Milton's Use of Catullus in Lycidas. Classical Folia 32 ( 1978): 90-92.
“’Christicolae,’ Prudentius, and the Quem Quaeritis Easter Dialogue."
Comparative Drama 12 (1978-79): 300-09.
“Shakespeare's Use of Fortescue in The First Part of Henry the Fourth.” Notes
and Queries O.S. 223 (April, 1978): 131. (Co-author)
“A Mock-Heroic Reference in Henry James's The Ambassadors.” Modern British
Literature 3 (1978): 79-80.
“A Note on the Ending of The Sun Also Rises.” Fitzgerald/Hemingway Annual 1977:
214.
“Demonology in Poe's The Raven.” Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin 43 (1977):
65-67. (Co-author)
“The Pardoner's Quarrel with the Host.” Philological Quarterly 55 (1976): 27981.
“The Waste Land, Line 426.” Yeats/Eliot Review 2(1975): 8.
“An Analogue in Fortescue to the Wakefield Magnus Herodes.” American Notes and
Queries 4 (1975): 2-3.
“The Ending of Thomas Carew's The Spring.” Concerning Poetry 8 (1975): 49-50.