Lares Named Moorman Distinguished Professor in Humanities

Dr. Jameela Lares, professor of English in The University of Southern Mississippi's College of Arts and Letters, has been named the Charles W. Moorman Distinguished Alumni Professor of the Humanities for 2017-2019.

The Moorman Professorship is made possible by the USM Foundation, through a matching grant from the Phil Hardin Foundation. It honors Charles W. Moorman, a longtime Southern Miss professor of English and Vice President for Academic Affairs in the 1970s. The professorship is awarded biennially for a two-year term to a senior professor in English, history, foreign languages or philosophy.

As part of the award, recipients receive financial support for research in their field of study, and must present a public lecture by the end of their term.

Lares has been a faculty member at Southern Miss since 1995. She is the author of Paradise Lost, Books 11-12 in the series A Variorum Commentary on the Poems of John Milton; articles in Milton Studies, Ben Jonson Journal, Cithara, Notes & Queries, Advances in the History of Rhetoric, Dictionary of Literary Biography, MLA Approaches, The Milton Encyclopedia; and numerous reviews.

Lares joins several distinguished Southern Miss humanities faculty who previously held the professorship, including English professors Dr. Philip Kolin, Dr. Angela Ball, Dr. Maureen Ryan, philosophy professor Dr. Michael DeArmey and history professors Dr. Andrew Wiest, and most recently, Dr. Susannah Ural.

Lares is working on an edition and translation of Milton's Artis Logicae Plenior Institutio for the Clarendon Edition of the Complete Works of Milton, an edition and translation of a short Latin preaching manual, a book on 17th-century biblical style, and an article on linguistic uncertainty in Winnie-the-Pooh.
 
According to Dr. Maureen Ryan, dean of the College of Arts and Letters, Lares will present a multi-media project entitled “Milton for Mississippi.”
 
“I have worked with Jameela Lares for more than 20 years. She is, unfailingly, a conscientious and courteous colleague: dedicated to her students and uncommonly engaged with her serious, important scholarly work. Jameela will dazzle us with her Moorman-supported Milton project,” Ryan said.

For more information about Dr. Lares and the USM Department of English, visit https://www.usm.edu/english/faculty/jameela-lares.