English Professor Published

Dr. Matthew Sivils, Westminster College assistant professor of English, had his article "Reading Trees in Southern Literature" published in The Southern Quarterly.

"My article focuses on how tree imagery in the works of southern writers such as William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston, and Eudora Welty is connected to issues of both environmental and racial oppression," Sivils said. "I argue that southern literary trees - especially so-called bottle trees' and those trees associated with racial violence - serve as connecting points between both the people and the natural world of the South."

Sivils, who has been with Westminster College since 2006, earned his undergraduate degree from Arkansas Tech University, and his master's and Ph.D. from Oklahoma State University. His articles have appeared in such publications as American Transcendental Quarterly, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, Southwestern American Literature, and The Mississippi Quarterly. One of his essays will appear in the forthcoming anthology Reading Cooper, Teaching Cooper.

Contact Sivils at (724)946-7350 or e-mail sivilsmw@westminster.edu for more information.