Michael Rex joined the faculty at Cumberland University in the fall of 2006. Prior to coming to Cumberland, he taught at various universities in the Detroit, MI area including Wayne State University, University of Detroit-Mercy, University of Michigan Dearborn, and Oakland University.

Dr. Rex's areas of interest fall mainly in British and World Literature particularly 16th, 17th, & 18th-century British Literature and Culture. In addition to British Literature courses, he teaches courses in Creative Writing, Women's Literature, Queer Theory, Classical and Early Modern World Literature, Linguistics, Science Fiction and Fantasy as well as The Legends of King Arthur. You have to read a lot, but it is massive amounts of fun. The waistcoats and kilts keep things interesting.

Dr. Rex also serves as the faculty advisor to The Cumberland Chronicle -- the student newspaper, The Lyre of the Phoenix -- CU's literary magazine and The Voice of the Phoenix -- the student-run radio station (91.5 FM). Dr. Rex directs CU's chapter of Alpha Chi International Honour Society. With Dr. Catherine Smith, he is co-advisor for CU's Pride Alliance and with Dr. Stuart Harris, is co-advisor of CU's chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the International English Honour Society.

In Fall 2011, he started the Creative Writing Program at CU, located in The Phoenix Nest at the Lawlor House. With Michael Kosser, Stuart Harris,and Audrey Cross, The Phoenix Nest offers courses in writing poetry, songs, fiction, creative non-fiction, and drama. We host Poetry Slams, local authors, and the CU's 10 Minute Play Festival.

For fun, Dr. Rex plays viola, collects antique books and gemstones, and makes quilts and miniature furniture. He loves roses; his rose garden is up to 14 and counting. Outside of class, he appears on stage in various local community theatres and communities symphony orchestras, including award winning performances in productions of Tracey Lett's Bug at Out Front on Main in Murfreesboro, and Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope, & Jamie Wooten's Southern Hospitality at Lakewood Theatre in Lakewood, TN.

Dr. Rex holds a Bachelor of Arts in English with concentration in theatre & drama from Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, TX, with a Master of Arts in English with concentrations in 17th century British Literature, Rhetoric & Composition, and ESL from Texas A&M University. His PhD, concentrations in 17th & 18th century British and Medieval and Arthurian Literature, comes from Wayne State University in Detroit, MI.

 

Publications:

 

The Nature of Epic: Margaret Cavendish's Poems and Fancies and the Construction of a New English Epic Ideology. In Experiments in Genre in Eighteenth-Century Literature. Ed. Sandro Jung. Dartmouth, NH: University Press of New England, 2011.

Letters to God: A Play.  Produced as part of Bully This! At Out Front at Main.  March 2012.  Directed by George W. Manus Jr.

Nice Girls Don’'t: A Romance in 5 Acts.  At Lakewood Theatre Lakewood, TN.  April-May 2013.  Directed by Barbara Hartman.

I'’ve Got your Back, Mate! The Art of Writing the Sidekick in Restoration Drama” under consideration at Restoration and Eighteenth Century Theatre Research.

A Merry Little Christmas.  Under consideration for production at Out Front on Main, Murfreesboro TN.

The Heroines’ Revolt: Women Writing Epic Poetry 1650-1800.  Under consideration at Ashgate Press.

Entries on Amey Hayward, and Mary Scott in The Dictionary of Women Interpreters of Scripture.  Ed. Marion Taylor.  Baker Academic Press.  Forthcoming.

Education for Women? Get Serious: A Look at the Argument for Women's Rational Education
in the Works of Anne Killigrew, Mary Astell, Mary Pix, and Mary Lady Chudleigh@ in Literature Criticism From 1400 to 1800, Vol. 149.  Cengage.  July 2008.

“Eyes on the Prize: The Search for Personal Space and Stability in Eliza’s Babes.” in
Discovering and (Re)Covering the Seventeenth-Century Religious Lyric, eds. Jeffrey Johnson and Eugene Cunnar. Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP, 2001. pp. 205-230.

Entry on Jean Auel=s The Clan of the Cave Bear in Novels for Students. Ed. Elizabeth Thompson. 10th edition. Detroit: Gale Publishing, 1999. 12 pp.

Tasso's Wild Women: The Female Characters of Jerusalem Delivered.@ In Epics for Students.
Ed. Elizabeth Bellaluna. Detroit: Gale Publishing, 2000. 12pp.

AThe Good Daughter, Wife, and Mother: Breaking the Traditional Feminine Roles in Ana Castillo=s So Far from God.@ In Literature of Developing Nations for Students. Ed. Elizabeth Bellaluna. Detroit: Gale Publishing, 2000. 12 pp.

When the Words Get in the Way: The Influence of Translation on Interpretation in Aristophanes=s Lysistrata.@ in Drama for Students. Ed. Elizabeth Bellalouna. Detroit: Gale Publishing, 2000. 8 pp.

“They’re Eating Me: Tracy Letts’s Bug – Stage to Screen and Back Again.”  Pacific Anecient & Modern Literature Association Conference.  Seattle, WA, October 2012.

“Not Your Father’s Jane Austen: A Social Reading of Pride and Prejudice on Screen.”  At 2012 American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies.  San Antonio, March 2012/

“Waiting for Waistcoats: Literary, Political, and Social Interactions in the Lives of Women in Colonial Williamsburg” at 2012 South Eastern ASECS.  Decatur, GA, March 2012.

“Back Off Bitch! Definitions of Motherhood in 1980s Science Fiction Films” at 2011 National Women Studies Conference.  Atlanta, GA, November 2011.

“Life After Print: E-Books, PDFs, and Scholarly Editions in the Classroom” at the 2011 Aphra Behn Society for Women in the Arts 1660-1836.  Toronto, October 2011.

“A Pox on Thee! Teaching the Bad Girls in the Bible Belt” at Southeastern American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies.  Johnson City, TN 17 – 19 February, 2010.

“When is a Slut a Slut?: Female Sexual Excess in Early Drama by Women” at the annual Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies Conference.  Philadelphia, PA 20-23 November 2008.

Panel Presentation: A New Illumination: Film Adaptations of Medieval Texts – with Jeremy Jenkins and Brittany Huffman at the annual Kentucky Philological Association Conference. Louisville, KY 8-9, March, 2008.

“‘I’ve Got your Back, Mate!’ The Art of Writing the Sidekick in Restoration Drama” at the annual South East American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies Conference.  Alburn, AL, 14-18 February, 2008.

“Sorry, But Not Really: The Long Eighteenth Century and the Rhetorical Modes of Artistic Expression” at the Aphra Behn & Women in the Arts Society 1660 - 1800 Conference. Albuquerque, NM, October 25 – 27, 2007

“Awash in Bitter Tears: Early Modern Women Dramatists and the Philosophy of Female Political Agency.” Panel: Feminist Philosophers of the Early Modern Period, at the National Women’s Studies Association 28th Annual Conference. Chicago, July 2007.