Language and Literature

The Department of Language and Literature at William Carey includes majors in both English and Spanish and seeks to engage students of all backgrounds in a curriculum that offers reading, writing, speaking and thinking opportunities enriched by Christian values.

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Called to create a brighter future

In English, we encourage creation, study and interpretation of works of literature, and we work toward excellence in composition and improved knowledge in linguistics, critical theory and literary history. In Spanish, we develop skills which enable students to engage in oral and written communication at a level for academic and professional discourse, and we develop in students through reading and writing in Spanish both a strong linguistic sense and cultural awareness of a larger world. In both programs, we invite students to move beyond the understanding of cultural literacy to experience reading, writing and thinking as equipment for living, and to see study in literature and language as providing important tools for self-discovery and enriched lives of meaningful service to the world in which we live. In addition, through our required courses in writing, language and literature in the university core curriculum, we attempt to strengthen writing, reading, thinking and research skills in all students, and we encourage discipline-specific reading and writing experiences as well as knowledge and practice in the use of internet and on-line data bases as tools for research.

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Meet the Chair

Dr. Thomas Richardson

Thomas J. Richardson is Chair of the Department of Language and Literature and Professor of English at William Carey, where he has taught and worked since 2005. He earlier studied and taught at Vanderbilt University (Ph.D., 1975), the University of Alabama (M.A., 1965), and the University of Southern Mississippi, (B.A., 1962), where he also taught from 1971-2005, including terms as Chair of the Department of English (1983-88) and Coordinator of Senior Honors in the Honors College (1990-2003). He has also taught at Auburn University, Meridian Community College, and Gulfport High School. In addition to his duties as chair, at Carey he teaches a broad range of undergraduate and graduate courses in writing and literature, including core courses in addition to advanced courses in literary theory and the required senior seminar. He was Co-Editor of the Mississippi Folklore Register from 1979-1989 and an Advisory Editor of the Southern Quarterly from 1979-2004, and over time he has read papers and/or offered lectures at such different settings as the OLLI Center at USM, the Mississippi Philological Association, the Mississippi Community College Writing Association, the Institute for Faith and Culture at Baylor University, the Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration, the Sue Price Lipsey Lecture at Mississippi College, the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival in New Orleans, the South Central Conference on Christianity and Literature at Loyola University, the Mississippi Council of Teachers of English, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and the ADE Summer Seminar at Amherst College. He is married to Pamela Myrick Mottley, and he has two children, John (Fairhope, AL), and Ryan (NYC), and two grandchildren, Colin and Cate.