Barbara Jalon Hiles Mesle

Barbara Jalon Hiles Mesle, Ph.D.

Professor of English

Office Phone: 641-784-5153 please leave a message if you miss me
Email: mesle@graceland.edu
Office Hours: MWF 10:00-11:30 T TH 11:00-11:30 and by appointment gladly!!

Classes Teaching:

Advanced Composition: Business and Professional Writing
English Honors
Humanities I: Ways of Seeing
English Literature to 1800

Professional Vita

Fall Classes:

ENGL1440 English Honors
ENGL2310 English Literature to 1800
ENGL3200 Adv Comp: Business & Prof Wrtng

Spring Classes:

ENGL2320 English Literature 1800-1919
ENGL3200 Adv Comp: Business & Prof Wrtng
ENGL4150 Senior Seminar
HUMN2470 Hum II: Literature by Women

Professional Address:
Graceland University
Department of Humanities
1 University Place
Lamoni, Iowa 50140
641-784-5153

Home Address
Evening Star Lane
10003 290th St
Lamoni, Iowa 50140
641-784-3722

mesle@graceland.edu (e-mail)

 

CURRENT POSITION:
Professor of English, Graceland University, Lamoni, IA

EDUCATION:
University of Kansas, Ph.D. with honors, 1992
4.0 in all course work, honors on dissertation,
Department of English

University of Chicago, MA, 1975
"A" on M.A. exams, Department of English

Graceland College, BA, 1972, summa cum laude
Majored in English and secondary education
Minored in German

TEACHING EXPERIENCE:
Professor of English, Spring, 2000 to present.

Spring, 2003. Visiting scholar, Claremont University, Claremont, CA. Co-taught a graduate class.

1986-present Graceland College, Lamoni, IA
Division of Humanities, Full-time faculty.

Special administration assignments in
strategic planning (1991), and
department coordinator, 1990-1, 1998.

1979-1986 Graceland College
Department of English, Part-time faculty
Taught 39 semester hours total from '79-'86

1982-1986 Graceland College, Director
Educational Talent Search
Wrote successful annual grants


HONORS:
National Endowment for the Humanities, UCLA,
Summer, 1994. Gender and Romanticism

Nominated by the University of Kansas for a special
dissertation award. One of six dissertations
university-wide out of 87 candidates to be
nominated, May, 1993

Sears-Roebuck Award for Teaching and
Leadership Excellence, May, 1991

Excellence in Teaching Award
Spring, 2000 Graceland University
Nominated multiple additional times for a 2nd award

Recent PUBLICATIONS:
Louise Erdrich: New Essays in Criticism, publisher, The Edwin Mellen Press, UK. forthcoming in Spring 2009. I have a chapter,
Drums Make Connections: Trauma, Memory and Healing in Louise
Erdrich's THE PAINTED DRUM, in this book.

"A Compass Through the Fog," Process Perspectives, Fall, 2007.

"Seeking Transformation in Fiction: Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon,
Creative Transformations, Spring, 2007.

Review of Upheavals of Thought: the Intelligence of Emotions by
Martha Nussbaum, May/Sept 2006 issue the American Journal of
Theology and Philosophy.

"'Keeping the Making-Spirit Going,' Process Thought and Literature,"
Creative Transformations, Spring, 2006.

forthcoming chapter," Trauma, Re-Memory, and Cultural Identity: Storytelling in Toni Morrison's Beloved," in as yet unnamed new book. Editor, John Taylor to be published by HIARPT.

January, 2005, GALA newsletter, "Find Hope in the Child," with Bob Mesle.

Co-author, "Tangled, Muddy, Painful, and Perplexed:" Pragmatism,
Feminism, and Life," American Journal of Theology and Philosophy,
January, 2003.

Mars Hill Review, "Beloved:" a Fine, Fine Film." Issue 13.


Professional SERVICE:
Poetry Editor, Creative Transformations, May 2005-present.

Teaching, Process and Literature, Claremont School of Theology, June, 2006.

speaker to SIFE leadership team, Fall, 2005.

Editorial Advisory Board for Business Communication, Krizan,
Merrier, and Jones, 6th edition, Summer 2004, (stipend). Name
appears in textbook.

Reviewer for text, Business Communication, Krizan, Merrier, and Jones, 5th edition, April 2002 (stipend).

Most recent Graceland committees: Scoepat,
CSW, Alumni Board, Honor Council, Prestigious Honors
Scholarship Selection committee, search committees.

 

Selected PRESENTATIONS:
July, 2008, Assisi, Italy, "Jane Addams and the Sustainability of Democracy."

February 3, 2008. "Manlio Argueta and Liberation Theology,"
Olathe, KS, St. Andrew.

Summer, 2007. Yantai, China. Team Teacher in Yantai, China,
For 3 weeks at Process Institute.

July 14, 2006. Congreso Nacional De Profesores y Estuadiantes de Ingles, with Bob Mesle, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. "Inter-disciplinary teaching as a case study in the Humanities."

June 2005 Film presentations, Claremont School of Theology

August 2003 in Budapest, Hungary, "Trauma, Re-Memory, and Cultural Identity: Storytelling in Toni Morrison's Beloved.

April 8, 2003, Claremont University Consortium and Process Center Seminar, Toni Morrison, Evil and Meaning.

October, 2001, American Women Writers of Colors, presented
a paper on Toni Morrison's novel Jazz.

February, 2000, presented a paper at the University of Texas
San Antonio, Conference of the Representation of Food in
the Arts.

March, 1999: "Manlio Argueta's One Day
Of Life," Creighton University, Midlands Conference,
Omaha, Nebraska. A Graceland Senior from El
Salvador, Tania Gonzalez, translated another
novel by Argueta which is not available in English.
I used Tania's work in my presentation.

"Cuzcatlan:" March, 1998, Creighton University
Midlands Conference, Omaha, Nebraska.

"Alterity in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye," March, 1997.
Creighton University, Midlands Conference, Omaha,
Nebraska.

"Images of the Body in Nawal El Saadawi's
Memoirs of a Woman Doctor and The Circling Song,"
April 18-19, 1996, Creighton University Midlands
Conference, Omaha, Nebraska.

"The Meaning of Life?" Last Lectures Series,
Graceland College, LEAD program, March 7, 1996.

"Ordinary Woman, Extraordinary Lives, " week long class at
Sports Spectacular, August, 1995.

"The Representation of Incest in Mary Shelley's
Mathilda and Percy Shelley's The Cenci," March 31,
1995. Creighton University, Midlands Conference,
Omaha, Nebraska.

"Committed Relativism: Post-Modern Ethics and
Storytelling," The Ends of Post-Modernism conference
presented with Bob Mesle, September 15-16, 1994.

 

MEMBERSHIPS:
The International Byron Society
The Modern Language Association
The National Council of Teachers of English
Iowa Council of Teachers of English
The Good Samaritan Project, Southern Poverty Law Center

Note: to save space, I have omitted all conferences attended, even when I have chaired sessions. I have also left off professional references. All of this information is available by request.