CONWAY, Ark. (March 18, 2015) – Hendrix College English Professor Dr. Marjorie Swann was recently named an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellow at the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, a collections-based research and educational institution in San Marino, Calif.
Swann recently edited the new Oxford University Press edition of Izaak Walton's seventeenth-century fishing manual The
Compleat Angler. Swann’s new edition of The
Compleat Angler, which emphasizes Walton’s continued relevance as a pioneering environmental writer, has received strong reviews in publications ranging from the Times Literary
Supplement to Trout Fisherman.
Swann’s Huntington project will be “Environment, Society, and The Compleat Angler,” which is also the title of her book-in-progress about Walton’s Angler and its post-17th-century afterlives.
As a Mellon Fellow, Swann will work with the Huntington’s collection of rare editions of The Compleat Angler and books about Izaak Walton, as well as archival documents about the Izaak Walton League of America, a national conservation organization. Swann was the keynote speaker at the Izaak Walton League of
America convention last summer in Anaheim, Calif., and she now serves on the League’s executive board. Research at the Huntington will greatly enhance her analysis of Walton’s impact on modern environmental thought and activism.
“I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to conduct research at the Huntington. The Huntington is a scholar’s paradise: its extraordinary collections attract a world-class community of researchers, and its grounds comprise a group of breathtakingly beautiful gardens. I can’t
think of a better place to study the relationship between literature and the environment,” Swann said.
About
Dr. Swann
A native of St. Joseph Island, Canada, Swann earned her doctorate from Oxford University. Her research focuses on 17th-century English literature and culture and how literature is related to environmental history. Prior to joining the Hendrix faculty, Swann taught at Southern Methodist
University and the University of Kansas.
About
The Huntington
A private, nonprofit institution, The Huntington was founded in 1919 by Henry E. Huntington, an exceptional businessman who built a financial empire that included railroad companies, utilities, and real estate holdings in Southern California. Huntington was also a man of vision – with a
special interest in books, art, and gardens. During his lifetime, he amassed the core of one of the finest research libraries in the world, established a splendid art collection, and created an array of botanical gardens with plants from a geographic range spanning the globe. These three distinct facets of The
Huntington are linked by a devotion to research, education, and beauty.
About
Hendrix
Founded in 1876, Hendrix College is a national leader in engaged liberal arts and sciences education. This year, Hendrix was named the country’s #1 “Up and Coming” liberal arts college and #8 in the nation for “Best Undergraduate Teaching” by U.S. News and World Report. Hendrix is featured in the 2015 Fiske Guide
to Colleges, Forbes magazine's list of America's Top Colleges, the 2014 Princeton Review’s The Best 378 Colleges, and the latest edition of Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change
the Way You Think about Colleges. Hendrix has been affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884. For more information, visit
www.hendrix.edu.