Meet Our Faculty: Dr. Entzminger

Meet Our Faculty: Dr. Betina Entzminger

What was the focus of your PhD?

It was Southern Literature & 20th century American literature.

What is most interesting to you about Southern culture?

I grew up there, and I think distinct southern culture is kind of disappearing. It is becoming mainstream, and just like everywhere else in the country. I think it is interesting historically because of the way it was different from the rest of the United States.

What are some of the traits of Southern culture/literature?

A focus on place. A focus on the sense of a haunted past, because of the history of racism/slavery in the south, and that hauntedness of the past is really interesting I think.

What has been your favorite course to teach so far?

I'm really enjoying the Margaret Atwood course I’m teaching this semester, and this is the first time I've taught a whole course on her works. This seems like an appropriate time for the course because she is getting so much media treatment, because of the Handmaid’s Tale and the Alias Grace Series. I have also taught a course on Faulkner & Morrison together; that was a really good course too.

What projects are you currently working on?

I'm currently working on a creative nonfiction project, and it. is a collection of 7 essays based mostly on family history. The title is The Beak and the Heart: True Tales of Misfit Southern Women. The beak in the heart title is a reference from a line from Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven, where he says “Take this beak from out my heart, take thy frame from off my door."

What is the topic of your published books?

I published two books, the first one was in 2002. It's called The Belle Gone Bad: White Southern Women Writers and the Dark Seductress. The next one was 2012: Contemporary Reconfigurations of American Literary Classics. They are both nonfiction- literary criticism.

What roles do you take on in the English department?

This semester I am serving as the assistant department chair, and then I'll go back to finish my last year as the chair in the Fall. Right now I am the interim president of the Union.

What kind of books do you like to read?

I enjoy fiction a lot; I like books that focus on character.

If you could travel anywhere to study literature for an extended period of time, where would you go?

Either Canada or Mississippi - so I could study Faulkner or Atwood.

Do you have any visions for the English department at Bloom?

We would like to find ways to recruit more students, so we've been working towards trying to help students see the connections between English skills they learn here and the skills employers want, so that they can envision a career path for themselves through their major.

Thank you Dr. Entzminger for your interview!