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 Laura Fine

Laura Fine

Professor of English; Department Head, English

she/her

108 Lux Hall

(919) 760-8821

Profile

When I was trying to decide on a major in college, my dad gave me some advice that profoundly influenced the course of my life: “Do what you love, and the job will follow.” In my case, he was right. I changed my major to English, and I have never left the field. To appreciate and to work to understand literature is a way to appreciate and understand people. I love to help my students connect their own lives and their own feelings to those of characters with notably different experiences who may have lived in entirely different eras. In the same way, I will always enjoy helping students appreciate the beauty of language as well as helping them to organize their own thoughts, their own language, into compelling essays.

I love how the small classes here at Meredith College allow students to work together to discuss and analyze assigned readings in a comfortable, supportive environment. Similarly, in my role as department head of English, I love helping to create a cohesive community of English majors, minors, and faculty.

Studying English at Meredith College

https://www.facebook.com/MeredithCollegeEnglishDepartment/

Academic Credentials

M.A and Ph.D. – University of California at Davis
B.A. – University of Minnesota

Presentations

Mothers, Daughters, and Rape Culture in Bonnie Jo Campbell’s Mothers, Tell Your Daughters” Presented at Pacific Modern Language Association (PAMLA) in San Diego, CA, November 16, 2019.

“Gender and Class in the Country Noir Fiction of Bonnie Jo Campbell.” Presented at South Atlantic Modern Language Association (SAMLA) Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, November 3, 2017.

“Atticus Revised: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Go Set a Watchman and To Kill a Mockingbird.” Presented at the SSSL (Society for the Study of Southern Literature) Conference at Boston University, March 10, 2016.

“’Make Them Know’: Literary and Cultural Reconstructions in Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones.” Presented at the American Studies Association conference at Sam Houston University in Huntsville, Texas on November 14, 2014.

“’You Can’t Not Go Home Again’: Jhumpa Lahiri’s ‘Unaccustomed Earth.’” Paper presented at the American Literature Association Conference, Savannah, GA. 9 October 2009.

Reviewed manuscript on To Kill a Mockingbird for submission to the Children’s Literature Association Quarterly (Katherine Capshaw Smith, Acquisitions Editor). August 2009.

“Reframing Responses to Masculine Performances in Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer.” Paper presented at the Society for the Study of Southern Literature Biennial Conference, Williamsburg, VA. 19 April 2008.

Publications

“Mothers, Daughters, and Rape Culture in Mothers, Tell Your Daughters.” Michigan Salvage: The Fiction of Bonnie Jo Campbell. Ed by Lisa DuRose, RossTangedal, and Andy Oler. Michigan State University Press, 2023, pp. 86-98.

“Atticus Revised: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Go Set a Watchman and To Kill a Mockingbird.” Mockingbird Grows Up: Re-Reading Harper Lee since WatchmanEdited by Michele Reutter and Jonathan S. CullickUniversity of Tennessee Press, 2020.

 “Sexual Violence and Cultural Crime in the Country Noir Fiction of Bonnie Jo Campbell.” Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, 19 June, 2019.

DOI: 10.1080/00111619.2019.1612838

“‘Make Them Know’: Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones,” The South Carolina Review. Fall 2016. Vol. 49, No. 1: 48-58.

Wrote new section on Harper Lee  for Encyclopedia Brittanica.  Published in July 2015.

What should readers look for in Harper Lee’s new novel?” TheConversation.com February 5, 2015

“Space and Hybridity in Jhumpa Lahiri’s ‘Unaccustomed Earth’ and ‘Only Goodness.’” South Asian Review 32.2 (November 2011): 209-222.

“Reframing Responses to Masculine Performances in Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer.” South Carolina Review. 42.1 (Fall 2009). 123-131.

“Harper Lee’s Structuring of Her Narrator’s Rebellion in To Kill a Mockingbird.” Farley, Alice Hall (Ed). Harper Lee: Essays and Reflections.  University of Tennessee Press. (2007): 176-204.

“Claiming Personas and Rejecting Other-Imposed Identities: Self-Writing as Self-Righting in the Autobiographies of Richard Rodriguez.”  Reprinted in Contemporary Literary Criticism: Volume 155.  Ed. Janet Witalec. Detroit: The Gale Group, (2002): 271-279.

Prefaces on “Sappho,” “Plato,” and “Dante.” Global Literature: One World, Many Voices, Volume One  (Second Edition). Ed. Charles Duncan.  Orlando: Harcourt, 2000.

“Going Nowhere Slow: The Post-South World of Bobbie Ann Mason” The Southern Literary Journal 32 (Fall 1999): 87-97.

“Gender Conflicts and Their ‘Dark’ Projections in Coming of Age White Female Southern Novels.”  Southern Quarterly (Summer 1998): 121-129.

Prefaces on “Gender and Society,” “Robert Hayden,” “Seamus Heaney,” and “Richard Rodriguez.” Global Literature: One World, Many Voices, Volume Two.  Ed. Charles Duncan.  Orlando: Harcourt, 1998.

Prefaces on “Plato” and “Dante.” Global Literature: One World, Many Voices, Volume One.  Ed. Charles Duncan.  Orlando: Harcourt, 1997.

“Claiming Personas and Rejecting Other-Imposed Identities: Self-Writing as Self-Righting in the Autobiographies of Richard Rodriguez.” Biography 19 (Spring 1996): 119-136.

Need help locating someone?
Human Resources
1st Floor Park Center
(919) 760-8898
(919) 760-8164
directory@meredith.edu