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Virginia Pruitt

Professor
English
College of Arts & Sciences
Contact
Morgan Hall
Rm 255
1700 SW College Ave
Topeka, KS 66621-1117
785-670-1446
Degrees & Certifications
Saint Olaf College, Bachelor of Arts
Univ/No Carolina/Chapel Hill, Master of Arts
Univ of Virginia-Main Campus, Doctor of Philosophy
Academic History

Washburn University, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Professor, 1974 - present.

University of Memphis, Instructor, 1968-1971.

The Hutchison School (private, college-preparatory), Memphis, TN, English instructor, 1966-1968.

Teaching
  • EN 101 I, Freshman Comp
  • EN 101 M, Freshman Comp
  • EN 131 A, Understanding Short Fiction
  • EN 190 A, Film Appreciation
  • EN 331 A, American Lit II
Scholarly Interests/Activities
Popular Culture: Film Noir, Pulp Fiction (I include both short stories and novels in my Detective Fiction course), a series of annual presentations at the national Popular Culture Association Conference between 1999 and 2009 on a number of Orson Welles' adaptations to radio of classic British and American novels.
Service Interests/Activities
In the English Department, I regularly serve on Hiring, 3rd year review, and Tenure committees. At the university level, I've quite recently served as the Humanities Rep. for the College Committee on Promotion and Tenure (2006-2009) as well as on the Faculty Devt. Steering Committee (plus attended all Faculty Devt. workshops during this same time period). Between 2009 and 2011, I also served on the Major Research and Grant committee. Finally, I frequently help out on fund drives for KTWU.
Career Accomplishments

Received the Ned Fleming "Excellence in Teaching Award" in 2006

Co-editor, with Howard Faulkner, of The Selected Correspondence of Karl A. Mennninger 1919-1945 (Yale UP); The Selected Corespondence of Karl A. Menninger 1919-1945 (reprinted, U. of Missouri Press) The Selected Correspondece of Karl A. Menninger 1946-1965 (University of Missouri Press);  Dear Dr. Menninger: Women's Voices from the Thirties (University of Missouri Press); For Dear Life and Selected Short Stories of Belinda Jelliffe (University of MIssouri Press) 

I've published essays on W.B. Yeats, Doris Lessing, and Alice Munro in the following journals, among others: American Imago (3 essays), Colby LIbrary Quarterly (2 essays), Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic (2 essays), ELH (Johns Hopkins UP), Psychoanalytic Review, Women's Studies, The Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry