Doug Reichert Powell has received degrees from  Northeastern University (Ph.D. '99), East Tennessee State University (M.A. '92) and Washington and Lee University (B.A. '90).  His interest in social constructions of place and region (especially the southern Appalachian mountains) underwrites his research and writing in popular culture, landscape, literature, composition studies, and critical pedagogy. His publications and presentations cover subjects ranging from the 1998 manhunt for Eric Rudolph to the 1916 hanging of a circus elephant. In addition to publishing essays and reviews in Appalachian Journal, Historical Geography, and Southern Exposure, he has served as co-editor (with Anthony Harkins and Katherine Ledford) of the Media section of The Encyclopedia of Appalachia (University of Tennessee Press, 2006).  Doug's book, Critical Regionalism: Connecting Politics and Culture in the American Landscape, was published in the Spring of 2007 by the University of North Carolina Press.  Currently, he's at work on an edited collection about place and writing pedagogy, Composing Other Spaces (Forthcoming 2008, Hampton Press).  In the Summer of 2005, with the support of a Faculty Development Grant, he began work on a project about the aesthetics and poetics of commercial caverns (or "show caves," as they are known in the trade).

Prior to joining the faculty of Columbia College Chicago English Department, Doug was associate director of the University Writing Program at Duke University and has also taught at Miami University of Ohio, Northeastern, East Tennessee State, and Northeast State Community College (TN).

Source: http://www.colum.edu/Academics/English_Department/Faculty/Douglas_Reichert_Powell.php

We will post information about our 2009 keynote speaker as it becomes available.