Languages, Literature, and Writing

Our Faculty

All professors in the department are working writers, engaged in scholarly and creative projects. We are involved in writing on a daily basis in our own lives. Additionally, our faculty has earned a reputation for teaching excellence throughout the university. Three department members have won the Faculty of the Year Award and three have won the Newell Innovative Teaching Award (with three colleagues having received honorable mentions for the Newell Award).

David Malone

Department Chair and Professor of English

Dr. David Malone has written poetry, short stories, literary criticism, news and feature articles, creative nonfiction, and a novel. He has worked as a reporter for a daily paper in DeKalb, Illinois, and a staff writer for Mission to the Americas in Wheaton, Illinois; he has also worked as a ghostwriter, a writing tutor, and a writing teacher. His most recent publication is the essay "Updike 2020: Fantasy, Mythology, and Faith in Toward the End of Time," which appeared in the collection John Updike and Religion. He holds a master's degree in creative writing from the State University of New York at Binghamton, where he studied with novelists Larry Woiwode and John Vernon. He recently presented "The 'Predictable Employment of Racially Informed and Determined Chains': Morrison, O'Connor, and the Question of Race" at "Flannery O'Connor in the Age of Terrorism: An Academic Conference on Violence and Grace," Grand Valley State University, Grand Rapids.

• Contact: PAC A-45, 731-661-5104, dmalone@uu.edu, Box 1863
• Education: Ph.D, Northern Illinois University; M.A., State University of New York at Binghamton; B.A., Wheaton College

Christine Bailey

Professor of English and Director of Composition Support

Dr. Bailey writes young adult fiction and has published four novels. Her doctoral research/dissertation explores creative writing research and pedagogy within the composition classroom and is titled "The Role of Aesthetic Artifacts in Creative Writing Research: Casting Student Identity Narratives as Cultural Data." Before coming to Union University, Bailey worked as a journalist, a marketing/PR writer, and a book editor. She currently serves as Director of Composition Support. Bailey’s areas of interest include composition and rhetoric, YA literature, creative writing, professional writing, editing, and publishing. She is the editor of the Journal of the Union Faculty Forum—a journal comprised of faculty-written submissions, encompassing a wide range of academic and creative topics.

• Contact: PAC A-42, 731-661-5900, cbailey@uu.edu, Box 1895
• Education: Ph.D, Indiana University of Pennsylvania; M.F.A., Murray State University; M.A., Belmont University; B.S., Tennessee Tech University

Aaron Beasley

Associate Professor of English and Director of the Writing Center

Jay Beavers

Associate Professor of English

Dr. Jay Beavers earned his B.A. from Grove City College, his M.A. from the University of Richmond, and a Ph.D. in Religion and Literature from Baylor University. At Union he has taught courses on literature and film, the short story, drama, and American literature. His current project, tentatively titled Outlaw Religion, is a book on the prophetic themes and characters in the novels of Cormac McCarthy. His other interests include the postmodern novel, southern American literature, film studies, and literature and theology. His essays have appeared in the South Atlantic Review and Intégrité.

• Contact: PAC A-47, 731-661-5436, jbeavers@uu.edu
• Education: Ph.D, Baylor University ; M.A., University of Richmond; B.A., Grove City College

Janna Smartt Chance

Professor of English

Prof. Chance completed her Ph.D. from Rice University. Her dissertation, "Obeying God Rather than Men: Protestant Individualism and the Empowerment of the Victorian Heroine," won the Chair's Dissertation Prize, the Rice University English Department's annual award for the most outstanding dissertation.

• Contact: PAC A-46, 731-661-5469, jchance@uu.edu, Box 1919
• Education: Ph.D, Rice University; M.A., Rice University; B.A., Texas A&M University

Jason Crawford

Professor of English

Jason Crawford teaches and writes about early modern literature and culture. He is the author of Allegory and Enchantment (Oxford University Press, 2017) and is currently at work on two book projects: one on tragedy and religion in Shakespeare, and one on the uses of comedy. Crawford has held research fellowships at the Huntington Library, at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and at the University of Tennessee’s Marco Institute. At Union, his teaching interests include not just early modern English writers but also ancient epic and drama, Dante and Petrarch, problems of tragedy and suffering, notions of beauty, and questions about modernity and its limits.

• Contact: PAC A-40, 731-661-5901, jmcrawford@uu.edu
• Education: Ph.D, Harvard University, English; A.M., Harvard University, English; B.A., Louisiana State University, English, Philosophy

Julie Glosson

University Professor of Language

Dr. Julie Glosson is a dedicated Spanish educator with over 30 years of experience, inspired by her parents' missionary work in Colombia. After earning degrees in Spanish, Sociology, and Education from Union University and the University of Memphis, she became a key figure in preparing future language teachers as a liaison to the Educator Preparation Program. Her innovative contributions include designing the first online Spanish course at Union University, expanding access for non-traditional learners, and instilling a passion for the Spanish language and Hispanic culture through service learning and study abroad opportunities. She has presented at notable conferences like DLAC and ACTFL, sharing her expertise in digital learning and language pedagogy. Dr. Glosson believes in the transformative power of language education and is dedicated to inspiring a love for learning in her students. Outside of her professional life, she enjoys traveling domestically and internationally, performing in community theater, and spending cherished moments with her family. As she continues to innovate in her field, she remains committed to her mission of nurturing the next generation of educators and leaders to be ambassadors for Christ.

• Contact: PAC A-35, 731-661-5030, jglosson@uu.edu, Box 1869
• Education: Ed.D., University of Memphis; M.A., University of Memphis; B.A., Union University

Scott Huelin

Professor of English and Director of the Honors Community

Dr. Scott Huelin has taught literature and theology at the secondary, undergraduate, and graduate levels. His research interests include philosophical hermeneutics; literary theory; the history and sociology of reading; biblical hermeneutics; the history of Christian theology, ethics, and spirituality; and classical, medieval, and Renaissance literature. His published essays and book reviews have appeared in Literature and Theology, Religion & Literature, Christian Scholar's Review, Christianity & Literature, Christian Reflection, the Journal of Religion, the Cresset, and the Journal of the National Council of Honors Colleges. Dr. Huelin was selected as Union’s Faculty of the Year for 2017-18.

• Contact: PAC J-8, 731-661-5390, shuelin@uu.edu, Box 3010
• Education: Ph.D, University of Chicago; M.A., University of North Carolina; B.A., University of North Carolina

Victoria Malone

Assistant Professor of Language and Director for Study Abroad, Senior International Officer

Victoria Malone, inspired by her High School Senior year abroad in Strasbourg, France, earned her BA in French Studies at Northern Illinois University. She then pursued master’s degrees in history and French literature. After a brief time as translator and customer service representative in industry, she returned to academia teaching French and Intercultural Studies at UU. She became UU’s first study abroad coordinator and established the Study Abroad office at Union bringing her international education experience full circle. In 2011, she began accompanying students to Angers, France for a 4-week summer semester program. She is now Director for Study Abroad and serves as Union’s SIO. She represents Union at the Forum for International Education.

• Contact: PAC C-4C, 731-661-5491, vmalone@uu.edu, Box 1863
• Education: M.A., Northern Illinois University, Modern European History; M.A., Northern Illinois University, Nineteenth Century French Literature; B.A., Northern Illinois University

Karen Martin

Discipline Coordinator and Professor of Language

Dr. Karen Martin holds a Bachelor of Arts in French from Union University, a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish from Samford University, a Master of Arts in Spanish from the University of Alabama, and the Doctor of Modern Languages from Middlebury College. She frequently publishes translations of scholarly essays and reviews in Latin American Literature Today, and her scholarship on contemporary Spanish-American and Latina authors has been published in South Atlantic Review, Letras Femeninas, Poetry Criticism, Short Story Criticism, and Latin American Women Writers: An Encyclopedia. She won the Victoria Urbano Prize for the Outstanding Critical Paper from the Association of Hispanic Women’s Literature. She has received two Pew Grants from Union University. The most recent grant supported research on the role of African Americans in the Spanish Civil War; she presented this work at MIT and published it as a chapter in the Routledge collection Black USA and Spain: Shared Memories in 20th Century Spain. At Union she teaches an array of Spanish courses, including Spanish-American literature surveys, Contemporary Hispanic Cultural Studies, US Latino Literature and Culture, and Phonetics and Diction.

• Contact: PAC A-34, 731-661-5225, kmartin@uu.edu, Box 1886
• Education: D.M.L., Middlebury College; M.A., The University of Alabama; B.A., Samford University; B.A., Union University

Joy E. Moore

Assistant Director for the Honors Community and Adjunct Professor of English

Joy Moore received her B.A. in English literature and creative writing at the University of Arkansas, during which time she attended the International Writer's course at the National University of Ireland, Galway, and she earned her M.F.A. at Pacific University. Her poems have appeared in such journals as Prairie Schooner, where she won a Glenna Luschei award, 32 Poems, Greensboro Review, and Hunger Mountain, and have been selected for inclusion in Best Spiritual Literature and Verse Daily. Her prose may be found in Spiritus and The Other Journal. During her tenure at Union, she helped establish and manage Barefoots Joe and Modero, the university's two coffee shops and music venue. In addition to teaching courses in composition and creative writing, she serves as Assistant Director for the Honors Community, where teaches a course on beauty.

• Contact: PAC J-7E, 731-661-5285, jmoore@uu.edu, Box 3010
• Education: M.F.A., Pacific University; M.A., Denver Seminary; B.A., University of Arkansas

John T. Netland

University Professor of English

Professor John Netland earned his M.A. from the California State Polytechnic University at Pomona, and his Ph.D. from University of California, Los Angeles. A specialist in nineteenth-century British literature (both Romantic and Victorian), Dr. Netland is interested in Romantic and Victorian explorations of religious faith as well as in the intersections of Christianity and cultural differences. His teaching interests include Romantic poetry, Victorian poetry and fiction, theological aesthetics, post-colonial literature, and the work of the twentieth-century Japanese novelist Endō Shūsaku. Among Dr. Netland’s publications are "Re-writing the Death of Jesus: An Intertextual Reading of Shusaku Endo’s Deep River," in Christian Scholar's Review, Fall 2016; "'The Very Language of Men': Biblical Echoes in Wordsworth’s Poetry," KJV400: Legacy & Impact, ed. Ray Van Neste, 2012; “Beauty, Meaning, and Power: Bearing Witness in the Profession of Words” in Faith and Learning: A Handbook for Christian Higher Education, ed. David S. Dockery, 2012; “From Cultural Alterity to the Habitations of Grace: The Evolving Moral Topography of Endo’s Mudswamp Trope” Christianity & Literature, Autumn 2009 (Awarded the Lionel Basney Award for best article in Volume 59); "Who Is My Neighbor? Reading World Literature Through the Hermeneutics of Love" in the Journal of Education and Christian Belief, Autumn 2007; "Of Philistines and Puritans: Matthew Arnold's Construction of Puritanism" in Puritanism and its Discontents (University of Delaware Press, 2003); "From Resistance to Kenosis: Reconciling Cultural Difference in the Fiction of Endō Shūsaku" in a special issue of Christianity & Literature devoted to the author (1999).

• Contact: PAC G-7, 731-661-5355, jnetland@uu.edu, Box 1864
• Education: Ph.D, University of California, Los Angeles; M.A., California State Polytechnic University; B.A., Biola University

Gavin T. Richardson

University Professor of English

Dr. Gavin Richardson received his B.A. in English and Classics from Vanderbilt University and earned his M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Illinois. At Union he has taught classical and medieval courses, including seminars on the Aeneid, Beowulf, Chaucer, and the History of the English Language. Dr. Richardson has presented papers at conferences sponsored by the International Congress of Medieval Studies, the Southeastern Medievalist Association, and Christianity in the Academy. His most recent publication surveys the use of the solar deity on the coinage of Constantine the Great (Koinon 4, 2021), and he has a forthcoming essay examining The Screwtape Letters in light of the medieval "letter of the devil" tradition, and another forthcoming work exploring the role of the Roman denarius in the New Testament. Dr. Richardson's current research interests involve late Roman imperial coinage. In 2023, Dr. Richardson secured a grant from the Lilly Foundation to design a mentoring program for senior faculty, and he currently sits on the UU SASCOC Reaffirmation Executive Committee. Dr. Richardson has twice won the Newell Innovative Teaching Award, and in 2012 he was named Union University Faculty of the Year.

• Contact: PAC A-43, 731-661-5317, grichard@uu.edu, Box 1924
• Education: Ph.D, University of Illinois; M.A., University of Illinois; B.A., Vanderbilt University

Bobby C. Rogers

Professor of English and Writer in Residence

Bobby C. Rogers is the author of three books: Paper Anniversary (Pitt, 2010), winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, and Social History (LSU, 2016) and Shift Work (LSU, 2022), both in the Southern Messenger Poets series. He has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and been named a Witter Bynner Fellow at the Library of Congress. His poems appear often in such journals as The Southern Review, The Georgia Review, Ploughshares, and Image. His prose has been published in From Line Break to Fast Break: Poets on the Art of Basketball (Michigan State, 2012) and Afield: American Writers on Bird Dogs (Skyhorse, 2010). His critical writing includes essay/chapters in casebooks on the poetry of Denise Levertov and May Sarton, and the Denise Levertov entry in the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and the Arts (Oxford, 2015). In February 2012 he was featured as artist of the month on the Image magazine website. His poems have been anthologized in The Southern Poetry Anthology, Vol. VI: Tennessee (Texas Review Press, 2013), The Everyman's Library Poems of the American South (Knopf, 2014), and Gracious: Contemporary Poems in the Twenty-First Century South (Texas Tech, 2020).

• Contact: PAC A-39, 731-661-5107, brogers@uu.edu, Box 3136
• Education: M.F.A., University of Virginia; B.A., University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Our Staff

Lindsey Robinson

Academic Secretary for Languages, Literature, and Writing

• Contact: PAC A-48, 731-661-5086, lrobinson@uu.edu
• Education: B.A., Union University, Psychology