People, Papers, Presentations

Jane Chance,
professor of English, organized two sessions on “Women
Medievalists in the Academy” and four sessions on “J.R.R.
Tolkien: The Emergence of Myth” at the 37th International
Congress on Medieval Studies, Medieval Institute, Western
Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Mich., May 3 and 4. She
served as moderator of a session on “Women Medievalists
in the Academy, I” and on “Tolkien and Old English”
in the sponsored session on “J. R. R. Tolkien: The
Emergence of Myth.” Accompanying her were three Rice
graduate students in English: Jessica Weinstein, who moderated
the second session of “Women Medievalists in the Academy”;
Andrew Lazo, who delivered a paper, “Gathered Round
Northern Fires: The Imaginative Impact of the Kolbitars,”
in the session on “Tolkien and Old Norse”; and
David Messmer, who delivered a paper, “Servant and
Lord: What Tolkien’s Medieval Translations Tell Us
About His Own Fiction,” in “Tolkien and Old English.”
Also in attendance were Chance’s two undergraduate
Rice Century Scholars, Emily Jones and Andrew Dimond, the
latter of whom delivered a paper, “Twilight of the
Elves: Ragnarök and the End of the Third Age,”
in the session on “Tolkien and Old Norse.” Chance
also arranged a May 4 reception for Rice alumni, students
and faculty.

Chance also
delivered a talk on Peter Jackson’s “Hobbito-Centric‚
‘Fellowship of the Ring’” for the Rice alumni
group in Denver April 29.

Chance was invited
to deliver a paper, “Representing Rebellion: Chaucer’s
‘Knight’s Tale’ and the ‘Castration
of Saturn,’” at “Medieval Literature, Languages
and Culture: A Symposium in Memory of Professor Margaret
Schlauch (1898-1986),” sponsored by the School of English,
Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznañ, Poland, May 13.
She also presented a paper, “The Arthurian Knight Remythified:
Gawain as Pygmalion, Lancelot as Amant and Perceval as Perseus,”
at the International Congress of the Arthurian Literature
Society, University of Wales, Bangor, Wales, July 22. Her
review article “Rhetorical ‘Inventio’ and
Ricardian Allegories in Late Middle English Literature:
A New Historical Approach to Fiction” has been published
in International Journal of the Classical Tradition 8.1
(summer, 2001): 80-92.

Tom McEvilley,
distinguished lecturer on art history, has published his
second book this year. “The Shape of Ancient Thought”
was published earlier this year and more recently published
was “Bernar Venet” (Wabern/Bern: Benteli Verlags
AG, 2002), a beautifully illustrated book on the work of
the living French artist Bernar Venet.

Bob Patten,
the Lynette S. Autrey Professor in Humanities, has been
appointed to the governing senate of the national Phi Beta
Kappa organization.

A television
program on which Richard Stoll, professor of political
science, appeared won a Clarion Award from the Association
for Women in Communications. Stoll was a panelist on the
program, titled “Terrorism: Important Information You
Haven’t Heard Yet,” which focused on the government,
the Sept. 11 tragedies and terrorism. The program was produced
by McCuistion TV.com for PBS.

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