MCC Daily Tribune

Save the Dates for Season Eight of Filling Station: A Faculty Research Presentation Series

Filling Station: A Faculty Research Presentation Series

Fall 2019 Lineup

Tokeya Graham (English/Philosophy): Friday, September 13, 12-12:50 p.m., in 8-200

Associate Professor Tokeya C. Graham (ENG/PHL) teaches English at MCC's Downtown Campus. She is very active in campus life, including being the advisor for Black Student Union at the Downtown Campus and most recently serving on the President's Expanded Cabinet and on the Creative Writing Committee. Professor Graham participates in various college and community initiatives where she has received many awards for her academic expertise as well as her community service. In addition to teaching English, Graham is an equity and inclusion strategist who works with organizations to cultivate powerful change. For her Filling Station presentation, she will deliver a talk called "James Baldwin's America: Race and Modern Society." According to Graham: "James Baldwin's writings offer an unflinching look into America's complicated history dealing (and not dealing) with race. This presentation will highlight Baldwin's words as commentary on what ailed America then and what still ails it now, almost 50 years later. This conversation is intended to spark thoughtful dialogue about racial progress and what it will take to cultivate an inclusive society."

Steven Farrington (World Languages and Cultures): Friday, October 18, 12-12:50 p.m., in 8-200

Steven Farrington is an Assistant Professor of French, Spanish, and Italian. He is from Hilton, NY but has travelled to many countries and is passionate about writing, ideas, and Romance Languages and literatures. He especially is interested in LGBT literature and film from France and Spain. He is also the author of Rodrigo's Land, which is a historical fiction novel. Professor Farrington's love of Spanish literature will be clearly evident in his Filling Station presentation, which will focus on Luis Cernuda, one of the most prominent members of the world-famous "Generation of '27" writers to have emerged from Spain circa 1923-1927. Farrington will address ways in which Cernuda's status as cultural outsider is reflected in his poetry. According to Farrington: "Sometimes this took the form of feeling like an outsider looking in on his family; sometimes, he felt like an outsider as a gay atheist in heavily conservative and Catholic Spain; in still other moments, his poetry reflects the sadness of being an exile in both Britain and later in the US following the Spanish Civil War."

Bill Drumright (History): Friday, December 06, 12-12:50 p.m., in 8-200

Bill Drumright is an Associate Professor of History at Monroe Community College, where he has worked since January of 2003. He received his Ph.D. in History in May of 2005 from the University of Tennessee/Knoxville, with a specialty in 20th Century United States History (the New Deal/World War II era). For his Filling Station presentation, Professor Drumright will reflect upon the research and writing of his dissertation, "A River for War, A Watershed to Change: The Tennessee Valley Authority During World War II." Specifically, he will consider what could be called "the 'presentness' of the past." That is, how conducting historical research and writing in one's present affects how one reconstructs past historical events--especially those events that occurred before the historian was born.

All presentations are free and open to the community.

Anthony Leuzzi
English/Philosophy
08/23/2019