Dr. Bonnie Smith Whitehouse, professor of English, and Dr. Lauren Lunsford, professor of education, recently had an article published entitled “Empowerment, Empathy and Equipment for Living: A Path Forward as We Integrate the Common Core” in the October 2013 Tennessee English Journal. 

Dr. Andrea Stover and Dr. John Paine, both professors of English, presented and discussed Kamo no Chomei’s Hokoji (A Ten-Foot-Square Hut), an early medieval Japanese text, at a plenary session of the Japan Studies Association in Honolulu, Hawaii in January. Stover is board member for the Japan Studies Association, and Paine edits the Japan Studies Association Journal, an interdisciplinary scholarly journal devoted to Japan Studies.

On Jan. 4, Dr. Ronnie Littlejohn, professor of philosophy, director of Asian Studies and the 2013-14 Virginia M. Chaney Professor, gave one of two keynote addresses at the International Conference on Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences in Honolulu, Hawaii. His talk was entitled “How Confucian Ethics Differs from Western Morality and Why it is Important.” There were over 350 presenters at the conference at the four day conference from colleges and universities from Europe to Asia and the United States.

Littlejohn is author of four books, including Confucianism: An Introduction (2011) and Daoism: An Introduction (2010) in the I.B. Tauris Academic Studies Series. He is co-editor of two books including Riding the Wind with Liezi: New Essays on a Daoist Classic (SUNY Press, 2011) and Polishing the Chinese Mirror (Association of Chinese Philosophers of America, 2008), as well as over 60 articles.

He recently edited a new work entitled Chinese Receptions of Western Philosophy, a collection of nine essays written by Chinese scholars on the introduction of Western philosophy in China and the great Chinese thinkers who adapted it. He has a contract to write a new Introduction to Chinese Philosophy and a Reader on Chinese Philosophy containing new and revised translations of some of the most important texts in Chinese intellectual history for London based, I.B. Tauris.

University Photographer Andrea Hallgren’s photography is now displayed as a permanent art exhibit in the Barbara and Doyle Rogers Lobby located off the 15^th Avenue entrance of the Randall and Sadie Baskin Center. Hallgren traveled to courthouse locations across the state to capture the black and white images of the structures.

“It was an honor and a pleasure to capture some of the state’s most famed legal buildings, and I hope the photo installation will help people further appreciate the state’s unique history,” Hallgren said.

The goal was to combine a gallery that features both art and education for Belmont law students and visitors to the building. The images reflect Tennessee courthouses whose location or hosted trials played a significant role in law education including the Shelby County Courthouse where James Earl Ray appeared before Judge W. Preston Battle of the Criminal Court of Shelby County and pleaded guilty to the first degree murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.