November 20, 2009

BCU’s Professor Presents at National Conference

SIOUX CITY, Iowa – Maria O’Malley, Ph.D., assistant professor of English at Briar Cliff University, recently presented a paper at the Annual Conference of the American Studies Association (ASA) in Washington, D.C.

At the conference, which was on the practices of citizenship, Dr. O’Malley presented her paper, “What We Call a Metaphor in Our Country: Emily Dickinson’s Public Sphere,” during a panel discussion on the limits of belonging in nineteenth century literature.

In her presentation, Dr. O’Malley analyzed an early prose experiment by Dickinson published in Amherst College’s student-run literary journal in 1850. In the publication, Dickinson mocks notions of using conversation as means of achieving political reform in early America.

Dr. O’Malley came to Briar Cliff University in 2008 from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she earned a Ph.D. in English.

ASA, which has a membership of approximately 5,000, is an interdisciplinary association of scholars from diverse fields who study the culture and history of America.

Briar Cliff University is a Catholic institution with an enrollment of more than 1,100 students from 28 states.  Students are educated in the Franciscan tradition of excellence in the liberal arts and career preparation in an environment of care and compassion. For more information, please visit www.briarcliff.edu.

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