Melinda Menzer
Chair & Professor of English
- Email: melinda.menzer@furman.edu
- Phone: 864.294.3157
- Office: Furman Hall 100J
Dr. Menzer is the chair and a professor in the English department. Menzer received her B.A. from Williams College and her Masters and Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. She teaches English department courses in linguistics and early medieval texts and the General Linguistics course, as well as a regular First-Year Writing seminar entitled "Who Speaks Bad English?" In her linguistics courses, Dr. Menzer's students research semantics and semantic change, using the methodology of corpus linguistics.
Her research interests revolve around two poles: the development of proto-linguistic thought in medieval Europe and the pedagogy of English linguistics. She has published on works by Ælfric of Eynsham and Byrhtferth of Ramsey. Recently, as part of her interest in improving pedagogy in history of the English language education, she published "HEL and General Ed Requirements: Finding a Place in the Liberal Arts Curriculum," in the MLA volume, Teaching the History of the English Language. She is currently working on a project exploring the ways in which white supremacists have distorted (and continue to distort) English linguistics and language history, with the goal of improving English linguistic education to counter those distortions.
Dr. Menzer serves on the board of the South Carolina Council on the Holocaust, a state appointment.
Education
- Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin
- M.A., University of Texas at Austin
- B.A., Williams College