Local News

MBU’s English Department Reaches Out

November 1, 2007

By Jacob Wilkins

The literary discussion MBU and Maryville sponsored on Oct. 23 was a resounding success. Exactly 50 people attended the discussion of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. About 30 of those people were MBU students, and about 20 were students from a Parkway South AP literature class.

“I think this was the best attended one so far,” said Dr. Mary Bagley, professor of English at MBU. The MBU English department organized a concerted drive to attract more MBU students to this semester’s talks, which is one part of a move towards giving the talks a more “official” air.

While last year’s discussions were almost exclusively conducted in an informal question-and-answer format, this semester’s first event added a more formal, academic flavor. At last week’s talk, Dr. John Han, chair of the Humanities division at MBU, presented a paper he had first presented at a Steinbeck conference in Tokyo. The usual question-and-answer session followed his presentation.

This was not the first time The Grapes of Wrath has been the topic of discussion; it was chosen again to supplement the studies of the students from the Parkway South AP class. According to Bagley, this is all part of the school’s mission. “This is the English department’s way of reaching out and getting involved in the community,” she said.

With this in mind, the English department is considering other possibilities for publicizing the discussions in order to involve even more groups in the community. The next event is tentatively scheduled for Nov. 27 at 7 p.m. at the Borders on Manchester at New Ballwin.

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